StarTalk Radio - Season 6 Time Capsule (Part 2)

Episode Date: February 26, 2016

You asked the questions, you chose the episodes: Join us for your favorite Cosmic Queries of Season 6, answered by your own personal astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, guest host Bill Nye and co-hosts Chuck Nice and Leighann Lord. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. Welcome to StarTalk. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. I'm also the director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium, right here at the American Museum of Natural History. With this second and final part of our time capsule show, we bid farewell to Season 6, Count Em, with our favorite cosmic query moments. You guys submitted hundreds of questions to us over the course of the season, and we've enjoyed answering them in studio. Had a great time doing so. the season and we've enjoyed answering them in studio. Had a great time doing so. And now join me as we relive some of those episodes selected by you, our fans, as your favorites of season six.

First up, my good friend Bill Nye the Science Guy, who's also, by the way, CEO of the Planetary Society, co-founded by Carl Sagan 36 years ago, sits in as guest host for me and answers all questions you had just for him in our special Bill Nye edition of Cosmic Queries. Check it out. Do you think that one day technology will become so advanced that it will begin to hinder our own human evolution. Can we devolve because of technology? Well, this gets into a tribal question, and I'll put it to you this way.

Let's take, for example, a guy who was walking down the street when he was an engineer at Boeing and had appendicitis. Right. That could be me. Wait. I was going to say. Wow. Just at Boeing. Okay. And had appendicitis. Right. That could be me. Wait. I was going to say. Wow, just a second. Continue.

But because I live in a tribe that has built hospitals, it was routine. Guy took out my appendix. I'm still going. I could have babies and things. Right. But if I lived in a different tribe without that technology, probably have died or a different time that's right some people apparently survive appendicitis but generally it kills you yeah and so so because I'm in this tribe my genes are getting passed on where they might not

otherwise have been passed on right and so there's an example of technology enabling my genes to go into the future. Could it get to the point where you can't do anything at all? You can't survive at all without technology. That is to say, you'd be plugged into some giant matrix machine from the get go and you'd be there all the time. and you'd be there all the time. It's possible, but I think it's quite a ways off. But from a science fiction standpoint, it is a worthy thing to consider. And it's also something to consider when you think about our tribes, our social systems that we have here as humans. We all depend on each other, and that's why there's so many of us. In the bad old days, if you got the flu or whatever, you were just dead.

That was it. But now, all these things enable so many people to not die at nearly the rate they used to, which as you can – I hope anyone can agree is both good and bad. We have – one of my grandparents were around. We're young. There were about one of my grandparents were around, were young. There were about one and a half billion people in the world. Now there are about 7.2 going on nine. Yeah. And so that's going to put quite a burden on the Earth's resources. But it's our ability to understand nature and to create technology based on science that will improve the quality of life of people everywhere?

It's a great question. It is a good question. So let me tack on to Steph Burt's question and ask you with what you just said, is there a danger of us losing our humanity due to technology? What you just talked about was how our dependence upon one another has got us to a point where we can continue to evolve and grow and actually increase our population because we depend upon each other is it possible that technology will move us in the opposite direction of that yeah yeah, yeah, here's why.

I'll give you an example. Have you ever read The Stepford Wives? No, I can't say that I have. No, but I just want to tell you guys, they make a remake of it on movies every now and then. Yeah. But in the original, the pill is capital T, capital P. And this is an example of technology that enabled women to not have babies and take control of their family planning in a much more practical way than other things that have been suggested,

with something like don't look at boys, cross your legs with an aspirin between your knees. Like those are ineffective. Exactly. And so there's an example of technology that enables us to control human reproduction, which then could enable us, hypothetically, to raise the standard of living of women. living of women, which will, over the course of a century or two, lower the human population by natural means, fewer people being born than are dying, and that will provide more of the Earth's resources for more people. Whoa.

So there's an example. Will that technology allow us to lose our humanity? Yes. Or actually make us love each other all the more. So I don't think technology will make us lose our humanity. I think as long as there are humans involved, there will be human emotions. It's all about that bill. Wow.

These are all personal questions for you. Here's Kalen Manzer. If you and Neil were given the entire U.S. budget for one year, what would you do with it? Fix everything. No, what would you do with it? Fix everything. No, we would address climate change. We would raise the standard of living of women and girls through education. And we would improve transportation systems so that we would use less energy. The key to the future, Chuck, is not to do less, but to do more with less.

I'm voting for you guys. Okay, that's a ticket I'm voting for. Here's Ellie St. Sire says, What, in your opinion, was Leonard Nimoy's greatest tribute to science? What is your favorite Star Trek, the original series? Well, my favorite Star Trek, this isn't a hard question, is City on the Edge of Forever. I mean, many such journeys are possible. Anyway, the importance of Leonard Nimoy is hard to underestimate.

The guy gave us the Star Trek writ large, and he was a huge part of it, gave us this optimistic view of the future through magic? No, through what, Chuck? Science! Yes! He was a science officer, lead on. That's right. Tristan McClellan wants to know this.

Hey, since we've got more cosmos, why not more science guy? Your people need you, Bill. I'm working on it. Hey, I'm a host on StarTalk Radio. The longest journey starts with a single step. You're listening to StarTalk Radio, and you should do what I do when I listen to this show, Chuck. What's that? Turn it up loud! Next question. to StarTalk Radio, and you should do what I do when I listen to this show, Chuck. What's that?

Turn it up loud! Next question. We love every opportunity to geek out here on StarTalk, and co-host Chuck Nice and I took it, I think, to a whole other level when you asked us to take a realistic look at superpowers on one of your favorite Cosmic Query shows. Check it out. I'm going to start off with one that I like a lot from Mike Dotson. It comes to us from Earth and Facebook. Okay.

Because we agreed, if they don't say where they're from, you're going to say they're from Earth. They're from Earth. So, people, start telling me where you're from when you send these in, please. All right, here we go. So people, start telling me where you're from when you send these in, please. All right, here we go. If there was a superhero whose power was to see the whole spectrum of light, what do you think he or she would see, and what could we learn from him or her? So that, first of all, this person doesn't exist in superhero land, so that's what I think is cool about this.

But what if your power was to see all the spectrum of light at once? Such a person has already been created in the world of science fiction. It's Geordi on Star Trek. That is correct, sir, because he is absolutely blind, but he uses his visor to see all the different spectrums of light. Correct. He has full,

wide-spectrum vision of the world. And it was quite a discovery in astrophysics that there's more to the universe than just visible light detectable by your retina. I count it as one of the great demotions of human physiology. We learn that this cherished

sense that we have called sight is actually quite feeble relative to all the things that are seeable out there in this world. So we're not seeing anything. We ain't seeing jack. And in fact, you are familiar with the other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, whether or not you knew that that's what they were. So ultraviolet, x-rays, gamma rays, infrared, microwaves, radio waves, all of this, including visible light, are part of a continuum of electromagnetic energy. Wow. And so if you could see all of that, it would be a really visually noisy world.

Okay. Because if I'm looking at you now, you'd be glowing with infrared at your 98.6 degrees. Right. Look at your cell phone, it would be glowing with microwaves. Right. Oh, by the way, if you could see all spectrum, if you're driving the car, you'd be able to see the police radar gun. Great. From a mile away.

He's shooting at you from, right. You'd say, oh, let me slow down. I got you. Right. And even if he had a laser radar gun, you'd be able to see. Yeah, you'd be able to see no matter the frequency of light. Right. So you'd be immensely empowered to know what's going on in this world. Grieg, first of all.

What a name. I like the name. Grieg Lord. Grieg. Grieg. As in the composer. Yes. Grieg Lord.

Edvard Grieg. Yes. So Grieg wants to know this. When Superman farts, is the gas or the wind more lethal? Because he has super breath, you know what I mean, where he can freeze things. Oh, yeah. So, would his super farts be the same way? So, I think he eats regular food.

Right. Right. Right. And so, if he eats regular food, then the anaerobic digestion of that food that occurs in one's lower intestine would be creating the smelly gases that are associated with the effluences of the human orifices. So, well, because they're human.

But so would Superman have, would it be extra potent, one might ask? Right. I don't see why not. Because here's what's interesting. Here's something Superman would be cool if he could do this. You know his breath can freeze things. Yes. I've never seen that.

But I've never seen his breath turn things on fire. No, it hasn't. Whereas. His eyes do that. The methane, well, because he focuses a laser. Laser. The methane that comes out of butt effluences, methane is actually flammable. Yes, it is.

And that's the gas that is in the stove. If you have gas, typically in the city, you'll have methane coming out of your stove, right? That lights. Okay. So. If he could look at his own butt, he could light his own farts. Well, what I'm saying, exactly. So he can use his laser to light the fart and turn it into a flamethrower.

I'm just inventing. I mean, you asked me the question. Yes. I'm just inventing. I mean, you asked me. The question was. So that would just kind of look funny, right? He's got to birth him. He pulls down his drawers. Chuck. No, I'm just, if it's flammable, for him it would be more flammable, right?

Because whatever it is in human, it's super in him. Oh, God, no. Chuck, you're tearing up here. You're killing me, Chuck. But that image is crazy. But it's, right? His team does super things. Chuck is crying.

Chuck. Okay. You asked the question. I'm just saying, there's physics in everything. That's all I'm saying. Okay, okay. 2015 was both a difficult and rewarding year for space exploration. 2015 was both a difficult and rewarding year for space exploration.

And unfortunately, not all of the endeavors were rewarded with accomplished missions or even successful launches. Co-host Chuck Nice and science guest Bill Nye join me to discuss why we must continue to explore space. In Cosmic Queries, rocket science is hard. Check it out. This is from at FishMyMan. That's his name? That's his name. At FishMyMan from Twitter.

This is Cod. His name is Cod. His handle is at FishMyMan. How do we balance the burning desire of our genetic predisposition to explore with the need to ensure safe passage i think he's kind of that's a great question he's kind of talking also about maybe commercial space flight and let me let me add some punctuation this and i'm going straight to you on this bill you're an engineer and you will tell the launch people look you shouldn't do that because it should be a little safer than that. That could go wrong. Don't do that. At some point,

somebody's got to push the button and launch the damn thing. Oh yeah, you've got to shoot all the engineers to get on with production. At some time, you have to stop listening to the engineers and get on. I'm sorry, what? What is that threshold? Who decides it? Well, that's what we call management. Doggone it. So the managers have

to be literate enough to know what the acceptable level of risk is and act accordingly. But the naive mind would say no risk is acceptable. Oh, no, no. That's not a true fact. That's a false fact. That's a false fact?

No. You've been in automobiles. And there's a risk attached? Especially when I'm driving. I'm sure you have a sense that something could go wrong. And these guys, the people who fly in rockets, have a sense that something could go wrong. And I'm very sorry about the Virgin Galactic crash the other day, a surprising result, and one that they will straighten out. And that, I claim, is not just part of the process, but it's part of

the management process where you learn what is acceptable. And I think what was going on, changing the subject to the space shuttle in the previous question, a lot of people knew the risk was a lot higher than was advertised, and they pressed on anyway. At Virgin Galactic, it looks like perhaps the risk was underestimated. That it's actually more dangerous than people were saying. In other words, there wasn't deliberate ignoring of the facts. There was ignorance of the facts. Ignorance.

So we'll see what happens. Two different reasons. Yeah, why the feathering thing. It's a surprising result why that would cause trouble. And it could have to do, I'm shooting from the hip as an engineer, could have to do with the materials involved. So the brakes were put on too early,

the air brake system. Yeah, well, just too high, too many molecules in the atmosphere at that level. If you'd waited a little longer where you got up fewer molecules per cubic something, you might have been, I'm just working with the data we have. Stay tuned. There are people who are experts at figuring this out Wow okay alright Chuck that's good here we go this is from Carlos and Carlos is CDS on

Twitter wants to know this how easy is rocketry these days? Been tough recently. Do we pretty much have it figured out? Or are we just kind of playing around? Let me shape that question back to you, Bill. We've been boldly going where hundreds have gone before. I know. Into low Earth orbit. I would think that low Earth orbit should be zero risk at this point,

given how long we've been doing it and how many people have done it. So that if we're going to put lives at risk, it should be by doing something we've never done before. If I were to think of an acceptable risk, it'd be doing something that's never done before, not doing something hundreds have done before you. So we just saw, back in November, in October,

we saw two disasters. Two space, that was early November. We saw two disasters, people not even going into orbit. So here's what I'd say to you. You may be mixing, the modern verb is conflating, air traffic, airplane, airliner travel with rocket travel. A few hundred is not that many. Right. You think about how many airplanes people tried to build in the early 1900s

and how many crashed. How many failed. And from the films, it looks like 100% of them. Yeah, yeah. I saw the film. In other words, 100 or 1,000 isn't that big a sample size, really. And the other constraint when it comes to the Antares rocket, the Orville Sciences rocket, that was an old rocket being repurposed being

refurbished Welcome back to StarTalk. This special time capsule episode is a collection of your favorite Cosmic Query moments from all of Season 6. As you know, Cosmic Queries, they're not every show. Maybe once a month we throw one of those in there. They're fan favorites, and we will never stop doing them. And one of your favorite shows, according to your votes, boldly goes where no one has gone before. My co-host Leanne Lord and I, by the way, she's a notable Trekkie,

answer your questions about all things Star Trek. Okay. I have a question from, oh, I think it's Manu. Oh, Manu. I'm not sure. Patrice is the last name. And the question is, it seems to me that the most implausible thing in Star Trek, even harder to think of as a transportation or warp technology, is the fact that the Klingons have

become a space traveling civilization without having themselves destroyed before your stand on this, sir. Yes, I have, I take stands on things such as this. Well, okay.

So a few things first, there are, it's been suggested that if you are warlike let's say and you're always getting into fights and you're not peaceful and you are into land grabbing if you're territorial that your civilization is as we say in science self-limiting in that so you'll go out and you'll say, oh, there's a planet I want to conquer. So you go conquer it, and then it's your planet. And then your relatives, who also want to conquer planets, they conquer.

So you spread out. But then you reach a point where there are no more planets to conquer. Then you conquer each other. Right. And so the culture begins to implode on itself because that which got them off their base planet to begin with ends up having them kill each other to reacquire land that had been obtained by others among their own community. And so that would be a self-limiting future for what would be a warring, land-grabbing culture. Okay. Like modern humans.

Yeah, I don't know any species like that at all. So the culture of war is not inconsistent with the culture of technology. In fact, wars drive science. It's a pain to admit that, but it's true. The urge to survive creates extraordinary creative impulses in people to invent something that will make one person survive better than the other. And it's usually in the form of weaponry. Yeah, usually. Yeah, when the longbow was invented the longbow that the arrow

could pierce armor so it rendered armor completely obsolete that's why there's no armor right although the 300 whoo I'll take an army of that oh they mean the movie I saw that yeah a, a lot of buff guys. A lot of buff guys. Oh, is it warm in here? Okay. All right. But now, you know, but now I understand that war, you know, propels technology, but the Klingons, you know, to his question, wouldn't they have killed themselves before they even got off the planet?

I mean, they didn't, but shouldn't they have? Well, sure, but this is science fiction. I forget that. I act as if these are real people that I'm having over to dinner. I have a great question from Matt Rufo. Which ship is better? Is it the USS Enterprise or the ship of the imagination? I know, it's so unfair. I know. I's so unfair. I know.

I am so biased here. Of course you are. What are the odds? Well, I mean, if anyone who is listening doesn't know the ship of the imagination, it's what I got around in,

around the cosmos, in space and in time, during cosmos. And that's the spaceship of the of the Imagination version two, the original one Carl Sagan wrote around the universe back in 1980. So I would say you have to ask, is there anything the Enterprise can do that the Spaceship of the Imagination can't do? No, Spaceship of the Imag imagination does not have photon torpedoes or,

or phasers or anything like that because it doesn't need it. Wherever it arrives, there is peace and love. You know, I thought the answer for that would be really easy, but it's not. No, no,

it's, it's, I think, and, and because it emanates from my thoughts, the ship, there's a cool scene where I'm on there talking about the extinction of the dinosaurs. And I just walk to the side of the ship. The ship dissolves and I'm in the primordial forest because that's what I needed the ship to do for me. So if the ship emanates from my thoughts and my thoughts are eternally peaceful.

Fingers crossed. I don't need photon torpedoes. Wow. I don't need a transporter. As I'm remembering when Sagan introduced the concept, it seems a little bit more democratic and universal. Not everybody gets to be on the Enterprise, but anybody can be on the ship of the imagination. People have a tendency to get all riled up, especially those on the left, the political left, that is, whenever anyone drops the G word. And I'm talking about GMOs. Our fans had so many questions about genetically modified organisms that we had to make a cosmic query into two parts

on GMOs. Guest host Bill Nye sits in for me with comedian Chuck Nice to help inform you about this often misunderstood but definitely controversial topic. Check it out. This is from Inquiring Minds. Bill, you talk a lot about GMOs. You changed your mind. Is Monsanto paying you? No. In fact, we went out to dinner the other day. My editor, Corey.

Oh, I thought you meant you and Monsanto. And Rob Fraley. I was going to say, that may count, Bill. No, no. So there were four of us at dinner, two Monsantanians. And Rob Fraley shakes your hand. He says, hi, I'm Monsatan. Oh, that's funny.

He hears all that stuff. And no, each team bought its own dinner. Oh, okay. Okay. However, when I visited Monsanto, they offered me a sandwich and a cup of coffee, and I enjoyed both. But I flew myself there. I mean, in an airplane. Wait a minute.

Here's the real question. Did that sandwich have genetically modified vegetables on it? Sure, you can't avoid them. Absolutely. All right. So, by the way, I went to an anti-Monsanto rally here in New York City. All right. And I was really impressed by how thoughtless and short-sighted the people there were.

It was really something. I just didn't realize it. thoughtless and short-sighted the people there were. It was really something. I just didn't realize. They got to the point, now Chuck, I don't know your political leanings, but it got to the point where they wanted you to believe that the President of the United States is controlled by Monsanto.

Well, isn't he? Come on. I mean, please, he's a Kenyan Muslim, Yes. Socialist. Yes. He might as well be controlled by the United States Monsanto people too. And as people point out, Monsanto is in the top 500, Fortune 500 companies, but it's not in the top five. It's way down like at 200 or so.

So they're not even that big of a deal. I mean, they're big, but. Not that big. They're not as big as Apple or. Or Beyonce. Or yes Apple or... Or Beyonce. Or yes, or Beyonce. Okay. What kind of research has been done to show what effects GMOs do or do not have on humans?

Well, this is exactly the point. This is... Thank you. Corey, is that his name? That is Corey Garst from Google+. Yes, from out there. So what they, we, it has done is that is the one thing you can test is the effects of food. I mean, that's one straightforward thing you can test that's not that different from 20 years ago.

You feed the food to your good friends, the lab rats. Okay. Yeah, and the mice. And you say, what do you think? Right. Steve good friends, the lab rats. Okay. Yeah, and the mice. And you say, what do you think? Right. Steve, if that's his name. If that's the mouse's name, Steve. Henrietta.

As long as it's not Mickey, you're fine. I think Mickey's really hard to... That's a hard lab rat to have, Mickey. Well, to kill would be really hard. Well, for some. So the thing is, the genetically modified food has no effect on us. I mean, that is to say, there's no difference between it and organically raised food.

This is scientifically provable. It's certainly provable to my satisfaction. And that's like the most straightforward thing about it, is to see if it still is nutritious and see if it has any allergic effect. And it absolutely does not. In fact, in general, all of these foods are more nutritious. Well, now that is the first time I've ever heard that assertion made.

Well, just in general. I mean, you get more soybean per hectare per acre. Oh, I got you. You get more corn per acre per hectare. You get bigger kernels of corn. So from a voluminous standpoint. Well, per hectare. You get bigger kernels of corn. So from a voluminous standpoint. Well, not just that. If the bushel of corn weighs so many kilos or pounds,

how much of that is nutritious corn and how much of that is cob, unedible, inedible cob? Okay, that's a very good point. Yeah, yeah. So you get a lot more. You get a lot more kernel than cob. Yeah, and that's in that one example, the famous example. So then the other thing that's happened with genetically modified foods, and this may be in the future queries,

the other thing that's happened is it's led to the success of this technology of allowing you to put glyphosate on fields and then plant things like crazy, is people have raised enormous tracts of land in a single crop because it's easier. Gotcha. And this is so-called monoculture. And this has had two things. First of all, you lose diversity in your farming, which leads to a loss of diversity in the microbes that support plants and a loss of diversity in the rate at which different pollinatable flowers appear.

This is to say, if all the soybean plants come to go to flower at the same time, the bees have to work that whole deal. They can't go from this plant to that plant to this plant. You'll notice the cherry blossoms show up first. That's their trick. So the bees and everybody, they show up and do this. And they're like, hey, you know, we're doing cherry blossoms right now. Can we say do on this show?

Yeah. Do what they're doing. We're doing cherry blossoms. Come on. You know, birds do what bees do. That's right. Then the jonquils show up, then the daffodils, and there's a sequence that has come to be. By the way, clearly the whores of the plant world, the daffodils, but I'm just saying. It's just on your mind.

It's just on your mind. I just on your mind i mean nothing's anything wrong with that whatever you're into consenting adult it's all good the harvestable plants fine no so uh this has led to monoculture but uh i i go along with the idea i mean i no i claim that the success of uh genetic modification with respect to glyphosate herbicide does not necessarily mean you plant a monoculture and stress out bee colonies. Gotcha. You could, that's not the cause and effect. Zombies, ghosts, vampires. past Halloween, Bill Nye the Science Guy and comedian Chuck Nice sat down to dissect the science of these myths and legends in a Cosmic Queries show all about monsters. Check it out.

Since we're talking about zombies, Zach has a great little question I'd like. What is with the zombie thing anymore? But let's get Zach hit me with the question. Zach, this is a great question. I want to get to get your take on this man zach wants to know bill out of zombies vampires and ghosts which do you believe is the most plausible and why see i love this question because i know you don't believe in any of them well but vampires it's obviously vampires. Why? Because they're vampire bats and they're mosquitoes. They make their living sucking your blood. Now, vampire bats suck cow blood. Yeah, they lap up cow blood.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they're good at it. And so those three, if I got to pick those three, it's definitely vampires. Because they exist. Vampiric animals exist. Obviously. Look, you guys, you can't see him see him it's radio but he is into it right now because bill bill bill i know because you're you're making it too scientific of course they exist but we're talking about the plausibility of the undead versus the plausibility of um a

being who is possessed by an eternal eternal demon gives it a bloodlust in order to sustain itself. Wow, quite the authority. And then, of course, the plausibility of the imprint of a human being still resonating after that person ceases to exist in their earthly body. So of the three of those those which of those would make more sense i'll say again sucking somebody else's blood for nutrition is the most reasonable of those three because you watch people it's look it's sad right and i will be there myself but as people get older and lose many of us lose our faculties, it just doesn't seem like that young go-get-em spirit lives on in some ghostly entity.

It just seems like you wind down and you die, which sucks. I mean, first to admit, it sucks. Then that's the ghost thing. And then the zombie thing, well, if you ever met my old boss. No, but people taking drugs to act stupid, there's a lot of that. Unable to form sentences, there's a lot of that. I was about to say, now when you look at drug use, there's some zombies out there. That's what I'm saying.

There's some real zombies out there. But there are animals that make a living sucking other animals' blood. Right. Because it's full of all the nutrients you would ever need, animal-wise. Yes, and I got to say, I once had an iron poor diet and i you know i can't hear you lead on chuck next monster based cosmic query oh god this is so much fun i love it have you ever considered that zombie type virus so he's talking from a virulent standpoint might actually be beneficial to long space flights here's let me tell you something this is a pretty cool question

you get suspended animation from a zombie exactly or zombie drug so so so with that yeah there's something to be learned perhaps from the zombies i mean what do you think about that it's very reasonable that you could have an infection, something that would affect your genes, that would allow you to live a long time or allow you to doze off. But you'd want to undo it. You'd want an antidote. Okay. And he specifically used the word virus. Yes, he did.

He said a zombie virus. Antiviral drugs are trouble. They don't work as work in the same way that antibiotic drugs work. But I follow you. But you'd want to be able to undo it and you'd want to count on your crewmates to undo it for you.

Or maybe you understand it so well that this virus infects you and you go to sleep at launch. Right. And then your body takes years to overcome the virus and then you wake up ready to play. So it's kind of like a... Could be.

What do they call that? An induced coma. Yes. A viral induced coma. A space travel virus coma thing. Welcome back to StarTalk. Today, we're reaching back into Season 6, The Archives, to listen to some of your favorite memories from our Cosmic Queries episodes. In this next show, co-host Chuck Nice and I were joined in studio by biological anthropologist Dr. Helen Fisher to answer all of your questions about the science and love of sex. about the science and love of sex. Dr. Fisher is a fellow at the famous Kinsey Institute,

and she's the chief scientific advisor at none other than Match.com. So if your last Valentine's Day didn't quite go as planned, you just might want to take a listen. Check it out. Why does love hurt? Oh, boy. Boom. That's all he he asked but i gotta say that's that's pretty prolific what he just said he just asked it really does so we've put um a lot of people into a a scanner who'd just been dumped and the brain regions that become active when you've been

been dumped is three brain regions linked with intense craving a brain region linked with physical pain physical pain uh physical pain a brain region and with physical pain. Physical pain. Physical pain, a brain region, and actually, aspirin helps when you're rejected in love. There's an academic article on that. Wow. And also anxiety that goes along with the physical pain, and you're also, brain regions linked with trying to figure out what went wrong, the cost, the benefits,

what happened here, and I think, so the brain is in overdrive. It is in a terrible state. This is why we have all these crimes of passion, you know? And why does it hurt? It hurts because you've lost, once I said, you know, life's greatest prize, a mating partner. You've lost the ability to pass your DNA on to eternity. I think nature overdid it, to be perfectly honest. We really suffer terribly. And there's basically two stages of getting rejected. The first is protest.

You just try to win the person back. You'll try to seduce. You'll try to threaten. You'll try to make them jealous and all that. And then you slip into this incredible depression. Unless you get them back. In which case you slip into indifference. Like, why did I ever want to?

Why do I keep doing this? You've heard that other people say this. Yes, exactly. Read about it, Chuck. But I think it hurts to think it's a real part of the brain center that is responsible. There's no question about it. Big parts of the brain become incredibly overactive. You know, you can't eat, you can't sleep, you can't stop crying.

So it's disruptive to your human physiology. Yes, and to your social relations. So lovesick is an actual sick. It's an actual sick. And you can die from being rejected. Wait, don't tell me you die from a broken heart. You die from heart attacks and strokes. So the stress. Okay, so your heart did break.

A great deal of anxiety. Stress actually manifests itself physically and you end up dying of a stroke or a heart attack. It drives up the dopamine system in the beginning. That gives you all that energy and focus and motivation and craving and then after a while you can't get them you finally give up and you slip into sort of a profound how about okay as a corollary to this there are people who are in love with people they've never met yes isn't

so now are they they're not practicing they're not the mating partner that they got to know intimately. But nonetheless, the sentiment is still there. It's a crush. It's largely teenagers. But it can be somebody at work you don't ever dare come close to, but you feel all that. It'll go away. They're grown.

I agree with the teenager thing. But isn't that more women? And when you get older, it's the male stalker of the women? No, men fall in love faster than women do. They fall in love more often than women do. When they meet somebody that they really like, they want to introduce them to friends and family sooner. Men want to move in sooner.

Men have more intimate conversations with their wives than women do with their husbands because women have their intimate conversations with their girlfriends. And men are two and a half times more likely to kill themselves when a relationship is over. So men are the more... Wow. So basically...

Just to be clear, I think we're more likely to commit suicide in all categories. Probably, yes. I think so. And homicide, you know. Right, right. Men are just completely messed up. I was going to say, it sounds to me like we're a bunch of love pussies. That's what it comes down to.

Oh my God, I can't live without you. Women are pretty bad, believe me. I've had them on my couch. So, okay, so we've established it's real. It's real. Pain is real. It's not imagined. You can't just say, get over it.

It's like breaking your leg and saying, get over it. Exactly. As a matter of fact, a week later, you can't remember any physical pain in your tooth, but a week later,

you're still really suffering from romantic rejection. Ann Larkins on facebook wants to know this if evolution favors individuals who seek out the strongest and the best suited mates to pass on their genes is there a biological advantage to falling in love over choosing the most advantageous partner gene wise no insult intended to my beloved. Okay. Okay. All right, Dan, there you go. So, yeah, that's a pretty clean question.

So if you just want to propagate survival, you pick the person, and then you do that, what's love got to do with it? Why do we fall in love with a guy who looks like the penguin from Batman, and he's not rich, and you're a supermodel? How does that even— That doesn't happen too often. Basically— Thank you for your honesty. and he's not rich and you're a supermodel. How does that even... That doesn't happen too often. Basically... Thank you for your honesty. Thank you. I mean, penguins go for penguins. I mean, we tend to fall in love with somebody

from the same socioeconomic background, same general level of intelligence, same general level of good looks, same religious and social values. We are drawn to people to some extent like ourselves. Yeah, but that's environmental, of course. Your religion that you're born into is you're born into it. Yes, exactly.

And so socioeconomics, those are the people you hang out with. But I do think people who are very novelty-seeking and risk-taking go for people like themselves, people who are very traditional go for people like themselves. Except, Helen, except some of the greatest stories ever told were people falling in love who were completely not the same anything. Right. From Romeo and Juliet to... To Hillary and Bill Clinton.

I mean, Hillary's high testosterone and Bill is, I think, high estrogen. Oh, look at that. Snap. Yeah. So I can't accept the blanket statement that people tend, I mean, yes, statistically perhaps, but the exceptions to that are so extraordinary. So sociologically. As to be a lesson to us all.

There's always exceptions. Okay. We are an animal that's flexible. No question about it. Okay. An environment always plays a role. Finally, your number one favorite Cosmic Query episode, according to your votes, colonizing Mars.

Let's see what co-host Chuck Nice and I do with your Martian-themed queries. When the New York Yankees play a road series against the Mars Cosmos, how big will the outfield have to be

to prevent everybody from hitting home runs? Also, will the outfield have to be to prevent everybody from hitting home runs? Also, will the pitcher throw faster in the atmosphere or slower? And will he or she, this guy's very liberal. Nice. He's got a female pitcher

in the major league interstellar baseball. Interplanetary. Interplanetary, not interstellar. Interplanetary baseball league. Will he or she be able to throw a curveball? Mm-hmm. A couple of things don't change and other things do. Okay.

The pitcher does not throw faster because that's just their musculoskeletal capacity to do so. All right. The ball will not slow down as much between release of the fingertip and crossing home plate because the air is thinner. And there's air resistance to the ball that slows it down. I don't know. It may be 10 miles an hour or whatever it is, 5 miles an hour.

It's not traveling for very long, but it will slow down a little bit. It does that in the majors. It will do that on Mars. But it will slow down by a little bit less. A little bit less bit but that's not the major thing going on here the martian atmosphere is very thin it's like one percent of our thickness and it's the air the movement of the ball through the air that enables it to curve right so curveballs would be very hard on mars because you don't have the air or the thickness of the air. The thickness of the air.

For those, what do they call it, stitches? Stitches, yes. Right? Is that what they call? Is that what they call the stitches on a ball? The stitches? They call them the stitches. The stitches?

Do they call the stitches on the ball the stitches? Yes. But, you know, that's what's causing that rotation. Well, it assists it. Even if it didn't have stitches, you still have some, you could still move it. Oh, really? Stitches help it.

But without the thickness of the air, you can't get that movement? You don't get as much movement. Oh, yeah, yeah. You don't get as much movement. Now, it is windy on Mars, so you could throw an awesome knuckleball. Nice. Because knuckleballs don't rotate, and so they're not stable moving through the air. Right. Rotating things are stabilized.

That's why footballs, rotating football is stable. Exactly. It's spinning. Spinning. Okay. So, a knuckleball does not spin. Therefore, it is susceptible to any possible puff of air that comes across its path. So, you could use a windy day knuckleball

to create the effect of a curveball. Well, yeah, but it'll curve in a way that you can't predict. And that's why catchers are always dropping knuckleballs. Because they don't know where the hell they're going. You know, the ball's jiggling and wiggling and it comes in. And so the number of pass balls, pass knuckleballs by a catcher is huge relative to other pitchers. Because it's a surprise ball. It's a surprise ball for everybody, even the pitcher.

A curveball, the catcher calls for the curveball. So he knows what he's doing. Yeah, they know where it's coming. So this is what I love about you, man. I mean this. I swear to God. See, this is what's great. We're talking about baseball on Mars, but yet you know all this crap about baseball.

How does this happen? No, you know what it is? It's not like, I mean, I'm a red-blooded American. I like me some baseball and hot dogs, okay? Okay. And apple pie. All right. So just start there.

Okay. So now the rest of it is just because I go to a baseball game and I'm curious about it. Like, I just ask questions of the game and of myself relevant to the game. Okay. So now the rest of it is just because I go to a baseball game and I'm curious about it. Like I just ask questions of the game and of myself relevant to the game. Got you. So, for example, I say to myself, suppose you're hit by a pitch on ball four. Right. You ought to be able to go to second base. Right?

Exactly. I'm just saying. Yeah, true. I'm just saying. Yeah, true. I'm just saying. No, that makes sense when you think about it. These are the kind of questions I asked about the game. That's very funny, yeah. So now...

We got to get that rule in baseball. That's awesome. Okay, so now how far, how big a stadium would you have to make? Martian gravity is about 40% of Earth's gravity. Okay. So if you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you weigh 40 pounds on Mars. Or 38 pounds on Mars. Gotcha.

So 200 pounds, you weigh 80 pounds, which is great because the muscles that you have for carrying a 200-pound body will now be operating in an 80-pound body. So you'd be able to jump higher. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe you'd make the infield a little bigger because you'd be leaping. You'd have to sort of adjust that.

There'd be some trial and error on this to get the ideal field size. Now, when you hit a home run, the ball is doing two things. It's going forward and it's going upwards. Right. Okay? And then it finishes going upwards, and then it starts coming downwards while it's still going forwards. Right.

Each of those have a different effect okay how far you how fast you can hit the thing going forward has nothing to do with being on mars okay that's just how how fast did you swing right that's your that's your swing strength it's your swing strength now the mars the ball going up okay the same force will have the ball go higher than on Earth, which means it will travel farther simply because it'll go higher. Right. All right. And so you got to do the math.

I haven't done the math on that. Well, yeah. If I were to guess, you know, make it 40% bigger. I mean, just as a first cut. As a general rule. Just a first cut. Just a first cut. And probably if I do the math, there are some adjustments in there.

Right. And probably if I do the math, there are some adjustments in there. So a 400 dead center field, a 40% greater than that would be 160 more feet. And is that right? Yeah, 160 more feet. So it would be 560 feet dead center. Right. Just to recreate the same likelihood of a home run. Now, that means outfield is huge. Right.

Which means you've got to have some fast outfielders. That is true. You might have to add two more outfielders to it. Because it fans out from home plate, right? So if it's 560 dead center, you're going to be missing a lot of balls. It would be like Little League. You add a fourth outfielder. You might need two more outfielders.

Dude, that's amazing. And a shoestring catch would be awesome because you would jump and you just keep going. You just keep going. Exactly. Just out of the stadium, into the locker room. What a catch, and he's in the showers. That's fantastic, man. Hey, Steven, what a fascinating question.

There you go. That was great. You've been listening to StarTalk Radio. Join me next time to help kick off a brand new season with more science, more comedy, and more pop culture. Because that's how we roll. That's all for now. And as always, Neil deGrasse Tyson here bidding you to keep looking up.