Today we explore how a recent meteorite that landed in the UK is giving us clues to the mysteries of the universe, the positive and negative side-effects found in a recent study on ayahuasca, and how some toxic “forever chemicals” were found to be completely eradicated with new technology.
Today we explore how a recent meteorite that landed in the UK is giving us clues to the mysteries of the universe, the positive and negative side-effects found in a recent study on ayahuasca, and how some toxic “forever chemicals” were found to be completely eradicated with new technology.
Winchcombe Meteorite
Aya-What Now?
Toxic Cleanup
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Find episode transcripts here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/winchcombe-meteorite-aya-what-now-toxic-cleanup
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 a recent meteorite that landed in the UK is giving us clues to the mysteries of the universe, the positive and negative side-effects found in a recent study on ayahuasca, and how some toxic “forever chemicals” were found to be completely eradicated with new technology!
CALLI: Without further ado, let’s satisfy some curiosity!
[SFX: WHOOSH]
CALLI: Okay. Prepare for me to get a little nerdy about this because I just read such a cool story about meteorites. More specifically, the Winchcombe meteorite that recently landed in Gloucestershire, England.
NATE: Okay, well, I'm right there with you. Meteorites are well worth getting nerdy over. For example, there are 70,000 meteorite collections all over the world, but we only know where 50 of them came from, which is insane. And I assume that we can add this Winchcombe meteorite to that list.
CALLI: Okay, Not only that, but researchers are saying that this meteorite holds some key information about the history of the universe.
NATE: A meteorite that can tell us where the universe came from? I'm going to need to know more. Tell me about the Winchcombe meteorite.
CALLI: Okay. So this meteorite, as I mentioned, landed in England back in 2021 at about 10 p.m..
NATE: And we know this exact timing because it was big enough to see in the sky?
CALLI: Oh, yeah, Yeah. Okay. So over a thousand of our fellow meteorite lovers reported seeing a fireball lit up the sky that night. This group included a 16 person meteor tracking crew who were closeby hoping to film the whole event.
NATE: Speaking of meteor nerds…
CALLI: Listen. Exactly. But also, you know, we would have been right there with them if we could have been right?
NATE: Yes, absolutely. But please continue.
CALLI: Okay. So the next morning, the local news told residents to go look for black rocks near their homes. And one family discovered a pile of dark powder and small rock pieces in their driveway. They called in specialists from the Natural History Museum who confirmed, yup, it's a meteorite before they collected the space rubble for further analysis. All within 12 hours of it landing.
NATE: That's pretty amazing. I know it's quite rare to find one so quickly, but what is so special about this specific meteorite?
CALLI: Well, the researchers say that this meteorite contains the, quote unquote, building blocks to life, which is kind of a crazy concept to think about. This is because the Winchcombe is actually a rare kind of meteorite known as a carbonaceous chondrite that contains amino acids, which are carbon based molecules. The researchers have been tracking this guy for years as it made its way from its origin point, which was an asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter to Earth, which is how they were able to figure out where it would land.
NATE: Okay. But amino acids on a meteorite, what does that even mean?
CALLI: It means that it is super old, like billions of years old. It's believed that carbonaceous chondrite meteors were formed in the early days of the solar system, and they were so far away from the sun that the water in them didn't evaporate, causing the water to be incorporated into their structures. And get this, these meteorites are theorized to be the reason water exists on Earth in the first place.
NATE: Ooh, space water. That sounds pretty wild.
CALLI: I mean, to be fair, we're all kind of made up of space water. Just saying.
NATE: Hmm.
CALLI: But these samples are incredibly pristine. And I can't stress how big this is, though. This water is mostly locked up in minerals that formed in the earliest stages of the solar system. But it's important to note that most carbonaceous chondrites have been contaminated because of contact with Earth's atmosphere. That being said, thank goodness for our fellow meteorite nerds because the Winchcombe meteorite was hardly contaminated at all due to it being recovered within hours of its fall.
NATE: Yeah. Talk about some serious luck. Space rocks this pristine do not come easy.
CALLI: Exactly. Back in 2020, Japan's Hayabusa2 mission delivered a few grams of rock from a carbonaceous asteroid called Ryugu back to Earth. In 2023, NASA's OSIRIS-REx will bring home a somewhat larger chunk from the asteroid Bennu. These are multimillion dollar projects where we have to go to the asteroids. The Winchcombe, by comparison, came to us. Plus, because of just how pristine the materials are, we might be able to find out a little more than just the asteroid's history. Like what? Well, the researchers tracked it for a long time, right? Because of all the mathematics involved in tracing its route, we know more about the history of this particular meteorite than we do about certain places on Earth. This could be a way for us to figure out more about where we came from. And I mean the royalty as in us, the planet, the meteorite, and even the universe.
NATE: Well, we're learning about the universe through meteorites and space water. It's a great time to be alive.
CALLI: I just really love space.
[SFX: WHOOSH]
NATE: All your favorite celebrities swear by it, and all my favorite beat poets lived off of it. But just how safe is it to take the mind altering substance known as ayahuasca? A new study out of the University of Melbourne has found some interesting results.
CALLI: Okay, so I would say that I probably spend my time around some warm, eclectic people and I have heard of ayahuasca, but I'm not familiar with it. Can you explain what this even is?
NATE: Ayahuasca is a hallucinogenic drink that's been used for religious and medicinal purposes by Amazonian and First Nations people for thousands of years. Stick with me for just a sec while I throw some bigger words at you, then we can simplify. So it's made by boiling the Banisteriopsis caapi, which we're just going to call B.caapi vine’s stem with the leaves of the Psychotria viridis plants or P.viridis. B.kaapi provides a chemical called harmin, which starts the breakdown of the chemical Dimethyltryptamine or DMT supplied by P.viridis. Simply put, these two chemicals get you really, really high. Like like just really high. Ayahuasca became popular in the West during the 1950s because of writers like William S. Burroughs talking about how good it is for your health, both physically and spiritually. Since then, the ayahuasca retreat has taken off in a huge way, which is a vacation package you can book to South America to take ayahuasca recreationally under the guidance of a shaman.
CALLI: Okay, so what kind of health benefits are we talking here?
NATE: Other than the high it gives you? Ayahuasca can actually be good for you in a number of ways. It may benefit brain health by protecting human brain cells from any damage caused by lack of oxygen and increased cell survival. It may improve psychological well-being. One study showed that consuming ayahuasca once weekly for four weeks was as effective as an eight week mindfulness program. And it can also help treat addiction, anxiety and treatment resistant depression. Unfortunately, the study we're talking about today is focused on some of the other side effects of ayahuasca.
CALLI: Okay. Now I'm kind of curious about what other side effects because I have heard some horror stories, but what you've told me right now makes me actually want to try it.
NATE: Okay. Well, hold off until after the segment, because researchers at the University of Melbourne were more curious about the adverse effects of ayahuasca and began studying over 8000 people who had taken it before. They were asked to report any adverse physical effects through a check box system and were then asked whether they had ever experienced any medium term mental health or emotional changes in the weeks or months following ayahuasca ceremonies or sessions. The most common physical side effect at a whopping 70%? Nausea and vomiting.
CALLI: Wait, wait. So 70% of people who use ayahuasca are vomiting?
NATE: Yes. And it's considered a normal side effect alongside headaches and abdominal pains. To be fair, the researchers believe that vomiting should not be considered an adverse effect because users seek nausea during use, because the purging is perceived to be a spiritual cleansing benefit. However, 2% of the participants also admitted they required medical attention after vomiting.
CALLI: Okay, well, if vomiting is part of the fun, then I'm going to take a hard pass, especially with all those benefits you named earlier. But I am curious about what you were talking about with the psychological well-being.
NATE: Well, that leads me to the next issue. 55% of the responders reported adverse mental health effects. The researchers say that this is a relatively high figure and that although the frequency of any adverse mental health effects was high, hearing or seeing things that other people do not hear or see was observed in only 28.5% of the ayahuasca users.
CALLI: Only 28.5%?!
NATE: Well, it's it's better than the 21% of participants who reported feeling disconnected or alone. The good news is that these feelings didn't last forever. All adverse mental health effects reported in the survey lasted less than a week.
CALLI: Okay. So an entire week of feeling disconnected or alone. I mean, that's fine. I remember the COVID lockdown and I could deal with that for the health benefits, but you'd have to convince me on it.
NATE: Well, yeah, you'd have to. Then ask yourself one final important question. Would you be doing this for the health benefits or to honor the ceremony? The researchers make it a point to mention that ayahuasca is not a pharmacological experience and that it's a spiritual practice for many Amazonians. The concept of ayahuasca tourism is pretty controversial. On one hand, it's created jobs in areas that desperately needed them. On the other hand, it's also viewed as a form of cultural appropriation or worse.
CALLI: Wow. Okay, so what did the study conclude? Is ayahuasca safe or not?
NATE: It's safe mostly. Ayahuasca definitely has notable but rarely severe side effects on both physical and mental health, which the researchers believe has huge implications for public health. Most of its effects are meant to be challenging for the user, so they believe that adverse effects are only as adverse as you believe them to be.
CALLI: Okay. I think for me personally, I'm just gonna do some more research.
[SFX: WHOOSH]
CALLI: I'm jumping straight into our next topic about how for decades there have been cancer causing pollutants found in drinking water all over the world that some people call forever chemicals that there was nothing we could do about. Now it's been discovered that these chemicals might not actually last forever at all.
NATE: There's kind of a lot going on there. Something about cancer in our water Didn't love that.
CALLI: Yes. So forever chemicals could cause cancer. These are known as poly- and per- fluoralkyl substances or PFA for short. Thousands of different chemical compounds that make up what are considered PFAs, but they are all characterized by fully fluorinated atoms with chemical bonds that some refer to as stubbornly strong because they can resist heat and water.
NATE: I feel like all of this does sound kind of familiar.
CALLI: That's probably because they have been in common use since the 1940s, and virtually every American product. PFAs exist in grease resistant paper wrappers and containers in things like microwave popcorn bags, pizza boxes, candy wrappers. I mean, even your NONSTICK cookware has PFAs.
NATE: Oh, that's. Are you are you trying to tell me that my junk food is unhealthy for me?
CALLI: Weird. I know.
NATE: I am shocked.
CALLI: Here's the thing. It's also found in stain and water repellents used on carpet, clothing, other fabrics in cleaning products, nonstick cookware, paints, varnishes, sealants, etc. All that nonstick surface stuff comes at a huge cost. And studies have linked exposure to certain levels of PFAs to many health effects, like an increased risk for prostate, kidney and testicular cancers.
NATE: Is that all? Fantastic?
CALLI: No, it's not.
NATE: Oh, good.
CALLI: Exposure to PFA may also lead to: decreased fertility or increased high blood pressure in pregnant women, developmental effects or delays in children, low birth weight accelerated puberty compounds in cafes also have been found to compromise the immune system's ability to fight infections and to interfere with hormone function.
NATE: This is like the worst drug commercial side effects thing I've ever heard. Just keeps going! All right I was supposed to be sarcastic about the, “Is that all?” No, it's not. Okay, that's really bad. So why has it taken people so long to do anything about this?
CALLI: Okay, so that's actually a whole other topic for another time, because the short answer is many companies that produce products containing PFAs, such as 3M and DuPont, have known how harmful plays are to people and hid the results from the public. It wasn't really until about the mid 2000s that the true nature of PFAS became known to the public. And so there's no federal regulation in any state government that regulates the use of PFAs. As word spreads and people learn a little bit more about this, state governments are starting to push new legislature to begin cleaning phase out of drinking groundwater that comes from toxic cleanup sites.
NATE: Okay. But back at the beginning of this story, you were talking about a discovery of how we can get rid of forever chemicals.
CALLI: I did! Exactly! Yes!
NATE: Able to be eradicated? Okay.
CALLI: Yes. Okay. So, this is the exciting part. A study out of the University of California, Riverside, discovered ways to chemically break PFAs up into smaller compounds that are essentially harmless. They infused contaminated water with hydrogen, then blast the water with high energy, short wavelength ultraviolet light. The hydrogen polarizes water molecules to make them more reactive while the light catalyzes chemical reactions that destroy the PFAs. So too long didn’t read: to put it simply, it breaks the chemical bonds that make PFAs stick to everything.
NATE: I got to say, that sounds good. I know. Say that sounds good. Does this always work?
CALLI: Always. The molecular destruction of PFAS increased from 10% to a perfect 100%. There were no other undesirable impurities that were being generated, and the hydrogen straight up just becomes water. Meaning that not only are PFAs is being eradicated, but we're creating new water in the process. So, plot twist, this is also a sustainability project. You're welcome.
NATE: Okay. Yeah, I like the sound of all of that. So what's next? How do we get the good stuff out of this?
CALLI: How do we get from A to Z here? Well, right now, since legislature is pending in most states for PFAS regulation, the lab team is using a $50,000 proof of concept grant from UCR's Office of Technology Partnership to scale up the PFAs eradication technology to handle larger volumes of water. So right now, when they're doing this, they're small sample sizes, and they're about the size of just a regular drinking glass of water. With the new technology, they believe they can target entire bodies of water successfully.
NATE: Thank goodness. I was worried that my junk food wasn't going to be safe for me to eat.
CALLI: Okay, listen, I I've seen the way you eat, and I'm just going to say maybe cut back on the junk food just a little. Right. But these side effects come from prolonged use over a long period of time with PFAs. So if you're eating like a little pizza, occasionally, you're going to be just fine.
[SFX: WHOOSH]
NATE: Let’s recap what we learned today to wrap up.
CALLI: Where do meteorites come from? A recent discovery in England has found that certain meteorites are as old as the solar system itself and come from debris of long-dead worlds, containing water that is so old it may have been the source of all water on Earth. This discovery means we are one step closer to solving the mystery of where meteorites come from - and maybe even where the UNIVERSE comes from.
NATE: More than just the substance that changed Machine Gun Kelly’s life, ayahuasca is the key ingredient for a religious ceremony with thousands of years of history. But is it good for you? Researchers are mixed - on one hand, ayahuasca use is linked with better brain health and treating addiction. On the other hand? Vomiting, abdominal pains, and depression. The verdict - tread cautiously with ayahuasca. It COULD change your life - for better AND worse!
CALLI: For nearly a century, major corporations have hid the existence of carcinogenic chemicals so resistant to eradication they’re known as “forever chemicals.” Fortunately, new research out of UC Riverside has discovered a way to successfully eradicate PFAS once and for all. The test size is small for now, but new funding has allowed the researchers to begin testing on larger bodies of water - possibly ending the scourge of PFAS in our society once and for all.