Episode #839
News Items
Who's That Noisy
- Answer to last week: Spoonbill Stork
Question #1: Time
- My name is Marco and i’m a long time fan. Cant even remember how long, maybe even from the start. Apologies if my grammar or spelling is wrong. I’m from the Netherlands (Yes where Cara liked our waffles) but i will do my best. Here we go: I was in a twitch chat and somebody made the comment ‘Time was invented by humans’. I know there are a lot of trolls on the internet but the discussion got heated. There were people claiming that the measurement of time completely abstract is, and others asked ‘are you talking about the progression of time or the measurement of appeared time’. While disregarding the comments like ‘time was invented by aliens’ i was still stuck with the original statement. Thanks to you guys I’m always interested in a healthy discussion. I would like to know how you guys would approach a discussion like that? By first needing a clear definition of time? Or was the statement itself not clear enough? I didn’t even engaged in the discussion because my brain almost exploded with all the questions and comments and now I’m stuck with the feeling that by staying silenced I’m agreeing with the statement. Which I’m clearly not Just curious and hope to hear from you. Keep up the great work! Regards, Marco van ‘t Hoog
Science or Fiction
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Item #1
Fiction
Earth is the only world (planet, dwarf planet, or moon) in our solar system with >10% nitrogen in its atmosphere.
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Item #2
Science
The human body is 3.3% nitrogen by mass.
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Item #3
Science
No plant can fix its own nitrogen, but a symbiotic relationship with nitrogen-fixing bacteria has evolved many times, and also been evolutionarily lost many times. https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05/plants-repeatedly-got-rid-of-their-ability-to-obtain-their-own-nitrogen/
Skeptical Quote of the Week.
‘Science is not a set of facts. It’s not an ideology. It’s just a system that humans created that is really, really good at uncovering truth.’ - Hank Green