Science Friday - Pythagoras Was Wrong About Music | Biochar's Potential For Carbon Capture

Episode Date: March 1, 2024

The Greek philosopher Pythagoras had specific ideas about the mathematical ratios behind music. It turns out that he was wrong. Also, the charcoal-like substance known as biochar packs carbon into a stable form, making it less likely to escape into the atmosphere.Pythagoras Was Wrong About MusicThe ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras proposed a mathematical argument for what music sounds best to the ear: According to legend, he said listeners preferred music with chords adhering to perfect mathematical ratios, like 3:2. This concept has persisted in modern Western music, specifically for building harmonies.But new research out of the University of Cambridge disputes this idea. A set of behavioral experiments with more than 4,000 participants in the US and South Korea found that listeners actually prefer chords with a slightly imperfect mathematical ratio, particularly when played with non-Western instruments.Tim Revell, deputy US editor of New Scientist joins Ira to talk through this story, as well as other big science stories of the week, including a big change to YouTube’s algorithm, a new battery breakthrough for electric cars, and the Smokehouse Creek Fire in Texas.Farmers And Environmentalists Alike Are Excited About BiocharIn a former biomass plant in Greenville, wood chips are flowing from hoppers into long tubes about three feet in diameter.Pat Jones is the president of Clean Maine Carbon, which burns wood in high-temperature, low-oxygen conditions known as pyrolysis. “It starts out as wood” he said. “And as you can see when we come over here what comes out the other end is biochar.”In the quest for climate solutions, Jones is among the Maine entrepreneurs banking on this charcoal-like substance. They say it can bind up carbon for decades, and improve agricultural soils at the same time.The end product has high carbon density, and is very stable, so less of the carbon will be released into the atmosphere than if it were left to decompose. So while Jones is making biochar, his business plan is focused on selling carbon credits to corporations.Read more at sciencefriday.com.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

What if a climate change solution is as easy as burning up your old yard scraps? It starts out as wood, and as you can see, when we come over here, you can see what comes out the other end is biochar, which is very high carbon, very porous. It's Friday, March 1st, and just like every day, today is Science Friday. I'm sci-fri producer Kathleen Davis. Biochar has been used by indigenous communities for centuries as a source. soil additive that can help crops grow. But it's gotten attention recently for its carbon-holding properties. We'll talk about that story in just a few minutes. But first, Ira talks to science journalist Tim Revel about the biggest science stories of the week, including the wildfires

in Texas and a weird new plant discovered in Japan. Back in ancient Greece, the philosopher Pythagoras proposed a mathematical argument for what music sounds best to the ear. According to legend, Pythagoras had listeners preferred music played in certain perfect mathematical ratios. This concept has persisted in modern Western music, specifically for building harmonies. But it turns out that Pythagoras was wrong. Joining me to break this down on other science stories of the week is Tim Revel, executive editor for new scientist and host of the new Scientist Weekly podcast. He comes to us from New York City. Welcome back, Tim. Hi,

thanks for having me. Well, before we go disputing what Pythagoras said, explain to me what he meant by saying music sounds best when notes are in certain mathematical ratios. Yeah, so there's this story about Pythagoras that apparently he was walking along the street in ancient Greece and he heard blacksmiths hammering on metal and noticed that certain combinations of the ringing metal sounded more pleasant than others. This led him to the idea that there are certain frequencies that sound best to the human ear combined together when they are in simple mathematical ratios. So, for example, when those frequencies are in a ratio of three to two, that's known as a perfect fifth,

and when they're in the ratio of four to three, that's known as a perfect fourth. Now, this idea has really become canon for Western musical theory, and so it shapes how instruments are tuned and which chords musicians play. Studies have shown that that is wrong is what you're saying. Yeah. So those notes, they do sound good together. But what is certainly not true is that there is some universal mathematical rule that says this is the only music that sounds good together.

In fact, we're much more sophisticated than that. So a team at the University of Cambridge, they look to really study this. And they surveyed over 4,000 people in the UK and South Korea, testing them on their perceptions of music. And to do this, they played them different chords in different rates. and ask them what they thought sounded best. And if Pythagoras was right, well, it should have been these very simple mathematical ratios that rose to the top. But actually, listeners seem to have a very slight preference for chords in imperfect ratios.

But, you know, there's so many different kinds of music, the tastes around the world, isn't there? Yeah, so that's why this, I think that's why this shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, because non-Western music has long been much more open to chords using less mathematically simple ratios. and they have instruments that are tuned in such a way that that makes it more easy. So really what this says is that across the world, musical tastes are more sophisticated than Pythagoras would have us believe. Let's move on to our next story. And this one is about one of my favorite topics, those batteries, especially for electric cars. What's new here?

Yes, as I'm sure you know, this is one of your favorite topics, electric car batteries. One of the ways in which they are lacking a little is that when the temperature is very, cold. They tend to lose charge very quickly. And this actually happened to a colleague of mine recently on a skiing trip in Colorado, where driving an electric car, it ran out of charge a little quicker than she was expected and left her stranded. So what's happened now is that a team at Jiang University in China has made a breakthrough that could help prevent this kind of problem in the future. They've identified a new electrolyte, which is a particularly important part of the battery in which charge particles flow back and forth. That's a single.

seems to perform and hold up much better at really cold temperatures. Hmm. So how does this work? I mean, how much better is it? They've done initial experiments with it and also a whole bunch of simulations. And in some tests at minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit, so extremely cold, the battery performed 10,000 times better than a standard battery electrolyte. Wow.

So really amazing. That's obviously way colder than most cars will ever experience, but it really shows the potential of the electrolyte. Yeah, if you're driving into South Pole, this is the battery. Yeah, this is the one you want. Yeah, but it's good, interesting research, though, we can always learn more about batteries. Let's move to some big environmental news out of Texas, and I'm talking about this incredible smokehouse creek fire that has become the largest wildfire in Texas history. Tell us about this. Yeah, the fire has burned over a million acres in Texas and 25,000 in Oklahoma, and it's the second largest wildfire in U.S. history and the largest in Texas's history. And local firefighting

groups are saying that it's only 3% contained at the moment. And homes have been burned down, lampposts melted, power lines disrupted, and two people have died as well. And is it near any of the large cities in Texas? Yeah, it's just north of the city of Amarillo and it's in the Texas panhandle part of the state. And it's not under control at all, is it? No, it's not under control. And Today, the conditions are meant to be a little bit colder, so slightly better for containing the fire. But in Texas, they've been experiencing high heat, high wind, and that is really contributing to the fire. And those conditions are expected to return tomorrow. So the next 24 hours are particularly important.

Sounds like another piece of evidence for climate change in hot, dry places. Yeah, all those high temperatures, high winds, they're all things that climate change is contributing to and will only occur more frequently. Yeah. Okay. Up next is a tech story about YouTube. In the past, we all know that the platform used to send people down extreme political rabbit holes. But is it true? The algorithm has changed now?

Yeah, this is a rare good news story about our algorithmic overlords. Wow. As you say, YouTube has long had this problem where the video recommend seem to very quickly push people towards extreme political content. But in 2019, it made some changes to its algorithm to try to prevent this. And what's happened now is that an independent group of researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology has been investigating whether this actually worked. And so to do this, they compared the paths from video to video of a typical user when they've got complete control compared to the path recommended by YouTube's algorithm. And what they found is that YouTube is now actually much less likely to nudge you towards radicalized content than if you just have free reign yourself to find things to watch. You know, there's got to be a monetary reason for this because, you know, Google it owns YouTube is huge moneymaker.

I imagine they went through this and said, hey, maybe if we change the algorithms, we might help people a little more. They might like us. We might get more people. Yeah, that could definitely be it. It's also when these platforms become radicalizing places, obviously lawmakers look at them a little more closely, so maybe that's part of it too. I think you got that. So this poses the question, how responsible are tech platforms for serving up content that could radicalize users, right?

That's a big question. And one of the things YouTube has said in this is that there's obviously two parts to this. There's content that is radical by someone's view, but then there's content that YouTube actually says shouldn't be allowed on its platform at all. And one of the things the company says is that according to its own data, it's now only less than 0.1% of watches that are actually people viewing content that violates YouTube's own policies. So they're doing a better job of weeding out the videos it says shouldn't be allowed. All right. Let's shift gears a bit

and revisit the saga of the Odysseus Moonlander. Now, it was literally a week ago. We talked about the launch. We were going on the air. We talked about a successful landing. But now it appears under analysis, it wasn't as successful as we all. thought, right? That's correct, yeah. So Adesius, some people have nicknamed it ODI. It landed on the moon, making it the first American spacecraft to land on the moon in over 50 years, but it didn't quite go to plan. ODI is on the lunar surface, but on its side. So its antenna was supposed to be pointing directly towards Earth to transmit data, but it's not, which means that getting data back from it has been slower than expected. And its solar panels have been working. That's one good part of

but now a week later it's actually lunar night on the moon. So it's experiencing very dark and cold conditions and that was always expected. But it's not actually designed to survive those. So at the end of lunar night in two weeks time, we may hear from Odie, but this may be the last we hear from it. Wait, wait a minute. So it landed a week ago knowing that it's going to be colder than it's made to operate. And we knew that going in.

Yeah, we knew that going in. The main objective here was really, could it land softly on the moon and send back some data? And I think you can say it mostly did that. Obviously, it wasn't perfect, but it mostly did that. Well, we'll soon be penning an ode to Odie excuse for that. Well, you know, we love speaking of weird stuff here on sci-fri, and this next story I know is no exception. It's wild.

A new genus of plant has been discovered in Japan, and it's a very strange one. describe it, please. Yeah, I mean, it's almost indescribable this thing. It kind of looks more like a squid or an alien than a plant. Really? Yeah, part of the reason it looks so weird is that it spends the vast majority of its time underground. It only pops up once a year for about a week. And it feeds on fungus. So it doesn't need chlorophyll, that green pigment that many plants have. And so that means it's pigmentless and it has this very strange pale color and sort of looks a bit like a star. And it It was found on the island of Kyushu in June 2022, that's in Japan, by an amateur botanist. But it's now been confirmed as a completely new genus for the first time.

Wow. If it's just been discovered, I can't imagine there are many around. I mean, right? I mean, how many do we think there might be? Yes. So far, they've found five of them. And they reckon that perhaps the entire population might just be 50 plants. 50 plants could live by themselves and still reproduce and keep going. Wow.

Yeah, it's pretty amazing. That is amazing. Okay, speaking of amazing, we have a bonus question time. Our last story is about genes and more environmentally friendly ways to dye them. I mean, is the jeans dying industry not quite a perfect fit? Yeah, that's correct. There are four billion pairs of jeans manufactured every year. So it's a huge industry. and the dying process itself is actually not very environmentally friendly at all.

It's blue denim in particular is dyed using indigo, along with quite a few harmful chemicals that are part of the process. And that leads to toxic fumes and pollution in wastewater. What's happened now is that a team from the Technical University of Denmark has come up with a new process for dyeing genes that uses a natural precursor to indigo called Indiccan. And they estimate that the environmental impact of this new process is 92% less than the usual. one. Wow. So what other chance will be seeing this anytime soon? Well, with all of these things, there's a huge industry already using this other process. So there's some time to, there'll be some time to convert it into something that could be manufacturers on a much bigger scale. But one really interesting part of it is rather than the genes actually being died initially by indecan,

they, once the indecan has been applied, the color changes afterwards. So you could imagine a future where you buy a pair of jeans that are not yet blue, but once they've been out in the sun, they turn the blue color that they will eventually stay. Wow, that is cool. Tim, you always bring us good stuff. Thanks for taking time to be with us today. Thanks very much for having me. Tim Revel, executive editor for New Scientist

and host of the New Scientist Weekly Podcast. He comes to us from New York. On this program, we are always on the lookout for climate change solutions, and we found one way up in Maine, where some entrepreneurs are banking on biochar. This is a charcoal-like substance. It's been used for centuries to enhance soil, and recently it's gained appreciation for its carbon

capturing properties. Joining me to talk about biochar is Murray Carpenter, science journalist based in Belfast, Maine. He reported this story from Maine Public Radio. Welcome back to Science Friday, Murray. Thanks, I'm glad to be here. All right, so tell me how you make biochar. What is it? Well, basically, you know, I visited this plant where they're making biochar up in May's

Northwoods in Greenville near Moose. Head Lake. And what they do is they take wood chips like low value wood products that might be left over from lumber production or the tops and limbs from pulp wood production. And it goes into kind of a hopper and then it goes into an oven and it's burned at very high temperatures, like up to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit and low oxygen conditions. This is called pyrolysis. And so the wood chips go in at one end. And Pat Joan, president of clean main carbon, he described it to me this way. It starts out as wood, and as you can see, when we come over here, you can see what comes out the other end is biochar, which is very high carbon, very porous, very good for

agriculture, and so we turn nice white wood chips into black carbon. And then what do you do with it? Well, that's the interesting thing is biochar seems to have some pretty good agricultural properties. You know, it's inert and it's stable. I mean, scientists call it recalcitrant. So it basically it wants to stay in its carbon form for a long time. But increasingly, people in Maine are looking at it as an agricultural amendment. So it stores the CO2 that was in the logs of the wood chips. And so a lot of it's not released back into the atmosphere. Yeah, you're basically pulling this carbon out of the carbon cycle for some period. It may be decades, it may be centuries. But, you're pulling it out of the carbon cycle for a long time. It's not immediately going up into CO2,

or at least less of it is. Of course, some, some is being, there's some CO2 generated in burning and some in transportation. Yeah, increasingly, people are hoping it'll be used as an agricultural amendment. And I talked to Jonathan Foley. He's the director of Project Drawdown, and, you know, they're looking at sort of science-based climate solutions. And he basically thought that biochar can have, it's not a silver bullet for, as a climate solution, but it's sort of of a piece of silver buckshot. And we can put that in farm fields. We can bury it in old mines.

We can bury it in the ground. And it should last for hundreds, if not thousands of years under the right circumstances. So it's a pretty clever kind of hybrid between nature and some engineering. That might be a pretty good little piece of silver buckshot. That's really cool. As I said, biochar has been around for a long time. Just not necessarily known as biochar. I mean, it's long been used in indigenous communities to fertilize the ground for planting.

right? What are the benefits for the soil? Yeah, the benefits are that it, you know, although it's inert, it retains water and it retains nutrients. So here in Maine, they're looking at it for particularly in three different areas in the blueberry barons down east and in potato fields up north and also as possible remediation for some pollutants. And so in the blueberry barons, we're increasingly seen, these are sandy soils, and we're increasingly seeing sort of flashy heavy rains when they come and then long droughty periods in between. If you have something that has better water retention, it can improve those agricultural soils. And so the other very intriguing area is the idea of remediating problems from pollutants such as PFS.

It appears that biochar may bind up pollutants in the soil and make it harder for plants, to take up those pollutants into crops. So there are a number of intriguing areas of research, but basically it's really around this idea that it retains moisture and it retains nutrients. Yeah. Well, we know how important blueberries are in Maine, right? So it's an important, it could be an important,

useful item for them. But let's look at the grand scheme of things. How much of a dent could biochar put on our carbon-capturing goals? Well, I think it's never going to be a huge, a huge den. Let's say that. We know it can. I mean, it's definitely locking up sequestering some carbon. It's hard to say how much. The place I visited in Greenville is producing about 1,200 tons a year. Another plant that's coming online soon hopes to produce about the same amount. It's a small climate solution. It's definitely sequestering some carbon. Right. And it definitely has some agricultural benefits. So people are pretty excited. about this. And they should be because every little bit helps in this climate crisis we're in, right,

Murray? Every little bit helps. And this is just one more little bit for sure. Thank you, Murray. Thank you, Ira. Murray, conference, science journalist based in Belfast, Maine. He reported this story from Maine Public Radio. And that's all the time that we have for today. A lot of folks helped make the show happen, including Rasha Aireti, D. Peter Smith, Sandy Roberts, Shoshana Bucksbaum. And many more. On Monday, we'll talk about what's going on with the measles outbreak in Florida. But for now, I'm SciFri producer Kathleen Davis.

Have a great weekend.