Learn what the elevator can teach us about our past and our future. Plus: surprising discoveries from bomb-pulse dating. Additional resources from Jason Feifer: Build for Tomorrow podcast: https://www.jasonfeifer.com/build-for-tomorrow/ Website: https://www.jasonfeifer.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/heyfeifer "Bomb pulse dating" is how scientists measure the age of living cells using nuclear fallout by Briana Brownell Eveleth, R. (2013, February 19). Nuclear Bombs Made It Possible to Carbon Date Human Tissue. Smithsonian Magazine; Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/nuclear-bombs-made-it-possible-to-carbon-date-human-tissue-20074710/ Mohan, G. (2013, July). Nuclear fallout drops the bomb on ivory poachers. Los Angeles Times; Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/science/la-xpm-2013-jul-01-la-sci-sn-nuclear-fallout-poachers-20130630-story.html Zoppi, U., Skopec, Z., Skopec, J., Jones, G., Fink, D., Hua, Q., Jacobsen, G., Tuniz, C., & Williams, A. (2004). Forensic applications of 14C bomb-pulse dating. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms, 223-224, 770–775. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nimb.2004.04.143 Eriksson, P. S., Perfilieva, E., Björk-Eriksson, T., Alborn, A.-M., Nordborg, C., Peterson, D. A., & Gage, F. H. (1998). Neurogenesis in the adult human hippocampus. Nature Medicine, 4(11), 1313–1317. https://doi.org/10.1038/3305 Arnold, C. (2013, December 11). Cold War Bomb Testing Is Solving Biology’s Biggest Mysteries. Pbs.org; Nova. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/bomb-pulse/ Krulwich, R. (2008, November 16). How A-Bomb Testing Changed Our Trees. NPR.org. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96750869?storyId=96750869 Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day withCody Gough andAshley Hamer — for free!
Learn what the elevator can teach us about our past and our future. Plus: surprising discoveries from bomb-pulse dating.
Additional resources from Jason Feifer:
"Bomb pulse dating" is how scientists measure the age of living cells using nuclear fallout by Briana Brownell
Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day with Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer — for free!
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/what-elevators-can-teach-us-about-autonomous-cars-w-jason-feifer-of-entrepreneur-magazine
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, you’ll learn what the invention of the elevator can teach us about autonomous cars with Jason Feifer, host of the Build for Tomorrow podcast. You’ll also learn how Cold War-era nuclear bomb tests are helping us solve mysteries that have nothing to do with nuclear bombs.[from after second story]
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
When we adopt new technology, we often look to the previous technology for guidance. Like, you'd probably wave goodbye to a friend on the street — so a lot of us also do that at the end of a video call. And you put your hands on the steering wheel when you're driving, so some companies are putting steering wheels in autonomous vehicles, even though they aren't really necessary. The same kind of confusion has come about from nearly every important invention in history — including the elevator. And today's guest is going to tell us all about it. Jason Feifer is the editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur Magazine and the host of Build for Tomorrow, a podcast about the curious things from history that shaped us, and how we can shape the future. Here's his story about how the elevator changed our cities — and how we can use those lessons today.
[CLIP 5:46]
What could autonomous cars look like if we stopped making them look like cars? The possibilities are endless! Again, that was Jason Feifer, the editor in chief of Entrepreneur Magazine. He's also the host of Build for Tomorrow, a podcast about the curious things from history that shaped us, and how we can shape the future. You can find links to the podcast and more in the show notes.
During the cold war, about two thousand nuclear bomb tests happened around the world. Those tests did a lot of harm, but they also had an unexpected benefit for scientists: a new super accurate way to measure the age of living tissue. This technique is known as bomb-pulse dating.
Nuclear bombs use radioactive elements to create a chain reaction that generates an explosion. A side effect of that chain reaction is a huge release of neutrons into the atmosphere.
That’s where it gets interesting. The Earth’s atmosphere is about three quarters nitrogen by volume. When these neutrons hit a nitrogen atom, they eject a proton. That changes the nitrogen atom into a carbon atom.
But it’s no ordinary carbon.
Almost all nitrogen has seven protons and seven neutrons. So when one of those protons gets knocked out of the atom’s nucleus and replaced by the stray neutron from the explosion, it leaves six protons and eight neutrons. That atom becomes a special kind of carbon called carbon-14.
Carbon-14 is different from the isotope we usually see, carbon-12. Carbon-12 has six protons and six neutrons, and so it's slightly lighter than carbon-14. That means scientists can tell how much carbon-14 is in something by weighing it.
The rapid rise in nuclear detonations between 1955 and 1963 doubled the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere. All that carbon-14 made its way into all kinds of things, including living cells. So by looking at the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12, scientists could tell how old they were.
That led to a lot of cool discoveries.
For a long time, scientists weren’t sure whether or not the brain could grow new neurons throughout a person’s life. Bomb pulse dating settled the debate: it turns out that the brain can create new neurons.
Bomb pulse dating is especially handy for criminal investigations. For instance, it can be used to identify fake wine. Because carbon-14 makes its way into the grapes used for winemaking, wine from specific vintage years can be authenticated — or revealed as a fake.
Forensic scientists also use it to monitor drug trafficking. It can tell when a drug shipment of heroin or opium was manufactured, and find out if the contraband is from older stockpiles or recently made.
The technique has also been used to catch poachers. Bomb pulse dating can be used to figure out the age of an ivory tusk — and see whether or not it was harvested after anti-poaching laws were put in place.
Even now, bomb pulse dating has a promising future. The amount of Carbon-14 in the atmosphere is still about 30 percent higher than it was before nuclear weapons were created. That means bomb pulse dating could result in even more amazing discoveries in the future.
Let’s recap the main things we learned today
[ad lib optional]
ASHLEY: The writer for today’s last story was Briana Brownell [Bree-ANN-uh Brow-NELL].
CODY: Our managing editor is Ashley Hamer, who was also an audio editor on today’s episode.
ASHLEY: Our producer and lead audio editor is Cody Gough.
CODY: Join us again tomorrow and you’ll learn something new in just a few minutes. How’s THAT for an... elevator pitch?
ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!