SciShow Tangents

From countless stories of little green men to colonization plans and endless rover and satellite missions, humans are sort of obsessed with Mars. One of those obsessed humans is Hank Green! This week he finally gets to put all his knowledge about his favorite planet to good use: winning fake points on a game show he made up!Follow us on Twitter @SciShowTangents, where we’ll tweet out topics for upcoming episodes and you can ask the science couch questions!And if you want to learn more about any of our main topics, check out these links:[Truth or Fail]https://docs.google.com/document/d/12swg6fcCIZYuQh4q9vmW6SBwMoLwnb7jq3s2qT9_Djg/edit?usp=sharing[Fact Off]First Mars image: The picture: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA14033Plutonium-238:https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mbyz4v/scientists-are-automating-plutonium-production-so-nasa-can-explore-deep-spacehttps://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/plutonium-production-space-exploration/https://www.greenwichtime.com/technology/businessinsider/article/NASA-s-deep-space-nuclear-power-crisis-may-soon-13530374.php[Ask the Science Couch]Earth tectonics:https://geomaps.wr.usgs.gov/parks/pltec/https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/science/plate-tectonics-continents-earth.htmlhttps://phys.org/news/2018-09-plate-tectonics-earth.htmlMars (lack of) tectonics:https://marsed.asu.edu/mep/tectonicshttps://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/exploring-the-planets/online/solar-system/mars/surface/volcanoes/[Butt One More Thing]Poop-eating bacteria:https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/02/03/582968023/making-space-food-with-space-poop Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We couldn’t make podcasts without the science of sound. There’s a lot of technology involved in capturing the vibrations we’re making with our vocal folds so that we can share them with the whole Internet! So this week, we’re fine-tuning our knowledge of sound. Do scientists even know why music makes us feel emotions? Is the ocean really as silent as it seems, or are fish partying down there? And how did computer nerds send each other video games and Christmas cards through radio broadcasts?Follow us on Twitter @SciShowTangents, where we’ll tweet out themes for upcoming episodes and you can ask the science couch questions!And if you want to learn more about any of our main topics, check out these links:[Truth or Fail]Butterfly Hearing:https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/10/these-butterflies-boost-their-hearing-unusual-strategy[Fact Off]Coral reef sounds:Computer program cassettes:https://qz.com/emails/quartz-obsession/1156672/http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Audio/tape2.htmlhttp://artsites.ucsc.edu/EMS/music/tech_background/TE-16/teces_16.htmlhttps://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_fifty.htmlhttps://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1976-02/1976_02_BYTE_00-06_Color_Graphics#page/n73/mode/1uphttp://www.retrotechnology.com/restore/cass_data.htmlhttp://www.kotaku.co.uk/2014/10/13/people-used-download-games-radio[Ask the Science Couch]General Feelings & Physiological Effects:https://www.nature.com/news/why-dissonant-music-strikes-the-wrong-chord-in-the-brain-1.11791https://www.pnas.org/content/109/48/19858https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00140130600899104?scroll=top&needAccess=true&journalCode=terg20https://www.nature.com/news/neuroaesthetics-is-killing-your-soul-1.12640Chills:https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/researchers-look-what-happens-brain-when-music-causes-chills-180959481/https://www.wired.com/2011/01/the-neuroscience-of-music/https://www.nature.com/articles/nn.2726 https://scan.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/03/10/scan.nsw009.abstract?cited-by=yes&legid=scan;nsw009v1https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0305735615572358Harmony:https://arxiv.org/html/1202.4212v1/#sec_2_3_2https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20930-why-harmony-pleases-the-brain/https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.108103[Butt One More Thing]Fart noises:https://www.menshealth.com/health/a19545944/fart-noises/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week, we’re joined by Trace Dominguez from the YouTube channel Uno Dos of Trace to talk about genetic mutations! Tiny changes in an organism’s DNA sequence can lead to big variations or absolutely nothing. It’s just a roll of the dice! So what mutations have shown up in modern humans—different bones, livers, or even eyeballs? What is “foreign DNA” and where does it even come from? And can anybody name as many X-Men as Sam?If you want to know more about any of the topics discussed today, check out these links:[Truth or Fail]Hypoxia:https://www.sciencealert.com/indonesian-bajau-genetic-changes-adapt-them-to-aquatic-lifestyle-2Bones:https://www.the-scientist.com/notebook-old/the-worlds-densest-bones-47155https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa013444https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28893644Smoking:https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-10-17-mn-51362-story.html[Fact Off]Tetrachromats:Colchicine and watermelons:https://csuvth.colostate.edu/poisonous_plants/Plants/Details/79https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4656054/https://scialert.net/fulltextmobile/?doi=jbs.2013.277.282https://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/CAT71326739/PDFhttps://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/newsletters/hortupdate/hortupdate_archives/2000/may00/h5may00.htmlhttps://blogs.scientificamerican.com/artful-amoeba/for-plants-polyploidy-is-not-a-four-letter-word/[Ask the Science Couch]Foreign DNA:https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-11/uonc-ahc111815.phphttps://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/290835.phphttps://genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13059-015-0607-3https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2009.1679https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7934/https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6177113/[Butt One More Thing]Beautiful buttocks:https://www.nature.com/news/2002/020917/full/news020916-3.html Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A bunch of things are considered agricultural science, from planting crops and raising sheep for wool to food safety and developing fertilizers. This week, we’re skimming the surface of agriculture, with a little detour into animals that sort of farm too. What accidental evolutionary pressures turned weeds into popular crops? Why are seed vaults so important to humanity? And what made Big Mike  basically go extinct, and are we worried about it happening with other crops? (Big Mike is a banana, by the way.)Want to know more about our topics? Check out these links:[Truth or Fail]https://india.mongabay.com/2018/10/farmer-termites-bury-invaders-alive-to-protect-fungus-farms/https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10886-017-0902-4https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00040-010-0092-3https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0156847[Fact Off]Vavilovian mimicry:https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/weed-science/article/vavilovian-mimicry-nikolai-vavilov-and-his-littleknown-impact-on-weed-science/1B0263622E208DA4548BF0BCB918F255https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02858881http://labs.eeb.utoronto.ca/barrett/pdf/schb_54.pdfhttps://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1752-4571.2010.00140.xLeningrad seed vault:[Ask the Science Couch]Bananas:https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/25/banana-farming-danger-cavendish-crop-geneticshttps://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/jun/18/scientists-scramble-to-stop-bananas-being-killed-offhttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2017/12/27/banana-fungus-panama-disease/#.XIgdQFNKhxwhttps://www.apsnet.org/about/newsroom/releases/Pages/03Banana.aspxhttps://fusariumwilt.org/index.php/en/about-fusarium-wilt/https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44712034[Butt One More Thing]Night soil: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/05/07/182010827/is-it-safe-to-use-compost-made-from-treated-human-waste Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Pregnancy is, biologically speaking, extremely weird! A pregnant animal’s body goes through so many hormonal and physical changes to make sure a zygote has everything it needs to grow. This week, we’re talking about a few of those things, like why pregnant people get nauseated and other animals might not. So is pseudopregnancy a real thing, or are pandas just tricking zookeepers to get extra treats? Why is there a patent for a birthing machine that looks like a horrible carnival ride? And what the heck is a stone baby?Want to know more about our topics? Check out these links:[Truth or Fail]https://patents.google.com/patent/US3216423A/enhttps://dublin.sciencegallery.com/failbetter/apparatusfacilitatingbirthchildcentrifugalforce/[Fact Off]Panda pseudopregnancy:Lithopedion:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3979976/https://alumni.amc.edu/pages/archives/archives---the-stone-babyhttps://utmb.influuent.utsystem.edu/en/publications/lithopedion-stone-babyhttps://www.health.harvard.edu/womens-health/calcium-beyond-the-boneshttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4750627/[Ask the Science Couch]Morning sickness:http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2000/05/morning-sickness-protects-mothers-and-their-unbornhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3676933/https://www.jstor.org/stable/2664252?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contentshttps://www.pregnancysicknesssupport.org.uk/resources/literature-review/symptoms-of-nvp-in-animals/https://www.livescience.com/32301-do-pregnant-animals-get-morning-sickness.html[Butt One More Thing]Meconium:http://science.sciencemag.org/content/112/2901/150.longhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18281199 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week, we’re joined by Blake de Pastino from the YouTube channel PBS Eons to talk about how plants, animals, and geologic events used to be so… huge. There are still blue whales and massive natural disasters, but the days of the Megalodon have passed. So were those big tunnels in South America really dug out by giant ground sloths? Where is the largest impact crater in the Solar System? And did humans really huddle under the skeletal remains of the giant armadillo-like Glyptodon? To learn more about this week's topic, check out these links:[Truth or Fail]https://natural-history.uoregon.edu/collections/web-galleries/saber-toothed-salmonhttps://cals.arizona.edu/classes/ento596c/topic/session9.htmlhttps://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10420940.2016.1223654?scroll=top&needAccess=true&http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2017/03/28/paleoburrows-south-america/#.XFC3uc9Khxzhttp://revistapesquisa.fapesp.br/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/044_Paleotocas_ING.pdf[Ask the Science Couch]Glyptodon carapaces:https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/02/ancient-armadillos-grew-big-vw-beetleshttps://books.google.com/books?id=kUAKgNfiAvoC&pg=PA184#v=onepage&q&f=falsehttps://www.jstor.org/stable/971990?read-now=1&seq=6#page_scan_tab_contentshttps://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/2055556315Z.00000000031?journalCode=ypal20https://books.google.com/books?id=2tk_AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA223&lpg=PA223[Butt One More Thing]Stegosaurus butt brain misconception:https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-double-dinosaur-brain-myth-12155823/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Bats have a bad reputation because of the ones that drink blood or spread disease, but these furry flying critters can be pretty cute! This week, we’re talking about everything from echolocation to weird potential uses for bat poop. Are there really bats with suction cups on their wings or is that just a cool toy idea? What is white nose syndrome and could vaping mushroom compounds… help? And what do you really think about Hank’s Dracula impression?Follow us on Twitter @SciShowTangents, where we’ll tweet out themes for upcoming episodes and you can ask the science couch questions!And if you want to learn more about any of our main topics, check out these links:[Poem]https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/these-pitcher-plants-call-bats-get-their-poo-180956014/https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsbl.2010.1141[Truth or Fail]Bats that spend time on the ground:http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2005/03/vampire-bats-keep-out-trouble-running-study-showshttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16621953https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/blogs/creatura-blog/2018/01/why-fly-when-you-can-shuffle-the-lesser-short-tailed-bat-prefers-the-ground/Diurnal bats:https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2018/11/daytime-bats-help-explain-nocturnal-evolution/https://blogs.plos.org/ecology/2017/06/29/bat-species-found-only-on-islands-in-trouble-worldwide/https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/mamm.ahead-of-print/mammalia-2017-0128/mammalia-2017-0128.xmlSuction cup bats:https://www.wired.com/2010/04/how-sucker-winged-bats-hang-on/[Fact Off]Bat & dolphin echolocation:https://evolutionnews.org/2012/05/tangling_the_tr/https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2010/01/hear-bats-and-whales-share-sonar-proteinhttps://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(09)02073-9https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12511https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/refined-fine-tuned-placental-mammal-family-tree/Moth echolocation blocker:https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2009/07/moths-block-bats-sonarhttp://science.sciencemag.org/content/325/5938/325?keytype=ref&siteid=sci&ijkey=GbDjRlkoHfRnYhttps://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2009/07/17/tiger-moths-jam-the-sonar-of-bats/http://jeb.biologists.org/content/214/14/2416[Ask the Science Couch]White-nose syndrome:https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/bat_crisis_white-nose_syndrome/Q_and_A.htmlhttps://www.whitenosesyndrome.org/static-page/what-is-white-nose-syndromehttps://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-bats-could-bounce-back-devastating-white-nose-syndrome-180969378/https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02441-zhttps://www.mdpi.com/2309-608X/4/2/48[Butt One More Thing]Bat guano gunpowder:https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/dkc09   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You might know him from his greatest hits: natural selection, Galápagos finches, and eating lots of the animals he studied… it’s Charles Darwin! This week, we’re talking about this famous biologist and some of the weirder science he did. What kind of books did he write after he published On the Origin of Species? Why was he so disgusted by fish spitting out seeds? And was it normal to write a letter to a scientist friend and ask detailed questions about barnacle sex? Sources:[Truth or Fail]https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/4x38gj/darwins-monsters-parasitoid-waspshttps://books.google.com/books?id=lIcoAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA179&lpg=PA179&dq=charles+darwin+eyebrows&source=bl&ots=YrNkw9VczZ&sig=ACfU3U06m2pYFahEfpPveHOyT8auD0ZeXw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwivsMeU4LvgAhUbJzQIHUaoA5wQ6AEwFXoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=charles%20darwin%20eyebrows&f=false[Fact Off]Seeds & fish:http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=F1683&viewtype=text&pageseq=1https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-1681.xmlhttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2017/11/17/darwin-bird-vomit/#.XBlv3c9Khxwhttps://academic.oup.com/botlinnean/article/161/1/20/2418329Barnacles: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3574338/[Ask the Science Couch]Darwin’s understanding vs. ours:http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20141017-how-flowers-conquered-the-worldhttps://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-darwin-didnt-know-45637001/https://www.wired.com/2014/12/fantastically-wrong-thing-evolution-darwin-really-screwed/http://www.esp.org/books/darwin/variation/facsimile/contents/darwin-variation-chap-27-i.pdfhttp://www.blc.arizona.edu/courses/schaffer/449/Soft%20Inhertance/Geison%20-%20Pangenesis.pdf[Butt One More Thing]Darwin bark spider:http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20151126-the-worlds-biggest-spider-web-can-span-an-entire-riverhttps://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0011234 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

If you think about it, we’re all time travelers moving forward at one second per second… right? This week, we try really hard to define time, get sort of existential about it, and then talk about the science of timekeeping, from circadian rhythms to weird mechanical clocks. What happens to someone’s sense of time if you put them in a big bunker locked away from the outside world? How did we decide there would be 60 seconds in a minute, and did we ever try to measure time with a decimal system? And if a human were to instantaneously dissolve into a pile of goo because their time was up, what would it sound like?Sources:[Truth or Fail]https://mechanism.ucsd.edu/teaching/F11/philbiology2011/aschoff.circadianrhythmsinman.1965.pdfhttps://www.mpg.de/943613/S003_Flashback_060_061.pdfhttps://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/science-obituaries/6216073/Maurizio-Montalbini.html[Fact Off]Music & walking:https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0067932Castle Clock: http://muslimheritage.com/article/al-jazari%E2%80%99s-castle-water-clock-analysis-its-components-and-functioninghttps://artsandculture.google.com/asset/al-jazari-s-book-of-knowledge-of-ingenious-mechanical-devices-the-castle-water-clock/DgF6LT4UYXvU4Ahttps://www.ee.columbia.edu/not-your-father%E2%80%99s-analog-computer-professor-yannis-tsividisAnimation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz7soHvy-Pw[Ask the Science Couch]60 seconds/minutes:https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-1487,00.htmlhttp://curious.astro.cornell.edu/161-our-solar-system/the-earth/day-night-cycle/761-why-is-a-day-divided-into-24-hours-intermediatehttps://gizmodo.com/why-there-are-24-hours-in-a-day-5926491http://mentalfloss.com/article/32127/decimal-time-how-french-made-10-hour-day[Butt One More Thing]Speed of poop:https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/04/speed-of-poop-big-or-small-mammals-drop-a-deuce-in-12-secs-study-finds/https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2017/sm/c6sm02795d/unauth#!divAbstract Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When can you start calling a rodent “giant?” When it’s twice the average size of its species? When you’re not grossed out by it? When it could be a mascot for a family fun center? We don’t really have a precise answer to that… but this week, we’re exploring the science of big ol’ rodents! Turns out, giant rodents have shaped the environment in lots of ways, from ancient megafauna stomping through South American wetlands to beavers affecting the climate. And even though they sound kind of scary, giant rats might be able to save human lives. But the real question is: what’s up with capybara anal pouches?Sources:[Truth or Fail]https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2015/02/making-teeth-tough-beavers-show-way-to-improve-our-enamel-http://www.sci-news.com/biology/science-biswamoyopterus-laoensis-new-species-flying-squirrel-laos-01361.htmlhttps://www.apopo.info/en/tuberculosis-detection/projectshttp://www.treatmentactiongroup.org/tb/backgroundhttps://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/feb/23/rats-who-sniff-out-tubersulosishttps://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/08/140816-rats-tuberculosis-smell-disease-health-animals-world/[Fact Off]Hippos & biggest rodent:Beavers & carbon emissions:https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-08/uoh-bha082918.phphttps://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/07/what-role-do-beavers-play-climate-changehttps://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs13280-014-0575-y[Ask the Science Couch]Gigantism:https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-king-kong-should-have-been-blue-whale-180962603/https://www.nature.com/articles/482008dhttps://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/05/120521-killer-mice-birds-gough-island-endangered-animals-science/https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1469-1795.2012.00534.xhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4358651/[Butt One More Thing]Capybara anal pouches:https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1469-7998.1984.tb05087.x Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.