Big Ideas In Physics, Saturn’s Rings, Soylent Green. Sep 23, 2022, Part 1

Science Friday

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🗓️ 23 September 2022

⏱️ 48 minutes

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Summary

Biden Declares The COVID-19 Pandemic Over. Is It?

During an interview with 60 minutes last weekend, President Joe Biden said “the pandemic is over.”

“The pandemic is over. We still have a problem with covid, we’re still doing a lot of work on it. But the pandemic is over. If you notice, no one is wearing masks. Everybody seems to be in pretty good shape, “ Biden said at the Detroit auto show.

This comment has prompted some dismay from the public health community. The World Health Organization hasn’t declared the pandemic over just yet. And the criteria to declare a pandemic over is nuanced and cannot be declared by the leader of a single country.

Ira talks with Katherine Wu, staff writer at the Atlantic, about that and other top science stories of the week including a new ebola outbreak in Uganda, the latest ant census, and Perseverance’s rock collection.

Diving Into The Biggest Ideas In The Universe

Can mere mortals learn real physics, without all the analogies? Dr. Sean Carroll, Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University and author of The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion, says yes—if you’re willing to accept a bit of math.

Carroll says that he dreams of a world in which ordinary people can have informed ideas on physics, and might argue about the latest black hole news as urgently as they might debate a sports team’s performance in last night’s game. His new book starts with some of the basics of motion that might be taught in an introductory physics class, then builds on them up through concepts like time and black holes.

Carroll joins Ira to talk about the book, exploring where physics equations leave off and philosophical concepts begin, and the nebulous world in between.

To read an excerpt of The Biggest Ideas In The Universe: Space, Time, and Motion, visit sciencefriday.com.

Was Soylent Green Right About 2022?

In the spring of 1973, the movie Soylent Green premiered. The film drops us into a New York City that’s overcrowded, polluted, and dealing with the effects of a climate catastrophe. Only the city’s elite can afford clean water and real foods, like strawberry jam. The rest of the population relies on a communal food supply called Soylent. There’s Soylent Red, Soylent Yellow… and a new product: Soylent Green.

The year the film takes place? 2022. And spoiler alert: Soylent Green is people.

While the 2022 the film depicts is—thankfully—much darker than our current situation, the message still holds up. When the film premiered, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and the Clean Air Act were very much in the country’s consciousness. 50 years later, warmer temperatures, soil degradation, and social inequality are more relevant than ever.

Joining Ira to talk about the importance of Soylent Green 50 years later is Sonia Epstein, associate curator of science and film at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York City. Also joining is soil scientist Jo Handelsman, director of the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery in Madison, Wisconsin.

Saturn’s Rings Might Be Made From A Missing Moon

Saturn’s rings are one of the most stunning, iconic features of our solar system. But for a very long time, Saturn was a ring-less planet. Research suggests the rings are only about 100 million years old—younger than many dinosaurs. Because Saturn wasn’t born with its rings, astronomers have been scratching their heads for decades wondering how the planet’s accessories formed. A new study in the journal Science suggests a new idea about the rings’ origins—and a missing moon may hold the answers.

Co-author Dr. Burkhard Militzer, a planetary scientist and professor at UC Berkeley, joins Ira to talk about the surprising origins of Saturn’s rings.

Want to know more? Listen to this previous Science Friday episode about Saturn’s formation.

Transcripts for each segment will be available the week after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Science Friday. I'm Iroflado. Later in the hour, diving into the biggest ideas in the universe with physicist Sean Carroll and how an exploding moon may explain the origin of Saturn's rings.
0:13.4	But first, during an interview with 60 minutes, President Joe Biden said something that understandably made a lot of headlines.
0:21.7	The pandemic is over. We still have a problem with COVID. We're still doing a lot of work on it. It's what the pandemic is over. If you notice, no one's wearing masks. Everybody seems to be in pretty good shape.
0:34.7	This comment has prompted a lot of response from the public health community. The World Health Organization hasn't declared the pandemic over just yet.
0:43.2	How do we know when it's over? Joining me now to talk about that and other science news of the week, Catherine Wu, staff writer at the Atlantic. She's based a new Haven Connecticut. Welcome back to Science Friday, Katie.
0:56.4	Great to be here again. Thanks for having me.
0:58.7	You're welcome. Well, obviously many public health experts disagreed with the president's assessment, right? But how exactly do we determine when the pandemic is over?
1:07.5	It is a great question with a very unsatisfying answer. Unfortunately, I think the tricky thing with pandemics is there isn't even a totally universal definition of pandemic.
1:19.5	We just have this fuzzy sense of, you know, it's a disease that is affecting the world on a global scale pandemic pandemos. All people being affected by something that has certainly been the case. But it's not like we say, oh, as soon as cases of X disease,
1:35.5	crest over, you know, Y number, there's a pandemic. And then once we go back below Y number, we're done. It is definitely not that clear cut. There's no super clear cut demarcation. And you're right. The WHO could lift the state of emergency.
1:51.5	The US could lift its own. But it's not up to one person. And even if it were, unfortunately, I don't think it would be the president of a single country. Sorry, Joe Biden.
2:01.5	You know, but I think the president was on to something there when he said no one's wearing a mask anymore because you do see very few people wearing masks.
2:09.5	Yes, this is true. And I think some of the discussion that's going on right now is, you know, when do we sort of start acting like the pandemic is over?
2:19.5	Because if we're sort of using the psychological concept here, you know, when do things feel like they've returned to normal.
2:26.5	Arguably that has happened is that enough to say the pandemic is over. But it's kind of tricky here. A lot of experts have pointed out this week that the better question is maybe not if we're saying the pandemic is over or not.
2:39.5	But what do we do about it? COVID is still a problem. Is this even the right question to be asking rather than debating the semantics, how are we going to live with the requires that is still killing hundreds of people just in the US alone every single day?
2:55.5	Well, while we're still on the infectious disease discussion, let's talk about Ebola because there's a new outbreak reported in Uganda. Tell me what's going on there.
3:05.5	Yeah, so officials this week reported that there has been one confirmed death and several others that they're looking into.
3:13.5	This is being caused by the Sudan Ebola virus species, which is one of the six species of Ebola virus known to humans. And this is really concerning, you know, Sudan and Uganda are two of the countries that have had several outbreaks in the past few years.
3:30.5	And this is yet another one that's being added to the list.
3:34.5	So should we be concerned about it spreading through Africa and possibly around the world? I think we should be concerned, but it is certainly not time to panic.
3:44.5	I think what's important to keep in mind is that this species of Ebola virus, the Sudan species is just one of six types of Ebola.
	...

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