Learn about “carbon neutral” policies; a new twist on the legend of Merlin; and the giraffe’s bizarre circulatory system. You’re invited to join Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer for a special live stream celebration to commemorate the release of Curiosity Daily’s 1,000th episode next week! Register for free here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/curiosity-dailys-1000th-episode-celebration-tickets-191163133077 What does it mean for a company to be carbon neutral? by Ashley Hamer (Listener question from Jeff in Saint Paul) Bernoville, T. (2021, June 8). What is the difference between carbon-neutral, net-zero and climate positive? - Plan A Academy. https://plana.earth/academy/what-is-difference-between-carbon-neutral-net-zero-climate-positive/ Nguyen, T. (2020, March 5). Starbucks, Microsoft, JetBlue, and other companies want to be carbon-neutral. What does that mean? Vox; Vox. https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/3/5/21155020/companies-carbon-neutral-climate-positive Umair Irfan. (2020, February 27). Carbon offsets, the popular climate change mitigation tactic, explained. Vox; Vox. https://www.vox.com/2020/2/27/20994118/carbon-offset-climate-change-net-zero-neutral-emissions Reuters Staff. (2020, January 6). JetBlue to become carbon neutral in 2020. U.S. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-jetblue-environment/jetblue-to-become-carbon-neutral-in-2020-idUSKBN1Z5237 Carbon Neutral vs. Net Zero: let’s get the terminology right! — ClimateSeed. (2015). Climateseed.com; ClimateSeed. https://climateseed.com/blog/carbon-neutral-vs-net-zero-let-s-get-the-terminology-right We just found one of the earliest manuscript fragments of the Merlin legend, with a new take by Cameron Duke Bristol manuscript fragments of the famous Merlin legend among the oldest of their kind. (2021). Bristol.ac.uk. http://bristol.ac.uk/news/2021/september/bristol-merlin-update.html Schultz, I. (2021, September 3). Rare, Early Version of the King Arthur Legend Translated by Researchers. Gizmodo; Gizmodo. https://gizmodo.com/rare-early-version-of-the-king-arthur-legend-translate-1847610935 Durn, S. (2021, September 16). Found: An Early Merlin Tale, Hidden for Centuries. Atlas Obscura; Atlas Obscura. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/medieval-merlin-manuscript-discovered Smithsonian Magazine, & Gershon, L. (2021, September 17). Rediscovered Medieval Manuscript Offers New Twist on Arthurian Legend. Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/rediscovered-medieval-manuscript-offers-new-twist-on-arthurian-legend-180978705 More from zoologist Bill Schutt: Pick up "Pump: A Natural History of the Heart" https://www.workman.com/products/pump Website: https://billschutt.com/ Follow @BillSchuttBooks on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillSchuttBooks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BillSchutt1/ Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day withCody Gough andAshley Hamer. Still curious? Get exclusive science shows, nature documentaries, and more real-life entertainment on discovery+! Go to https://discoveryplus.com/curiosity to start your 7-day free trial. discovery+ is currently only available for US subscribers.
Learn about “carbon neutral” policies; a new twist on the legend of Merlin; and the giraffe’s bizarre circulatory system.
You’re invited to join Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer for a special live stream celebration to commemorate the release of Curiosity Daily’s 1,000th episode next week! Register for free here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/curiosity-dailys-1000th-episode-celebration-tickets-191163133077
What does it mean for a company to be carbon neutral? by Ashley Hamer (Listener question from Jeff in Saint Paul)
We just found one of the earliest manuscript fragments of the Merlin legend, with a new take by Cameron Duke
More from zoologist Bill Schutt:
Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day with Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer. Still curious? Get exclusive science shows, nature documentaries, and more real-life entertainment on discovery+! Go to https://discoveryplus.com/curiosity to start your 7-day free trial. discovery+ is currently only available for US subscribers.
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/new-twist-on-merlin-giraffe-hearts-what-carbon-neutral-means
CODY: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from curiosity-dot-com. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, we’ll answer a listener question about what it means for a company to be “carbon neutral.” Then, you’ll learn about a new discovery that changes
what we know about the legend of Merlin; and zoologist Bill Schutt will walk us through the giraffe’s extremely bizarre circulatory system.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
LISTENER Q: What does it mean for a company to be carbon neutral? (Ashley)
We got a listener question from Jeff H in Saint Paul, who asks, “What do companies really mean when they say they are carbon neutral?” Great question, Jeff!
While you might assume that “carbon neutral” means a company isn’t putting any more carbon into the atmosphere, that’s not usually what it means. Not only that, but carbon neutral isn’t the only buzzword out there that consumers need to wrestle with: there are also terms like “carbon-negative” or “climate positive,” “climate neutral,” “net-zero carbon emissions,” and “net-zero emissions,” all of which mean slightly different things.
To understand what these terms mean, you have to first understand the different options companies have for helping the planet. Say you own an airline and you want to reduce your company’s negative impact on the planet — which is understandable, since the aviation industry contributes to around two percent of all human-caused carbon dioxide emissions. So you commit to start using lower-carbon biofuels, taking more direct flight paths, and investing in new, more eco-friendly planes. But it takes a lot of money and time to build a new plane, so in the meantime, you keep up the progress by paying for some other part of the world to cut down on its carbon emissions. That could be by preserving sections of the Amazon rainforest, or by funding a wind power project in another country. You’re paying for what are called carbon offsets, which are essentially a way for people, companies, and governments to cut down on carbon emissions globally when they can’t do it themselves.
Carbon offsets aren’t foolproof: some of these projects are more environmentally sound than others, for one thing. And in the long run, we’re all going to have to cut down on our carbon emissions and even remove carbon from the atmosphere in order to slow down or reverse climate change. I mean, you can’t get out of debt by paying off someone else’s credit card. Instead, carbon offsets are kind of a stopgap measure while we all take the time and money to clean up our acts.
So, what does carbon-neutral really mean? It means that any carbon dioxide that a company releases into the atmosphere is offset by an equivalent amount being removed somewhere else. This often includes reducing the company’s own emissions — just not all of them. Carbon negative and climate positive are synonyms that take carbon-neutral one step further by removing additional CO2 from the atmosphere. Climate neutral goes beyond CO2 to reduce all greenhouse gases to zero while also cleaning up any other environmental impacts. Net-zero
carbon emissions means basically the same thing as carbon neutral, and net-zero emissions applies to all greenhouse gases, not just carbon dioxide.
Hope that cleared things up! Thanks for your question, Jeff. If you have a question, send it in to curiosity at discovery dot com or leave us a voicemail at 312-596-5208.
We just found one of the earliest manuscript fragments of the Merlin legend, with a new take by Cameron Duke (Cody)
In a library in the UK, research librarians stumbled upon one of the oldest known manuscripts detailing the legend of Merlin. The text is translated from old French and presents a fascinating twist on a typically risque Arthurian legend.
In 2019, a librarian in Bristol was examining a 15th-century French philosophy book when he found handwriting within the book’s binding. This isn’t particularly odd, given that ancient books were often recycled into new ones. But most of those had been prayer books in Latin — this was in Old French, and the librarian could distinctly make out the words “Merlin” and “Arthur.”
These fragments have become known as the “Bristol Merlin,” which literature scholars have determined is one of the oldest examples of Arthurian legend committed to parchment. These are the classic stories that tell the tale of King Arthur and his Wizard advisor, Merlin. They’re a bit like the Marvel Universe, as one scholar put it: they take place in a fictional world with a set of well known characters who appeared and interacted in different stories.
This particular text contains a story from a series of legends scholars call the “Vulgate Cycle,” which was originally written sometime around 1220. Based on a careful analysis of the handwriting and language used, the fragment seems to have been written somewhere in Northern France not long at all after the original.
The Bristol Merlin is different from known versions of the Vulgate cycle in one big way. Let’s say it’s the most kid-friendly take on the story discovered so far. These fragments tell the tale of Merlin’s encounter with the enchantress Viviane [Vivvy-in]— also known as Lady of the Lake — who casts a spell that engraves three words on a ring that prevents men from speaking to her. The known versions found in other texts are much saucier. That is, instead of engravings, they’re tattoos, and instead of a ring, they’re on… well, you get the picture.
This is just one of more than 200 known medieval texts containing the Vulgate cycle, and each one offers a slightly different take on the stories. That’s because in an age before printing presses, books were reproduced by handwriting. Because of this, it’s common to have slight variations introduced by the scribe making a particular copy. In this case, the scribe may have just wanted the story to be a little more PG.
Considering that most of us got our first Arthurian legend from Disney? Well, things sure have changed.
Bill Schutt - The giraffe's bizarre circulatory system (Ashley)
If you've ever felt lightheaded after standing up too fast, you're familiar with the way gravity can fight with your circulatory system. So just imagine what giraffes go through! It turns out that their circulatory systems are just full of surprising safeguards to keep blood flowing all the way up those long necks to their brains, and Bill Schutt is back to tell us all about it. Bill Schutt is a zoologist at the American Museum of Natural History and author of the new book "Pump: A Natural History of the Heart." And here's what he had to tell us about giraffes.
[CLIP 3:21]
They have natural compression socks! Can you even believe it??? Again, that was Bill Schutt, a zoologist at the American Museum of Natural History and author of the new book "Pump: A Natural History of the Heart." You can find a link to pick it up in today's show notes.
RECAP/PREVIEW
CODY: Before we recap what we learned today, here’s a sneak peek at what you’ll hear next week on Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY: Next week, you’ll learn about why you probably think you’ve changed more in the past than you will in the future;
Robotic punching mantis shrimp;
Why mRNA vaccines are older than you think;
The reason you save some items for a special occasion that never comes; And more!
CODY: Oh yeah, and we wanted to remind you that next Wednesday, November 3, will be Curiosity Daily’s ONE THOUSANDTH EPISODE. It’ll be business as usual for the most part, but to celebrate the occasion, Ashley and I will be hosting a super fun livestream Wednesday evening. We’ll be sharing behind the scenes stories, playing a little trivia, and answering your questions about the show. You can register for the livestream FOR FREE using the Eventbrite link in today’s show notes, or RSVP for the event on Curiosity’s Facebook page. But for now? Let’s recap what we learned today to wrap up.
ASHLEY: Okay, so now, let’s recap what we learned today.
1. CODY: When a company says it’s carbon-neutral, it means that it balances any carbon emissions it puts into the atmosphere with the removal of carbon somewhere else in the world. Usually this is used as a stopgap measure while the company invests in cleaner technology, but it’s always a good idea to look into a company’s specific pledges if you’re trying to be climate smart with your dollars.
2. ASHLEY: Scholars found one of the oldest known manuscripts detailing the Arthurian legend of Merlin. Arthurian legends are a bit like the Marvel Universe since they take place in a fictional world with lots of familiar characters that all show up and interact in different stories. This one is from a series called the Vulgate Cycle, and it’s basically a cleaned-up version of the story where Merlin encounters the enchantress Viviane.
3. CODY: Giraffe hearts are pretty huge and pump at a super high pressure to get blood where it needs to go — like, you know… up their long necks and into their brains. They also have a complex series of valves to regulate pressure, and they have natural “pressure socks” to keep the liquid part of their blood from leaving their blood vessels and building up in their tissue. Giraffe hearts, man… it’s like a whole nother planet.
[ad lib optional]
ASHLEY: The writer for today’s Merlin story was Cameron Duke.
CODY: Our managing editor is Ashley Hamer, who was also a writer and audio editor on today’s episode.
ASHLEY: Our producer and lead audio editor is Cody Gough.
CODY: Have a great weekend! [AD LIB SOMETHING FUNNY] Then, join us again Monday to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!