Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is a Triple J podcast.
Hello. Welcome to another episode of Science with Dr. Carl in your podcast feed. This week, we meet Erin from Wollongong, who is studying for an exam in a couple of weeks' time. She texted in wanting to know a little bit more about her subject matter when it came to a particular question in psychology. That's where Dr. Carl comes in.
Plus, we talk meteorites, muscle building, space junk, and plenty more. I'm Lucy Smith. Let's get into it. What does that mean, Dr. Carl, when you kind of hit the wall, when you run out of ideas and it literally feels like your brain's just hit a wall?
It comes, I think, I'm not sure, from the popularity in running where people would go for a run and then they'd gradually work their way up. This is back in the old days. And back then there were very few people who actually did long-distance running apart from professional athletes.
And running and jogging came in and people suddenly realised that they could run for four kilometres or five and then when they went to six... They had nothing. They were just totally out of energy and the metaphor came in of hitting the wall. If somebody can possibly give me a better origin on that term, please ring on 0439757555.
See, you no longer hit a wall with the triple J text sign.
No. I still haven't got a good way of remembering the 0439. Four is a square and three then leads to three squared, which is nine. Kind of weak. Getting closer. We'll get something.
I like that. You've got your way of remembering things.
We all have different ways of trying to work out little hooks. And memory is one of these weird things that actually defines who you are because without your memories, you're no longer you. And this can be very distressing for people who are relatives with people with Alzheimer's disease where they suddenly don't recognise their daughter or son. That's scary. Okay, onwards.
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Chapter 2: What are the effects of magic mushrooms on the brain?
We'll ask next time she comes on. I'll agree.
Long term, it's better.
Well, I'll rely on whatever Claire Collins says.
Thanks, Mark. We've got Beans in Wurrunga here. Dr. Beans, what's your question? Hello, doctors. So my question is around infrared cameras. So they're used a lot for like facial ID on phones and stuff like that. And also recently I got some custom orthotics and they used the infrared camera off an iPad to like make the mold of my foot. So I was wondering how infrared works.
Is it sending a signal and something bouncing back? Is it just a sensor detecting something? How does it get a 3D image? And if it's sending that signal, is that in any way harmful? Like how does that all work?
Well, certainly it won't be harmful. It won't be any more harmful than getting radiation from the sun, you know, which is heat. So the sun puts out about half of its energy that ascends to the earth, half of its energy as visible light. That's 400 to 700 nanometres in wavelength. And then the other half of the energy, slightly more than half actually, is from 700 up to 30,000 nanometres.
And we humans do not have specialised receptors for that. We just feel it on our skin. The sidewinder snake can pick up things at night by the heat that they deliver, but we don't have that ability. So in general, it's not harmful to have some degree of heat landing on you. And there are some infrared cameras that are used in the dark for the military where they actually send out an infrared beam
and then just pick up the heat coming back. So it's just like sending out light except your eyes won't detect it so you, the enemy, are not aware that you're being scanned. And if they're sending out heat, it's not harmful unless it causes burns. Is that what you're worried about? And tell me about what they did for your orthotics. I don't understand that one. That's new to me.
Yeah. So basically I had my knee up on the chair so they could see the bottom of my foot and they used – So a tablet iPad that has an infrared camera on the front to scan the bottom of my foot, which then created a 3D image on the screen, which then got sent away to a company to make the custom orthotics to exactly the shape of the bottom of my feet.
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Chapter 3: How does infrared technology work in 3D scanning?
blood, potassium. So inside the cells it's high. And so these pumps are always running. So start learning about these pumps. And once you understand that the pumps maintain the electrical balance, then you're on a good start. And best of luck with your exam, Dr. Erin.
Yeah, good luck for your exam, Erin. Break your leg, as they say. Yay. Text us in a couple of weeks and let us know how it goes. Sure. Love you, kid. We've got Ellie in Tayak here. Ellie, what's your question?
Hi, doctors. My partner and I own a little bit of land and we have noticed that we will walk past a certain spot, you know, a hundred times and see absolutely nothing in the ground.
But then you walk past one day and there'll be just like a random like bit of hose or like a tap sticking out of the ground that you've never seen before. We're just wondering where it is, like how does that get to the surface and like
Is it erosion or – but these things could be really, really old and they just turn up and you're just like, how did you get up there even when it hasn't rained or anything like that?
Well, you do have ground moving all the time. So the classic case relates way back to Henry Thoreau who about a century and a half ago in the top right-hand corner of the USA decided he would go and think his way into clarity and went to a place called Walden Pond and built a house and then –
He realised that there were rocks that would heave themselves out of the ground and that was due to freeze-thaw cycles and they'd thaw themselves into rings and he wrote a poem called Building Wall. I think my memory's right on that. Maybe somebody else wrote it but it's called Building Walls and it's related to these things heaving themselves out of the ground and you're dead right.
So if you've got big temperature changes and especially ice being formed and melted, you'll get stuff heaving out of the ground. Otherwise, you're relying on movement in the ground. The ground is not dead solid. You want dead solid, you put in some rock or some concrete.
But the ground will move anyway and so you can have rain and you can have just temperature cycles as well, slowly heaving stuff out. But you're saying you find even... A tap coming out of the ground? Can you tell me about that?
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Chapter 4: How do hiccups function in a developing fetus?
And that's it. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Science with Dr. Carl. Remember, if you want to submit a question right now, you can do so via a link in the show notes. It's going to take you to a Google Doc where you can submit your name, where you're from, your question for Dr. Carl, and whether we can give you a call.
P.S., we really want to call you about your questions, so please include it so we can have you on a future episode. This one was produced by Josh Brennan. I'm Lucy Smith. We'll catch you next week.
Dave Marchese here from the Triple J Hack Team. Hey, if you love Dr Karl's podcast like I do, you might enjoy the Hack Podcast as well. Each day we bring you the news that matters to you, from the latest science on climate change to what's happening in politics and news around the world. The Hack Podcast, it's your daily fix of the news you need to know. Get it wherever you're listening now.