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Speaker 1: Okay, so have you ever thought about what would happen

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if the Earth's core just decided to stop spinning?

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Speaker 2: Oh?

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Speaker 1: Wow, and I don't mean just like your compass going crazy,

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I mean a total global catastrophe.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: We're diving deep today into earthquakes, mass extinctions, and the

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theories that try to explain them. We've got geological data,

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historical accounts of some really bad earthquakes, even a peak

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into a top secret government project.

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Speaker 2: Interesting.

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Speaker 1: Oh, and there might even be a connection to astrology.

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Get ready to have your mind blown.

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Speaker 2: It's amazing how much we don't even think about what's

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happening under our feet. Yeah, most people don't even consider

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it until there's an earthquake exactly.

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Speaker 1: So let's start with the basics. What causes these earthquakes?

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Speaker 2: Well, the usual explanation is that pressure builds up along

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fault lines in the Earth's crust. Okay, think of the

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Earth's crust like a huge jigsaw puzzle. These massive pieces

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are always moving and grinding against each other. Right over time,

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this creates so much press sure that when it finally

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overcomes the strength of the rocks, it's released as seismic waves.

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Speaker 1: And those seismic waves are what make the ground shake,

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sometimes with terrible consequences.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The death tolls from some of the big earthquakes in

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recent history are just unbelievable.

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Speaker 2: It's true.

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Speaker 1: The Tangjan earthquake in nineteen seventy six, the Indian Ocean

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tsunami in two thousand and four, the Haiti earthquake in

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twenty ten. We're talking about hundreds of thousands, even millions

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of lives lost.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's awful.

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Speaker 1: Well, it really shows how powerful nature is and how

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vulnerable we are to these forces.

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Speaker 2: It's true. Those numbers represent real people, families, entire communities

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whose lives were changed in a moment.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And it's not just about the immediate impact of the

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earthquake itself either. There's also the aftermath to think about

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the destruction of homes and infrastructure, the spread of disease,

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the long term psychological effects on survivors. Absolutely, it can

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take years, even decades for communities to fully recover from

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a major earthquake.

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Speaker 1: And that's what I find so fascinating about someone like

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Jim Berkland.

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Speaker 2: Oh.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, he was a geologist who went against the usual

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way of predicting earthquakes. He challenged mainstream science with his

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own methods.

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Speaker 2: Interesting.

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Speaker 1: He even correctly predicted the nineteen eighty nine Loma Prieta earthquake,

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which happened right in the middle of the World Series.

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Speaker 2: Wow, what a prediction.

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Speaker 1: Talk about pressure.

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Speaker 2: Berkland's theories were definitely interesting.

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Speaker 1: So what did he think?

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Speaker 2: He believed that gravitational forces from the Moon and the

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tidal stresses they cause could actually trigger earthquakes.

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Speaker 1: Hold on, are we saying the moon could be causing earthquakes?

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Speaker 2: Well, Berkland certainly thought so.

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Speaker 1: That sounds a bit out there, doesn't it.

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Speaker 2: He even observed changes in animal behavior before earthquakes. What

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he noted unusual patterns and fishbirds, and even domesticated animals

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like cats and dogs.

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Speaker 1: Okay, he thought that.

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Speaker 2: These animals were sensitive to changes in the Earth's magnetic

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field that happened before seismic uns.

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Speaker 1: That's pretty wild. But if his methods were so successful,

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why weren't they more widely accepted. Why didn't the scientific

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community embrace his ideas.

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Speaker 2: That's a good question, and it points to a bigger

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issue within the scientific community.

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Speaker 1: What do you mean a.

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Speaker 2: Reluctance to accept ideas that challenge the established norms? Brooklyn's

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methods weren't always perfect, but he was often right. So

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you have to wonder if there's even a small chance

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that factors like lunar cycles or animal behavior could help

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us predict earthquakes and maybe save lives. Shouldn't we be

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looking into those possibilities more seriously?

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Speaker 1: You've got a point. Speaking of events that shook the world,

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both literally and figuratively, let's move on to a rather

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unsettling chapter in recent history, the North Korean nuclear mystery. Okay,

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can you set the scene for us.

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Speaker 2: Imagine this. It's twenty seventeen and North Korea has just

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successfully detonated a hydrogen bomb. The world is on edge,

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tensions are high. Then just a few weeks later, a

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huge earthquake hits, causing the collapse of North Korea's nuclear facility.

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Oh wow, several of their top scientists are killed in

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the disaster. The timing is incredibly suspicious.

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Speaker 1: It sounds like something straight out of a conspiracy theory.

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Was it a natural earthquake or could something more be

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going on?

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Speaker 2: That's where things get murky. This is where HARP comes in.

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The high frequency act of auroral research program.

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Speaker 1: That's one that always sounds like science fiction.

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Speaker 2: Right Exactly. It's a real government research project and its

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stated purpose is to study the ionosphere, which is the

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upper layer of the Earth's atmosphere. But as you can imagine,

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a project like that, with its somewhat mysterious nature, is

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bound to attract some pretty wild conspiracy theories.

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Speaker 1: Oh I bet what kind of theories were we talking

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about here?

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Speaker 2: Well, some people claim that HARP can be used to

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manipulate weather patterns. Really they point to events like Hurricane

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Katrina and Hurricane Ophelia as examples. And then there are

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the even more outlandish theories that HARP can actually trigger earthquakes.

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Speaker 1: Wait, hold on, trigger earthquakes. Isn't that a little far fetched?

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Speaker 2: Most scientists would say, yes, absolutely. But here's the thing.

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What the timing of the North Korean earthquake so soon

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after their nuclear test and coincidentally, during a period of

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increased activity at HARP does make you wonder?

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Speaker 1: It does?

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Speaker 2: It makes you wonder if there could be a connection.

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Speaker 1: I can see why people would jump to that conclusion.

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It's definitely a very interesting coincidence. Yeah, so what are

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we supposed to believe? Is there a real link between

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HARP and the North Korean earthquake, or just people seeing

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patterns that aren't really there.

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Speaker 2: That's the big question, isn't it. The truth is we

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may never know for sure, but it's definitely a fascinating

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mystery that highlights the potential for both natural and man

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made disasters to shape history.

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Speaker 1: It really does make you think. So we've talked about

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the possibility of the Earth's core influencing earthquakes and the potential,

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however unlikely, for human interference with these events. But could

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there be forces at play that are even bigger, even

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more cosmic and scale, interesting forces that might be affecting

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not only earthquakes but also the very survival of life

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on Earth.

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Speaker 2: Now you're talking. That's a question that has fascinated scientists

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and philosophers for centuries, and it leads us to some

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truly mind blowing possibility.

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Speaker 1: Okay, I'm ready to have my mind blow.

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Speaker 2: Let's do it, all right, So let's go back to

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the nineteen fifties. Okay, there was this radio engineer named

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John Nelson, and he was doing research on how to

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predict disruptions in shortwave radio communications. He found that these

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signals weren't just affected by solar activity like everyone thought

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at the time, right, but also by the positions of

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the planets, especially the big gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn.

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Speaker 1: Well, you saying the planets were messing with our radio signals.

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How was that even possible?

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Speaker 2: It was a revolutionary concept. Yeah, and it definitely challenged

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what scientists thought at the time. Nelson discovered that when

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these planets were in specific alignments, you know the astrologers

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call oppositions or squares, there was a noticeable increase in

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solar activity and that interfered with radio transmissions.

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Speaker 1: Okay, I have to admit that's pretty mind blowing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Is this suggesting that astrology, like horoscopes and things like

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that might actually have some scientific basis.

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Speaker 2: Well, Nelson's findings definitely showed a connection between planetary alignments

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and how electromagnetic waves behave Okay, And when you think

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about it, our thoughts, our brain activity, it's all just

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a complex dance of electromagnetic signals, right, So it makes

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you wonder if these cosmic alignments could be having a

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subtle but real influence on us.

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Speaker 1: That's a pretty wild thought. But you said there's even

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more to Nelson's work, right, What else could this.

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Speaker 3: Mean, well, if the planets can affect the Sun's activity, yeah,

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and the Sun is the center of our whole Solar system,

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then it makes sense that those planetary alignments could also

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be playing a role in some of the big events

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that have shaped life on Earth, including maybe even mass

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extinction events.

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Speaker 1: Whoa are we talking about, like the extinction of the dinosaurs?

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What kind of planetary alignment could cause something that huge?

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Speaker 2: That brings us to the idea of Planet X or

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Planet nine as some people call it. It's this hypothetical

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planet that scientists think might be out there in the

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far reaches of our solar system.

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Speaker 1: I think I've heard of this as like this invisible planet, right. Yeah,

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we can't see it directly, but we know there's something

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massive out there because it's pulling on the orbits of

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the outer planets exactly.

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Speaker 2: And this leads us to something called the nemesis theory. Okay,

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this theory says that our Sun has a companion star,

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really possibly a brown dwarf. A brown dwarf, it's kind

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of like a failed star, something that's too big to

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be a planet, but not big enough to become a

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real star. And the nemesis theory suggests that as this

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brown dwarf orbits the Sun, it sometimes disrupts something called

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the ORT cloud.

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Speaker 1: The ORT cloud, it's.

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Speaker 2: This huge distant region that surrounds Our Solar System. Think

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of it like a giant icy shell that envelops Our

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Solar System, and it's full of trillions of icy objects, commets, asteroids,

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that kind of thing.

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Speaker 1: So you're saying, this brown dwarf comes crashing through the

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ort cloud, knocking these icy objects out of their orbits.

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Speaker 2: That's the idea, and some scientists think that some of

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those objects could end up flying towards the inner Solar System.

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Uh oh, potentially colliding with Earth. And if one of

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those objects were big enough, yeah, it could cause a

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mass extinction event.

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Speaker 1: Okay, that's terrifying but also kind of fascinating. Yeah, So,

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how often does this brown dwarf supposedly come by and

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mess up our Solar system.

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Speaker 2: That's where the twenty six million year cycle comes in.

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Scientists have noticed that major extinction events on Earth seem

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to happen roughly every twenty six million years, and.

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Speaker 1: They think this cycle is connected to the orbit of Nemesis.

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This hypothetical brown dwarf companion to our son.

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Speaker 2: Exactly. It's a pretty amazing idea, right, yeah, this idea

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that something so incredibly far away could have such a

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huge impact on our planet and the history of life itself.

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Speaker 1: It really is. But are we due for another close

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encounter with this cosmic bully anytime soon? Should we be worried?

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Speaker 2: Well, according to the theory, we're still millions of years

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away from Nemesis's next visit. Okay, good, so no need

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to panic just yet. But there's another cosmic structure that's

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a bit closer to home that we need to talk about.

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Speaker 1: Oh no, what now, you're really keeping me on the

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edge of my seat.

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Speaker 2: And it's even more massive. Okay, it's called the Radcliff Wave.

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Have you heard of it?

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Speaker 1: The Radcliff Wave. I have to admit that one's new

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to me.

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Speaker 2: It was only discovered in twenty twenty.

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Speaker 1: Oh wow.

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Speaker 2: It's this huge wave of gas, dust and stars that

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stretches for almost nine thousand light years across our galaxy.

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Speaker 1: Nine thousand light years. That's just unimaginable. It's hard to

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even wrap my head around a distance that big. So

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how does this radcliff.

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Speaker 2: Wave affect us well as our solar system orbits the

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galactic center. Yeah, we actually passed through this wave every

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so often. We went through it about thirteen million years ago,

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and we're on track to pass through it again in

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another thirteen million years.

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Speaker 1: Wait a minute, thirteen million years, another thirteen million years.

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That's the twenty six million year cycle again. Are you

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suggesting that passing through this Radcliffe Wave could be connected

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to mass extinctions?

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Speaker 2: It's definitely an interesting possibility. We still don't know much

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about the Radcliffe Wave, right, We don't know how it formed,

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why it has that wave like structure, or how it

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even stays together. But the fact that our solar system

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interacts with it on that same twenty six million year

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timescale is a pretty big coincidence.

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Speaker 1: Really is so. We've gone from the depths of the

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Earth to the vastness of the galaxy, and it seems

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like with every step the potential for things to go

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really wrong just keeps getting bigger.

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Speaker 2: It is a bit on inspiring and terrifying, isn't it.

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The universe is full of mysteries, and the more we learn,

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the more we realize how much we still don't know.

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Speaker 1: I couldn't have said it better myself, Yeah, so we've

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got these really interesting and sometimes scary connections between planetary movements,

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these cosmic structures, and the fate of life life on Earth. Right,

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But here's the big question, why isn't mainstream science more

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interested in exploring these possibilities?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's good question.

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Speaker 1: If there's even a small chance that some of these

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theories are true, shouldn't we be doing everything we can

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to understand these risks and prepare for the worst case scenario.

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Speaker 2: It's a good question, and I think it kind of

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gets at this uncomfortable truth about science.

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Speaker 1: What's that?

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Speaker 2: You know? We like to think of science as this

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pure pursuit of knowledge. Yeah, but it's also influenced by

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human stuff, you know, like ego, funding, pressures, and just

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not wanting to change.

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Speaker 1: So you're saying even scientists can be afraid of.

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Speaker 2: Being wrong totally. Imagine you've spent your whole life studying something,

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You've built your whole reputation on certain theories. Then someone

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comes along and says everything you thought you knew is wrong. Yeah,

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it can be really hard to accept those new ideas.

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Speaker 1: I bet, and I guess it's even harder when funding

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for research is tied to getting specific results. Like, if

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you start exploring ideas that are seen as weird, controversial,

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you could lose your funding, your job, even your whole career.

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Speaker 2: Exactly. It's risky. And that reminds me of this really

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interesting document called the Brookings Report.

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Speaker 1: The Brookings Retort.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was put together for NASA back in the

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nineteen sixties.

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Speaker 1: Wow, a long time ago.

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Speaker 2: It was a study to figure out what would happen

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to society if we discovered extraterrestrial life. That sounds like

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something out of a movie, right, So they thought about

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the chances of astronauts actually meeting aliens, yeah, which they

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said were pretty slim, Okay, but they said it was

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totally possible that we might find evidence of past alien civilizations,

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like what things like ruins or artifacts on other planets.

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Speaker 1: So what would be wrong with that? It would be

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a huge discovery.

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Speaker 2: That's the interesting part. This report actually said that finding

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something like that could really mess things up for society. Yeah,

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especially for the scientific community.

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Speaker 1: Are you serious. They were worried that scientists would freak

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out if they found proof of aliens.

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Speaker 2: Well, they argued that such a huge shift in thinking, Yeah,

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like changing how humans see themselves in the universe right,

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and turning centuries of science on its head could have

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really bad psychological effects.

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Speaker 1: Wow. I never thought of.

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Speaker 2: That, especially for the people who had built their careers

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on the old way of thinking.

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Speaker 1: So basically they were afraid that scientists face with something

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totally new might not act rationally. Yeah. It kind of

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reminds me of HL nine thousand and two thousand and one,

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a Space Odyssey. Oh yeah, you know the computer that

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goes nuts when it finds the monolith. Right, It's like

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this perfect example of logic breaking down when it meets

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something it can't understand.

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Speaker 2: That's a great comparison, and I think it shows that scientists,

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even though they're all about logic and reason, are still human.

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They have emotions, biases, and maybe even a little bit

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of fear about what they don't.

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Speaker 1: Know, especially when they're dealing with the really big unknowns exactly.

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Speaker 2: So where does that leave us?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? What does all this mean for understanding earthquakes, extinctions,

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and the future of life on Earth?

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Speaker 2: I think the biggest takeaway is this, what's that if

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we're really facing big changes on Earth? Okay, whether it's

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from deep inside our planet or from way out in space,

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we need to be open to every possibility. Yeah, even

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the ones that make us uncomfortable, even the ones that

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challenge everything we think we know about the universe.

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Speaker 1: So it's not about getting rid of scientific rigor, No,

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not at all. But it's about having that rigor along

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with a good amount of curiosity and open mindedness.

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Speaker 2: Exactly. We need to encourage people to be curious in science,

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even when it takes them in unusual directions.

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Speaker 1: I agree.

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Speaker 2: And most importantly, we need to be brave enough to

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ask the really big questions. Yeah, even if the answers

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are scarier than we ever imagined.

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Speaker 1: Well said, this has been an incredible deep dive. We've

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explored some truly amazing ideas we have, from the depths

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of the Earth to the vastness of space. Yeah, and

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I think it's safe to say we've all learned a lot.

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Speaker 2: I think so too. It just goes to show there's

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always more to discover, always, and the universe is full

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of mysteries waiting for us.

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Speaker 1: If you could ask a science is just one question

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about earthquakes, extinctions or the universe, what would it be?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good one.

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Speaker 1: Share your thoughts with us. I'd love to hear from you.

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Speaker 2: Keep exploring, keep asking questions, and keep looking up at

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the stars. Who knows what amazing things are waiting to

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be found.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us on this deep die into the

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mysteries of our planet and beyond.

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Speaker 2: It's been fun.

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Speaker 1: Until next time, stay curious,