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Episode 23 Season 7: Megaquake Tsunamis and Hungry Hungry Dog Breeds

• Jason and Kris Zackowski • Season 7 • Episode 23

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On this episode we look at the tsunamis that weren't from the Russian megaquake, and which dog breeds are super super hungry all the time.

• Earthquake occurred in the Kural Kamchatka subduction zone where the Pacific plate slides under the Okhotsk plate at 75mm per year
• Logarithmic earthquake scales mean each magnitude increase represents 10x more energy
• Despite the earthquake's strength, the rupture didn't reach the seafloor, limiting tsunami development
• Hawaiian and California coasts saw modest waves of 1-1.5 meters, far less than feared
• Historical tsunamis like the 2004 Indian Ocean disaster (227,000+ deaths) demonstrate the potential danger
• Texas A&M study of 15,000 dog owners reveals which breeds have highest "food motivation scores"
• Sporting breeds like Labs and Golden Retrievers are 10% more likely to overeat than mixed breeds
• Hound breeds (beagles, dachshunds) follow at 5.3% higher likelihood
• City dogs and those in multi-dog households more prone to weight issues
• Maintaining healthy dog weight reduces risks of diabetes, arthritis, and skin disease

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Speaker 1:

Hello science enthusiasts. I'm Jason Zukoski.

Speaker 2:

And I'm Chris Zukoski.

Speaker 1:

We're the pet parents of Bunsen, beaker, bernoulli and Ginger.

Speaker 2:

The science animals on social media.

Speaker 1:

If you love science.

Speaker 2:

And you love pets.

Speaker 1:

You've come to the right spot, so put on your safety glasses and hold on to your tail. This is the Science Podcast. Hello and welcome back to the Science Podcast. We hope you're happy and healthy out there. This is episode 23 of season seven. Chris, the weather turned around. Are you happy with the smoke and hot temperatures?

Speaker 2:

Yes, jason, it was 30 degrees outside today, 30 degrees Celsius, and I love it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, for Alberta that's hot. That's about 86 Fahrenheit. I know for some of our friends south of us in the States who are from the hotter States and you might get up to 100, and this means nothing to you. It was hot today, it was hot yesterday. In fact, it's supposed to be hot for a week. So the Albertans that like the hot weather are basking and the Albertans that wish for cooler temperatures, like me, are very sad.

Speaker 2:

So you're sad about the weather.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's too hot. We went on a walk today and it was annoyingly sweaty. I like to go on a walk with a hoodie and there's a light drizzle in the air. You can see your breath. That's the best kind of weather to go for a walk. I beg to differ, sadly, the summer's half over, chris.

Speaker 2:

we've got only about less than a month because we go back in late august, we don't go back in september, any big plans no, we, we do have plans, but it has to do with the munson and beaker and bernoulli stuffies that are coming and the pre-sale that we did with the bernoulli stuffy we're going to get that ready when the stuffies come are coming and the pre-sale that we did with the Bernoulli stuffy we're going to get that ready when the stuffies come in. And then also shipping out things to our customers and writing the finishing the book Texan Bunsen 4, which we've been working really hard on. So we've got those projects. But we do have some plans, like maybe to go up to or go down to the mountains.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we haven't been paddleboarding yet and I'm really missing it, so I'd like to go. Okay, we've only got two articles. It's been a busy week so it's going to be a shorter show. Today, we're going to be talking about the earthquake that happened off the coast of Russia. It was a massive earthquake with tsunami warnings all across the Pacific. That didn't amount to much. Why did that massive earthquake not cause more damage? And in pet science, we're going to be talking about the breeds that maybe overeat the most. There's no time like science time. This week in science news, let's chat about the big earthquake and how the scary tsunamis that were potentially a problem never materialized. Chris, did you hear the news when the earthquake happened a couple days ago?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I sure did. I was staying tuned to the information that was coming out because previous earthquakes have caused massive tsunamis that have caused a lot of damage and loss of life, and so I was concerned that people would be able to get to higher ground and be safe.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it was definitely on like the social media people trying to get to higher ground in Hawaii and they were gridlocked because Hawaii was first in line to get hit by that tsunami and then the whole western coast of Canada and the United States also. They were told to be careful. We were just in Uculit and Tofino a couple weeks ago. That would have been us right Because we were on the western side of Vancouver Island, right in line for a specific tsunami. Other notable tsunamis that have happened in the last little while probably the worst one happened in 2004. That was the Indian Ocean tsunami. There was a huge magnitude, 9.1-ish, 9.3 earthquake off the coast of Sumatra and that tsunami just came in and just took out huge swaths of Indonesia and Sri Lanka and India on the coasts, even Thailand. I think I'm just reading here that like over 200,000 people died from that tsunami, which is hard to wrap your head around 227,000 plus across 14 countries, is the estimated death toll of that earthquake.

Speaker 2:

And we should talk about earthquakes being on the logarithmic scale, so as they jump up, they're jumping up by powers of 10. Yeah, so if you think about it, it's oh, it just seemed a little bit more magnitude. Actually, because of the logarithmic scale, it's considerable.

Speaker 1:

When I teach that in school, chris, I use think about you punching a bag, like everybody can think about punching or kicking right. And then I say now think about punching 10 times harder, Think about punching, you're just going to punch. Now think about punching 10 times harder, because when you say something's 10 times stronger, that's hard to wrap your head around. But if you think about something like punching or running, like thinking, but think about running and now run 10 times faster, it makes it more real for the kids.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I just wanted to bring that up another really awful tsunami that happened probably the most recent one was off the coast of japan. A magnitude 9.0 earthquake happened off the coast of honshu and a massive tsunami, 40 meters high, swept in and killed 18,500 people. And, of course, if you are following any of this geographic, if you're following any of this earthquake stuff, you would remember that's what knocked out the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and that caused the meltdown. So that was a big deal during that time. I remember when that happened because a japanese exchange program at our school was canceled because it happened and they were going to go, like in a couple weeks, because they usually go at spring break, and that would have been right around. When this happened in march of 2011.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so that would have been an area no longer advised to go to.

Speaker 1:

No, it was a rough go for everybody.

Speaker 2:

For sure, jason. This quake occurred in something called subduction zone, where two plates are rubbing together. The Pacific plate was sliding under another plate called the Okhotsk plate. They're doing that at about 75 millimeters per year, and this occurred in a subduction zone called the kural kam chatka subduction zone, and that's about 21 kilometers deep now. These subduction zones are actually notorious for producing massive quakes.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And that's why it happened. Now, the angle of subduction is shallow, which creates optimal slipping conditions for those megathrust earthquakes, and in that area it's like an earthquake factory. It's a region with a history of large quakes.

Speaker 1:

Okay, If you think about massive slabs of earthless, unfathomable weights, and one is just slowly sliding under the other, and they do it relatively at a constant pace, but sometimes they get stuck and that pressure builds up and the mega thrust means just the one shoots a little bit forward under the other, one that causes just horrific earthquakes. Hours after this quake, though, this volcano began erupting, so like it created such a commotion, and the nearby volcano blew up. It is unclear if the earthquake directly triggered the eruption, but I know historically not all earthquakes trigger eruptions, but it wasn't erupting and then it just started to.

Speaker 2:

That seems suspicious there was ongoing activity already present in the in the volcano so it is difficult to establish a clear cause-effect relationship.

Speaker 1:

Ship, but it's erupting now those subjects, those subduction zones, basically, as they thrust one under the other. That causes the sea floor to buckle. It lifts the sea floor, displacing water, and that's what triggers these tsunamis. There's this thing called the hypocenter. That's your, that's the earthquake origin point and it was pretty shallow and that increases the tsunami potential. And basically because the center, the earthquake origin point, is closer to the surface, so there's more buckling, but in this case the rupture likely didn't reach the ocean floor. That saved so many people. It made the quake less effective at displacing water. So, even though the hypocenter was in a good position to create like a horrific tsunami, it just didn't happen.

Speaker 2:

But there were reported tsunami impacts as a result of the Indian Ocean tsunami. A lot of warning systems have been put into place and there were tsunami impacts. So waves of about three to five meters hit the Kamchatka's coast and Hawaii actually saw waves up to one and a half meters about six hours later. Hawaii actually saw waves up to one and a half meters about six hours later. As you said, california parts of California reported meter high waves the next morning and those warnings and advisories did trigger mass evacuations across the Pacific and they were either lifted or downgraded as the wave heights were smaller than what everybody feared. But even small tsunami waves have to be taken seriously because they are unpredictable and very dangerous potentially.

Speaker 1:

A meter high wave. If it crashes on the shoreline, no big deal, but a meter and a half wave that travels into town. That is the unpredictability of it. That's super dangerous because you have a whole bunch of water where they're really. Water shouldn't be out in the ocean right at the shoreline. Maybe some surfer dudes off the coast of california got hit some nice waves, but if that's in the middle of Los Angeles you've got a whole schwack of problems. As mentioned, when the earthquake happened, different geologists were talking about like this had the potential to be very bad for everybody around the coasts, just like it was with the Indian earthquake. It wasn't maybe as powerful as a quake, but it was still very strong and the main reason it just didn't rupture all the way to the seafloor. So the subduction zone happened deep under the earth and that ripple effect where it caused the buckling of the seafloor. That didn't happen. It happened just-.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, but we can't discount aftershocks and future risks because the tsunami size depends on the water. It happened just in the week following the earthquake in Russia and there's always a small chance that a big quake could be followed by even a larger one. But the risk of a larger quake diminishes with time and will typically drop to about 5% within a week.

Speaker 1:

So we're almost at that rate. Now it's almost a week away.

Speaker 2:

But the event is a reminder of the power of the subduction zones globally.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, every time we go out to the coast either with the kids with the Banfield trip or, like lately, when we went in early July you see those signs like tsunami evacuation routes. There's like a stick man getting just wrecked by a massive wave or he's running away from it or something. There's like arrows to higher ground, because if you're on the beach and the sirens go off, you got to get out of Dodge, you got to get to higher ground if one of those tsunamis come at you and you have to move quickly when that happens, the higher ground you get, the greater chance you are to survive. With the Indian Ocean disaster, a lot of people had zero warning and they just got smoked by that tsunami that came in. You're right. Yeah, it's good to always reflect on mistakes in the past and how this one wasn't bad, but it could have been worse.

Speaker 2:

That's right, so always be prepared.

Speaker 1:

Guess. So All right, that's science news for this week. This week in pet science, let's talk about dog breeds that like to eat a lot. All of our dogs, I want to say, enjoy eating. They are very excited about supper.

Speaker 2:

They're food motivated.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

We do have food motivated dogs. I have hung out with my friend with Husky, and her Husky was like out with my friend with husky, and her husky was like no, I'm not going to do whatever you want, because I want to do what I want, whereas beaker is very excited to eat food to please you. And bernoulli oh my goodness, he's what. There's a treat. I'm right there. And even today on our walk I called bernoulli over, who came, also Bunsen, and he sat down and looked expectantly for a treat because he loves food too.

Speaker 1:

So some dogs, of course, love food and if you give them half a chance they'll eat way too much food, like me at a buffet. If you give me half a chance at a buffet, I'm gonna make sure I get my money's worth and feel super sick after it. I'm trying to think when was the last time we went to a buffet years ago?

Speaker 2:

yes, we went to a buffet. You went and annalise and I did not. And then your little nephew sneezed on the buffet food and ran away and ran away, so sorry everyone we should have done a little bit of a spoiler alert that the buffet is a bit disgusting when kids sneeze on it god.

Speaker 1:

Okay. This study comes to us from tex A&M University researchers, and they surveyed over 15,000 dog owners about their pet eating behavior, so that's a decent sample size for a pet study. They also combined owner surveys with veterinary reports and they evaluated each dog's body condition. So what's going on with all of this data here?

Speaker 2:

Right. So by taking those two pieces of data, they developed a food motivation score based on food responsiveness, interest in food, pickiness and tendency to feel full.

Speaker 1:

If I was a dog, I would have a very high food motivation score.

Speaker 2:

You would Jason Food responsiveness high Interesting food always Pickiness low. No low pickiness.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, tendency to feel full never.

Speaker 2:

Never. So when they put that together, they came up with a high food motivation score, and that means, or that indicates, a dog that is highly interested in food and is more likely to be overweight according to the veterinarian's body condition assessment, which includes feeling the rib cage of a dog as part of that assessment that body condition assessment.

Speaker 1:

So here are some of the fun statistics. The sporting breeds Labrador Retrievers, golden Retrievers, spaniels, setters and Pointers. These were dogs that were 10% more likely to have high food motivation scores versus mixed breeds, and these were the most commonly high scoring group. So that's Golden Retrievers, that's Beaker and Callan and Callan. Of course she got a little pudgy occasionally in her time.

Speaker 2:

We were not as good with food with her, no.

Speaker 1:

but also for like months, Duncan was giving her double breakfast so she was getting fed three times a day for months, until we figured it out and then we're like whoa, what's going on?

Speaker 2:

you are a box you're a square.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I miss alan. She was a sweetie she was such a sweet dog then we had the hound breed, so those are greyhounds, dashhhounds, beagles and basset hounds. They were 5.3% more likely to have high food emission, high food motivation scores and, surprisingly, the non-sporting breeds were the least likely to have high food motivation scores compared to mixed breeds. Those are poodles, bulldogs, dalmatians and terriers.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, they were 4.1% less likely to have high food motivation scores. Have you ever seen a chonky Dalmatian? I've never seen.

Speaker 1:

I've seen in my life. I've seen one single Dalmatian like in real life. They are just rare dogs, chris. Like around here, like when was the last time, I think, we saw one Dalmatian together one time? And we're like oh my God, it's Dalmatian. You never see them.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, fiona used to have a roommate and his fiance had a Dalmatian. And so we actually have pictures of, I think, bunsen with Macy.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I know, I don't think I ever met Macy. I think that was you. That was something you got to see bulldogs also I'm trying to think of. I've seen very few bulldogs. It's just not a popular thing around where we live, but we're also not going to the dog park every day no, that's true.

Speaker 2:

The most important thing is the health risks of having an overweight dog, because overweight dogs are at a greater risk for diabetes, arthritis, skin disease and they have an overall poor or less quality of life than a dog with a healthy weight. That's maintained.

Speaker 1:

Some other risk factors of having an overweight dog are the size. So larger dogs are more likely to score high on food motivation scores than small dogs, and I thought that was cool to know where they live. City-dwelling dogs are more prone to be overweight than rural dogs and dogs in multi-dog households are more likely to be overweight than those in single-dog homes. Perhaps in multi-dog households are more likely to be overweight than those in single dog homes. Perhaps in multi-dog homes you just are able to give each dog less individual attention. Maybe you just have one giant bowl of food that they free feed from. That was more common in multi-dog houses. Or the dog could just be bored due to less time for exercise and enrichment. I can see that, but I think we give all of our dogs we try to give all of our dogs equal attention.

Speaker 2:

Oh, for sure we do, and we feed them separately because Beaker loves to steal other people, other dogs food.

Speaker 1:

She'll steal everybody's food.

Speaker 2:

She is notorious for that and she's fast and she is so quick.

Speaker 1:

And she's little, so she doesn't get as much food as the other two.

Speaker 2:

No, she gets less food, which, because she is little, that should be sufficient for her. But in terms of exercise, for sure we take them out on walks and even with Bunsen being older now and he has to be on leashed walks, he's still able to get out there and walk around yeah, we still have to prioritize that for him yeah, and the walks that the dogs do?

Speaker 1:

where we take them for walks, they're not. It's not flat ground, like it's up hills and up down run around yeah and then there's even swimming in it, jason.

Speaker 2:

They are getting all of their exercise groups, like food groups, running, jumping, swimming just no cycling no cycling yeah, bernoulli wouldn't be able to do a triathlon, triathlon, very well no

Speaker 1:

this leads us to some really interesting recommendations from the study right, or takeaways if you will. Some breeds will probably require stricter feeding guidelines than others. If you leave a big bowl of food out and you have a Labrador retriever and you expect it only to eat like two cups of food a day, it might just eat all the food, so that might be a bad idea. But if you have one of those dogs that aren't as food motivated, like a I don't know, like you said, a dalmatian maybe it would only take a couple bites a day.

Speaker 2:

I have no idea there are families who talk about having their dogs free feed and I just look at them and I say that is foreign to us, because I know if the food is there they would eat it all. Ginger would eat all of her food. She stuffs her arm in to the feeder to get more food. She also will go into the pantry and try and get her bag down and take chunks out of it with her teeth to try and get more food out of it. She is highly food motivated.

Speaker 1:

Okay If your dog does need to lose a little bit of weight. Remember that weight loss plans fail if the owner and what the vet is suggesting. If your two plans aren't aligned, then you don't follow feeding or exercise routines consistently. So they do suggest feeding your dogs at exactly the same time every day and if your dog's putting on a little bit of weight, just cut back what they get fed. And then sometimes there's those sneaky things that dogs get throughout the day. If you're giving your dog half a sandwich every lunch, or what was Callan getting from Duncan? Also mini wheats, like he would give her tons of mini wheats every day. So that's why she was chunky. She was getting double breakfasts and some of Duncan's breakfast.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly, consult with your vet because you can create a customized diet plan for your dog, you can get appropriate exercise routines and you know what Ongoing monitoring and support. They'll be your biggest cheerleader for sure, if your dog's weight goes down.

Speaker 1:

We would love to know, let us know, like in the comments of the show, if you've got a breed of dog that is like hungry all the time. Do you have a golden retriever or Labrador retriever that's hungry, hungry hippos, like Beaker is, or do you have one that could take or leave food? That would be cool to know. But 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. And a shout out to all the Top Dogs. That's the top tier of our Patreon community, the Paw Pack. You can sign up in our show notes. All right, chris, let's hear those names that are part of the top dogs.

Speaker 2:

Amelia Fettig Rhi Oda, carol Haino, jennifer Challen, linnea Janik Karen Chronister, vicky Otero, Christy Walker, sarah Bram, wendy, diane Mason and Luke Helen Chin, elizabeth Bourgeois, marianne McNally, katherine Jordan, shelley Smith, laura Steffensen, tracy Leinbach, anne Uchida, heather Burback, 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 1:

For science, empathy and cuteness.