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Speaker 1: Welcome to Thrilling Threads. This is where we take a

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huge stack of the latest research, brand new scientific ideas,

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and we really just we boil them all down.

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Speaker 2: Right down to the most potent, most mind bending insights

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we can find. We're here to help you sort of

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navigate the complexity of it all exactly.

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Speaker 1: We're talking about breakthrough findings that are actively redefining what

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we even call a fact.

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Speaker 2: And our mission today is a big one.

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Speaker 1: Oh, it's a wild one. We've synthesized a really incredible

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pile of sources, all detailing discoveries that just they fundamentally

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challenge what we thought we knew across physics, biology, neurology, everything.

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Speaker 2: We're talking about data points so fresh they are nowhere

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near the textbooks yet. This is the immediate update on

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well the state at the universe.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's not an exaggeration. The insights we're about

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to get into come from a huge review of recent findings,

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the kind of science that, once you get it, it

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really makes you stop and question everyday reality.

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Speaker 2: Our whole goals just to give you those back to

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back aha moment, you know, but with the context so

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you can see why it all matters without all the jargon.

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Speaker 1: And what better way to start than with a question,

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go for it. What if everything you think you know

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about being alive, about standing here on Earth, even observing

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the universe, what if it's all slightly delayed or just

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fundamentally physically wrong. Just think about that for a second,

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that lag, that basic misunderstanding of the present moment. That

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is exactly where we're going to begin today.

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Speaker 2: We're exploring three major frontiers. We're starting with the most immediate,

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the personal right in here, the mysterious inner universe of

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the human body, the secrets that are lurking in our

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own DNA and our brain function.

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Speaker 1: Then we're going to pivot pretty dramatically to the living

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system of our planet and its neighbors. You will not

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look at the moon the same way.

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Speaker 2: Again, or the ground beneath your feet, not at all.

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And finally, we're going to the most extreme scale, the

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atomic level and deep deep space to uncover these shocking

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secrets that just defy the rules of physics we thought were.

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Speaker 1: Unbreakable, showing us that even destruction can be a form

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of creation.

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Speaker 2: That's a good way to put it.

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Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this starting with the most immediate discovery

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you I love starting here because it's so personal. It's

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about your own existence, right, And the very first fact

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we pulled is it's just astonishing. It turns out that

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all of us, every single moment, we are physically giving

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off light.

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Speaker 2: You are right now as you listen to this, a

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walking light bulb.

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Speaker 1: And that's not a metaphor, not a metaphor for having

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a good aura.

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Speaker 2: No, you are literally emitting a faint, sustained glow. This

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is phenomenal because for you know, centuries, we thought of

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bioluminescence as this this exotic.

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Speaker 1: Thing, deep sea creatures, fireflies.

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Speaker 2: Exactly, fun. Guy. Maybe we just assumed human cells didn't

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have the chemical machinery for it.

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Speaker 1: But the core discovery is that humans glow in the dark.

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I mean, I have to ask the obvious question of

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looked in the mirror in a pitch black room. I

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don't see anything. So how did they prove this?

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Speaker 2: That's the key, and it really speaks to how sophisticated

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our science has become. The light we give off is

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it's incredibly faint. It's about one thousand times weaker than

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what our eyes can proceed.

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Speaker 1: A thousand times.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, even when your eyes are fully adjusted to the dark,

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our visual system just isn't sensitive enough.

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Speaker 1: So what do they use.

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Speaker 2: They use these incredibly specialized cameras cool to extremely low temperatures,

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shielded from all external noise, which makes them so sensitive.

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They can literally detect a single photon.

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Speaker 1: Of light when photon, so it's like detecting a single

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microscopic spark inside an entire football stadium.

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Speaker 2: That's a great analogy.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so let's unpack the mechanism. This isn't just an

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infrared heat signature we're talking about, right, This is actual

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visible light.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, It's not thermal radiation. It's real light produced by

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chemical energy conversion happening inside.

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Speaker 1: Yoursels, just as they do their job, just as they.

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Speaker 2: Go about their essential functions, the processes we call metabolism.

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Every single time your cells generate energy and keep you alive,

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they create byproducts.

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Speaker 1: And I'm guessing those byproducts are the things we always

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hear about in the health world. Free radicals.

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Speaker 2: You got it, These highly reactive oxygen species, the free radicals.

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They're sort of a necessary evil of being alive. They're

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molecules missing an electron, and they're desperately trying to steal.

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Speaker 1: One, causing oxidative stress.

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Speaker 2: Right, But here's where the light comes from. When these

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unstable free radicals finally stabilize, when they get that electron

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back or react with an antioxidant, they release a tiny

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bit of.

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Speaker 1: Energy, and that energy is light.

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Speaker 2: That specific energy is emitted as visible light, usually in

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the red and green parts of the spectrum.

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Speaker 1: The source has described it so well as millions of

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microscopic fireworks going off inside you all the time.

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Speaker 2: It's perfect, isn't it. The energy of life itself literally

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radiating out of you.

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Speaker 1: But this is where it gets really really interesting. The

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glow changes throughout the day. It has a rhythm, a

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clear rhythm, and your face glows the brightest, specifically in

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the late afternoon.

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Speaker 2: What does that tell us, Well, that pattern, that periodicity,

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it suggests a direct link to our internal clock, our

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circadian rhythm, and our metabolism and our peak metabolic phases exactly.

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The face is likely the brightest because it has such

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a high metabolic rate. It's very vascularized, lots of blood flow,

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the cells are working.

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Speaker 1: Hard, generating more of those light emitting reactions.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and late afternoon is often when our bodies overall

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metabolism just it hits its beak before it starts to

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slow down for the evening.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so if the glow is tied directly to cellular

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health and metabolic function, the potential for medical diagnostics here

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is It's immense.

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Speaker 2: Oh, it's huge. Imagine a camera that doesn't just see heat,

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but sees metabolic stress or hyperactivity.

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Speaker 1: You could map out the normal glow of a healthy person.

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Speaker 2: Precisely, and then any disruption, a hot spot or maybe

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a dark spot, could signal a problem. Yeah, you could

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potentially spot the accelerated metabolism of tumor or an infection

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long before that tissue change becomes visible on an MRI

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or a BT scan, just based on the light pattern.

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Speaker 1: And we have to mention the detail that light has

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also been detected coming from a brain tissue. The idea

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that our thoughts, our actual brain processes, are generating a

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faint light inside our skulls, that is such a profound

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twist on self awareness. It makes our inner universe a

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literal thing.

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Speaker 2: A walking, talking, thinking like bulb. Wow.

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Speaker 1: But if our body is broadcasting itself, our brain is

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doing something even stranger. With time itself.

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Speaker 2: It really is. This next point moves us from a

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chemical surprise to a deep neurological mystery, and it strikes

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right at the heart of conscious reality, which is the

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core discovery is that your brain is constantly living a

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few seconds in the future. It's actively predicting events, not

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just reacting to them.

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Speaker 1: That flies in the face of how we feel. Though

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we feel like we see something, we process it, then

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we decide what to do.

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Speaker 2: That's the illusion. The brain creates that narrative for us.

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After the fact. The brain is at its core a

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predictive engine. It's just too slow to wait for reality

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to actually happen.

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Speaker 1: The classic example is slamming on the brakes in a car.

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Speaker 2: Right, it's the perfect example. If you waited for the

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light waves from the brake lights ahead to hit your retina,

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travel to your visual cortex for that signal to be

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consciously registered as danger, and then you decide to move your.

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Speaker 1: Foot, you'd have crashed ages ago.

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Speaker 2: Long ago. So in that moment, your foot is already

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moving toward the break before you have the conscious thought, oh,

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I need to stop.

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Speaker 1: The brain just ran a probability calculation.

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Speaker 2: Thousands of them every second. It's constantly running this complex

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simulation of the next three to five seconds of reality,

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and when what's happening matches the simulation, it just executes

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the pre planned action.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so what's the really mind blowing detail here, what's

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the timeline on this prediction.

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Speaker 2: This is what's just staggering. When scientists use fMRI and

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EG to look at brain activity during simple decision.

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Speaker 1: Making tasks like pushing a button.

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Speaker 2: Exactly choosing which button to par us, they find that

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the activity in the parts of the brain making the choice,

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it starts building up ten seconds before the person is

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consciously aware they've made a decision.

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Speaker 1: Wait ten full second.

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Speaker 2: Ten seconds.

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Speaker 1: That's an eternity in brain time. The early experiments on this,

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like the Livid experiment, they were talking about milliseconds a

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fraction of a second, but ten seconds it changes everything.

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Speaker 2: It moves this out of the realm of simple reflex

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and into deep, pre conscious decision making. It suggests that

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what we experience as now our conscious awareness is actually

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heavily edited, processed, delayed information.

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Speaker 1: It's a lagged live stream.

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Speaker 2: It's a great way to put it. When you catch

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a ball, by the time you consciously register oh, a

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ball is coming at me. Your brain has already calculated

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its trajectory, predicted where it will land, and sent the

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signals to your hand to move.

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Speaker 1: You're just along for the ride.

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Speaker 2: The conscious hu is yeah.

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Speaker 1: But that raises the huge philosophical question. If the brain

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is making these decisions ten seconds before I am aware

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of it, who or what is the eye that thinks

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it's in charge.

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Speaker 2: This is where it gets really deep. If your sense

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of self is tied to that conscious awareness, but the

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brand has already decided to swerve or duck, then the

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conscious eye is just receiving an update on an action

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that's already happening.

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Speaker 1: It's a narrator.

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Speaker 2: It's a narrator trying to create a coherent story of

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why you did what you did to preserve the feeling

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that you are in control. But it's not the commander.

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Speaker 1: It's just an efficiency thing. The brand's priority is speed

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and survival.

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Speaker 2: Conscious thought is slow and very resource intensive. Prediction is

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fast and necessary. So the brain is willing to sacrifice

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a little bit of now to make sure it gets

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the future right.

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Speaker 1: That is a reality twist if I've ever heard one.

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Speaker 2: It is, and the complexity of that predictive mind. It

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didn't just appear overnight. It was forged in our deep,

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deep past, which brings us to our next genetic surprise.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so if our brands are looking seconds into the future,

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let's look way way back. I thought we had a

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pretty good handle on human evolution, right, the story of

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modern humans Neanderthals, Denisovans.

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Speaker 2: We thought so, But the story of human history has

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been absolutely torn up and rewritten by genetic sequencing in

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the last decade. The core discovery here is that our

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ancestors interbred a lot with at least four different species

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of ancient humans that were previously unknown to science.

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Speaker 1: Ghost species, that's what.

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Speaker 2: The researchers have dubbed them. Ghost species.

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Speaker 1: And the proof isn't in some dusty bones found in

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a case.

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Speaker 2: No, that's what's so amazing. It's purely genetic. Researchers found

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these distinct, unexplained chunks of DNA in the genomes of

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modern people living in West Africa.

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Speaker 1: And this DNA doesn't match anything we already know.

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Speaker 2: It doesn't match Neanderthals, it doesn't match Denisivans. You know,

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we accept that non African populations have about two percent

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Neanderthal DNA. This new stuff, it's totally foreign to that

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known family tree.

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Speaker 1: That is the big mystery. Then we have no physical evidence,

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no idea what these ghost species look like, how they lived,

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what tools they used?

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Speaker 2: Nothing, no bones, no cave paintings, just their genetic fingerprints

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left behind in US. The leading theory for why we

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haven't found fossils is the environment, the tropics. Exactly, a

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lot of this interaction happened in tropical parts of Africa,

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where bone and organic material just it decays incredibly quickly,

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not like the dry caves in Europe, where in the

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NFL remains are so well preserved.

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Speaker 1: It's like finding a few words of a lost language

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woven into our own, but the entire culture that spoke

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it is just gone.

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Speaker 2: It's a beautiful way to put it.

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Speaker 1: But these ancient hookups, they aren't just a fun fact

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for history buffs. They have real biological relevance for us today.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, evolution is nothing if not opportunistic. Some of these

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ghost genes were kept around because they gave a survival advantage,

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like what specifically in some West African populations, some of

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the DNA from these mystery humans gives a significant boost

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to the immune system. It helps them fight off local

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infections more effectively.

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Speaker 1: So we are literally benefiting today from interspecies relationships that

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happened tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of years ago.

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Speaker 2: And it wasn't a one off thing. The genetics suggest

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this was happening constantly for thousands of years across different

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human groups moving around the continent.

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Speaker 1: It totally changes the picture. It's not a simple story

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of Homo sapiens replacing everyone else.

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Speaker 2: No, it's more like a dense, tangled thicket of species

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constantly mingling, swapping genes, and adapting by grabbing the best

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bits from each other.

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Speaker 1: So our family tree is less of a tree and

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more of a woven tapestry.

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Speaker 2: A very complex tapestry. It shows our adaptability came not

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just from evolving alone, but from incorporating the successful genes

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of others, even the ones we've lost to time.

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Speaker 1: The complexity of our deep past really does mirror the

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complexity of our present biology. Okay, let's go from that

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vast scale down to a few hundred thousand cells in

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a dish.

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Speaker 2: This is one of the most sci fi sounding discoveries

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in our stee act. It really proves that a basic

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form of intelligence might be far more accessible than we

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ever imagine.

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Speaker 1: It just blurs the line between myology and computer science.

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The core discovery is that human brain cells grown in

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a lab dish learned how to play the video game Pong.

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Speaker 2: They called their creation dishbrain.

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Speaker 1: Dishbrain. I love it, but Pong requires prediction reaction learning.

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How do you even set that up? You can't give

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a dish of cells a joystick.

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Speaker 2: No, the setup was ingenious. It's all based on electrical signals.

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They took about eight hundred thousand living human brain cells

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neurons and grew them on a tiny computer.

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Speaker 1: Chip, a multi electrode array.

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Speaker 2: Right, it's basically a living circuit board. So the cells

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would receive inputs through the electrodes of the ball's location

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and speed, and they sent outputs through their own electrical firing,

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which controlled the paddle.

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Speaker 1: So their own brain activity moved the paddle correct.

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Speaker 2: The researchers created this closed feedback loop. The cells activity

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had a direct consequence on the game, and at first

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they were terrible, just random firing. The paddle was twitching

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all over the place.

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Speaker 1: But then it clicked. What does that even mean for

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a bunch of cells.

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Speaker 2: It means they started organizing their firing patterns. They discovered

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something called the principle of minimum surprise. The what the

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principle of minimum surprise. A brain's main job is to

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reduce uncertainty in its environment. So by firing an organized

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burst that moved the pal to hit the ball, the

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cells were ensuring the next input they got was predictable.

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Speaker 1: They were making their own world makes sense exactly.

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Speaker 2: They were literally learning to predict the ball's trajectory to

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optimize their own stability in this little digital world.

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Speaker 1: That is a true form of adaptive intelligence, and it's

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totally divorced from a body or sensory organs or anything

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we think of as consciousness.

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Speaker 2: It's a tiny, optimized version of intelligence that emerged just

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from that feedback loop.

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Speaker 1: And they tested it, right, I heard they introduced a

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certain substance.

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Speaker 2: They did to test the limits. They gave the cells alcohol.

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Speaker 1: You're kidding, They gave the dish brain a buzz has.

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Speaker 2: They just introduced ethanol into the nutrient solution bathing the cells,

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and predictably, it completely disrupted the complex organization they'd built.

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Speaker 1: So they got sloppy.

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Speaker 2: We started firing erratically. The coordination just fell apart. Their

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performance plummeted. They started missing the ball, making sloppy moves.

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The researchers said they acted just like a drunk person

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playing video games.

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Speaker 1: First, create life, second, see how it handles a night out.

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But seriously, this points to an incredible future biocomputers.

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Speaker 2: The implication is massive silicon chips are powerful, but they're static.

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Living cells can learn, adapt, restructure themselves in ways that

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current AI can only mimic with enormous amounts of energy

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and data.

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Speaker 1: So this wetwear could lead to computers that learn and

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evolve on their own.

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Speaker 2: It's a huge step in that direction. The potential for

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bridging that gap between biology and hardware is just it's staggering.

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Speaker 1: Wow. Okay, we've gone from the faint light we emit

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to the time machine in our skulls to this. Let's

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shift our gaze outward now, because the ground we're standing

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on and the moon above us, they are just as.

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Speaker 2: Surprising, absolutely as complex as the human body is. The

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Earth and the Moon are proving to be far more

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active and frankly, a lot more geologically unstable than we've

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been led to believe for centuries.

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Speaker 1: We tend to think of the Moon as this this

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ancient dead rock in the sky. It's just there, perfect, permanent,

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ultimate constant, right. But recent finding show it's not just active.

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It is literally shrinking and shaking.

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Speaker 2: That's the core discovery. The Moon is geologically active and

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it's shrinking, just like a grape turning into.

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Speaker 1: A raisin, and that analogy really captures it. The cause

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is pretty simple, right, It's just cooling down.

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Speaker 2: It's a process that's been ongoing for billions of years.

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The Moon's interior, it's metallic core, is losing heat, and

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as it loses heat, it contracts.

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Speaker 1: And when a giant solid ball of rock contracts, the

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crust on the outside has to go somewhere. It can't

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shrink smoothly, so it.

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Speaker 2: Wrinkles and cracks, and those wrinkles are massive. They're called

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thrust faults. These aren't just little surface cracks. The contraction

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creates these huge cliff scarps taller than the Empire State.

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Speaker 1: Building, Taller than the Empire State Building.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, And over the last few hundred million years,

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the Moon has shrunk by about one hundred and fifty

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feet in circumference.

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Speaker 1: All that shifting and cracking must lead to some serious instability.

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Moonquakes powerful moonquakes, and they're very different from earthquakes because

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of the Moon's composition.

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Speaker 2: It's one solid piece basically exactly.

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Speaker 1: Earth has tectonic plates that slip and slide, which absorbs energy.

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The Moon is essentially one giant solid rock ball. So

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when a moonquake hits, the seismic waves have nowhere to go.

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Speaker 2: They just bounce around inside. They bounce around like a

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pingkong ball and a washing machine, that's the quote from

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the research.

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Speaker 1: And that makes the quakes last for.

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Speaker 2: Hours, potentially hours, yes, sustained shaking. They've measured these quakes

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up to a five point five on the lunar scale.

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Now imagine a five point five earthquake, which is significant,

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just rattling you relentlessly for two or three hours stray.

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Speaker 1: That is terrifying. And if its own internal cooling wasn't

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bad enough, we're making the problem worse.

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Speaker 2: We are Earth's massive gravitational pull is constantly yanking on

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the Moon, stressing its crust. These tidal forces trigger more quakes,

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and they often make the internal stresses from the cooling

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even worse.

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Speaker 1: So this is a huge problem for any future lunar.

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Speaker 2: Basis a major unavoidable concern. Any prominent structures we build

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up there will need to be designed to withstand hours

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of this sustained rattling shaking, not just a quick jolt.

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Speaker 1: It's a reminder that our faithful, static looking satellite is actually,

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you know, geologically stressed out and actively remaking itself.

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Speaker 2: It's anything but a dead rock. And if the Moon

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holds secrets, the planet right under our feet is even

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more mysterious.

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Speaker 1: We think we know our own planet, but it's holding

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secrets hundreds of miles down that completely redefined where our water.

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Speaker 2: Came from and how our geology even works.

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Speaker 1: The core discovery here is to me one of the

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most mind blowing of all. An ocean three times the

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sides of all the oceans on the surface combined, exists

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hundreds of miles beneath the Earth's crust.

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Speaker 2: That's a phenomenal amount of water. But we have to

404
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be clear for everyone listening. This is not a liquid lake.

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It's not some giant underground sea you could sail off.

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Speaker 1: You can't just drill down and tap into it.

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Speaker 2: No, it's water that's trapped inside a specific crystal structure

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called ringwoodite, deep inside the Earth's.

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Speaker 1: Mantle, ringwoodite. That sounds like something out of a sci

410
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fi movie. Where is this geological sponge.

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Speaker 2: It's in what's called the transition zone, about four hundred

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miles below the surface, sitting between the upper and lower mantle.

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This mineral it's a high pressure version of olivine, which

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is super common. But under that immense pressure and heat,

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it's crystal structure just it totally changes.

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Speaker 1: And that new structure can hold water.

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Speaker 2: It acts like a silicate sponge. The molecular st xture

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of ringuidite has these little gaps that allow hydrogen and

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oxygen atoms, the components of water, to get locked inside

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its crystal lattice. They're bound right into the mineral itself.

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Speaker 1: So it's water in solid form essentially.

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00:20:13,559 --> 00:20:15,799
Speaker 2: Yes, it's incredibly stable under that pressure.

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00:20:15,839 --> 00:20:18,039
Speaker 1: I love the analogy they used. Ringoidite is like those

424
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little silica gel packets you find in a new pair

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of shoes, but on a planetary scale, just soaking up moisture.

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Speaker 2: And we only know this by a streak of luck. Yeah,

427
00:20:26,400 --> 00:20:29,519
we can't drill four hundred miles down. The evidence came

428
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from diamonds.

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Speaker 1: Pature's USB drives exactly.

430
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Speaker 2: These diamonds formed under those extreme pressures, and they were

431
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shot to the surface in volcanic eruptions and trapped inside them.

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Scientists found tiny inclusions of this ringuidite.

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Speaker 1: And it had water in it.

434
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Speaker 2: It had measurable quantities of hydroxyl groups, proving that yes,

435
00:20:48,480 --> 00:20:51,240
this crystal can and does store a massive amount of

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water deep inside the planet.

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Speaker 1: This just completely rewrites the story of Earth. The old

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dairy was that all our water came from comets crashing into.

439
00:20:58,640 --> 00:21:03,720
Speaker 2: A dry planet accretion theory, and while commets definitely contributed,

440
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this discovery suggests a huge portion, maybe even most, of

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our water was here from the beginning, locked inside the planet.

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Speaker 1: And it's been slowly seeping up over billions of years.

443
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Speaker 2: Right, the Earth might have been wet from the very start,

444
00:21:18,839 --> 00:21:21,359
And this hidden ocean, it's not just sitting there. It

445
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has a critical job.

446
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Speaker 1: It's a lubricant.

447
00:21:23,680 --> 00:21:26,839
Speaker 2: It's a giant lubricant for our tectonic plates. It's the

448
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wd foty for plate tectonics. Without this water, the deeper

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parts of the mantle might be too thick, too viscous.

450
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This hidden water reduces friction, allowing the continents to slide around.

451
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Speaker 1: And it drives volcanoes.

452
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Speaker 2: It plays a huge role in the convection currents that

453
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drive volcanism. It's the fundamental engine behind our planet's dynamic geology.

454
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Speaker 1: Astonishing to think that the very forces shaving our world

455
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are lubricated by a hidden ocean three times bigger than

456
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the one we know. Okay, from the movement of continents,

457
00:21:55,759 --> 00:21:58,279
let's talk about the subtle communications of the plants living

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on them.

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Speaker 2: This is one of those discoveries that just makes you

460
00:22:01,079 --> 00:22:03,119
look at your houseplants completely differently.

461
00:22:03,319 --> 00:22:06,240
Speaker 1: For years, we've joked about plants screaming when you.

462
00:22:06,160 --> 00:22:10,119
Speaker 2: Cut them, right, we anthropomorphize them. Well, the core discovery

463
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is that they actually do make ultrasonic sounds when they're stressed.

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Speaker 1: They are screaming, just in a register that's way too

465
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high for us to hear, higher than a dog whistle.

466
00:22:19,359 --> 00:22:22,000
So when a plant is thirsty or its stem is cut,

467
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it starts making these tiny, rapid popping sounds.

468
00:22:25,559 --> 00:22:30,000
Speaker 2: The mechanism behind it is really physical. It's called cavitation. Cavitation, Yeah,

469
00:22:30,039 --> 00:22:33,279
plants pull water up these tiny tubes called a xylum

470
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using powerful negative pressure. When the plant gets dehydrated, or damaged.

471
00:22:38,720 --> 00:22:42,400
That continuous calumn of water breaks and air bubble forms

472
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and then pops.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So it's like the slurping sound in the bottom of.

474
00:22:45,920 --> 00:22:51,079
Speaker 2: A straw exactly, but microscopic and an ultra high frequency.

475
00:22:51,200 --> 00:22:54,279
It's the sound of the plant's internal plumbing failing under stress.

476
00:22:54,559 --> 00:22:57,559
Speaker 1: But it's not just random noise. It's a kind of language.

477
00:22:57,680 --> 00:23:01,079
Speaker 2: That's what's incredible. Researchers found that different kinds of stress

478
00:23:01,119 --> 00:23:05,000
produced distinct sounds. A thirsty tomato plant sounds different from

479
00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:06,000
one that's been damaged.

480
00:23:06,079 --> 00:23:07,799
Speaker 1: You can tell what's wrong with it just by listening.

481
00:23:08,039 --> 00:23:10,759
Speaker 2: You can, and this opens up a whole new world

482
00:23:11,079 --> 00:23:15,799
of ecological communication. The key is that certain insects like

483
00:23:16,000 --> 00:23:17,720
moths can hear these.

484
00:23:17,599 --> 00:23:19,400
Speaker 1: Sounds and they use that information.

485
00:23:19,640 --> 00:23:23,000
Speaker 2: They absolutely do. Moths looking for a place to lay

486
00:23:23,000 --> 00:23:26,960
their eggs will actively avoid plants that are screening too much.

487
00:23:27,279 --> 00:23:29,519
Speaker 1: Of course, why lay your eggs on a plant that's

488
00:23:29,519 --> 00:23:32,279
already struggling. It's a poor environment for your kids.

489
00:23:32,400 --> 00:23:35,880
Speaker 2: It's a brilliant, highly effective defense mechanism we never knew.

490
00:23:35,720 --> 00:23:39,160
Speaker 1: Existed, and the practical application for farming must be huge.

491
00:23:39,359 --> 00:23:42,000
Speaker 2: Oh, it's a game changer right now. Farmers wait for

492
00:23:42,079 --> 00:23:45,880
visible signs of stress like wilting, but by then the

493
00:23:45,880 --> 00:23:48,480
plant is already suffering, its yield is already reduced.

494
00:23:49,000 --> 00:23:52,039
Speaker 1: But with this, you could put sensitive microphones in the

495
00:23:52,039 --> 00:23:53,240
fields and you.

496
00:23:53,160 --> 00:23:55,279
Speaker 2: Can listen to your crops. You can hear when they

497
00:23:55,279 --> 00:23:57,559
reach a certain threshold of stress signals and water them

498
00:23:57,599 --> 00:23:59,960
precisely when they need it, before any visible damage.

499
00:24:00,519 --> 00:24:02,839
Speaker 1: It means that every time I've mowed the lawn, I've

500
00:24:02,880 --> 00:24:05,279
been conducting a grass schoir of terror.

501
00:24:05,480 --> 00:24:10,519
Speaker 2: You have been creating an absolute symphony of ultrasonic distress. Wow.

502
00:24:10,599 --> 00:24:13,079
Speaker 1: It just makes you realize the world is so much

503
00:24:13,160 --> 00:24:17,039
noisier and more communicative than our limited senses can.

504
00:24:16,920 --> 00:24:20,240
Speaker 2: Perceive, a world that is always talking even when we

505
00:24:20,240 --> 00:24:21,000
think it's silent.

506
00:24:21,240 --> 00:24:25,000
Speaker 1: Okay, we've covered the inner life, the planetary life. Now

507
00:24:25,079 --> 00:24:28,200
let's go to the most extreme scale, the cosmic and

508
00:24:28,279 --> 00:24:32,079
atomic frontier, where the rules we thought governed reality are

509
00:24:32,119 --> 00:24:33,119
just breaking.

510
00:24:33,480 --> 00:24:36,200
Speaker 2: Yeah. If the first two parts were surprising, this final

511
00:24:36,279 --> 00:24:40,160
section really veers into straight up science fiction. We're starting

512
00:24:40,160 --> 00:24:42,680
with a discovery that breaks a core assumption of material

513
00:24:42,759 --> 00:24:45,119
science that things fall apart.

514
00:24:44,880 --> 00:24:48,000
Speaker 1: That wear and terror is inevitable. The discovery is simple,

515
00:24:48,039 --> 00:24:53,440
but its implications are civilization changing. Scientists watched solid metal heel.

516
00:24:53,240 --> 00:24:57,480
Speaker 2: Itself, specifically tiny pieces of platinum. They saw small cracks

517
00:24:57,640 --> 00:25:01,119
literally close up and fuse back together at the atomic level.

518
00:25:00,920 --> 00:25:03,359
Speaker 1: Which should be impossible. Metal isn't supposed to do that.

519
00:25:03,480 --> 00:25:07,759
Biological things heal, but inert solid metal, it's governed by

520
00:25:07,920 --> 00:25:10,799
entropy damage. It's supposed to add up until it fails.

521
00:25:11,119 --> 00:25:14,240
Speaker 2: That's the basis for our entire manufacturing and engineering world,

522
00:25:14,720 --> 00:25:18,799
planned obsolescens, replacing parts. It all assumes metal breaks down.

523
00:25:19,200 --> 00:25:21,240
Speaker 1: So how did they even see this happen?

524
00:25:21,440 --> 00:25:24,640
Speaker 2: It was an accident actually at Sandia National Labs. They

525
00:25:24,640 --> 00:25:28,160
were running fatigue tests, watching these tiny pieces of platinum

526
00:25:28,359 --> 00:25:31,960
with a transmission electron microscope which lets you see down

527
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:33,240
to the atomic level.

528
00:25:33,039 --> 00:25:35,000
Speaker 1: And they were just wiggling it.

529
00:25:35,119 --> 00:25:38,039
Speaker 2: Wiggling it back and forth hundreds of times per second

530
00:25:38,319 --> 00:25:41,039
to create tiny fractures and watch them grow.

531
00:25:41,119 --> 00:25:42,799
Speaker 1: Except they didn't grow exactly.

532
00:25:43,200 --> 00:25:46,200
Speaker 2: They watched these cracks, which were smaller than human hair,

533
00:25:46,640 --> 00:25:50,880
spontaneously close up and fuse back together. The atoms literally

534
00:25:50,960 --> 00:25:55,160
flowed and reorganized themselves, erasing the damage.

535
00:25:54,720 --> 00:25:57,839
Speaker 1: Like watching a paper cut on steel just heal itself.

536
00:25:58,400 --> 00:26:00,240
What's the mechanism Why would atoms do that?

537
00:26:00,640 --> 00:26:04,759
Speaker 2: The current theory involves something called stress induced material flow.

538
00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:08,519
Because a metal was being constantly pushed and pulled, that

539
00:26:08,759 --> 00:26:10,799
energy input was enough to get the atoms near the

540
00:26:10,839 --> 00:26:14,160
crack to rearrange themselves into more stable, lower energy state.

541
00:26:14,279 --> 00:26:15,640
Speaker 1: And the more stable state is.

542
00:26:16,160 --> 00:26:18,759
Speaker 2: Whole again, the whole again. They fuse back into a

543
00:26:18,799 --> 00:26:20,119
perfect crystal structure.

544
00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:22,000
Speaker 1: Now there has to be a catch. This isn't happening

545
00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:24,359
to the bumper on my car right now, not yet.

546
00:26:24,559 --> 00:26:27,880
Speaker 2: The big constraints are scale and conditions. This only happens

547
00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:30,839
at the nanoscale right now and requires a vacuum. But

548
00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:34,759
the fact that it's possible at all, that's the transformative part.

549
00:26:35,240 --> 00:26:37,359
It proves self repair and metals can happen.

550
00:26:37,440 --> 00:26:41,079
Speaker 1: The future implications are just staggering. If we can figure

551
00:26:41,119 --> 00:26:42,200
this out and scale it.

552
00:26:42,200 --> 00:26:46,880
Speaker 2: Up, self repairing infrastructure, buildings that last for centuries, engines

553
00:26:46,880 --> 00:26:50,039
that never wear out, airplanes that are inherently safer because

554
00:26:50,240 --> 00:26:52,160
metal fatigue is no longer a given.

555
00:26:52,319 --> 00:26:55,599
Speaker 1: You're giving Wolverine's healing power to inanimate objects.

556
00:26:55,640 --> 00:26:58,599
Speaker 2: That's exactly it. It challenges the entire economic model of

557
00:26:58,599 --> 00:26:59,519
our world.

558
00:26:59,279 --> 00:27:02,119
Speaker 1: From the ultras small to the ultra large. Let's talk

559
00:27:02,119 --> 00:27:06,200
about the universe's greatest rebrand, the black hole. We thought

560
00:27:06,200 --> 00:27:07,440
we knew its job description.

561
00:27:07,640 --> 00:27:12,400
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. For decades black holes were cosmic destroyers, gravitational

562
00:27:12,480 --> 00:27:15,119
vacuum cloners, the end of the line for matter.

563
00:27:15,240 --> 00:27:18,519
Speaker 1: But the discovery here is of a massive, lone black

564
00:27:18,559 --> 00:27:22,519
hole that's acting as a cosmic creator. It's actively seating

565
00:27:22,559 --> 00:27:23,920
the birth of new stars.

566
00:27:23,640 --> 00:27:26,799
Speaker 2: Which is a spectacular reversal of its function. And this

567
00:27:26,920 --> 00:27:28,559
wasn't found in the middle of the galaxy, which is

568
00:27:28,559 --> 00:27:31,160
where you expect a black hole to be. No. No,

569
00:27:31,319 --> 00:27:33,480
This is what makes the observation, which was made by

570
00:27:33,480 --> 00:27:37,200
the James Webbs based telescope, so spectacular. This black hole

571
00:27:37,319 --> 00:27:40,759
is naked. It's cruising through intergalactic space all by itself.

572
00:27:40,960 --> 00:27:41,799
Speaker 1: How did that happen?

573
00:27:42,039 --> 00:27:44,720
Speaker 2: He was likely ejected from its home galaxy during a

574
00:27:44,759 --> 00:27:50,480
massive galactic collision. A huge three body gravitational slingshot just

575
00:27:50,599 --> 00:27:51,759
flung it out into the void.

576
00:27:51,880 --> 00:27:54,720
Speaker 1: So it's a cosmic rebel and its new cause is

577
00:27:55,000 --> 00:27:59,079
making stars. How does something that eats matter create it?

578
00:27:59,079 --> 00:28:02,319
Speaker 2: It's all about speed, not gravity. This thing is moving

579
00:28:02,359 --> 00:28:04,920
at several million miles per hour through the cold gas

580
00:28:04,920 --> 00:28:08,759
and dust between galaxies, and it's creating these immense shock.

581
00:28:08,480 --> 00:28:11,240
Speaker 1: Waves like a sonic boom in space, exactly like.

582
00:28:11,240 --> 00:28:14,640
Speaker 2: A cosmic speedboat, creating a massive wake. And that wake

583
00:28:14,720 --> 00:28:17,920
is so powerful that it violently compresses the gas clouds

584
00:28:17,920 --> 00:28:18,799
that passes.

585
00:28:18,480 --> 00:28:21,680
Speaker 1: Through, compresses them until they collapse and ignite.

586
00:28:21,359 --> 00:28:23,799
Speaker 2: Until they reach the critical density to collapse under their

587
00:28:23,799 --> 00:28:27,240
own gravity and become stars. It's a vast stellar nursery

588
00:28:27,279 --> 00:28:29,680
being dragged across the cosmos, and the scale of this

589
00:28:30,000 --> 00:28:33,640
is immense. The wake of newborn stars behind it stretches

590
00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:35,839
for two hundred thousand light years.

591
00:28:36,200 --> 00:28:39,720
Speaker 1: That's twice the width of our entire Milky Way galaxy.

592
00:28:39,400 --> 00:28:42,079
Speaker 2: Twice our galaxy. It just forces us to change our

593
00:28:42,079 --> 00:28:45,319
fundamental understanding of what a black hole does. They aren't

594
00:28:45,319 --> 00:28:49,119
just endpoints. They can be violent, fast moving engines of creation.

595
00:28:49,400 --> 00:28:51,920
Speaker 1: So we definitely need to update the job description. And

596
00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:55,079
their complexity isn't just visual, it's auditory too, as.

597
00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:56,240
Speaker 2: Our final discovery shows.

598
00:28:56,279 --> 00:28:59,319
Speaker 1: Yes, this one is amazing. It connects this cosmic scale

599
00:28:59,359 --> 00:29:03,200
to something so human sound. We've all heard the cliche

600
00:29:03,599 --> 00:29:06,599
in space, no one can hear you scream. Well, NASA

601
00:29:06,640 --> 00:29:10,240
recorded actual sound waves a sustain hum coming from a

602
00:29:10,279 --> 00:29:13,559
black hole in the Perseus galaxy cluster two hundred and

603
00:29:13,680 --> 00:29:15,519
fifty million light years away.

604
00:29:15,599 --> 00:29:18,599
Speaker 2: The core discovery is that this supermassive black hole has

605
00:29:18,640 --> 00:29:22,680
been singing in a low B flat for billions of years.

606
00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:24,880
Speaker 1: Okay, the pitch is what gets me. The actual note

607
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:27,799
is fifty seven octaves below middle C. How do you

608
00:29:27,839 --> 00:29:28,759
even comprehend that?

609
00:29:29,000 --> 00:29:32,440
Speaker 2: For context, the lowest note on a big concert piano

610
00:29:32,559 --> 00:29:35,839
is only about four octaves below middle C. This black

611
00:29:35,880 --> 00:29:38,599
hole is singing fifty three octaves lower than the lowest

612
00:29:38,599 --> 00:29:41,480
note you can physically play. We literally cannot hear it.

613
00:29:41,720 --> 00:29:43,400
Speaker 1: So how do they make it audible for us?

614
00:29:43,799 --> 00:29:46,920
Speaker 2: Through a process called soonification, they take the actual data

615
00:29:46,920 --> 00:29:49,160
from the pressure waves rippling through the gas and they

616
00:29:49,240 --> 00:29:52,119
just transpose it up. They raise the frequency by fifty

617
00:29:52,160 --> 00:29:53,200
seven octaves.

618
00:29:52,880 --> 00:29:56,400
Speaker 1: Turning this ultra low wave into an audible hum.

619
00:29:56,519 --> 00:30:00,240
Speaker 2: Right, But you asked the key question earlier, how sound

620
00:30:00,319 --> 00:30:01,119
needs a medium.

621
00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:05,799
Speaker 1: Space is a vacuum, So how is it broadcasting this

622
00:30:05,799 --> 00:30:08,440
this cosmic horror movie soundtrack?

623
00:30:08,680 --> 00:30:11,799
Speaker 2: Well, while the space between galaxies is a vacuum, the

624
00:30:11,839 --> 00:30:15,119
area around this black hole, the Perseus galaxy cluster is

625
00:30:15,160 --> 00:30:19,519
filled with immense clouds of hot, dense gas plasma. The

626
00:30:19,559 --> 00:30:23,559
black hole's activity is constantly sending out these massive pressure

627
00:30:23,559 --> 00:30:25,119
waves that ripple through that plasma.

628
00:30:25,200 --> 00:30:26,839
Speaker 1: So the hot gas is the speaker system.

629
00:30:26,920 --> 00:30:29,880
Speaker 2: It's a giant galaxy sized speaker system. The ripples in

630
00:30:29,920 --> 00:30:32,640
that gas are the sound waves. We can measure them,

631
00:30:32,720 --> 00:30:36,279
and the frequencies just it's mind bogglingly slow. A full

632
00:30:36,279 --> 00:30:39,000
cycle of the wave, one single beat of this cosmic

633
00:30:39,079 --> 00:30:41,599
rhythm happens only once every ten million years.

634
00:30:41,720 --> 00:30:45,039
Speaker 1: That's rhythm on a geological scale, sound of deep time itself.

635
00:30:45,319 --> 00:30:48,200
Speaker 2: It is. It shows that even the most seemingly static,

636
00:30:48,359 --> 00:30:53,759
silent things in the universe are vibrating, communicating, interacting, just

637
00:30:53,799 --> 00:30:57,359
at a pace we needed incredible technology to finally detect.

638
00:30:57,599 --> 00:31:00,599
Speaker 1: We have covered so much ground today, from the micro

639
00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:04,160
to the macro, challenging assumptions at every single level.

640
00:31:04,240 --> 00:31:07,079
Speaker 2: Let's do a quick recap. We covered our own unexpected

641
00:31:07,079 --> 00:31:10,720
internal reality, that we all faintly glow with the light

642
00:31:10,759 --> 00:31:13,680
of our own metabolism, and that our minds are constantly

643
00:31:13,720 --> 00:31:17,359
predicting the future, forcing us to rethink what consciousness even is.

644
00:31:17,519 --> 00:31:20,319
Speaker 1: Then we looked at the planetary scale, a hidden ocean

645
00:31:20,400 --> 00:31:22,839
three times the size of our own acting as the

646
00:31:22,920 --> 00:31:26,279
lubricant for our entire planet's geology, and a moon that's

647
00:31:26,319 --> 00:31:28,119
actively shrinking and shaking itself.

648
00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:31,960
Speaker 2: Apart, not to mention the silent ultrasonic screams of plants

649
00:31:32,039 --> 00:31:35,160
showing this whole other layer of ecological communication.

650
00:31:35,400 --> 00:31:38,039
Speaker 1: There. Finally, out on the cosmic frontier where the rules

651
00:31:38,039 --> 00:31:41,920
just don't apply, we saw self healing metal star creating

652
00:31:41,960 --> 00:31:45,039
black holes, and we heard the deepest note in the universe,

653
00:31:45,119 --> 00:31:48,359
a b flat hum, vibrating once every ten million years.

654
00:31:48,720 --> 00:31:51,559
Speaker 2: The relevance to you, the listener, is just that these

655
00:31:51,599 --> 00:31:55,119
discoveries make your own existence so much richer and stranger

656
00:31:55,319 --> 00:31:59,680
and more complex. Science isn't about a set of rigid facts.

657
00:32:00,079 --> 00:32:03,920
It's a thrilling, constant process of being wrong and finding

658
00:32:04,000 --> 00:32:04,559
something new.

659
00:32:04,799 --> 00:32:08,200
Speaker 1: Exactly what we call a fact is always shifting. The

660
00:32:08,240 --> 00:32:11,720
familiar world, the metal in your phone, the ground you

661
00:32:11,799 --> 00:32:15,519
walk on, the stars you see. It's all just superficially understood.

662
00:32:15,039 --> 00:32:17,880
Speaker 2: And what seems impossible today could very well be a

663
00:32:17,960 --> 00:32:19,640
routine piece of science tomorrow.

664
00:32:19,799 --> 00:32:22,240
Speaker 1: I want to end on that idea of the brain's delay.

665
00:32:22,519 --> 00:32:25,319
We've seen that our experience of reality is always slightly

666
00:32:25,319 --> 00:32:27,960
in the past. The universe is always a couple steps

667
00:32:27,960 --> 00:32:31,640
ahead of our understanding. We are just observers, perpetually trying

668
00:32:31,640 --> 00:32:32,400
to catch up, and.

669
00:32:32,359 --> 00:32:34,359
Speaker 2: That's the perfect way to frame it. Your brain is

670
00:32:34,400 --> 00:32:37,279
predicting the future before you know it. The ground beneath

671
00:32:37,279 --> 00:32:40,160
you is lubricating a hidden world. The rules we thought

672
00:32:40,160 --> 00:32:43,000
were fixed are breaking, both atomically and cosmically.

673
00:32:43,240 --> 00:32:46,640
Speaker 1: So here's our final question for you. Given all of this,

674
00:32:47,200 --> 00:32:50,319
that your own brain is making decisions seconds before you're

675
00:32:50,319 --> 00:32:53,279
aware of them, that the moon is shaking, that black

676
00:32:53,319 --> 00:32:57,559
holes create stars, which of these new realities changes your

677
00:32:57,599 --> 00:33:00,319
perspective the most? On the simple concept.

678
00:32:59,839 --> 00:33:04,680
Speaker 2: Of being alive and what's unexpected discovery, internal or cosmic.

679
00:33:04,920 --> 00:33:06,559
Do you think is waiting just around the corner.

680
00:33:06,680 --> 00:33:07,640
Speaker 1: Let us know what you think.

681
00:33:07,720 --> 00:33:08,480
Speaker 2: We'd love to hear it.

682
00:33:08,680 --> 00:33:11,519
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us for this journey on thrilling Threads.

683
00:33:11,640 --> 00:33:12,640
We will see you next time.