Bombing Volcanoes, Gold from Neutron Stars, Mind Wandering
Curiosity Weekly
Warner Bros. Discovery
4.6 • 963 Ratings
🗓️ 26 January 2022
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Learn why the US military bombed a volcano; where heavy elements in the universe come from; and why your mind wanders.
Why the U.S. Government Bombed Mauna Loa in 1935 by Cameron Duke
- 1935 Eruption of Mauna Loa - Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park (U.S. National Park Service). (2016). Nps.gov. https://www.nps.gov/havo/learn/nature/mauna-loa-1935.htm
- Martín, L. (2021, October 27). La Palma volcano “should be bombed” to divert lava flow. AS.com; AS En. https://en.as.com/en/2021/10/27/latest_news/1635330566_122546.html
- Robin George Andrews. (2021, October 27). Science; National Geographic. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/why-the-us-once-bombed-an-erupting-volcano
- Turner, B. (2021, November). Politician suggests bombing erupting La Palma volcano to stop lava flow. Livescience.com; Live Science. https://www.livescience.com/la-palma-volcano-bomb-proposal
- Volcano Watch — Hilo had a close call from the 1881 Mauna Loa lava flow. (2019, November 21). Usgs.gov. https://www.usgs.gov/center-news/volcano-watch-hilo-had-a-close-call-1881-mauna-loa-lava-flow
Every element heavier than iron was made in a cosmic explosion by Briana Brownell
- Neutron star collisions are “goldmine” of heavy elements, study finds. (2021, October 25). EurekAlert! https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/932599
- Chen, H.-Y., Vitale, S., & Foucart, F. (2021). The Relative Contribution to Heavy Metals Production from Binary Neutron Star Mergers and Neutron Star–Black Hole Mergers. The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 920(1), L3. https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ac26c6
- Stellar Death. (2021). Uoregon.edu. http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/ast122/lectures/lec18.html
- Nola Taylor Redd. (2018, February 24). Neutron Stars: Definition & Facts. Space.com; Space. https://www.space.com/22180-neutron-stars.html
Your Mind Wanders Half the Time You're Awake by Ashley Hamer originally ran April 30, 2018 https://omny.fm/shows/curiosity-daily/how-often-your-mind-wanders-smiling-at-dogs-and-ri
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, you're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from Discovery. |
| 0:06.0 | I'm Cody Gough. |
| 0:07.0 | And I'm Ashley Hamer. |
| 0:08.0 | Today you learn about why the U.S. military bombed a volcano in 1935, why most of the heavy elements in the universe were made |
| 0:15.9 | from neutron star collisions, and why your mind wanders. |
| 0:20.4 | Let's say you got a natural disaster coming. |
| 0:25.0 | Let's say you're going to try and stop it by bombing it. |
| 0:28.0 | Sounds like something only Bruce Willis would do, right? |
| 0:31.0 | And yet, that is exactly what happened at an eruption in Hawaii in the 1930s. |
| 0:37.0 | This was no movie. This actually happened. |
| 0:40.0 | As for whether it worked, all that's up for debate. |
| 0:45.0 | So the year was 1935, and the volcano Maniloa was spewing lava and ash. |
| 0:51.6 | The slow moving lava flow was headed straight toward the city of Heilo, Hawaii. |
| 0:56.7 | The eruption had continued like this for days, but December 27th was when the US military took action. That's when they used a squadron of |
| 1:05.8 | byplanes to bomb in erupting volcano. Now if the idea of stopping a |
| 1:12.0 | volcanic eruption with bombs sounds a little ridiculous, you're not alone. |
| 1:17.0 | The purpose behind the bombing was not to stop the eruption. |
| 1:21.0 | Instead, the goal was to simply divert the lava flow away from |
| 1:25.1 | hello. As lava flows down the side of a mountain, the surface of the lava |
| 1:30.0 | cools and hardens and that creates a tube of fresh rock that carries molten |
| 1:34.9 | molten lava even farther down the mountain. The tubes grow over time so that they can |
| 1:39.5 | carry molten lava farther and farther with each passing day. |
... |
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