0:00

This is a Triple J Podcast. Hello,

0:02

welcome to Science with Dr. Karl. You may

0:04

have seen in the news this week a

0:06

lot of news about satellites. We find out

0:09

how they manage to stay in orbit on

0:11

this episode, plus answer all the questions that

0:13

keep you up at night, like, why can't

0:15

we tickle ourselves? What makes a sticky surface

0:18

sticky? Is it bad for your health if

0:20

you don't orgasm for a while? I'm

0:23

Ash McGregor, let's get into it. Keen

0:27

to get into your questions, we already have Matt from

0:29

Adelaide on the line. Dr. Matt, you

0:32

want to know about some off milk? Yeah,

0:34

I always thought, I think I've always wondered, I thought I'd

0:36

ask you, if you got some off

0:38

milk, could you boil it and kill all the

0:40

bacteria and make it safe to drink? Probably

0:43

not, I first got interested in this when somebody

0:45

was trying to prove that microwaves are bad for

0:47

your health, you know, like the microwave ovens. I

0:50

remember how they were on about, how 5G was going to

0:52

kill us and that's the A, K, right, okay. And so

0:54

what they did was they got some milk and they put

0:56

it in a microwave and they boiled it for 15 minutes

0:59

and they analysed it and they found that there were poisonous chemicals

1:01

in it. Oh really, from the microwave?

1:04

From boiling it for 15 minutes. Okay. So

1:07

if you get milk on a stove and boil it for 15

1:09

minutes, you get the same chemicals. It doesn't matter how you heat

1:11

up, if you get

1:13

milk and you heat it for 15 minutes, you're making bad

1:15

chemicals. So you're not meant to boil milk? A

1:18

little bit and it's a gentle thing. And I'm talking

1:20

about just letting it boil over and over and it

1:22

starts to, I'm talking about letting it

1:24

boil to the stage that where it smells bad. Yeah.

1:26

That sort of thing. If I had off milk

1:28

and then boiled it, it

1:30

wouldn't reverse it being off. It would

1:33

still be bad. There might be chemicals

1:35

in there. So on one hand, to answer your question,

1:38

would you kill the bacteria? In

1:40

most cases, yes. Although the bacteria

1:43

from which they get Botox

1:46

from, that'll survive 125 degrees. So,

1:50

but that's a separate thing. But if the

1:52

bacteria along the way have made bad chemicals

1:55

and if those bad chemicals are resistant, so

1:57

high temperatures, then boiling it

1:59

wouldn't. could better you'd still get cook

2:01

if there are the chemicals there and

2:04

I don't know if they are and I wouldn't do the

2:06

experiment it but who came with that question by the way.

2:08

Matt, Matt, Matt, how did you come up with that? Something

2:11

I've always wondered. You have a very inquiring

2:13

mind Dr. Matt. We love it Matt. Just

2:16

don't go boiling milk I think is the

2:18

answer there. We have

2:20

Randall. Randall satellites have

2:22

been in the news a

2:24

lot you've got a question for us around

2:26

satellites. Dr. Randall. Yeah look

2:28

I've got this right-winger dude at work

2:30

I can't really escape him like I

2:33

don't know why but the super

2:35

right-wingers always seem to be conspiracy

2:38

theorists. What's his conspiracy theory

2:40

at the moment? He does not believe in

2:42

satellites at all. Ah okay so he does

2:44

not believe in satellites

2:47

what he thinks that they just held

2:49

up there by balloons or something? No

2:51

he thinks they're drones and he just

2:53

comes up with all this stuff and

2:55

I can't escape him because I work

2:58

with him. Yeah what's the question though?

3:00

What's your question Dr. Randall? Yeah well

3:03

what actually keeps them like

3:05

in orbit? Like do they

3:07

have little boosters? Okay so

3:09

I stole this from Randall

3:12

Munro and I'm going to tell

3:14

you a very clever sentence and I'm going to explain it.

3:16

Okay. It's easy to

3:18

get into space. Now

3:21

think about the Virgin rocket

3:23

and the Amazon

3:25

one they're quite small. It's easy

3:27

to get into space comma but

3:29

it's hard to stay there and when you

3:31

look at the rockets that get you up into

3:33

orbit where they stay it's a lot harder. So

3:36

it's easy to go straight up and you

3:38

don't need it can be the size of a little 747

3:40

or a 320 or much smaller and

3:42

you go up to 100 kilometers if that's your only

3:44

goal you can go up there and then

3:47

you come down again but if

3:49

you want to stay there you don't want

3:51

to come down. So you want to be

3:54

at a height where on one

3:56

hand you're falling at the

3:58

speed that the Earth curves away. away from

4:00

you. Let me explain. At the

4:02

International Space Station at 400 kilometers

4:05

up, the gravity is

4:07

not zero. It's 90% of

4:09

what it is here on the ground. Alright. Yeah

4:12

I mean think about a basketball and then think

4:14

about a little fly maybe

4:16

a centimeter, half

4:18

a centimeter off the basketball. It's really

4:20

close. Yeah. I thought it might be

4:22

like way off its way. No it's

4:24

really close. It's incredibly close. So the

4:28

gravity is 90% and

4:30

so every second the

4:33

International Space Station falls four and

4:35

a half meters towards the ground.

4:37

Now here's a trick. It's

4:39

going horizontally at very

4:42

high speed. At seven kilometers a

4:44

second and the earth

4:46

is curved. Okay, disclaimer

4:48

here, I have been brought off by

4:50

big globe to say that the earth

4:52

is curved because there's all

4:54

these people who say the earth is flat.

4:57

Okay. So the earth is curved and in

4:59

seven kilometers it curves by four and a

5:01

half meters. So each

5:03

second the astronauts fall four

5:05

and a half meters towards the

5:07

ground but they're traveling horizontally and the earth

5:09

falls away from them by four and a

5:11

half meters. So they're like equals out. Yeah

5:13

so they're always the same distance from the

5:15

earth. It's called free fall. Now

5:18

Randall that's a science behind it.

5:21

But trying to convince your friend is hard

5:23

because I was having lunch the other day

5:25

and somebody came up and said the earth

5:27

is flat and they were saying the wall

5:29

but what about the Antarctic wall and they

5:31

said that there's continuous

5:35

embargo or a blockade by

5:37

NASA under the oceans from

5:40

stopping people to get to Antarctica. They've got

5:42

submarines stopping people from getting to Antarctica. While

5:44

you're having lunch. And

5:46

on the surface and in the air and I

5:49

said but I've been to Antarctica seven times and

5:51

said you've been brainwashed and

5:53

hypnotized. You only think you've been to Antarctica.

5:55

I'm going to take a look at yourself.

5:58

Randall. But

6:01

why is this satellite falling

6:03

then? Gravity,

6:05

gravity is pulling it back towards the

6:07

Earth. Does that mean like

6:09

all of them are eventually going

6:11

to fall down? No, every second it

6:14

falls four and a half metres. OK,

6:17

you with me so far? Yeah, I'm

6:19

high with numbers. It

6:22

takes twice the height of a human, right? Every

6:24

second it falls three times the height of a human. But

6:27

in every second it goes seven kilometres

6:29

horizontally and the Earth curves away by

6:31

four and a half metres. Yeah,

6:34

it definitely goes. The Earth falls

6:36

away. So they're always falling. OK,

6:39

here's an example. I came up with a way

6:41

to try to invent anti-gravity. So what

6:43

you do is you stand on a chair, this is

6:46

a joke, you stand on a chair and

6:48

you jump off and try to miss the floor.

6:51

And if you miss the floor, you're levitating. I've

6:53

tried this many times, I've never felt it. But

6:55

one day, one day. Dr

6:58

Lewis is on the line. Lewis, what have

7:00

you got for us? So

7:02

my question is, are symbiotes

7:05

real? Yes. What

7:08

is a symbiotes? So

7:11

S-Y-M-B-I-O-T-E and

7:15

they have relationships that are

7:17

called symbiotic and they're normally

7:19

between different species and

7:21

there's different types. There's

7:23

a mutual symbiotic relationship

7:25

with the bees and

7:28

the plants. And so what the

7:30

bees get is something sweet.

7:32

They get nectar, a sugary thing, they

7:35

get fuel. And they flitter

7:37

from plant to plant and they

7:39

then do sex for the plants. So the

7:41

plants get sex. So the

7:43

sperm and all that other sort of stuff, that's

7:45

the wrong word, it's not sperm. So that's a

7:47

mutual relationship. And there's another

7:49

one which is called a commensal relationship

7:52

where they don't really benefit but they

7:54

sort of hang out and you might

7:56

have a barnacle hanging on the bottom

7:58

of a whale or something. know

8:00

when you see whales or sharks and

8:02

they've got all sucker fish, they

8:05

go with them. You know what

8:07

I mean? And normally they think that one

8:09

creature benefits and the other one doesn't but

8:11

with the sucker fish they actually eat the

8:14

food, they sometimes help clean the creatures around.

8:17

Hang on, I'm just going to stop right

8:19

there. Let's forget that one. And the third

8:21

one is a parasitic one where you have

8:23

a tapeworm and the tapeworm in you know

8:26

it benefits and you don't.

8:28

And long term having tapeworms in

8:31

your gut is bad but in

8:33

some cases it can help

8:36

with certain immune reactions. It might be

8:38

that some people have autoimmune reactions

8:40

because they don't have tapeworms. So you

8:42

can actually in America

8:44

buy tapeworms over the male system and

8:47

you'll take them and people claim that

8:49

it will cure everything from sunstroke to

8:51

syphilis and very close veins and the

8:54

lionish chakras and your Kundalini. And there

8:57

can be harm and there can be good and

8:59

you sort of got to juggle it carefully and

9:01

if you're not medically trained you can get down

9:04

a bad pathway. So Dr. Lewis, symbiosis

9:06

is definitely real. Do you have a follow up

9:08

comment or question on something I just said? Yes.

9:12

My other question is what

9:14

happens if the world stops

9:16

moving? Okay the world is spinning. Lots

9:18

of questions. Okay the world is a globe so

9:20

you two have also been bought off by Big

9:22

Globe and the world

9:25

bulges at the equator by

9:28

about 42 kilometres as

9:30

compared to the distance up down which

9:33

is about 12,700 kilometres and an extra

9:35

42 kilometres.

9:37

Now that has been built up over

9:40

about 4.5 billion years and that's mostly the

9:45

solid stuff but there's also water there. So

9:48

just assume that over a period of

9:50

say an hour or half an hour

9:52

the world stops spinning and if the

9:54

equator is doing 1600 kilometres an

9:57

hour you don't want to stop it straight away

9:59

because people go through it. flying off in all directions.

10:01

But slow down gradually over, say, half an hour,

10:04

the water would flow back from the equator.

10:07

And by that you mean it would... Because

10:09

it's pushed out there by a centrifugal force.

10:11

Oh, so we would even out. So the

10:13

water would drop. The water is pushed out

10:16

by eight kilometers. Right.

10:19

Right. And it would flow back over,

10:21

say, six months or a week or something. It

10:23

turns out that the deepest part

10:25

of the Earth on the equator is about five

10:27

and a quarter kilometers. So it'd end up with

10:29

a mountain range around the equator a couple

10:33

of kilometers high and two different ocean...

10:36

different sets of oceans to the north and

10:38

the south. So, Lewis, to follow

10:40

this up, go into your search

10:42

engine, type in ABC, Dr.

10:44

Carl, World, Stop

10:47

Spinning. And you'll find an article I've written

10:49

about it. And if it did stop spinning, you know,

10:51

one side would be in nighttime for... Oh,

10:53

yes. ...ages and one side would be like

10:55

burning in the sunlight, right? Yes. So

10:58

you might have life existing only in

11:00

a little twilight zone where it'd be

11:02

not too light and not too hot

11:04

and not too cold. Lewis,

11:07

great questions from you. Thank

11:09

you for that. Thank you, Dr. Lewis. Thank

11:11

you. Jan and Hobart. Dr. Jan. Dr.

11:13

Jan, what have we got? Hey, my

11:15

question is, I just want to know why

11:17

in my social media news feeds they're talking

11:20

about the ocean conveyor belts stopping next week

11:22

even. What does that even mean and why

11:24

would that happen? I'm not across this. So

11:27

Dr. Carl, can you explain to me what this is?

11:29

So the oceans

11:31

are most of the surface of the planet.

11:33

By itself, the Pacific Ocean is

11:36

bigger than all of the land put together.

11:39

The oceans make up 70% of the surface of the

11:41

planet. So somebody made a mistake and

11:43

they should have called it Planet Water instead of Planet Earth

11:45

or rock. Yeah, who did this? Okay, I'm going to write

11:47

a stern letter to the end of the letter. Now,

11:50

down at the South Pole, you've

11:52

got the Antarctic and you've got

11:54

the Southern Ocean joining the Indian

11:56

Ocean and the Pacific Ocean

11:58

and the Atlantic. Atlantic Ocean. At

12:00

the top you've got the Arctic

12:07

Sea and it's only joining the

12:09

Atlantic and the Pacific. Now there's

12:11

currents going around the earth so

12:13

to chase it up further Jan

12:15

go to Wikipedia and look up

12:17

thermo, T-H-E-R-M-O, haline, H-A-L-I-N-E current

12:20

and it's a current that goes

12:22

around the earth carrying chunks of

12:24

water the size of

12:27

continents every second. Wow. And

12:29

if you imagine it's sort of starting

12:31

off near the equator in the Atlantic

12:34

so it's getting hot from the Sun

12:36

it heads north it keeps Europe

12:39

and America warm on

12:41

the Atlantic thing goes up into the Arctic and

12:43

chucks the U-N comes down and what we're worried

12:45

about is something that's happened in the past where

12:49

if the ice melts you get

12:51

the fresh water coming into the

12:53

ocean and that fresh water pushes

12:55

the thermo haline current further towards

12:57

the equator so suddenly the warming

13:00

water does not kiss the

13:02

Atlantic coasts of America and Europe

13:05

and so suddenly they go cold. In a

13:08

warming world they go cold because they miss

13:10

that warm current. So there is a current

13:12

in the Arctic which joins the Pacific and

13:14

the Atlantic and we haven't

13:17

been measuring it a lot but it does seem

13:19

that it's wavering a bit. Is it going to

13:21

stop next week? No, no, no they're lying to

13:23

you about that but this is

13:25

caused by global warming which

13:28

the insurance companies recognized in

13:30

1973 and the fossil

13:32

fuel companies in 1982 and we can reverse

13:35

it with today's technology but it

13:38

could happen but almost so. You're saying that this has

13:40

happened in the past where the current has

13:42

stopped? Yes. So what happened then? Bad

13:45

things. Well not necessarily

13:47

bad things because there are many humans around

13:49

so over the last three million years we've

13:51

had these ice ages come and go and

13:54

they come typically for a hundred thousand

13:56

years where the ice is three

13:58

kilometers thick over monotone. Whoa!

14:02

Right? And the ocean level, which

14:04

is where the water comes from to make this ice,

14:06

is 100 metres lower. And

14:08

so then you've got about

14:10

20,000 years of non-ice age. So the ice ages

14:13

come and go and so it has changed dramatically

14:15

but we have not had 8 billion

14:17

people on the planet with about two thirds of them

14:19

within 50 kilometres of the coast. And

14:21

that's the thing that we are upsetting the economy

14:24

the way it is. So look, we

14:26

can fix it. The good news is we can fix

14:29

it. Read my book, Dr. Carr's Little Book of Climate

14:31

Change Science Week and go to what is

14:34

it called, drawdown.org. We

14:36

can fix it. Jan, great question from you.

14:39

I've learnt a lot from that one. That's

14:41

a brilliant answer. I shouldn't put it in my calendar

14:44

for next week. Good, yeah. Write that

14:46

one off. drawdown.org. Check them out.

14:48

That's right. Luke and Nui. Luke.

14:51

You got another question about the ecosystem

14:54

and the globe. I

14:56

do. Thank you, Dr. Carr. My question is,

14:58

are deserts important for the

15:00

global ecosystem like the rainforest is? Yes

15:03

and no. So

15:06

you've got the sun shining on the

15:09

earth and at the top of the atmosphere

15:11

is delivering about 1361 watts per square metre

15:14

and then that gets smeared out over a

15:19

larger surface area as you go towards

15:21

the poles. So it heats up the

15:23

equator a lot and then the air

15:25

rises full of moisture and as it

15:27

rises it loses that moisture

15:29

and then the air splits north and south.

15:32

So you've got the heavy rains at the equator and

15:34

then the air goes north and south and it falls

15:36

down to the ground at around 20

15:38

degrees from the equator. And

15:40

that's where the deserts are. It's

15:43

roughly 20 degrees from the equator north

15:45

and south and they

15:47

are part of the ecosystem and have

15:49

their own ecosystem which doesn't have the

15:51

same biomass per square metre

15:54

or per square kilometre and it doesn't

15:56

have the diversity of the rainforest but

15:58

they are nevertheless... in what

16:00

we've got now, they're important. And they

16:02

change during an ice age. So I

16:07

don't know if I've answered your question there. But you know

16:09

how people go like, oh, if

16:11

80% of the rainforests in the world disappeared, then

16:13

we would be doomed. If 80% of

16:16

the deserts in the world disappeared, we

16:19

would still be doomed, right? Not necessarily

16:22

because they don't produce a huge amount

16:24

of biodiversity, but they are part of

16:26

the ecosystem. But like

16:28

in the oceans, we get half of our

16:30

oxygen from the oceans. And that

16:32

was the worry with the ozone layer. So it

16:35

would harm the oc-o. It would change the ecosystem, but

16:37

it wouldn't be as bad as losing the rainforest, I

16:39

think. OK, Luke, does that answer your question?

16:41

Is that kind of helping a bit, Luke? Have you got to

16:43

follow up? It does. It was more like what you said

16:45

before. It was like, if we got rid of all the

16:47

deserts, would it actually matter, depending on your

16:50

own risk? I feel like rainforests more important,

16:52

but still it would make a change. There

16:54

would be definite changes, yeah. Thanks,

16:56

Dr. Luke. Dr. Lauren on

16:59

the Central Coast. What have

17:01

you got for us? Hello. Well,

17:03

look, a couple of weeks ago, my

17:06

seven-year-old daughter Adelina, who's a very

17:08

curious young girl, and seven-year-old, asked,

17:10

one of the questions she asked me was, Mommy,

17:14

why doesn't it tickle when I tickle myself,

17:16

but when someone else tickles me, it really

17:18

does tickle? And I said, well, I don't

17:20

know the answer to that, but I bet

17:22

Dr. Carl would. And she said, well, who's

17:24

Dr. Carl? And so since we've introduced her

17:26

to Dr. Carl, and I've finally been

17:28

able to call up and ask you the question.

17:32

When you try to tickle yourself,

17:34

you know

17:36

that you're tickling yourself immediately in zero

17:38

time, and it goes

17:40

via your cerebellum, which is involved

17:42

with coordination. So if you've ever

17:45

seen a drunk person walking, you'll

17:47

see they've got their legs apart,

17:49

and that's called a wide-based gait,

17:51

and that's a cerebellum. And a

17:53

cerebellum knows that you are

17:55

tickling yourself, and you don't

17:58

have that little time delay before appreciating it. If

18:00

you get a machine and you

18:02

put your fingers in it and then point

18:05

two of a second later, the fingers

18:07

move, you can tickle yourself. If

18:10

you put in a two

18:12

tenths of a second delay between you

18:14

moving your fingers and your flesh feeling

18:16

that, you can tickle yourself. And

18:19

this is a way for you to get fabulously wealthy. Introduce

18:22

a toy that will be sold over one Christmas which

18:24

has no other function than to tickle yourself. Release it

18:26

in large numbers around the world and next Christmas everybody

18:29

else will do it but if you can be further.

18:31

Who wouldn't want that? I would like to tickle myself.

18:33

If you could make it for say two dollars I'd

18:35

try it. Oh my God I

18:37

can tickle myself. Who doesn't love a

18:39

good tickle giggle? Absolutely. That's right Lauren.

18:42

Okay. So it's a time delay. So you've got to

18:44

add that point two of a second. Somebody's have done

18:46

the experiment and if you have that point two of

18:48

a second time delay, you can tickle yourself. Dr

18:53

Sam, this is a bit of a

18:55

head scratch of your one. Yeah

18:57

good day Drs. Sure I'm sorry. Yeah.

19:01

Look Drs, I just wanted to

19:03

know what curates a sticky surface

19:05

for example, silicon

19:08

and glue. What creates that

19:10

chemical reaction to get that

19:12

stick to the product? If

19:15

you ask the industrial chemists

19:17

about how superglue works, they

19:20

tell you that they don't really know.

19:23

So I've gone back to the words

19:25

of Richard Feynman

19:28

which are, is that everything is

19:30

made of atoms, comma, which

19:32

if they're too close together repel

19:35

each other and if

19:37

they're too far apart attract each other.

19:39

And it goes back to the electron

19:42

shell. Sean, did you

19:44

do atoms at school? Yeah

19:46

briefly. I wouldn't remember too much but

19:48

yes, I do understand the concept. Yeah

19:51

so you've got a central lumpy

19:53

bit which is positive and then lots of empty

19:55

space and you've got this sort of shell of

19:57

negative electrons. You've got that much. solar

20:00

system. Do you remember that bit Sean? Yeah

20:03

I do briefly. Okay so you've got one

20:05

atom and it's got all these

20:07

negative electrons around it and you got another

20:09

atom and it's got all these negative electrons

20:12

around it and you think well all they

20:14

should ever do is repel each other but

20:18

those electrons if you've got a bunch of them they're

20:21

not evenly distributed. Sometimes

20:24

if you look at a single atom sometimes there's more on

20:26

one side than the other so

20:28

it's kind of slightly positive

20:30

compared to the rest of it. They're both negative

20:32

but one's more negative than the other and

20:35

if you have two identical atoms and

20:37

you've got one bit with

20:40

more electrons and one bit with lesser electrons

20:42

it's sort of like a positive negative thing

20:44

and they attract each other and that's called

20:46

a van der Waals, V-A-N and the

20:48

new word D-E-R, new word W-A-L,

20:51

look it up in Wikipedia, a van

20:53

der Waals force. So that's what Richard

20:56

Feynman meant was that when they're too

20:58

close they repel each other so overwhelmingly

21:00

the negative electron clouds repel

21:02

each other but then they attract

21:04

each other because you have an

21:07

imbalance. They're not evenly negative all

21:09

the way around and this

21:11

is what the little

21:13

reptile lizard that makes a

21:15

noise that can run up

21:17

your wall and the

21:20

only lizard makes a noise and what they've got

21:22

is four legs and at the individual leg they've

21:24

got toes and they keep on dividing down and

21:26

down and down into smaller and smaller structures until

21:29

they end up with structures that are literally an

21:32

atom thick. Really? At the end of a

21:35

gecko's foot? Yes and so a gecko can

21:38

run through water, through

21:40

oil, through dirt, through

21:42

sand and then clump your ceiling

21:45

onto your wall and stick to it. Whereas

21:47

if you get any masking tape and

21:49

try to do that with the oil and

21:51

the water and the sand, forget it. So

21:54

there's a kind of an atomic thing causing

21:56

the attraction. Wow. And Then

21:58

you can see this in bits of metal. They

22:00

called gauge blocks that citizen turn as

22:02

have a D U h G blocks

22:04

in the super smooth bits of middle

22:07

and they come in different link forces

22:09

to centimeter and saw them seven and

22:11

nine and if you want his a

22:13

lengthy put them together and you just

22:15

put a beer institutes of in and

22:18

a special class is strong box and

22:20

he take him out and you what

22:22

surface claims is always theoretically it's give

22:24

them give us a dozen once and

22:26

it did flats die off. As

22:29

flat as we can make it with

22:31

money as a bar these things and

22:33

you walk them planes and you put

22:35

them together and then you just sort

22:37

of rotate and seventy. Give us and

22:40

she couple of apart say a statistic

22:42

is a boy. Atomic sources west coast

22:44

Honda was going on saw lose so

22:46

you got Adam speaking to other atoms

22:48

that Cada helping.are shown. Near

22:51

absolutely of object though i wanted to develop

22:53

while i thought so it's and buckets that

22:55

it does of the be a claim for

22:57

of a lot on my contact with the

22:59

product and i thought well. Why?

23:01

Don't draw up a calico rubbery so the material

23:03

but rather itself on it by the picking up

23:06

over in silicon a glue and at all it

23:08

makes sense of that. Night

23:10

Adam and that's what tried that they

23:12

didn't land Democracy I grew up and

23:15

nothing can happen is it can have

23:17

the surface the silicone rubber he gives

23:19

us Zuniga. And. His voice mail

23:22

vinegar as it cures and then that

23:24

says of a chemical reaction was since

23:26

bought into unmarried the surface and he

23:28

can for plumbing by special. Steve's a

23:30

special. Known. As said,

23:32

cure silicon rubber. Yeah.

23:35

Day resurgence in bathrooms are you need to

23:37

grow and then versions that are once makes

23:39

gotta ah a sudden services can rub as

23:42

long have we given anyway so he some

23:44

us official our that comes out on as

23:46

you. Nikki Cassava This is a question

23:48

I read earlier today that happens to me

23:51

what is was wow. Hi

23:53

Doctors and let me call

23:55

it. says. since i was

23:57

little i get really saw that around

24:00

animals and even still to this day

24:02

I'll be like patting them and I

24:04

get really excited like lots of joy

24:06

and the back of my throat and roof

24:08

of my mouth like feels like I have

24:10

butterflies like it vibrates and gets really fluttery

24:12

and I've always wondered what it is

24:15

and I've asked my psychologist and she's like I got

24:17

no idea. Yeah

24:19

I have no idea what it is but it's

24:22

happened since I was gosh maybe like three or

24:24

two. Has this happened to you Dr. Karl? Not

24:26

to me but I have heard of people having it. Yeah it's

24:28

like not a tickle it's like it is fluttery.

24:30

So what do you feel? It's

24:33

kind of like I'll be just patterned, patting like

24:35

a dog or like any animal and I get

24:37

really excited and then like I feel this flutter

24:39

like people in the back of my throat and

24:41

roof of my mouth. Ah can

24:43

I ask you does this happen and this is

24:46

a fairly unlikely thing when you pat a ferret?

24:50

Oh I can't say I've ever pat one.

24:52

Ah because the reason I'm asking is that

24:55

with people who love animals but

24:57

who unfortunately are sensitive to their

25:00

dander or the chemicals they give

25:02

off, people recommend

25:04

having a ferret which is

25:06

wait for it hypoallergenic. Huh. If you are

25:08

right so it'd be interesting if you could

25:10

do the experiment for Dr. Nikki and on

25:13

one occasion pat a ferret and let us

25:15

know what you find because it could be

25:17

that you're having an allergic

25:19

reaction via your immune system.

25:22

So there

25:24

can be proteins in the animal

25:26

dander, the stuff coming off the saliva,

25:28

the urine whatever that people are allergic

25:30

to and then you produce histamines. This

25:33

doesn't happen to everybody, doesn't happen to

25:35

me and this can cause various symptoms

25:37

such as itching and tickling and sneezing

25:39

and nasal congestion and either

25:42

this happens to you every

25:44

single time or it happened

25:47

to you years ago and your

25:49

immune system has changed but you've remembered that

25:51

and you do it even though you're not

25:53

having the immune reaction. So both are possible.

25:56

So if it's the

25:58

second one you might be able to

26:01

convince yourself out of it if it's bothering

26:03

you via something like cognitive behavior therapy. There

26:05

is no big deal, just stay with it.

26:07

I would really love it if you'd pat

26:09

a ferret for me. Yeah, I

26:11

will. I'll pat a ferret. I'm sure there's plenty around

26:13

cost. I can't hold on to this. Okay, but please

26:15

don't get bitten by the ferret and please don't sue

26:17

the ABC if you get bitten by the ferret and

26:19

then die a horrible death. Okay.

26:21

No, I won't. I won't. I'll

26:24

give it a go and let you know. Thank you. Thank

26:26

you, Dr. Larissa. Dr. Larissa, what's going on with

26:28

your nose? Hello, thank

26:30

you guys for taking my call. Why

26:33

I'm wondering in the mornings when

26:36

you wake up first thing is your

26:38

nose all full of snot and crusty

26:40

crap when throughout the day normally it's

26:42

fine. So why does

26:45

that happen? You're

26:47

always creating stuff

26:50

from the nasal glands and

26:53

it may be that they're overactive. So

26:56

you've got all these glands in your nose which

26:58

keep your nose moist and the purpose

27:00

of that is so that by the

27:02

time the air gets to

27:04

the back of your or gets into

27:07

your lungs it is 100% humidified and

27:09

clean and it's 37

27:12

degrees C and the moisture is part

27:14

of that. So you

27:16

might have something like a post-nasal drip

27:18

that's going on at night. It

27:20

could be allergens in your bedroom like when

27:22

you go to bed at night and you

27:24

get into bed do you have just like

27:27

a couple of coughs? No,

27:29

not really. Some people do and

27:32

they can be allergic to that. Also

27:34

you can have like the air might

27:36

be drier in the room so your

27:38

nose compensates by manufacturing more moisture

27:41

and then running away or you

27:43

could have something like allergic rhinitis which sometimes

27:45

can be worse at night but sometimes not.

27:48

So it would be worthwhile any time you go

27:50

to see your GP for a grease and oil

27:52

change just to mention this to them and see

27:54

if they can isolate it. Is it really bothersome?

27:57

Do you end up with crusty stuff that hurts

27:59

and itches? your nose in a daytime? No

28:02

not really not but not to that extent I

28:04

just thought it was normal. So it's not normal

28:06

not everyone has that that's something. Well

28:08

we all have different variations like about

28:10

15 to 20 percent of the population

28:13

are naturally immune to Covid. Hmm.

28:16

Must be me because I've never had it. Nice

28:21

Larissa. We're

28:25

gonna get into one about orgasms.

28:27

Holy Dr. Holly tell us what's

28:29

the goth? Oh hello.

28:32

I just wanted to find out

28:34

what the importance of orgasms are

28:36

for our body and our mental

28:38

health and if things

28:40

are a little bit quiet on that side

28:42

of things should we actually

28:45

do more like masturbating or

28:48

and if there's any sort of long-term effects on

28:50

not orgasms because it's obviously such a natural thing

28:52

to do. So if you're not not

28:54

having orgasms much or you know having

28:56

having a bit of a you know

28:58

slow period or something you know what

29:01

I mean. Yeah should you be sorting

29:03

that out so that yeah I don't

29:05

know. It's a good point you've

29:07

raised it's not just evil terrorists that

29:09

have orgasms but regular people have them

29:11

and they can be involved with making

29:13

babies which is also regular as well.

29:15

So sex is nothing bad so definitely

29:17

there's a stress relief if you look

29:19

at the home pages about they'll say

29:22

they release endorphins. Mate there's

29:24

a million chemicals right there's no

29:26

doubt that a good orgasm

29:29

has good stress relief and then that's

29:31

related to an improved mood and

29:34

if it's a really good orgasm you're

29:36

getting a mixture of exercise and a

29:38

bit of pelvic floor strengthening. There's nothing

29:40

wrong with having a stronger pelvic floor

29:42

and also that can lead to a

29:44

better sleep. In some cases people who

29:47

have a little bit of chronic pain

29:49

like a short shoulder will find that

29:51

can go away after a decent orgasm.

29:55

If you're doing it by yourself you're

29:57

getting those benefits but if you do with another person you

29:59

get the intimacy. and bonding and

30:01

it does seem that we humans

30:03

do better if we connect with

30:06

another person or person and we

30:08

have some sort of connectivity as

30:10

well as part of

30:12

having a healthy lifestyle and

30:15

if you can do it so you're very

30:17

athletic, you get a bit of cardiovascular exercise

30:19

as well. So definitely

30:22

I would come down firmly in favour of

30:24

more orgasms rather than fewer. If I had

30:26

a choice between more or less I'd go

30:28

for more. Absolutely. Amen. But

30:31

if you're in a dry spell

30:33

don't worry it's not going to ruin

30:35

your health. That's right and masturbation is

30:37

good, it keeps things running. That's

30:40

a really vague thing, keeps things running. I

30:42

don't want to get into trouble here but I'll just

30:44

say yes. Holly go for it.

30:46

Go for it. Dr Stacey Anam

30:48

Melvin, you've got a question about your arm hair.

30:51

Yes, hello. Dr Stacey, welcome. Thank you.

30:54

Thank you. I was looking at my

30:56

arms yesterday and I noticed most of the

30:59

hair on my arms is like

31:01

light, brown, blonde. It's all like

31:04

the same kind of like sparsity or

31:06

thickness whatever and the same length

31:08

but then I have one hair

31:10

that's like black and grows longer

31:13

than all the other hairs. What

31:16

creates that or what is it? There's

31:19

about 100,000 hair follicles on your scalp. I

31:23

don't know how many on your arms and each

31:26

hair follicle manufactures an

31:28

individual hair shaft. So

31:30

every single hair on your body

31:32

is manufactured individually in a little

31:34

factory and the main job of

31:36

that factory is extruding a shaft

31:40

of a protein called keratin

31:42

but there's a sub factory that

31:45

injects dye into it and

31:47

the dye is there's

31:50

two sorts of dyes.

31:52

There's U, melon, eu,

31:54

melon, m-e-l-a-n-i-n and there's

31:57

pheomelon, p-h-a-e-o, melon and

32:00

They're controlled by similar genes and every

32:02

now and then it just

32:04

swaps over and we do not know why.

32:07

As an example of things we don't know, we still

32:10

can't explain why you can have a Scottish person

32:13

with black scalp hair,

32:15

a male and red beard. Right? And

32:17

you think we know that sort of

32:19

stuff. So all we can say is

32:21

that the gene involved with

32:23

the melon production has just gone

32:26

a little bit down a

32:28

different pathway and if it was

32:30

a death threatening thing that happened to a lot of

32:32

people, we would have worked it out and spent a

32:34

lot of money and we'd know the exact reason. But

32:36

because it's only a minor cosmetic thing, although it's not

32:39

minor, of course it's not minor, so

32:42

we haven't spent the time and money to work

32:44

it out yet. But it's definitely down something to

32:46

do with the gene going a little bit off

32:49

which is a fairly non-technical term. Thanks

32:53

for listening to this week's episode of Science

32:55

with Dr. Carl. If you like impressing your

32:57

friends with all these random facts, make sure

32:59

you're a part of the family. Hit that

33:01

like button, hit that subscribe button, do whatever

33:03

you've got to do to be across when

33:06

an episode drops. I'm Ash

33:08

McGregor, this episode was produced by Sarah

33:10

Harvey and we'll catch you next week.

33:12

Dave Marchese here from the Triple J

33:14

Hack Team. Hey, if you love Dr.

33:16

Carl's podcast like I do, you might

33:18

enjoy the Hack Podcast as well. Each

33:21

day we bring you the news that

33:23

matters to you. From the latest science

33:25

on climate change to what's happening in

33:27

politics and news around the world. The

33:30

Hack Podcast. It's your daily fix of the

33:32

news you need to know. Get it wherever

33:34

you're listening now.