The folate debate, and rewriting the radiocarbon curve

Science Magazine Podcast

Science Podcast

News, News Commentary, Science

4.3 • 842 Ratings

🗓️ 4 November 2021

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Some 80 countries around the world add folic acid to their food supply to prevent birth defects that might happen because of a lack of the B vitamin—even among people too early in their pregnancies to know they are pregnant. This year, the United Kingdom decided to add the supplement to white flour. But it took almost 10 years of debate, and no countries in the European Union joined them in the change. Staff Writer Meredith Wadman joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the ongoing folate debate. Last year, a highly anticipated tool for dating ancient materials was released: a new updated radiocarbon calibration curve. The curve, which describes how much carbon-14 was in the atmosphere at different times in the past 55,000 years, is essential to figuring out the age of organic materials such as wood or leather. Sarah talks with Tim Heaton, senior lecturer in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Sheffield, and Edouard Bard, a professor at the College of France, about how the curve was redrawn and what it means, both for archaeology and for our understanding of the processes that create radiocarbon in the first place—like solar flares and Earth’s magnetic fields. This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy. [Image: Andrew Shiva/Wikipedia; Music: Jeffrey Cook] [Alt text: close-up photograph of layers in volcanic tephra] Authors: Sarah Crespi; Meredith Wadman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:00.0	Morgan State University, a Baltimore, Maryland Carnegie R2 doctoral research institution,
0:05.0	offers more than 100 academic programs and awards degrees at the Baccliorate, Masters, and Doctoral Levels,
0:12.0	is furthering their mission of growing the future leading the world.
0:16.0	Morgan continues to address the needs and challenges of the modern urban environment.
0:20.0	With a four-year quadrupling of research, more than a dozen new doctoral programs,
0:25.7	and eight new National Centers of Excellence, Morgan is positioned to achieve Carnegie R1 designation in the next five years.
0:33.7	To learn more about Morgan and their ascension to R1, visit morgan.edu slash research.
0:40.5	This podcast is supported by the Icon School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, one of America's leading research medical schools.
0:48.1	Icon Mount Sinai is the academic arm of the eight hospital Mount Sinai health system in New York City.
0:55.7	It's consistently among the top recipients of NIH funding. Researchers at ICONMount Sinai have made breakthrough discoveries in
1:02.0	many fields vital to advancing the health of patients, including cancer, COVID and long COVID,
1:08.8	cardiology, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence.
1:12.6	The Icon School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, we find a way.
1:22.3	This is the science podcast for November 5th, 2021.
1:27.0	I'm Sarah Crespi. Each week we share the most interesting
1:30.3	news and research published in the science family of journals. First up we have Meredith
1:35.9	Wadman. She's a staff writer for science. We talk about fortifying food with folic acid. Around 80
1:42.7	countries add the synthetic B vitamin to their food supply.
1:47.0	The idea is to prevent certain kinds of birth defects. This year, the UK has decided to
1:52.7	add the supplement to their flour. Europe is not. We talk about why. Next, we have a new
1:58.9	radiocarbon curve. This is used for dating ancient organic
2:02.5	materials, radiocarbon dating. The new curve has a ton more resolution and a few more thousand
	...

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