Today you’ll learn about how music is being used to combat dementia, how scientists are making more efficient rocket fuel from bacteria, and the environmental effects of bitcoin mining.
Today you’ll learn about how music is being used to combat dementia, how scientists are making more efficient rocket fuel from bacteria, and the environmental effects of bitcoin mining.
Music and Dementia
Microbe Rocket Fuel
“Bacteria for Blastoff: Using Microbes to Make Supercharged New Rocket Fuel” by Aliyah Kovner
“Microbes May Hold the Secret to Creating More Powerful Rocket Fuel” By Kevin Hurler
Bitcoin Mining
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Find episode transcripts here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/music-and-dementia-microbe-rocket-fuel-bitcoin-mining
[SFX: INTRO MUSIC/WHOOSH]
NATE: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from Discovery. Time flies when you’re learnin’ super cool stuff. I’m Nate.
CALLI: And I’m Calli. If you’re dropping in for the first time, welcome to Curiosity, where we aim to blow your mind by helping you to grow your mind. If you’re a loyal listener, welcome back!
NATE: Today you’ll learn about how music is being used to combat dementia, how scientists are making more efficient rocket fuel from bacteria, and the environmental effects of bitcoin mining!
CALLI: Without further ado, let’s satisfy some curiosity!
[SFX: WHOOSH]
NATE: Calli, did you know music might have the power to cut through Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia?
CALLI: Cut through? Like bringing back memories for people suffering with those diseases? Or do you mean playing some Kate Bush like in Stranger Things?
NATE: Ooh, love that show, but no. And also it doesn’t quite bring back memories, but it turns out that music might be key in unlocking emotions for Alzheimer’s and dementia patients.
CALLI: Oh Nate, that’s incredible!
NATE: Absolutely, 6 million people in the US have Alzheimer’s Disease, which is one of many neurological diseases that fit under the umbrella of Dementia. These are diseases that often make people forgetful, making it very difficult to socialize, or even do daily tasks. In the later stages of the disease, it can be really hard for these patients to communicate with their loved ones and caregivers. So researchers from Northwestern Medicine and Institute for Therapy Through the Arts brought in musicians with instruments and a singer to play different live songs. They specifically targeted songs familiar to the patients, classics like “You Are My Sunshine,” and showtunes from Oklahoma!
CALLI: Nate, that sounds like a good time, but how does it help Dementia patients?
NATE: Researchers say that even after our memories and verbal communication start to fade with Dementia, music remains. That's because the cerebellum, the area of the brain in charge of musical memory, isn’t usually affected by Dementia until much later in the life of the disease. Even when we can’t talk, we can often sing and dance.
CALLI: And that’s helping us maintain connections with our loved ones, even when the deck is stacked against us?
NATE: That’s right. It all started with 21 dementia patients in a memory care facility outside of Chicago. Importantly, they also included their caregivers, often loved ones, in the study to see how listening to music together changed their interactions. Of course, they also had a control group that didn’t do the musical intervention. But both groups also had recorded conversations between caregivers and patients for ten minutes before and after the intervention.
CALLI: What separates a musical intervention from a concert?
NATE: Well the patients didn't just sit and have music played at them. Patients and their caregivers grabbed simple instruments like tambourines or shakers to play along with the tunes, and music therapists helped get patients to stand up and drum, sing, and dance!
What’s so cool about this study, it looked at both the patients and the caregivers! Researchers found that although they often couldn’t connect well verbally any longer, the music helped patients and caregivers connect emotionally as they sang and danced together. Patients were more socially engaged with their caregivers and gave more eye contact, they were happier, and less agitated. Plus, symptoms common in dementia, like anxiety, depression, and aggression, seemed to melt away. The study even found that sessions helped caregivers find greater levels of patience and empathy with patients than they had before. Patients with memory problems might ask the same question 10 times, and normally, the partner could get exasperated. After this study, that exasperation virtually disappeared. Apparently, many of the caregivers brought in other loved ones so they too could experience that heightened emotional connection with the patient.
CALLI: That is incredible. So what’s next? When will we see this around the country?
NATE: Researchers say there is more work to be done, they need to test the method with a larger group of patients to make sure they get the same results, but thankfully, they’ve already received the funding.
CALLI: Then let's let the band play on!
[SFX: WHOOSH]
NATE: Calli, what if instead of having to get our car and jet fuel from oil, we could get it from…bacteria?
CALLI: You mean instead of having to dig up oil, we could just make it from the same stuff that makes…bleu cheese?
NATE: That’s exactly what I’m saying, the bacteria Streptomyces to be exact. Researchers at the Berkeley National Laboratory have found a way to alter bacteria to make combustible fuel. They say we could burn this fuel without adding any more greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere AND it’d give us about 30% more power than the fuel NASA uses right now to get its spaceships to the moon.
CALLI: Ok wait, how can bacteria give us power?
NATE: Well, it all comes down to molecules and the bonds within them. When we burn fuel, we break the bonds between atoms, creating a combustion that helps us propel our cars.
CALLI: And the bacteria Streptomyces is able to make molecules with these kinds of bonds?
NATE: Exactly, the bacteria produces molecules called POP-FAMEs. These have three carbon atoms attached to each other in a tight triangle. The atoms stay together in these molecules, but they don’t really like it because they feel…strained. It’s like when you eat a big meal and you can’t wait to unbutton your pants.
CALLI: Ha so when we break these bonds, unbutton the pants if you will, the stored up energy, shoots out?
NATE: Right! And because these bonds are so strained before the break, they release a lot more energy than the less strained fuel molecules we burn right now. This new fuel molecule, POP-FAME is like taking off skinny jeans, and the old petrochemical fuel we’ve been using is more like taking off sweatpants.
CALLI: That’s a big difference! You’re telling me it's that much more energy?
NATE: Yes! And it’s because, not only are the bonds more strained, they are also more compact, so you can get more of them in the same amount of space. It's like if the same amount of gas in your gas tank suddenly took you 30% farther.
CALLI: I still can’t believe this came from bacteria! Why haven’t we been doing this forever?
NATE: Well, we’ve always known that Streptomyces makes some pretty cool stuff. We already use it to make cancer-fighting drugs, fungus, and even suppress our own immune system, but it's also really hard to work with because it needs really specific lab conditions. Researchers knew it could make those three-carbon structures, but they were having a really hard time getting the bacteria to live and work in the lab. That's when they decided to look into the genetics of the bacteria, so they could find the enzyme that made the molecule. They started working with that enzyme itself, changing its makeup to make it a bit easier to work with in a lab!
CALLI: But what does it need to make these molecules? Do we have to feed it some weird diet with beakers, pipettes, and bunsen burners?
NATE: No! Since it's a bacteria, we can feed it…plant matter! So listen to this. First, the bacteria feeds on these plants and turns them into fuel molecules. Then we take those fuel molecules and burn them for power, which releases carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere. Instead of all this extra carbon dioxide just sitting around and making global warming worse, it can be absorbed by plants for photosynthesis! It’s a sustainable circle! We can burn that fuel but not add any more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
CALLI: That’s amazing! What’s stopping us from making all of our fuel with this stuff?! It could change the world!
NATE: Well researchers say there is a long, long way to go. A lot of these results are from small tests and computer simulations. They still need to do more real testing. To do that, they have to make 10 kilograms of fuel, and they’ve got a long way to go to get there. After that, they have to alter the molecules into all different types of fuel, like the stuff we need for diesel engines, jets, and even rockets!
CALLI: Imagine that though - space travel, commuting, burning fuels, all without adding carbon to the atmosphere.
NATE: All thanks to the same stuff that makes the best condiment for Buffalo Wings.
[SFX: WHOOSH]
CALLI: I feel like it’s a bit of common knowledge at this point that bitcoin and other cryptocurrency are bad for the environment. But knowing something is bad and WHY something is bad are two different things. Thankfully, a new study out of The University of New Mexico decided to get to the bottom of it and figure out once and for all - WHY is bitcoin bad for the environment?
NATE: That’s a concept that trips me up from time to time, because bitcoin is something that exists on the internet. It’s not a physical thing. So it’s not real, right?
CALLI: Depends on your definition of “real.” Because yes, like all other cryptocurrencies, bitcoin isn’t a physical form of currency. But the effects it has when people “mine” for it are said to be similar to the effects of actual mining on the physical world - as in, it can be compared to beef, natural gas, and crude oil, all things we need in society, but all things that ruin the Earth just a little more when we harvest them.
NATE: But… HOW? Is it because of the amount of electricity? Because I’m sure there are billions more people using the internet that AREN’T mining bitcoin? What does mining it even mean, anyway?
CALLI: Mining is a slang term for the creation of bitcoin, Nate, so it’s not like there’s a cute little digital prospector digging up bitcoin and hurting the planet. It’s actually more like a MASSIVE global network of supercomputers working together to create just one bitcoin over the course of days. However, each of these computers uses more electricity than the average computer, creating more fossil fuel pollution. In fact, producing one bitcoin uses more electricity than some COUNTRIES do.
NATE: How much more are we talking?
CALLI: Let me put it this way. In 2020, Austria used 69 terawatt hours which is 69 TRILLION watts per hour. That’s how much electricity was needed for the year, per hour. Portugal used 48 terawatt hours. Bitcoin mining used 75.4, which is insane! That’s almost double the total electricity used by Portugal!
NATE: Whoa. That’s a lot of electricity. But I mean, my friends on social media are always saying I should invest in crypto. Matt Damon said that fortune favors the brave! Are you telling me Matt Damon’s misleading me?
CALLI: Depends on if you think Bitcoin has caused more damage to the climate than a single Bitcoin is even worth. For me, I think that means that bitcoin mining is unsustainable, and I’m not alone in feeling that way: this study has found that from 2016 to 2021, bitcoin has become MORE unsustainable to the environment.
NATE: Okay, but how do they measure the environmental effects? It doesn’t seem like something that could be all that easy to trace. Like, bitcoin isn’t made in a stereotypical evil factory dumping pollutants into the water, right?
CALLI: Right. So the researchers measured this with three sustainability criteria, and this is a direct quote: “whether the estimated climate damages are increasing over time; whether the climate damages of Bitcoin exceeds the market price; and how the climate damages as a share of market price compare to other sectors and commodities.”
NATE: And they found what, exactly?
CALLI: First, they found that the CO2 emissions from creating electricity for Bitcoin mining have increased from 0.9 tons per coin in 2016… to 113 tons. A 126% increase that created 12 billion dollars in damages globally over that same span of time.
NATE: Okay, that seems bad. But, bitcoin was worth a lot during that time, right? Could the money be theoretically invested back into the environment?
CALLI: Even if 100% of all bitcoin was invested back into the environment, it wouldn’t cover the damages, Nate. In May of 2020, the worst of the damages hitting the environment saw that for every $1 of bitcoin market value, there was $1.56 in damages. That means that bitcoin was causing 50% more damage than it was even worth.
NATE: Good god. Okay, okay, but what about in comparison to huge multinational companies? The world’s biggest polluters are often the world’s biggest business, right?
CALLI: That was the final part of the study, Nate, and the outcome was a bit grim. They looked into industries and products like crude oil processing, agricultural meat production, and precious metal mining. What they found was that bitcoin was damaging the environment at about 35% of its value for the span of time between 2016 and 2021. Which is slightly less than the 45% or so generated by gas and crude oil production… but MORE damaging to the environment than beef production’s 33% rate.
The authors conclude that Bitcoin does not meet any of the three key sustainability criteria they assessed it against. Absent voluntary switching away from proof-of-work mining, as very recently done for the cryptocurrency Ether, then potential regulation may be required to make Bitcoin mining sustainable.
NATE: Wow. Um. So bitcoin is worse for the environment than meat production.
CALLI: Yep. The researchers concluded that bitcoin doesn’t meet ANY sustainability criteria. The only way it might BECOME sustainable is switching to a different model altogether, like the cryptocurrency Ether did recently. But otherwise? Bitcoin is damaging the planet - maybe even irreversibly.
NATE: Eesh. If that’s what Matt Damon meant by fortune favoring the brave, then call me a coward.
CALLI: I already do anyway, Nate.
[SFX: WHOOSH]
NATE: Let’s recap what we learned today to wrap up. New research has found that even after our ability to communicate fades with Dementia, our ability to enjoy, sing and dance to music remains. This appreciation of music not only decreased agitation and other symptoms of the disease, it let patients strengthen their emotional connection to their caregivers and loved ones. The solution to making more environmentally friendly fuel might be all around us: bacteria. By using bacteria to make fuel molecules, they say we can make more powerful fuels that don’t contribute greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere when we burn them.
CALLI: It’s common knowledge now that bitcoin is bad for the environment, but recent studies have finally spelled out why: bitcoin mining produces more electricity to create ONE bitcoin than it does to run the global meat market, and almost as much as crude oil drilling. The quest to make bitcoin sustainable will rely on its creators changing the way it’s made entirely, but it’s not clear if that will happen anytime soon!