Jun 21

Jun 21 Episode 41 | Jacob Have I Loved

A full transcript of this episode is available below thanks to donations from our Patrons!

00:00:00 – Introducing a previously teased voice but now for a full episode it’s Jacob! Two other guys showed up to talk too.

00:07:11 – Charlie is a doctor now, and he’s gonna tell you why. Hint: Men are from Mars

00:28:31 – It’s the most literal Trailer Trash Talk ever as the guys breakdown the trailer Winnebago Man.

00:43:32 – If you wanted your Winnebago to make it to space, Jacob is the guy you want strapping on the rockets. He breaks down the current state of rocketry especially this Falcon 9 thing that matters to the engineering types out there.

01:03:21 – PaleoPOW! It’s like a punch from the past! (That should probably be incorporated as a slogan somehow.) This week Jacob reads out an iTunes review, which we love by the way, Alan Saiz sends a relevant link to Charlie, and Ryan spots PaleoPosse member James Comey in the wild.

Need more? Well there’s a blog! Go read it at http://paleocave.sciencesortof.com/

Music for this week’s show:
Billy Brag and Wilco – California Stars
Elton John – Rocket Man (’03 remix)
Lou Reed – Sick of You
M83 – We Own the Sky

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Episode 41: Jacob Have I Loved

Charlie: I have to be careful this show, it sounds like Ryan drink some angry piss beer or something.

Jacob: He is very far away from his west coast.

Ryan: I’ll try not to be too ornery, Charlie.

Music

Announcer: Hello and welcome to Science sort of.

Ryan: Welcome to Science sort of, episode 41. My name is Ryan, I’ll be your host for this show that will tell you all about things that are science, things that are sort of science and things that wish they were science. This week’s theme is Jacob, have I loved and I think you’ll see soon why that is. Joining me as always is Paleo Pal extraordinaire Charlie.

Charlie: Happy solstice everyone.

Ryan: I should say, I should say doctor, Dr. Charlie right? Now, officially?

Charlie: PhD.

Ryan: Charlie Barnhart, PhD and joining him in the, let's see, the undesirable position as number two Paleo appliances after a PhD is Jacob Stump.

Jacob: Hello everybody.

Charlie: Who is Jacob Stump?

Ryan: What are you cutting Jacob off for, Charlie?

Charlie: Because I don't know who he is. He is a stranger, there is a stranger on my cast.

Ryan: Who are you Jacob?

Jacob: I’m just, just nobody. I'm an old friend of Ryan.

Ryan: Well, well Jacob you have been blogging for us, right?

Jacob: Yeah, yeah. It's been fun.

Ryan: So, if you've been reading the blog you'll know that Jacob is the dude that is bringing the engineering every week on the Science sort of blog. And, Jacob, give them just a briefest of backgrounds on your education, schooling and current situation in the scientific community.

Jacob: Well, I went to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. We talked about this a couple episodes ago. But I got my degree in aerospace engineering and so I am currently working for a major US defense contractor working on aircraft structure. I'm not gonna say which one, not that I'm not allowed to, I just don't wanna incriminate myself.

Ryan: Give free advertising.

Charlie: Right. That too, that too. But, yeah, for the most part what I'm doing right now is working on, just like, internal structure of aircraft. But I also did a co-op with Pratt & Whitney and they design jet engines. So that was a fun aside. That was actually what most of my undergraduate was in was jet engines technology. So hopefully I'll have a pretty cool blog post up soon that's going to be down and dirty technical details about how I jet engine works.

Ryan: Nice.

Jacob: Because a lot of people have no idea so it should be a pretty good one.

Charlie: Very cool. So you are an applied scientist, you're not just like Patrick and Ryan and I and even Ben where we just think of ideas, pie in the sky and don't actually do anything with them.

Jacob: I would like to think so but on the other hand a lot of the stuff that I do isn't so much actual design as much as analysis. So, for example I tried to build a rabbit cage the other day, by myself, I had no idea how to do it.

Charlie: And it sounds like, well right before we start a recording, you were trying to open a bottle of beer with a pair of pliers. How did that go and what are you drinking?

Jacob: Well, it didn't go too well but I didn't try for that long. So, but what I'm drinking today is a Magic Hat Number Nine. I don't know if you guys have that out there in sunny California, but it's from the Magic Hat Brewing Company in Vermont, Birmingham Vermont, I think. And they call it a not quite pale ale and it is brewed with apricot I guess. So, it's pretty tasty.

Charlie: Nice.

Ryan: Is if not quite pale on the darker side or the lighter side, that's my question?

Jacob: I’m not up enough on my beers to really know that distinction.

Ryan: I had an apricot IPA from Dogfish Head called the Aprihop that I almost had on the show but I ended up not but it was also good. I've been surprised by the apricot beers.

Charlie: Yeah, apricot beers are generally good. I imagine it's darker then pale, just to balance out the flavors.

Ryan: To, to punch the apricots in the mouth.

Charlie: I am drinking a beer brewed with fruit as well.

Ryan: Lay it on us.

Charlie: I've had this on the show before and I liked it so much I am bringing it back. It's the Wailua passion fruit beer from the Kona Brewing Company in Hawaii.

Ryan: Nice.

Charlie: Yeah, it's a wheat beer with passion fruit which is one of the best tasting fruits and in Kenya they serve passion juice but they just call it passion so the waiter will just ask would you like some passion? And I always responded with yes, please.

Ryan: When somebody, whenever anybody ever asks me, like, what are you looking for, like, if I look lost or something, I'm like “a purpose, a sense of purpose.” A feeling, you know, beauty in every day life, like just, you know, that's what I'm looking for.

5:09

Charlie: But what are you looking for in a drink tonight?

Ryan: Tonight, okay, so if you've been following my tweets lately, it's been the saga of househunting in Nashville, lately. So I am moving to the south and have had, I'm not gonna say minimal access to alcohol. Also, I should, I want to point out real quick that, while we are on the subject, Jacob is a saint for even being on the show tonight because he has realized what a shambles it is putting the show together every week and how last minute and off the cuff getting all of this stuff set up is. So thank you, again, Jacob for being here.

Jacob: It's no problem but I am surprised that you've gotten to 40 episodes with what you've got going on here.

Ryan: We don't blame you for feeling that way. But tonight I am drinking some fine Tennessee whiskey from Benjamin Pritchards, Prichard's distillery in Kelso Tennessee. That's, ah, Kelso Tennessee is in the same county that Jack Daniels is distilled in. And this is Benjamin Prichard's first attempt at distilling a whiskey entirely by himself. So he's got a couple of, like, Kentucky whiskey and Kentucky bourbon whiskeys that he worked with other distilleries to make. But this is his first straight Tennessee whiskey and it is labeled as such and I am just having it with a few rocks and it is quite nice. And it's not my first, first one of the night so forgive any miss steps and slurring and all that fun stuff.

Charlie: It is Friday and it is late so it’s excusable.

Ryan: OK, good, well as long as I have the Charlie excuse.

Music

Ryan: Well, Charlie, I think we're going to have to put you under the gun tonight. I think that tonight's the night, you've gotta tell us, why are you a PhD? And why do you deserve that and what have you done? What have you done with your life?

Charlie: Well I did three projects for my PhD. One was valley networks on Mars, another, and the other two projects concerned clays on Mars. And clays is a boring word and clays is kind of a strange word. My wife didn't even think it was grammatically correct. She tried to edit a paper I was writing when I used the word clays. Because you don't say, oh, look at that, there's a pile of clays or I need to buy some modeling clays. But, it is indeed a word because there are multiple different types of clays, different chemical constituents for different types of clays. And these clays are found on Earth and Mars. And the fact that they are found on Mars is interesting because clays have water or require water for their formation. So basaltic rock is altered by interacting with water and clay is formed. And water is exciting because as you know, or may be aware, any life on earth requires water to exist. So, the fact that we are detecting clays on Mars is an exciting prospect and I did two projects that explain, go a long way to explain how they are distributed on the surface of Mars and why they appear that way. And, Ryan you were at my defense, right?

Ryan: Yes. I was a face in the crowd. I had bleacher seating, nosebleed section. It was packed, there were a lot of people.

Charlie: Yeah, it was crazy. Yeah, so one of the projects explains the formation of clays at the central peaks of craters. Now, a crater has a central peak when it is large enough that when it forms it acts, it behaves hydro-dynamically, like dropping a marble into a bowl of milk. And so, you know how at the center of that marble drop, the center of the wave rebounds upwards and you get that little droplet of milk if you have a high speed camera to capture it?

Ryan: Mmhmmm.

Charlie: Well that also forms in rock too, with large enough craters, so crater sizes beyond about 5 to 8 km in diameter on Mars.

Ryan: How much is that in American Charlie?

Charlie: I don't know, 4 miles?

Ryan: OK.

Jacob: Now does, does that happen with all types of rock or does it require a certain, like, I don't know, like dry rock maybe wouldn't form that as much as a wetter rock?

Charlie: Right, so, yeah, where that transition occurs between the gravitational regime which is the hydrodynamic regime and the strength regime, which is the regime where the strength of the rock is going to control how the material moves is dependent on several different factors.

10:05

The rock itself, the density, the gravity of the planet that's being hit by an impact bolide and the bolide’s density as well. And so there's a lot of factors that go into it, but, in general, I mean, the density of rock isn't going to change too much, less than, by less than a factor of two as well the density of the bolide. Unless it's a comet of course, but, yeah, I am digressing. Yeah, if I could ungress and condense that all into one, one thought or idea, if the impact or asteroid/bolide is large enough and moving fast enough then it will most definitely behave like a, hydro dynamically, like a marble in a bowl of milk.

Jacob: That's pretty cool.

Charlie: Yeah, it's just cause there's so much energy involved. The amount of kinetic energy contained in a bolide traveling through space impacting a planet is the equivalent to a Tsar hydrogen bomb which was the largest hydrogen bomb that was detonated in the Earth’s atmosphere. And that would form a like 2 to 3 km diameter crater. Oh, to form something like, the Chicxulub impact which was the KT boundary event that, that made the dinosaurs go extinct.

Ryan: One of.

Charlie: Yeah, that formed a roughly 100 km diameter crater I think. But I do know the energy equivalent of that impact event was 1 million Tsar bombs. So, these are incredibly intense events. And the impact sizes that I was studying on Mars for the formation of clays in the central peak we're about 45 km in diameter or similar, I guess, to the Monterey Bay, for Ryan, if you remember that, riding down on the bike path. So there's so much energy involved in these impact events that they heat the ground, they heat the rock, and they even cause it, in certain places, to become molten. And this super hot rock is hot enough to melt ice underneath the surface of Mars and drive hydrothermal circulation or circulation that you have in, like, areas like Yellowstone or near volcanoes on earth. And this hot water flowing through the rock can, can alter the rock and form clays. And because Mars is cold, different effects like freezing in the crater will focus the flow in certain areas, namely of the central peak, and that's, that's my explanation for why there are clays in the central peak of several craters on Mars.

Ryan: So wait, how cold is it on Mars?

Charlie: It's 220 kelvin is the mean annual surface temperature. It's, the average temperature at the equator is a -60°C which is 12° colder than the average mean annual temperature at the South Pole Antarctica on earth.

Ryan: So, cold.

Charlie: Very cold.

Ryan: Frigid.

Jacob: Yeah. And not only that, it's really low surface pressure, so the atmospheric surface pressure is 6 to 10 millibars which is about 100th of the surface pressure, atmospheric surface pressure at sea level on Earth. So water is not permitted at the surface. It's only found...

Ryan: It’s permitted, it's not allowed.

Charlie: It’s not thermodynamically permitted, yeah.

Ryan: Okay.

Charlie: There are laws, physical laws that permit the behavior of various compounds, molecules and chemicals in their thermodynamics states and it is verboten on Mars.

Ryan: Jacob, Jacob do you remember Tim (bleep) from high school, right?

Jacob: Yep.

Ryan: He had that shirt that said E=MC2, it's not just a good idea, it's the law.

Jacob: Yeah. I'm just picturing that, the triple point graph now, for ah...

Charlie: Yep.

Jacob:...for like whether or not it's a gas or liquid or a solid.

Ryan: So wait, explain, explain with the triple points graph is because we might have people that don't know.

Jacob: Charlie, do you want to explain that or, I don't think I've seen it in a while, I need to look it up.

Charlie: Well I think of it more in terms of pressure temperature graphs. On the y-axis you have pressure and the x-axis there's temperature, and, depending on the pressure and temperature you will be in one of three states with water: ice, liquid water or gas. And at lower enough pressures there's, you are below what is referred to as the triple point, this point in pressure, temperature and space where if you move in either direction you’ll turn into either liquid water or gas. And if you're below that point then you are just at a line in that temperature pressure space. So that line can be crossed between solid and gas but liquid water is no longer even part of the, part of the plot.

Jacob: And if you were directly at that point you're actually a water, or a liquid, a vapor and a solid all at once.

Ryan: That's kind of how I feel right now.

Charlie: Yeah, you’re, I mean, yeah technically you're not all those things all at once, you're one of those things and if you...

Jacob: Equilibrium.

Charlie: Yeah if you put energy or remove energy from the system, then the phase still won't change until enough latent heat is either absorbed or released such that the phase will change to another thing. So you're in an unsteady equilibrium I suppose.

15:16

Ryan: Wait, unsteady equilibrium is an oxymoron Charlie.

Charlie: No it's not at all.

Ryan: How is it not?

Charlie: You are in an unsteady equilibrium. You're constantly, you're a living organism that constantly needs, you need energy, you constantly need energy supplies...

Ryan: I also have to pee, does that factor?

Charlie: Yes. Yeah, that and maybe if you had enough to drink tonight, if you try to walk you'll definitely be in an unsteady equilibrium.

Ryan: What are you talking about, I am fine, I could do a breathalyzer right now.

Jacob: You could do one but you wouldn't pass the test.

Ryan: I get a PUI, podcasting under the influence.

Charlie: Yeah, so I don't now. The triple point isn’t technically an unsteady equilibrium but there is several examples of unsteady equilibriums in nature. You are one of them.

Ryan: So are you, jerk.

Charlie: Indeed. All right, so I explained how, how I think I could...

Ryan: Is this how your talk went Charlie?

Charlie: No, it was fantastic.

Ryan: People just yelling about unsteady equilibriums and drinking heavily during your talk.

Charlie: It kind of felt that way. No, I think the talk went swimmingly but I...

Ryan: How can you swim on Mars, Charlie? There's no water.

Charlie: You could four billion years ago. There's ancient like beds, river valley networks, etc. There was water at the surface of Mars a long, long time ago.

Ryan: That's so cool.

Charlie: Yeah. Right, so, I’ve explained the presence of clays at the central peaks but we also find them on the rims in ejecta deposits of very small craters. And so for this idea, for this, this explanation, this distribution I came up with the idea that maybe these clays were formed in a sub surface layer in a ground water system and then impact events dig them up. And I quantified the excavation flow of impact events using an analytical model written in the 70’s that explains how nuclear bomb's and TNT excavate things. So this is kind of like bunker buster technology stuff. And then, but I used it for the powers of good to explain why clays appear the way they do in small craters on Mars. And it's all self consistent and it's a cool technique because I can quantify where the clays originated and where they end up. So it's a probe of the sub surface I can apply two different regions on Mars and determine how deeply a clay layer is buried and what it, what it's extent is under the surface of Mars in those locations. And the grand conclusion of the talk is that you can distribute clays on the surface of Mars without requiring large standing bodies of water for prolonged periods of time. And, this is an important conclusion because people are excited to go investigate these clay deposits on Mars to look for signs of life because they argue that it's evidence of liquid water at the surface. And the argument is no, it's evidence of rocks that have interacted with liquid water on the surface. And we should focus the search for relics of ancient life where we actually know there is liquid water on the surface, namely at these ancient lake beds and river valley networks.

Ryan: Hmmm.

Charlie: If that makes any sense.

Ryan: It does but the question I have is that there have been times when you couldn't come on the show because you were out doing fieldwork. And you work on Mars so where were you and what were you doing?

Charlie: I go to various Mars like places on earth.

Ryan: What are Mars like places on earth though?

Charlie: Iceland is a very Mars like place. It's basalt which is the same rock that is found on Mars. And it's cold and there are volcanoes and other insane things. I also have gone to southwestern United States and the Colorado Plateau in Utah where there is very dry arid regions with rivers carving through the rock in a similar way that they carve through the rock on Mars. And I've also gone to the Black Rock Desert in Nevada that shows evidence of meandering rivers without any vegetation control. So, meanders in rivers on earth occur when vegetation stabilizes the bank or something stabilizes the bank and then it causes an alteration in flow. But here meandering, meanders are occurring in the Black Rock Desert without vegetation. They also occur in certain places on Mars. So we're trying to use the Black Rock Desert as an analog to explain why they occur on Mars where obviously there's no vegetation. Also Antarctica is a very Mars like place but I have yet to go there.

20:10

Ryan: Nice. Even though it's colder on Mars.

Jacob: Did you visit any nuclear test sites.

Charlie: I haven't visited those, those test sites yet in Nevada. But I've looked at them on Google earth and they look pretty awesome.

Ryan: Charlie is already angry enough that if he went there he would probably turn green and much larger.

Charlie: All right, so, that's what I have to say about Mars. I'm really interested now in precipitation rates on early Mars. So, how, hard and fast did the rain have to fall and that sounded really awkward.

Ryan: How do you, but I mean, how do you figure that out is the question.

Charlie: I have two ideas but they are secrets.

Ryan: OK, then don't tell us. Save it.

Charlie: You'll see it in the paper.

Jacob: Could we do an experiment with one of our, you know, hundreds of thousands of random nuclear warheads that are laying around. Where we launch one to Mars and explode it on the surface and see what results correlates with your studies.

Charlie: In all honesty and scientific integrity, I think it's a horrible idea. As a playful human being I am fascinated with the idea. I think there's plenty of great experiments to be performed with our nuclear arsenal that does not involve the destruction of civilization or the loss of life. I have, I personally think that we should be using a fraction of our nuclear arsenal to detonate nukes in zero gravity, in space beyond the geosync orbit so we don't destroy our own satellites just to see what these explosions look like in zero-G. I think it would make an excellent Fourth of July show. We could use the nukes to blast off the atmosphere of Venus to try to cool it down because as you know it has a runaway greenhouse, worse than our greenhouse, effect. And, I don't know, there's, all sorts of fun games that could be played with nukes. And, but, they are messy and...

Ryan: I am reminded of the Simpsons episode where Lisa dated, is it Nelson, Nelson Muntz. And she goes over to his house, he has a poster up that says nuke the whales and she says “really you want to nuke the whales?” And he just shrugs and goes ”eh, got a nuke somethin’”. And she, she has to admit that that is a fair point, you do have to nuke something.

Jacob: Yeah but you always have to worry about if the rocket explodes on the way out of earth and...

Charlie: Yeah, yeah...

Ryan: Jacob that such a reasonable concern by an engineer.

Jacob: I was going to say that's why they don't allow very many rockets to go up now with nuclear power sources...

Ryan: Interesting.

Jacob: ... Like back in the day they had a lot of satellites that were nuclear powered so they could last for decades without, you know, very, very far away from earth where there is not enough solar energy to keep them powered.

Charlie: Right.

Jacob: They've just got a nuclear generator that keeps them going. Now it...

Charlie: Viking missions, the landers on Mars...

Jacob: Yeah. Exactly..

Ryan: Huh.

Jacob: Now they've got a couple, like, pseudo nuclear generators where it's just like radio, crap, what's the word I'm looking for...

Charlie: Active.

Jacob: Yeah there's like some sort of radioactive particle that emits a fair amount of energy but not...

Charlie: It's not actually a thermal nuclear generator.

Jacob: It doesn't have a nuclear...

Charlie: It doesn't have, yeah it doesn't have a heat generating reaction that's driving...

Jacob: So if it exploded before it got into orbit then it would really hurt anybody on earth. But they don't really allow any of the nuclear generators anymore which sucks because there's a lot of good stuff we could use it for.

Ryan: I wonder, I wonder if there could be a way where we could just launch a bunch of reactor grade plutonium in one rocket and just put all our eggs in one basket so to speak. Get that on to the International Space Station and then we can launch a bunch of rockets with satellites that were nuclear ready and all we had to do was insert the plutonium from the ISS and then send them on their mission.

Charlie: Yeah ostensibly that's a good idea but anytime you introduce a, and additional step in a mission the rate of failure greatly increases.

Ryan: Well then let us launch nukes Charlie.

Charlie: Like mission steps are additive, failure rates go multiplicative when you...

Jacob: Yup.

Charlie: ... Steps.

Jacob: The higher the complexity of a product, the more probability there is a failure.

Ryan: Whatever, I'm just gonna be taking up a rock. You guys have fun with space.

Jacob: We will.

Charlie: Sounds good to me.

Ryan: Dude, I, ah, listen, you, the three of us, we're all going to live to be at least 100, that's a given, science will make it happen. I'm not even going to debate that with you right now.

25:00

So, I fully expect there to be Science sort of episode 472 recorded live from Mars and if that doesn't happen I will be disappointed.

Charlie: Me too.

Ryan: So I'm with you in space because I realized a while ago but there was, I realized a while I ago that there is a certain class of scientific jobs that sounds impressive but are actually quite lazy. One of those is a extra terrestrial paleontologist going to Mars to look for fossils. Chances are there no fossils there so I could spend my entire life on Mars looking for fossils and still sound really impressive and be a complete failure. The other job I had in mind along that vein is a marine mammal forensic pathologist. So people would call me in and be like why did this whale die and I would be like well this whale died because it's on land and whales aren't meant to live on land. And I'll do that fish for free that fish also died because it was on land. Pay me my money now please. So, those are my, those are my, in my younger days I decided on cheap careers in science and I have moved on since then.

Jacob: Awesome.

Charlie: I’m confused.

Ryan: Well, see Charlie, I knew you wouldn't find that funny but I knew that since this is Jacob's first show he would be, his first full show, he would be eager to contribute and he would find my statements at least borderline amusing.

Jacob: I was just laughing to be polite.

Ryan: I know you were but I'm taking it, I'm taking it and run with it.

Jacob: No I was actually thinking of that one comedian where he talks about, like, who's got the job that names the kitchen appliances.

Ryan: Mitch Hedburn

Jacob: Mitch Hedburn, yeah, he says well what does this thing to? It blends. Well that's a blender.

Ryan: You just add “er”. What is this do? It keeps shit fresh. Well that's a fresher.

Jacob: Well that's a fresher.

Ryan: I'm going on break.

Jacob: I'm going on break. That was weird.

Ryan: I told my mom the banana joke in an elevator today. I was like bananas are the opposite of street lights. Yellow means go ahead. Green means slow down, wait a little bit. And red means where the fuck did you get that banana?

Charlie: Oh man.

Ryan: Have we talked about your PhD enough Charlie?

Charlie: Yeah we have.

Ryan: So Charlie, congratulations on finally becoming an equal to your wife.

Charlie: Yeah, it's great, the, ah...

Ryan: The doctors Barnhart.

Charlie: The doctors Barnhart and hopefully the, the Mr. and doctor mail stops arriving at my house.

Ryan: That's funny. Well speaking of things that gestate for a long time and finally come to fruition let's start with Trailer Trash Talk.

Jacob: Nice.

Ryan: Does that work Charlie?

Charlie: Yeah that one works and the thing I love about this Trailer Trash Talk is it’s actually about a trailer.

Music

Announcer: Hey y'all it's Trailer Trash Talk.

Charlie: Well this, this trailer is for the movie Winnebago Man and it has one actor, one protagonist or antagonist or angry something or other.

Ryan: Main character.

Charlie: Yeah. And his name is Jack Rebney and I don't know if you guys have seen it on YouTube. I actually had before I watched this trailer.

Ryan: Really? You had? Because that was one of the things I wanted to ask because I hadn’t. Had you seen it Jacob?

Jacob: No I had never seen it before.

Ryan: OK.

Charlie: Yeah, so, every once in a while on YouTube when I get links from friends or whatever of these like wild, wild commercials or videos from characters, woe-be-gone characters from the past that, that are angry and silly. And so this, this Jack Rebney is it the angry and silly character for Winnebago. He, he was an infomercial man and he did infomercials for Winnebago, I imagine they we're on late at night. And he had all sorts of virulent, angry outtakes where he’d cuss out the entire staff recording the commercial, cuss out himself and basically just produce hilarity on end.

30:04

And in this Winnebago Man documentary, Ben Steinbauer, the director and, I just picture Ben Steinbauer as being this, like, English major and he's trying to desperately come up with a project after graduating from college and he's like I'm gonna find out who this Winnebago man is. And that's what he does. He tirelessly tracks down Jack Rebney and tries to figure out what his life is now following these foul mouthed, crazy Internet videos that have been circulating on VHS since the 80s, throughout the 90s and now all over YouTube, and seen by more than 20 million people on YouTube now. So this is the story of tracking down the foul mouthed, angry circus clown that is the Winnebago man and finding out how he lives now today.

Ryan: And how, how does he live today? I guess that's the movie, right?

Charlie: Yeah that's the movie. It seemed like he, like he was, like he lived kind of a lonely life. I mean, the tale being kind of touching it away because the Winnebago man didn't even know that he was an Internet sensation. He didn't know that he was notorious.

Ryan: So, so the dude tracks him down and the rest of the movie is just them hanging out or...

Charlie: Yeah, so it seems like a lot of the story is, I mean it seems like a 3 act play. Act one: track down Winnebago man. Act two: find out who the Winnebago man actually is. Act three: reconcile world with Winnebago man, Winnebago man with world.

Ryan: It looked, I mean, it didn't look that staged. It looked a little staged but.

Charlie: No.

Ryan: So basically this, this Winnebago man, what was his name again? Jake something, Jack...

Charlie: Jack Rebney.

Ryan: Jack Rebney. He's living in the mountains of California, completely on his own. And most of the movie is just them revealing his Internet fame to the world.

Charlie: Yeah, we’ll, maybe we should put a link up to one of these YouTube videos, I mean they're all over the place. And they're just insane. Like, he's, he’s come here across super charismatic, he's selling this product and then he like forgets his line I just goes, he turns into the Hulk, and goes completely angry on everybody around. Even himself, like one of my favorite lines that he said is like “I don't wanna take any more bullshit and that includes me.”

Ryan: And I mean it looks like, here's what it kind of reminded me of, it kind of reminded me of the British Office where, I don't wanna spoil how the British Office ends but basically, the character, if you're familiar with the American Office, Michael Scott, the character in the British Office played by Ricky Gervais is David Brent, he's the analog, the prior analog, to Michael Scott. And he's really annoying in a way that's completely unredeemable for most of the show and then at the very end they find a way to make him redeemable...

Charlie: Human.

Ryan: ...related, and human and your heart breaks for him. And I get the same feeling, from this guy, where it's like, you know, you watch these YouTube videos and you’re like, you were kind of a despicable crazy person. And I feel like through the course of this trailer and potentially through the course of the documentary you were going to find empathy.

Jacob: Yeah, as soon as I saw it, I said I'm going to cry when I watch this, I know it.

Charlie: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Ryan: I mean, Jacob, you’re crying now though, you were just an engineer so you have tears and your tears are made of, like, nuts and bolts.

Jacob: Yeah, exactly. And Excel spreadsheets.

Ryan: Yes.

Charlie: And CAAD drawings.

Ryan: I do love, I do love a good spreadsheet though, I'm not gonna lie.

Jacob: Aw man you wouldn't believe some of the spreadsheets, never mind, that's off topic.

Ryan: I wouldn't, I fully expect a blog post about the glory of spreadsheets from you.

Jacob: Aw, that's a great idea.

Charlie: I'm sure they get out of control, like there's probably people that abuse highlighting cells and things like that.

Ryan: Or just macros and...

Jacob: I am, I'm guilty of that. I like to color code my spreadsheet so that they look like some sort of formal document.

Charlie: You should try, to like, mosaic an image of whatever your engineering with the color-coded cells.

Jacob: Nice.

Charlie: Pixelated.

Ryan: Those guys...

Jacob: I have done, I have done color spectrums is for margins of safety.

Charlie: Nice.

Jacob: The greener it is the safer it is.

Ryan: Well, it's funny because you'll, you'll send me emails about stuff, that I'm like, my first response when I read these emails is like, why isn't he just blogging about this? Because you'll be like, oh my gosh they upgraded this one device from a tech readiness level of blank to a tech readiness level of blank, can you believe it? I respond with just, like, yeah that's crazy, what were they thinking?

35:09

Jacob: I told you what that meant. I told you what tech readiness level is.

Ryan: I know, I looked it up, I looked it up. I'm not an idiot.

Charlie: I am, what's the tech readiness level?

Jacob: It’s, it's an objective scale that, that the defense industry uses to gauge how much research is still needed in order to field a certain technology. So, like, a tech readiness level of, I need to...

Charlie: So, it's like trial levels in medicine and...

Ryan: It's like, it's like DEFCON but for rockets.

Charlie: Yeah.

Jacob: I can't remember whether or not high is good or low is good but...

Ryan: I think low is good...

Jacob: So a tech readiness level of one would be something that is currently in production and ready to use...

Ryan: You’ve got one in your pocket.

Jacob: Yeah, and a tech readiness level of 10 or whatever would be some thing that's in the original, like, the initial research phases, I might have that backwards though.

Ryan: Ten is a drawing, basically.

Jacob: Yeah, I did have it backwards. Tech readiness level of one is basic research. Tech ready level nine is systems test, launch and operations, so, with the article I sent him it was something that went from a tech readiness level to a tech readiness level of five. It's skipped, like, three steps because these guys made a really huge discovery in the technologies.

Ryan: I know, right? And then...

Jacob: That was cool...

Ryan: And then Iron Man happened.

Jacob: Yeah.

Ryan: So, and for those that don't remember Jacob was one of the guys who was consulting with me on the Iron Man articles, which is one of the reasons we brought him into the blog which is one of the reasons he's on the show now is that he's just brilliant and was able to tell me all about Iron Man.

Charlie: And we need somebody who actually knows how to apply science to real life.

Ryan: Well that's what the tech readiness level is, Charlie.

Charlie: I know that's why I said we needed somebody like that.

Ryan: But, Charlie, thumbs up or thumbs down on the trailer.

Charlie: Um, shit, the trailer is hilarious and great but it's not going to make me buy a ticket to the movie just because, it's just too, the topic, the topic is far too myopic.

Ryan: It’s too obscure, yeah.

Charlie: Yeah.

Ryan: I hear ya.

Charlie: And I mean this is something I'll Netflix instant and maybe watch 30 minutes of it and get the gist...

Ryan: Maybe watch while you're cleaning.

Charlie: Yeah it's, it's, not a compelling story. I mean every single human being on this planet has an incredible story to tell that's unique and worthy of a two hour documentary but I'm not gonna watch 7 billion documentaries about every human being.

Ryan: So what you're saying is this is the wrong podcast and it should just be a story on This American Life.

Charlie: Yeah, yeah I think so.

Ryan: Hi I am Ira Glass, this week we are going to be talking about Jack Vader, the Winnebago man.

Charlie: Rebney.

Ryan: Jack Rebney, the Winnebago man. He has an incredible story and, ah, I can't remember any of the names of the correspondents on This American Life.

Charlie: My brain waves have already changed This American Life. I started thinking about, like, what I need to do tomorrow.

Ryan: Yeah.

Charlie: That’s what I do when I listen to that. I just, it's like, my personal meditation time where I like, don't listen to the story.

Ryan: Yeah, yeah, you just kind of zone out, but it's there and you might, you might remember some brief factoid that you'll bring up in conversation at a cocktail party later and, yeah.

Charlie: And I kind a got a crush on Ira Glass because of his voice.

Ryan: Really? I hate Ira Glass’s voice. I love This American Life and I legitimately like Ira Glass whenever I see him interviewed. But his voice, to me, is just so monotonous that...

Charlie: Well, that's what I mean, like, it's straight up lullaby.

Ryan: Whatever, let's get him on the show.

Charlie: Sounds good.

Ryan: Alright.

Jacob: I bet we could get Ira Flatow.

Ryan: We should get Ira Flatow on the show, that's a legitimate, that's the public radio Ira we should be earning the ire of.

Jacob: Definitely. He was on the Big Bang Theory.

Ryan: Was he? Which episode.

Jacob: Ah, there was an episode where Sheldon had something, like he was being interviewed by Ira Flatow and then somebody pump to helium into his office...

Ryan: Oh yeah.

Jacob: ...so his voice got higher and higher as he talked. It was pretty funny.

Ryan: Well Jacob, how do you feel about the trailer?

Jacob: I, you know Charlie, Charlie definitely he brings, after I saw the trailer I thought yeah I'm definitely going to go see this. It's not going to be, it's not going to do well, I know that, I know, it's not going to sell well and it's probably not even going to be in theaters here and back water Florida. But, I'm gonna want to see that movie, just because I like, I like those personal stories of, you know, one individual progressing through the different stages of their life and you find out more about their character and the decisions that they've made and how that affects, you know, what they become versus what they were.

40:09

And I think that that's, like, missing in so many movies and stories nowadays, is that you have this character that’s, just, you know, just the action superstar from the beginning of the movie to the end of the movie, and he doesn't change at all, there's no character development. And so I really like...

Ryan: I do not understand why you are hating on John McClane right now and I don't appreciate it. Because John McClane is awesome.

Charlie: I, I like that...

Jacob: I've only seen one Die Hard.

Charlie: You may have turn my down vote into, like, a weak, ah, 50/50 vote.

Ryan: Well, as, as is the tradition when Patrick is not here, we give the most obscure fraction possible. So, Charlie, what is your obscure fraction to make Patrick's life more difficult?

Charlie: Um...

Ryan: Are you like 7/8 short? 1/8 long? 1/√2? You could use a right angle triangle to find that.

Ryan: Nice. 45° baby.

Jacob: Nice.

Ryan: We are nerds. So Jacob, you're going to be, it sounds to me like you're going up, you're going thumbs up though, right?

Jacob: Well, well, like I said though, I don't think it's going to sell well, though, so, I mean...

Ryan: Well, based on the trailer alone, we are...

Jacob: Okay, okay...

Ryan: We are steadfast in it's just the trailer.

Jacob: On just the trailer then I'm going to go 5/32 down, and 27/32 up.

Ryan: Oh, poor Patrick. Serves him right. I'm just going to go, it's hard, I completely agree with both of you, where, the story looked moderately compelling. It looked like a good bit for This American Life which means it should be 20 minutes instead of, how long is it, does anybody have that stat?

Charlie: Yeah, the stat is not available on the Apple trailer website, but, I mean it's, it's got to be at least 90 minutes.

Ryan: So, if it's 90 minutes and I feel like it should probably be closer to 20 minutes, what's the fraction there Charlie?

Charlie: 2/9? So, I don’t know, 17%.

Ryan: I'm going to go 2/9 long and 7/9 short. And next week Charlie we are going to hold Patrick down to the grind stone and make him tell us exactly how he bet on this one.

Charlie: Sounds good.

Ryan: Just cause. All right, well, from Winnebagos, let's see, what was that, there was that trailer that they had back in the 50s, it's silver, sleek, metallic, rounded...

Charlie: The Airstream.

Jacob: Airstream.

Ryan: Yeah, the Airstream. So, from Winnebagos to Airstreams, and from Airstreams to Falcon 9, we should talk about SpaceX.

Jacob: Yeah.

Ryan: Extreme! Let's do it.

Charlie: Space.

Jacob: If you put an X after anything it's extreme.

Ryan: Exactly.

Music

Ryan: So, Jacob, this is you’re show, we want people to get a taste for who you are and what you are about. And you, you posted a link to the SpaceX launch, or this Falcon 9 launch, you did a blog post about it and now let's talk about it because I have a feeling that not everyone is checking the blog every day so let's supplement that with you telling us what exactly is going on with Falcon 9.

Jacob: Alright, cool. Well first of all, they should be checking the blog every day. If not every day at least every Tuesday.

Ryan: And that, what's the web address?

Jacob: That’s when, that's when my blog comes out. It's paleocave.sciencesortof.com.

Ryan: For sure.

Jacob: So I don't know what you guys were doing on June 4 but when I was at work on June 4, me and the couple of other young guys, we're pretty much just listening to the live, live feed from SpaceX, waiting for the launch to happen. And, they had, I think they had a five hour window between when they could launch, this test lunch. And so from 10 AM till 3 PM we were just wondering like when are they going to launch, when are they going to launch? And at one point they said OK, we are on T-15 minutes, we are going to launch.

45:03

They got down to three seconds before the launch and then they, and then they stopped it. And then waited another hour and then actually succeeded with the launch. So, they were, they were playing with us all day, basically. Take that back to the fact that it was supposed to launch months ago. Basically what it says is that they were being very careful with this launch and there was good reason to be. So, let's back up. What's important about SpaceX, what's important about the fact that the Falcon 9. SpaceX is a private company that has completely, independently, developed two different rockets. The Falcon 1 and the Falcon 9. The Falcon 9 has already been tested and proven and launched a satellite successfully. The Falcon 9 is a larger rocket that is designed for cargo and/or crew transfer to the International Space Station. The significance of this is that SpaceX is the first private company in the United States to develop a rocket that could, that could transfer crew into low earth orbit. There's a couple other companies that have developed privately built rockets that could transfer a cargo, but still most of what is out there too launch satellites, transfer a cargo, etc., are all either government run or government sponsored organizations. There's a group here in the United States called United Launch Alliance and it's a conglomerate of Boeing and Lockheed Martin’s rocket groups. And they, together, those technologies were completely government funded and so they really can't be qualified as something that I would call a private space flight company even though those companies now are, you know, launching, providing these launch services for a fee to anybody who wants it. So, the Falcon 9, is really, probably one of the first new rocket designs in a really long time. Because of that they were able to use a lot of newer technology that isn't used on the Boeing Delta 2 or the Lockheed Atlas 2 or Atlas 5, I guess, is the latest one. And because of that they are able to make it a much more reliable and also a much more cost-effective platform. One really interesting fact that I saw, is that the entire development of the Falcon 9 rocket, including that first test launch, costs less then it cost NASA to just build the launch stand for the Aries rocket which got canceled. So now they have...

Charlie: Why is that? Is it just because there's so much less bureaucratic overhead and political overhead?

Jacob: That’s one reason, yeah. I mean, SpaceX, is a much smaller company then, then NASA’s...

Charlie: Yeah, clearly.

Jacob: ...network. I mean, the way that NASA typically works is that they have a very small group of NASA employees and then they contract out all of their work to all of these other subcontractors like United Space Alliance, Jacob’s Aerospace, etc.

Ryan: Wait, Jacob’s Aerospace, when did you start your own company?

Jacob: Ah, it was a while ago but we don't need to talk about it.

Ryan: Alright. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

Jacob: And so those companies then build the actual products that, like, that you might see that are actual components on the Space Shuttle. And so that's kind of an efficient structure from a government standpoint because it allows them to get some competition for different contracts. You know you've got like, three different companies bidding for the same contract you’re probably going to get a lower price, but in the end the government is the customer and they're also the business that's producing the product so there's not true competition there. So SpaceX comes in and they say, you know, we're going to develop this entire system at 1/50 the cost of your development cost because we are completely self-contained, we've got professionals in every area of rocket design. They've got, they basically, when they started this company, it was started by Elon Musk by the way, they got one of the cofounders of PayPal...

Charlie: Yeah.

Jacob: ...so he had all this extra money and he went out and he handpicked the best and brightest engineers from the rocket industry and he made them heads of his different divisions. So, they developed a brand new engine. They developed a brand new faring technology. They developed a brand new fuel tank. They developed a brand new nose cone. They developed a brand new space vehicle. And, through all that, I mean, that sort of development would take NASA a decade or more. But they did it in, I don't know, maybe five years. I don't have the exact dates but they did it extremely quickly.

50:00

And not only that but they've developed two different vehicles. So, I guess, to get into some of the specifics, for example, of what makes it a better technology is, like, for instance the Falcon 9 has, like, nine rocket engines on the bottom of it. Compare this to, like, the Space Shuttle where they have one main engine, or, three main engines... OK, yeah I was right, I wanted to make sure there were actually three main engines on the Space Shuttle, not just one.

Charlie: Yeah, I can picture that.

Jacob: Well, I have a lot of people at work, like, for instance, the blog post that I put up the other day about ion propulsion, I had a guy that was like “well, technically, you know it doesn't really work that way...” And I was like these people don't want that sort of detail.

Charlie: No.

Ryan: That’s awesome though that you got guys at work that are reading your blog.

Jacob: Yeah, I've got a couple of guys, a couple people. And I just introduced some more people with my reverse psychology Facebook post the other day.

Ryan: Nice. Underhanded, I like that.

Jacob: Yeah. So, anyway, so yeah the Falcon 9 has nine main engines and one of the really cool things about it is that if at any point in the flight, well almost any point in the flight, one of those could completely fail and stop producing thrust and the rocket would still be able to achieve its mission objective. So, when Charlie was talking earlier about how more complicated systems have the higher probability of failure, well what they've done here is they've said, OK we've got nine identical engines so we can mass produce these things in large quantities and develop a a heritage production technique very quickly because we're developing nine per launch. And at any point in the, yeah, so, you have nine, nine engines that have design reliability because they're based on heritage engine technology, from, you know, 50 years of rocket engines. They have production reliability because your increasing the number of replications. And then they also have mission reliability because at any point one of them could fail and they could still achieve the objective. So they've taken a more complicated system and they have optimized it in a way that actually makes it simpler, and more, and more reliable.

Charlie: Nice.

Jacob: And there are, there are 100 other examples of that in the design of the rocket and most of them are small details. But others, my favorite one I think, is that the separation between the first and second stage doesn't use explosive bolts, I mean if you could...

Ryan: Astronauts love explosive bolts.

Jacob: No, no, engineers hate explosive bolts. You can't test an explosive bolt before you use it on an actual flight.

Charlie: Right.

Jacob: So, at any given time, for every single flight that goes up you were wondering is this explosive bolt going to be a dud? So they have to design, like, redundant explosives inside these bolts. And the bolts themselves are like, one of my bosses used to work for NASA, and he told me he saw one of these bolts one time (audio cut out) inches in diameter, it's made out of 220 KSI steel which is really hard and it's basically, the entire inside of it, it's just packed with explosives because it has to be extremely strong in order to handle the loads during the first part of the flight. And then it has to completely go away for the second half of the flight. So, and then, you can't, you were never sure if the mixture was right, if it's going to be able to break it well enough, or where it's going to break on the bolt. So it's really kind of a dirty way to do it. So on the Falcon 9 and on the Falcon 1, they use a hydraulically separated system. So they just have some sort of clamp, a hydraulic clamp, I assume, that keeps the two stages held together during the first stage. And then in the second stage it undoes the clamp and pushes away the first stage. And on the videos, it's just the coolest separation you've ever seen.

Ryan: And you've posted videos of that right.

Just in: Right, on the blog.

Ryan: Yeah.

Jacob: Which you'll need to go see to find.

Ryan: So go do it monkeys.

Jacob: Yeah, so after the successful launch, SpaceX was awarded a new contract with NASA of close to $500 million for future launches. So what that shows is that there definitely is a market for private space flight. And we really are getting into an era now where that's going to become more of a reality. With the cancellation of the Constellation project, it freed up a ton of money to be used for things like this. A lot of people, you know, obviously, are going to be upset because a lot of people are losing their jobs and that's never good.

55:01

But a lot more new jobs are going to be created and we're going to start advancing in space technology again. So, it's a really exciting time to be an aerospace engineer.

Ryan: So you're actually...

Charlie: That's great.

Ryan: So you're actually happy that Constellation was canceled?

Jacob: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I read through the Augustine commission report which was, it was a, kind of a meeting of aerospace industry executives and policymakers where they reviewed the Constellation project and the current, I guess, momentum of NASA and where they're headed. And no matter what way they looked at it they couldn't find a way to make the Constellation project successful. It was just too expensive, too much money had been then spent on it already. They said that if you continue to keep spending the amount of money on it now, by the time that they develop a rocket that they can get to the International Space Station, they're not going to have any money left to develop what they wanted to do which was go to the moon. Let alone develop moon bases and moon rovers, new stuff like that. I mean it just wasn't going to work financially. We did develop a lot of cool new technology from it though. Already, just, the escape component, a new system that if, during the launch, one of the engine explodes, the crew capsule can be ejected off of the rocket at any time and the crew will survive and avoid the situation like the Challenger disaster.

Ryan: Well, that's good.

Jacob: And that's going to be used on, pretty much all future man space flight vehicles including the Falcon 9.

Charlie: Nice.

Ryan: So everything is awesome.

Charlie: I was just thinking, you said that any time you put X after something it becomes extreme, but, if you put ex before something it just becomes depressing, like the ex-Constellation program.

Jacob: What about the Xbox?

Ryan: I've got a couple of ex-girlfriends.

Charlie: So, what I was going to, I guess Xbox is pretty cool.

Ryan: ... Depressing too.

Charlie: Because there is an ex at the beginning and the end so they cancel each other out.

Ryan: I mean, I'm not gonna lie, I was looking at, I was looking at Facebook trying to get my Paleo POW sorted, I did the whole stumble across the ex-girlfriend’s Facebook page, it's not fun, it's not pleasant. There's nothing extreme about that, it's just sad, it's just depressing.

Charlie: This is really cool that we have these new rocket technologies coming to fruition and they are so much cheaper than the government funded and sponsored rocket systems. True competition is at work and, yeah, I look forward to what comes in the next decade if they've done so much just since 2002.

Ryan: Totally.

Jacob: Yeah, me too. I mean even if you look at the other company, Scaled Composites, they developed that spaceship in 2004 called SpaceShipOne. And they didn't get into orbit obviously but they, it's just, it's a vehicle that is really technically a space vehicle but it doesn't look anything like anything you would have ever thought to go into space up until now. Really, the closest thing that it resembles is a vehicle imagined by Arthur C Clarke in 2001 A Space Odyssey. So, I am excited really just to see the creativity of engineering come through again

Ryan: Nice.

Charlie: Yeah, how did they, how does the Falcon 9, the crew module, or payload module, return to earth? Do they splash down in the ocean like the Apollo type rockets or...

Jacob: Yeah, yeah, it's planned to, it's plan to have a parachute descent into the ocean. I think most of the reasoning behind that is because in order to develop the system to be able to land on a runway like the Space Shuttle, you have to completely change your design paradigm and you limit the possibilities of success in space. And it's so cheap to retrieve somebody out of the ocean and it's so safe, it's got, I mean, we've got a lot of historical...

Charlie: And atmospheric, the atmosphere entry is much more safe because you have a much longer, much larger entry window, I mean...

Jacob: Right.

Charlie: We saw what happens with incorrect angles with the Columbia disaster.

Jacob: Exactly. But on the other hand though, the SpaceShipOne one uses a different type of reentry as well, that, their re-entry is more, it's, I think they qualified as, like, a low velocity re-entry where they’re not, you know because they don't go into orbit I don't know that that technology would really be the same when you were trying to de-orbit from the International Space Station, but, they have articulating wings on the spacecraft.

1:00:00

So as they get lower and lower into the atmosphere and the atmospheric drag becomes more of an effect, the craft orients itself to be in line with, you know, it's trajectory. And then it locks the wings back in place. It's kind of like a badminton...

Charlie: Birdy.

Jacob: Birdy, yeah.

Charlie: That's cool. I bet that helps dissipate or remove the heat from the spacecraft too. It can be, it can be transferred from cone to those wings and then dissipate from the wings and be directed behind the craft. Maybe.

Jacob: Well I think what it does is it allows you to target where the heat is going to be so they don't have to control their angle of re-entry. The angle of reentry is just controlled via aerodynamics. So it makes sure that all of the, all the heat is on the place that it's supposed to be, I guess.

Charlie: Cool.

Ryan: Very cool. Well, ah, a minute ago, Charlie ignored my ah...

Charlie: Self-centered digression... yes.

Ryan: I was going to say my emotional heartache, but that works too, self-centered digression works as well. I was going to say the plaintive cries of the Paleo Posse are something we shouldn't ignore Charlie. Regardless of how cold and callous you were feeling tonight. In your purple pants.

Charlie: Rrrwwwwaaaarrr.

Ryan: Arrrrgggghhh. Smash. So, we should probably, I mean, are you guys done talking about this? Should we talk about the Paleo Posse?

Charlie: Yeah, let's talk about the Paleo Posse.

Jacob: Yeah, sorry, I didn't have a good conclusion for that section other than just, wow, this is cool.

Charlie: Space is awesome. Rockets are awesome.

Ryan: And Charlie is a cold heartless man who doesn't care about my emotional pain.

Charlie: I just don't think it makes for good radio.

Ryan: That’s fair, that I will agree to. You don't think the Paleo Posse care about our actual, our actual lives outside of this sciency world that we inhabit?

Charlie: Some do, some probably will hit stop or pause or delete.

Ryan: Well, it's time for the Paleo POW regardless. Not irregardless, just regardless.

Charlie: Disirregardlessly.

Jacob: Correct.

Ryan: Unregardlessly fictitiousness.

Music

Ryan: So, now it's time for the Paleo Posse, this is a segment, not the Paleo Posse, this is the Paleo POW and it's the segment of the show where we reflect on the communications given to us by the Paleo Posse which is all of you. If you are listening to this now you are a member of the Paleo Posse whether you want to be or not. It's like, ah, it's like some sort of horrible disease you just catch and you didn't mean to. I don't wanna talk about that anymore because that’s a sensitive subject for me. So, let's start off with our new cohort, Jacob Stump. What do you have for us, Paleo POW us this week.

Jacob: I've got one coming off of iTunes by user EndrickSar. I don't know how to say it but he says “Science sort of is the best podcast all around. This is a FACT.” All capital letters. “All the guys are funny and intelligent, a hard combination to come by. Listening to this podcast it's like a night kicking back with your buddies drinking and BSing. You definitely learn and they do inspire you to go out and do your own learning. Thanks guys and keep up the good work.”

Ryan: Is it, is it just me or does the phrase “inspire you to go out and do your own learning” sound a lot like a euphemism for “often times they are wrong and you have to go find out for yourself what's actually going on”.

Jacob: No. I think...

Charlie: No.

Jacob: I think he is saying that you guys encourage people to be inquisitive.

Charlie: That’s how I heard it too.

Ryan: Okay, well not just you guys Jacob, us guys, because you’re on it now, you’re doing the show.

Jacob: Oh, okay, good.

Ryan: Good, yes, it is good, actually, you are doing a good job...

Jacob: I do, I do have a problem with this review though. He says, “It’s a fact.”

Ryan: Well, no, Jacob, Jacob, Jacob, let me ask you a question. How many stars did the review give us?

Jacob: Five stars.

Ryan: You have no problems.

Jacob: Okay, okay, okay.

Charlie: No, no, I want to hear you out. Is it fact versus hypothesis or fact versus theory?

Jacob: Right, yeah, I just wanted, I wanted to find a way to test this, this fact. We need to do a vote.

1:05:10

Ryan: Let’s get Brian Dunning back on the line, he’ll know. Charlie, I didn't tell you, I had some Laphroaig.

Charlie: Nice.

Ryan: I didn’t, I don't like scotch.

Charlie: It’s pretty, it's pretty...

Jacob: That’s pretty racist is what it is.

Charlie: Yeah, it is a little racist. Um, yeah, scotch is, it’s peaty, you know, so it has, has like, a little musky, dirty sock thing going for it...

Ryan: I realize I am just like a...

Charlie: ... smoky sometime.

Ryan: I’m like a bourbon, Tennessee whiskey, rye kind of guy and I don't really like scotch. Well, well Charlie, you may like drinking peaty, boggy messes, but what do you like, what do you like, ah, from the Paleo Posse, as they interact with you.

Charlie: Well, this one's great. It's not a review or anything, it comes from Paleo Pal regular Alan Saiz and he, he submitted an article that...

Ryan: Which we love, by the way...

Charlie: Yeah.

Ryan: Even if we don't talk about it on the show, that doesn't mean we're not keeping it in the holster for a later date. So don't...

Charlie: Yeah.

Ryan: ...so don't ever hesitate if we don't use it right away.

Charlie: This is actually a great article, or it's a very provocative article, that made a big splash in the Mars community. Pun always intended. And because I already talked about Mars so much this episode I didn't talk about this article, maybe will save it for a later show. But this was written by Brian Hynek at the University of Colorado. Oh, and his, I think it’s his post doc, his post doc is the lead author, it’s this Italian guy I forget his name, but I have met him before. I think it's like do you Gaetano Di Achille and it's an article about a vast ocean covering the surface of Mars, the northern low lands of Mars, 3.5 billion years ago. And this idea is not new, I mean, it's been around for 2 1/2 decades at least. But they were using evidence of valley networks and deltas and where they terminate the elevation contour line, so the height in which they terminate on Mars seems to be the same in many locations. And they counted 52 different river deltas that terminate all within 100 m topographically from each other across the entire topographic contour line surrounding the entire planet of Mars. So, the idea is because all these rivers and at the exact same height, they were ending in a wide open ocean.

Ryan: Dude, that's awesome.

Charlie: Yeah, it is awesome.

Ryan: That’s really cool, like, as a, as a basic geologist I can understand that and I can visualize what you were saying in my head. Like, I could look at a map in GIS and see, like, oh, these are all at basically the same elevation and there probably was a paleo body of water there and that's awesome.

Charlie: Yeah, the problem is, is that there are rivers and deltas that terminate below this level. They just found 52 that happened to terminate at this level. And so, the ocean could have been slowly draining and then you'll have deltas and rivers terminating lower down. Another problem is that the, the surface of Mars hasn't been static for the last 3.5 to 4 billion years. There's different isostatic loading with volcanoes delivering magma to the surface and this is going to change the isostatic balance and going to warp these shorelines if they do exist. And so it was, I mean, it's an awesome paper and it's very provocative but there's, there are several caveats that need to be addressed.

Ryan: Yeah Alan.

Charlie: It's the kind of, I mean, it’s, it’s Nature science okay? It’s, I mean, I love, I love Nature magazine, I hope to publish in it eventually, but, it's where you, it's science positivism where are you deliver an idea...

Ryan: The best possible outcome versus the reality of the science.

Charlie: Yeah and, I mean, we've learned from scientific philosophers like Popper and Kuhn in the 50’s that the only real way to advance science is through falsifying hypotheses.

Jacob: Right.

Charlie: And so this is not falsifying hypotheses. It's presenting hypothesis, and masking or ignoring or not discussing evidence that may be against said hypotheses. Regardless, it's a provocative idea, awesome article, thanks Alan.

Ryan: Thank you Alan and please, you know, keep researching the surface of Mars and when you figure out what was going on 3.5 billion years ago send in the next article. Thank you.

1:10:05

Charlie: Yeah, so, no slam dunk, we still don't know if there is, definitively, an ocean on Mars but this is one more, one more drop in the bucket that's probably leading to a yes answer.

Ryan: Well my Paleo POW also has to deal with something that amassed for a period of time and then unveiled, this is may be the most unorthodox Paleo POW I've ever done personally. So, right now I'm in Nashville, I'm looking for a place to live because I'm coming here for more school at the university, Vanderbilt University. So I'm staying at a hotel looking for, house hunting with my mother. Say hi mom.

Ryan’s mom: Hi.

Ryan: And, ah, the first day we were here, we are in this hotel, I open the blinds in the window and I see this ad for PBR and the ad looks very familiar. Like, there's some thing about this ad and I'm like “I don't think I've seen this ad before but this art style on the ad just looks really familiar.” And the reason it looks so familiar it's because the dude who created this ad for PBR is a member of the Paleo Posse.

Charlie: That’s fantastic.

Jacob: That’s awesome.

Ryan: Do you, Charlie do you remember when we had James Comey who posted the drawing of the mole rat that he did.

Charlie: Yeah.

Ryan: It’s his ad. Like, he made this ad for PBR, it's a part of his profile picture on Facebook and he posted a naked mole rat picture on our Science sort of page on Facebook for us to check out. And I could tell, just like looking at the line work and his profile photo, I'm like, this looks really familiar and I think this guy listens to the show. And I look it up on the Facebook page and it is, it's James Comey. I don't, I don't know how to pronounce your last name James, I'm sorry. It’s Comey, it’s Comey, it’s C-o-m-e-y. And the ad...

Charlie: That’s awesome. I am speechless. That's so cool.

Ryan: The ad looks fantastic.

Jacob: Yeah, that's really...

Ryan: Like, I'm going to post a photo of the ad in show notes and on Facebook. I'm going to take a picture from my window. It was raining when I first saw it so I couldn't get a good photo. But I'm going to take a better photo, it looks really cool, I want to go drink a PBR just looking at it. But he's a freaking Paleo Pal, Paleo Posse member, just out in the wild doing his thing, being awesome.

Jacob: It’s a worldwide movement.

Ryan: So thank you James, thanks for listening to the show, thank you for contributing you're naked mole rat picture, and thank you for making an awesome ad that got painted on the side of a building in Nashville.

Charlie: As always, we have show notes at www.sciencesortof.com. We have a blog paleocave.sciencesortof.com.

Ryan: And we are on Twitter but we have a list. Which, the list it's probably the easiest way to follow us. But, Charles Barnhart, Charlie has some bad news.

Charlie: I’m not up to 50 am I?

Ryan: You’re still at 31.

Charlie: Okay, cool, sweet.

Ryan: You just need to tweet dude. It's time.

Charlie: Is that what happens when you get a PhD, you have to join Twitter?

Ryan: I think you should, but, I can't force you to.

Jacob: You can, you can add PhD after your Twitter name if that makes it easier.

Charlie: I think it makes it worse. It makes it more annoying.

Ryan: We ass have, we all have biography pages up at Sciencesortof.com as Charlie just mentioned. We also have a twitter.com/sciencesortof account. If you go there, there is a button on the side that says, under the list, that says Paleo Pals and you can follow that list and that list includes me, Charlie, Patrick, Jacob, and Ben. We are all on the list of the Paleo Pals. And that's a great way to follow all of us in one fell swoop, it's super easy and then you get to see what we are all saying and often times it's just us. Oh, and Justin, the once and future Paleo Pal is also on there. It's off and just us bickering back-and-forth on Twitter about stuff, except for Charlie who has yet to tweet. But he's going to tweet, cause, I don't think you’re going to reach fifty Charlie, I don't think we can do it.

Charlie: Alright.

Ryan: Well, we’ll give it another week maybe, I don't know, but, as much faith as I have in the Paleo Posse to put up advertisements inside of buildings in Nashville, I just, it doesn't seem like we can get to 50 followers.

Charlie: Yeah, there's a, there's a mutual lack of motivation.

Ryan: So, thanks for listening. This show went longer than I thought it would. But Charlie I think we both need to give Jacob a round of applause for stepping up and doing a fantastic job on this weeks show, so... (clapping and whistling).

Jacob: Thanks. I hope I wasn't too boring.

Ryan: No, totally, dude this was your show.

Charlie: Yeah, you, I think you carried the show and congratulations and condolences on your new position.

Ryan: And thanks for...

1:15:00

Jacob: Condolences? Doesn't that mean, doesn't that mean something bad happened?

Charlie: It does. Did I say that out loud?

Ryan: There's a get well soon card in the mail Jacob. Well, thank you Jacob. Please, if you are not already already reading the blog at paleocave.sciencesortof.com, especially on Tuesdays as Jacob mentioned...

Jacob: Especially on Tuesdays.

Ryan: There’s a ton of great content Monday through Friday, there's something new every day. We haven't missed a day yet. Even Ben has been doing his weird little Canadian things. There’s, listen, if you were a fan of the letter u, go read Ben’s post every Thursday because there's a lot of extra “u”s in there in different words that I've never seen used in before. Like, favourite and colour. I don't know.

Charlie: He spells, yeah he spells with anour.

Jacob: Actually, that was me, that wasn’t Ben. I was imitating Ben.

Ryan: Science sort of. And the rest of the stuff for our show besides the Facebook page and all of that will be announced by Jamie in our little pre-recorded thing so just listen to that and once you listen to that there's always a fun little outtake after that. So you get, you get a little extra content if you manage to sit through Jamie explaining all of the other places you need to go to take care of our Internet needs. Ah, Jacob read an iTunes review, as always we love iTunes for views. We are at 94, we are six away from 100. I am more, more than willing to send out prizes so just, do you know, put in your iTunes review that you fully expect a prize and you'll get a prize and it's that simple. That's all for this week. It was episode 41, the theme for this week was “Jacob have I loved?”. Thanks again Jacob for being on. You can get a hold of us at paleopals@sciencesortof.com or Charlie@sciencesortof.com or Jacob@sciencesortof.com. I’m Ryan at Ryan@sciencesortof.com. And that's all for this, week will see you next time for a for a whole nother batch of Science...

Charlie: Sort of.

Jacob: Sort of.

Announcer: Thanks for listening to Science sort of. Our show notes are available at sciencesortof.com, which we'll have links to all the stories we talked about today. You can follow us on twitter@twitter.com/sciencesortof, you can get in touch with us at paleopals@sciencesortof.com or on our Facebook fan page. A great way you can support the show is by subscribing to our feed on iTunes and writing a review so other people have a better chance of finding the show. And if you have a friend you think might be interested, tell them to give us a try. That's all for this week. Thanks for listening, and see you next time on Science sort of.

Music

Ryan: I, can we, can we do a show where, the whole time, you are in the character of Charlie Hulk?

Charlie: Um, yeah, I'm sure there are ways to do that.

Ryan: Charlie PhD, SMASH! I don't know, maybe not. Maybe that's not funny. I think it's funny but I know you well enough to imagine you green and in purple pants.

Charlie: Only if they are shredded, only if they’re purple jean shorts.

Ryan: Well, they would be shredded because you'd be so large and green from the gamma radiation from your test sites.

Transcriptions provided by Denny Henke of Beardyguycreative.com