Sirocco the kakapo preferred seducing human heads, Japanese scientists kept cloning mice until the whole thing started falling apart and a robotic dog is now sniffing whisky barrels in Scotland. This week is a tidy little mix of conservation chaos, cloning limits and high tech booze protection, which is exactly the sort of sentence science forces you to write from time to time.
Sirocco and the Conservation Helmet Nobody Asked For
Let’s start in New Zealand, where conservationists trying to save the endangered kakapo found themselves dealing with Sirocco, a bird with deeply unhelpful romantic instincts. Instead of directing his energy toward female kakapo, Sirocco became famous for attempting to mate with human heads. Which is already a lot for a fieldwork report.
Naturally, scientists did what scientists do and tried to turn the problem into a solution. They designed a special dimpled helmet in the hope of collecting semen for conservation efforts. It did not exactly become a triumph of practical engineering, but it remains a glorious example of how wildlife conservation often involves equal parts dedication, improvisation and personal humiliation. Saving a species is noble. Sometimes it is also deeply weird.
Cloning Mice Until the Wheels Came Off
Then we head to Japan, where researchers spent twenty years cloning mice through 58 consecutive generations. Which is either a remarkable act of scientific persistence or a sign that nobody in the lab knew when to stop. The goal was to see how long cloning could keep going and what would happen over time.
What happened was not especially reassuring. The cloned mice showed more mutations than animals produced through normal reproduction, and by generation 58 the line collapsed, with the clones dying prematurely. It’s a useful reminder that biology does not always love being copied and pasted. You can push the system for a while, but eventually the cracks start to show. Nature, once again, remains annoyingly difficult to outsmart.
When Trucking Gets Extremely Scientific
From cloning experiments, we move to trucking news, which is not usually where the glamour lives. But this time it absolutely does. In Europe, a trucker successfully transported one of the rarest and most expensive cargoes on Earth. Anti matter. A tiny cloud of 92 anti protons.
It sounds ridiculous, because it is. Anti matter is volatile, vanishingly rare and not the sort of thing you want rattling around in the back next to a thermos and a high vis vest. But the successful trip was a genuine breakthrough, showing that scientists may be able to move this stuff safely over longer distances in future. Which is a lovely reminder that modern science sometimes advances not through dramatic explosions or genius breakthroughs, but because someone managed to do the world’s most stressful delivery run without incident.
Whisky, Robotics and the Angel’s Share
And finally to Scotland, where whisky warehouses are now being patrolled by a robotic dog with an electronic nose. Its job is to sniff out ethanol leaks from barrels, helping distilleries protect the precious contents from escaping too early. Which means one of the oldest and most romantic industries on Earth is now being assisted by what sounds like a side character from a low budget sci fi film.
It is actually a clever bit of kit. Whisky barrels lose some liquid over time through evaporation, known as the angel’s share, but leaks are another matter. If a robot dog can spot problems early, that is less wasted whisky and fewer unpleasant surprises in the warehouse. It may not be able to leap heroically across giant obstacles, but if it can save a few barrels of Scotch, it has earned its keep.
So that is the week. A parrot with terrible boundaries, cloned mice hitting the biological wall, anti matter getting its own freight run, and a robot dog protecting whisky like the world’s nerdiest distillery bouncer. Science is rarely elegant, often absurd, and almost always more entertaining than it has any right to be.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Introduction
02:17 Kakapo Basics
03:59 Lek Breeding Explained
05:24 Sirocco Imprints on Humans
07:30 The Helmet Experiment
12:06 Infinite Cloning Idea
14:17 58 Generations Later
15:40 Why Clones Degrade
17:16 80s Cloning Logic
18:11 Antimatter Trucking Breakthrough
19:23 What Antimatter Really Is
20:35 Making and Measuring Antiprotons
23:11 Fridge Trap on the Road
26:16 Whisky Aging and Angels Share
28:30 Warehouse Leak Detection Problem
31:20 Robot Dog Barrel Sniffer
33:10 Spider Robots and Drones Next
34:52 Wrap Up and Listener Feedback
SOURCES:
https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/birds/sirocco-kakapo-ejaculation-helmet
https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/birds/kakapo-parrot
https://www.audubon.org/magazine/what-heck-lek-quirkiest-mating-party-earth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jlk9u8MIv7o
https://futurism.com/science-energy/scientists-cloned-recloned-mouse
https://www.wired.com/story/meet-scotlands-whisky-sniffing-robot-dog/
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[00:00:01] Rod: So how far would you go to save an endangered parrot? A small donation, a, a large donation. Maybe you'd spend a week in the wilderness nailing up some, you know, special nesting boxes for them. You might let some live in an Avery near your house. Maybe you'd be prepared to hand feed them when they're special foods.
[00:00:23] All these things. I'm sure many reasonable people who are interested in preserving parrots will be happy to do. But what about, let anyone fuck your head so it could, uh, have, you could harvest it, the semen. Um, so welcome to the heartwarming Tale of Rocco, the Parrot, and a very special hat.
[00:00:46] Will: It is time for a little bit of science. I'm will grant an associate professor of science communication at the Australian National University.
[00:00:54] Rod: And I am, uh, Roderick g Lambert, a, uh, 30 year cycl veteran with the mind of a teenage boy, as I think I've has once again made apparent already.
[00:01:02] Will: And today, as well as parrots doing things to your heads.
[00:01:06] Rod: We have a, a nice ongoing, uh, fun with animals story.
[00:01:10] Will: got some more fun with animals as well.
[00:01:12] Rod: Ooh. I'm gonna tell you a little bit about how we can high tech max our whiskey production, particularly in the Scotlands.
[00:01:20] Will: And I also have some trucking news finally. Science and trucking getting together at last.
[00:01:25] Rod: I really, anything that has trucking in it, I'm like, I'm in. I'm just in it's 'cause it's just gotta be awesome. Unless you're actually a trucker, which I think would be a terrible
[00:01:32] Will: No, it's be, look, I, no, no, no. Depends
[00:01:35] on, depends. It would, yeah. Yeah. It
[00:01:39] Rod: That's what I mean by terrible. I think it'll be real, like sitting down for hours and
[00:01:43] Will: Listening to
[00:01:43] Rod: and having to
[00:01:44] Will: Listening to podcasts.
[00:01:45] Rod: know. And I know you're listening to us right now listening to
[00:01:48] Will: exactly. That's what I'm suggesting to you,
[00:01:51] Rod: Oh no, that's a good part of it. But every time I do long trips and I see these guys getting outta their trucks after driving for 48 years straight and. Looking cross-eyed, and [00:02:00] usually many of them are fairly,
[00:02:01] Will: rod. I'm trying to steer you off this topic because that could be a chunk of our listeners.
[00:02:05] Rod: Yeah, I'm saying. I feel for you. I feel for
[00:02:08] Will: Say they're beautiful,
[00:02:09] Rod: They are beautiful. Without them, we'd all be
[00:02:11] Will: Without trucks, Australia's drops. Drops.
[00:02:14] Rod: Dropping Australia dropping in its straps. So the, uh, kaha, the Kakapo parrot, it's very unusual. Parrot from the New Zealands. It's a specific kind of species. They're kind of moss green. I mean, have you heard of these?
[00:02:27] Will: Oh yeah, I know 'em, I know 'em very well. But, but listeners, listeners don't. So I'm,
[00:02:31] I am basically
[00:02:32] Rod: Oh, but you're a, as a parrot fetishist
[00:02:34] Will: yes, I'm basically a parrot fetishist, but you know, I, I don't talk about it, so just you tell me what they look like. I.
[00:02:41] Rod: well, you shouldn't, A true fetishist likes to keep it close to their chest. Yeah. Mossy green, they kinda have these fuzzy chops. They almost look, some have described 'em as being a little bit like, you know, oldie, timey, gentlemanly with their fuzzy chops. They're unlike other parrot species, they're flightless.
[00:02:54] They're half a metre to 65, 70 centimetres long. Like they're big.
[00:03:00] Will: Yeah, but no, but that's, that's like baked tail. Like I feel like, you know, the tail
[00:03:05] can be an extravagant bit of kit. Like, you know, you're extending your length by, by at least double with a, with a birdie tail.
[00:03:12] Rod: Don't you count
[00:03:13] Will: No, it's like,
[00:03:14] it's like a dude. I mean, this would be impressive. This would be impressive. But if a dude had like a, a metre and a half of Mohawk, you wouldn't say that the dude is like three
[00:03:23] Rod: He is two and a half
[00:03:24] Will: Like, like, I'm sorry. That's, that's, you wouldn't say that. It would be impressive, but I don't know. Big, long tail feather.
[00:03:32] Rod: uh, well look, this, this, this, this is what the scientists say. I'm just, you know, I'm just reporting on the sciences. Um, if you want another version of big, the males can weigh up to four, four and a half kilos, which is fucking heavy for a parrot.
[00:03:43] Yeah, females can get up to two and a half kilos.
[00:03:45] So the, basically the boys are the size of a cat. Size and weight of a cat. That's a lot of parrot.
[00:03:50] Will: No wonder they're flightless.
[00:03:51] Rod: Yeah, I look, I think it might've been a smart decision on their part to say let's not use them apparently also, which has nothing to do with this story really. They're the only [00:04:00] parrot that exhibits lech breeding, LEK breeding, and you, of course know exactly what that
[00:04:05] Will: Uh, yes, but you could tell me again.
[00:04:07] Rod: Yeah. Others might not. It's basically lech breeding is where all the males gather together. Doof or, or like nightclub show off their moves. But there's no other extravagant need for the female. The females see them boogie, but they don't do anything like show off how, what good hunters they are or how big their ding-dongs are or that the beauty of their nest.
[00:04:27] They just all get together and go, look at us, look at us, look at us. Pick me. Which is apparently a particular kind of breeding and mate
[00:04:32] Will: a, like a sort of display of the male folk and the women just choose, I'll take
[00:04:38] Rod: But in groups, like not as an individual, they, they get together
[00:04:41] Will: Like a red light district, you know, it's like you can, you can walk down the streets of Amsterdam and, uh, the glass windows. You can say there is the, there is the male kakapo for me.
[00:04:51] Rod: yep. That's exactly how it works. It's pretty much what it's like on the, uh, outskirts of Auckland every Saturday night. Also, they're under threat. This is not shocking. I mean, they can't fly. They're fucking fat. They try and nightclub to impress the ladies rather than saying, look at me. I'm a good provider, and blah, blah.
[00:05:06] So there are many efforts to bring them back from the brink. One became very famous, 2012. So there's this parrot, this ka ka, probably car carpo. I think it's long as you know for the Kiwi listeners going, Jesus, you mangling our
[00:05:18] Will: choose. Choose your pronunciation halfway through. That would be what you'd do.
[00:05:21] Rod: Exactly. I know it's showing that I can learn. So this parrot's called Rocco and apparently Rocco had respiratory issues since birth and was therefore hand raised by rangers.
[00:05:32] Will: Oh, lovely.
[00:05:33] Rod: Which isn't it, it's nice. It's nice, but it, it seems that because of this, he imprinted on humans very, very young and never showed any interest in getting jiggy with your lady parrots at all. Or in fact, he just didn't wanna play with any of his kind, just not interested, didn't care. But he was very interested in human heads,
[00:05:51] Will: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
[00:05:54] Rod: So there's a famous BBC video of a presenter, and I think Steven Fry was involved as well. Somehow [00:06:00] they're taking photos of the bird, so he is down, crawling around on his elbows and stuff, taking photos in the wilderness, and this bird climbs up his arm and just starts. Going for it on the back of his head, just like clanging away.
[00:06:10] And as it was described in this one report, it engaged in a vigorous act of coitus, was extremely excited to be, and we're not talking wham bam. Thank you, man. We're talking. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like this, this bird was absolutely hammering tongs. And so the New Zealand Department of Conservation, there's a vet there, and she thought, well, if that's what the bird's into and we need to preserve them, we'll go with what they like.
[00:06:35] Will: Uhhuh Uhhuh,
[00:06:36] Rod: If he wants, if he wants, wants to
[00:06:37] Will: it one particular Ranger's head? Like was it one particular
[00:06:41] Rod: No, it seemed a bit indiscriminate. A human head within range.
[00:06:46] Will: I just check, did, did this act lead to more kakapo babies? Because I feel like
[00:06:52] it's not normal path here to get the sperm outta the kakapo boy onto the head of the ranger.
[00:06:59] Rod: By like combing it out of your hair.
[00:07:02] Will: oh, I, I just, I just, I, I, look,
[00:07:04] I'm just saying I can understand it might help with mental health issues, but it's not, I, I don't see the direct path I to,
[00:07:11] Rod: who's,
[00:07:13] Will: I don't see the direct path to solving more babies.
[00:07:17] Rod: I'm just imagining going to the, the chemist and saying, look, I know you've got the, the knit comb. I need a different kind of comb. I need a comb that will just sort of take more gelatinous stuff out of my hair or my children's hair. Anyway, so, uh, yeah, NZ or nz, department of Conservation, ve uh, what we called Dr.
[00:07:35] Kate McKinna, she thought if this is what rocco's into. Let's go with what he's into. So she designed a dimpled semen collecting latex helmet, which for all intents and purposes looks like a whole bunch, like a hat made outta condoms. Just a whole bunch of little Frans on the noggin basically. Um, and it was inspired by an existing one pet.
[00:07:59] [00:08:00] So in Mauritius, there's a bird called the Mauritius. Kes and apparently they needed to collect its uh, uh, baby making juices. So the heroes of the Kestrel would put this sort of helmet on its head, wander off into the landscape so the boy birds could get in there and have their way with it, leave their contributions, and off they go.
[00:08:17] So it's not untested except the Castrol weighs 250 grammes. Rocco weighs four
[00:08:22] Will: Yeah. Okay. Sure.
[00:08:24] Rod: There's a little more leverage in musculature getting involved here.
[00:08:28] Will: Oh,
[00:08:30] Rod: So, yeah, basically the wearer would need more protection than just a bunch of Frans on the head. 'cause they, they offer protection, but not from, you know, actual ballistic shock.
[00:08:38] So, um, she, being in New Zealand, took a, a rugby helmet and modified that. My bet is, it's basically a rugby helmet with a bunch of condoms stuck on it or
[00:08:47] Will: Okay.
[00:08:47] Rod: pops it on a organin, goes off into the forest and makes itself available. And Rocco said, I'm DTF, I'm into this. That head is mine. So three nights in a row she goes out to where Rocco is and he goes at hammering tonks.
[00:09:02] And apparently he's very enthusiastic 'cause most birds only take a few seconds. Like literally they're getting there. They go Akron off, they pop. He apparently would go for it for more than an hour
[00:09:11] Will: Oh geez. Right. Oh, right.
[00:09:14] Rod: and, and would grunt the whole time he's doing
[00:09:16] Will: is Rocco is he the branch of the species that we wanna save? I feel like, I feel like there might be some other boys and girls out there in the kakapo land that maybe we could selectively breed ones that aren't doing this kind. I think, I think we're rewarding bad behaviour here.
[00:09:34] Rod: I think you're right, particularly, apparently unconfirmed reports is he'd sort of lean in and go, oh, you like that, don't you? So he's, he's really not a good bird. He's not a good bird. But apparently enthusiasm and success are not always neatly aligned. So he would, at least for these three sessions, more than an hour of him having a great evening, not a drop of semen was ever recovered.
[00:09:59] Will: Okay.
[00:09:59] Rod: [00:10:00] And I'm impressed. I'm impressed. Like after the night too, I'd be going, oh look. I've done
[00:10:05] Will: this some elaborate hazing ritual in, in conservation New Zealand or something like that?
[00:10:10] Rod: Oh. Can you imagine? So you're new to the job,
[00:10:13] Will: You gotta get the interns out
[00:10:14] there and get the
[00:10:17] Rod: Pop this on your head, eh, and
[00:10:19] Will: look. It
[00:10:19] just, if you had said like, there is, there is all of the material we need to save the kakapo, then, then you'd be like, all right, I'll do it. I'll do it. You know, this is, this is what the world needs. But uh.
[00:10:31] Rod: Yeah, well look, and it didn't work. So apparently now the helmet's in a museum in Wellington next Chloe, who's a motorised decoy female for the similar purpose, which didn't work either. So these birds are, I'm kind of with you not only on the whole, maybe there's a better branch, but if other if didn't work for others as well.
[00:10:51] I'm thinking. Certain creatures aren't doing anything to help their own cause here. And I'm wondering if these guys, I'm not against these parrots, but how far do you
[00:11:00] Will: Are you, are you of the loser species? school of thought. You're like, you know,
[00:11:04] Rod: one. No one dropped the L word.
[00:11:06] Will: dugongs, you know, like, come on man. Eat more than one thing. Uh, you deserve to go
[00:11:11] extinct. And, and you,
[00:11:12] Rod: yeah, don't get hit by propellers of boats. I
[00:11:14] Will: uh, it's, it's a dangerous line of thinking, man. If you're just like, win a species can survive loser species, off you go.
[00:11:21] Rod: Well, there's winner and there's winner, but if, if you're literally going, I'm gonna wear this thing on my head so that you can fuck it, so that we can then collect your semen and artificially inseminate the ladies of your
[00:11:30] species.
[00:11:30] I figure there's a number
[00:11:31] Will: world so much? We've ruined the world so much that that normal behaviours don't exist anymore. So, you know, this whole, who's the loser? Who's the winner? Like clearly there's, there's winner species out there in the human, human constructed world. You know, you,
[00:11:45] you, you, your pigeons and your rats and your foxes and whatnot.
[00:11:50] I,
[00:11:50] Rod: Yeah.
[00:11:50] Will: Donald
[00:11:51] Rod: I, I'm, I'm not saying definitively, I'm not saying don't do it. I'm just saying there's gotta be a time where you go, okay, guys, team meeting. How many [00:12:00] more steps should we take before we try and save something else instead? I don't know. I don't know.
[00:12:06] So Clonings been around for a long time. Cloning animals in particular, obviously no one would ever clone a human 'cause that would be illegal, terrible and wrong. Tell the story. I'll tell you next episode. Um, since do the Sheep nine six, Dolly, the sheep, you know, made a big splash. For those of you who are under 29, you probably never heard of it, but it was a big deal.
[00:12:26] They cloned a whole mammal and the mammal. It was fairly successful in living and stuff. We've also replicated high production dairy cows, Bati. There's this boutique, I can't read my own writing. Batik Cloning of, you know, like celebrity pets and stuff. 'cause it's quite expensive. Someone wants the same dog over and over
[00:12:43] Will: And I've heard the other one is, um, police dogs. You know, you get a particularly good police dog and you're
[00:12:48] like, yeah. There's companies that sell particular police dogs. Uh,
[00:12:52] Rod: Oh rovers one to
[00:12:55] Will: well, you know, they're not called Rover. They've got a tougher name. Like, like murder
[00:12:59] Rod: Spike murder here. Murder or murdery? Murdery. Murdery, duh. I think they might do a race horse or two as well. I believe. I've heard stories, but that's just, you know, people say, but that's all pretty per se We're used to it. So I'm kind of surprised that this research, we haven't heard about this before, but um, some Japanese researchers wanted to check if you could infinitely clone.
[00:13:22] Will: Just keep going. Yeah.
[00:13:24] Rod: Just keep cloning. So clone of a clone of a clone and a clone till he death of the universe. Can you just keep cloning The clone? The clone, the clone. The clone. And again, I'm, I'm shocked. I only read about this the other week and I'm like, this is, why is this the first time I've heard of this? I was surprised.
[00:13:39] So, um, over the last 20 years, they've been cloning and then cloning the clone of a female mouse. 20 years they've been doing this, which is, it's impressive. It's impressive.
[00:13:49] Will: a generation of clones like they, they, they have to grow to maturity or something, or sexual
[00:13:53] Rod: Uh, well, in, in 20 years they made it, uh, they're up to 58 generations,
[00:13:59] Will: that? That's, [00:14:00] that's about nine years per generation or something like that.
[00:14:03] Hmm?
[00:14:04] Rod: over 20 years. No, way less months. Like they're
[00:14:06] Will: was a joke. It was a joke, man. It was a joke. It was a joke. I can
[00:14:09] Rod: no, that's not, it's not funny. Do better do the real maths. Be funnier. Amuse me. Amuse me through my cold. Uh, so first 25 generations, everything sailed along. So 2 0 5 to 2013, they rec cloned them and they said the, the clones are basically quite healthy.
[00:14:27] Everything ticked along and they're like, cool. We can keep doing this forever. It's gonna be great. So they kept going. 27th generation, the animals started to become a little less fertile and they gave birth to smaller litters. And for some reason it's significant. They
[00:14:40] Will: it seems as soon as they, as soon as they said, we can keep this, doing this for forever, like two generations later, it's like, no, you can't. There's an end here.
[00:14:49] Rod: yeah, something's changed. So that's 27 generations. Um, also at that point, a few more of them would die, just a few. That's 27 by the 57th generation. 'cause fuck it, keep, you know, double down, triple
[00:15:01] Will: Well, you gotta know.
[00:15:02] Rod: Less than 1% of the clones
[00:15:03] Will: Yeah. Okay.
[00:15:05] Rod: Less than 1% 58th generation, which they got to that. That's a total of about 1200 clones altogether.
[00:15:11] Every single one was born alive and died the next day. Every single one died and they showed no outward signs of physical abnormality, and they're not really sure why. And it seems to be, and I'm paraphrasing and summarising. I don't know, mutations and shit like, huh? It's weird. This doesn't seem good. So, uh, the author, a, uh, the senior author, uh, WSAN, he said, uh, it was, I think it's, he, my apologies I didn't double check.
[00:15:40] Uh, they said it, it was once believed that clones were identical to the original. But it's become clear through this study that mutations occur at a rate three times higher in offspring than those born through natural mating. And of course with clones, they keep on passing on those mutations repeatedly and un watered down or [00:16:00] undiluted.
[00:16:00] So worse and worse and worse. So without your genetic diversity, nearness, these mu, these mutations snowball,
[00:16:06] Will: But that's interesting that, um, that there is more mutations in a clone than, um, a sexual, because you know, the point of sexual reproduction is to get more diversity. Sure. But there's, but the fact that there is also more mutations at that point, like something else is, is, is driving that.
[00:16:21] Rod: So, I dunno any more about the details other than in some cases they said the clones even lost entire copies of their X chromosome.
[00:16:27] So there's, you know, pretty stuff. Sex determining chromosome. Um, they did stop at 58 when everything died the next day they
[00:16:36] Will: Well, it's kind of hard to do
[00:16:37] Rod: I, I, I think we're done
[00:16:38] Will: they're all done. Well, that's, uh,
[00:16:41] Rod: grabbing,
[00:16:41] Will: that's great news. Is it great news? Is it bad news? Tell me.
[00:16:45] Rod: I don't know. I mean, the one take home is, you know, for we, you know, sexual producers, uh, keep on written. If you don't want to turn out, sorry for the Americans, written means having the intercourse. We probably need to keep on doing that, or at least mixing our, our genetic backgrounds because. There comes a point where all those sci-fi dystopian horror movies where you clone a clone, a clone, or that ridiculous, what was it called?
[00:17:08] I think it was called Multiplicity, a movie with Michael Keaton, where he cloned himself and then closed himself again, and so he could get all these extra shit done and not get in trouble with his wife. Really. Classic eighties movie of course. And by the time they got about the 10th clone, the, the clone was basically as stupid as a, a drunk
[00:17:23] child, which was hilarious.
[00:17:25] Will: the problem with an eighties clone where, where you're sort of an adult and
[00:17:28] out pops no, but out pops an adult of, uh, that's the same age as you, which which is a very different sort of thing to. Uh, the actual scientific clone, which is, is your DNA, but it is not the same thing.
[00:17:40] And it's, it's clearly, you know, 20, 30 years behind you in growth. So, but the problem with an eighties clone is you, is the in instant they're gonna take your life. So
[00:17:48] the instant you've been cloned, you have to kill them. Like, that's you.
[00:17:52] Rod: it's true. It's true. It's true. 'cause you know it's gonna go wrong. At the very least, some hilarity will ensue until they do turn around and try [00:18:00] and you take your life and your wife
[00:18:01] that's cloning for you, don't photocopy your mice.
[00:18:05] Will: But don't worry about it now 'cause you can only do 58 generations.
[00:18:09] Rod: Yeah. So
[00:18:11] Will: Well today in trucking news, something actually really exciting has happened because, uh, a
[00:18:18] trucker,
[00:18:18] Rod: in trucking's. Exciting
[00:18:20] Will: a trucker in, uh, well in Europe has carried the world's lightest, but potentially most expensive cargo for at least a 10 kilometre distance. And this is something that has never happened before
[00:18:33] and opens the door to something.
[00:18:36] Yeah, perhaps really exciting.
[00:18:38] Rod: But if it's the world's lightest, why do you need a truck?
[00:18:41] Will: Why do you need a truck? Well, oh, they're, they're baking it in for the future. Like this is.
[00:18:46] Rod: Oh, for when it, you get more heavier.
[00:18:48] Will: You know, we'll, we'll put a few more in. We might, uh, well, okay. Multiple reasons. You, you definitely need a truck for the container that's, uh, that is going here. though, you probably could have got it in the back of a ute, I think your Ute would've been fine, but it wouldn't have been as impressive in the press release.
[00:19:05] If you could get it in the back of the Ute, you can't get it in the back of the car.
[00:19:08] Rod: no. Rod Rod's, ute carries world's lightest cargo. Come Rights itself.
[00:19:14] Will: and I, I don't know that the Ute advertisers are like, can carry the world's light, lightest cargo. So what is this? World's lightest cargo.
[00:19:20] Rod: It can, it can carry almost nothing. Yeah. What is it?
[00:19:23] Will: Anti-matter. Anti-matter. Just, just anti-matter. So it's like matter, but it's the opposite, weirdly.
[00:19:31] Rod: it's like angry. It's it's matter with a black goatee and
[00:19:34] Will: Yeah, exactly. It's it's the waro to the Mario, the wild Luigi to the Luigi of Matter. No, it's actually, so, so basically the, the point of a anti-matter is that the electrical charge and the spin on the atoms have been reversed. So for every hydrogen there, well, not for every hydrogen, but there is anti hydrogen where it has, it has the electrical charge and the spin on it, uh, reversed.[00:20:00]
[00:20:00] Weirdly, the, there's been
[00:20:01] a, there's, there's, well, there's the thing in, in physics, there's long been a question why is there so much more matter than anti-matter? So the theory was you could have just at the Big Bang popped out the same amount of both matter and
[00:20:12] anti-matter and
[00:20:14] Rod: 'cause there weren't the trucks to carry it.
[00:20:17] Will: Well, maybe, but potentially there's, there's ideas that, the universe may have giant patches of antimatter and giant patches of matter and where they rub into each other, they may have, may have neutralised each other, but it seems so far that mostly the universe is matter.
[00:20:31] but
[00:20:32] Rod: yeah, that is a weird one. That is a weird one.
[00:20:34] Will: Well, here's the thing. I mean, so the, there, there are not very many places where you can produce antimatter in the world. So you, you need, you need something like, you need a, um, a particle accelerator or a particle decelerate, to smash
[00:20:50] Rod: Oh, accelerate for matter and decelerate for anti-matter. Is
[00:20:53] Will: I, I'm not sure you, you, yeah.
[00:20:55] But, but you need pretty unique, uh, facilities. So this is, um, CERN has one of the few, or I dunno how many there are anti-matter factories in the world. And when we're talking the, the amount that, that they can produce, getting to a kilogramme is like, you are so off the charts here. so in this
[00:21:15] Rod: We're talking what? Like centuries?
[00:21:17] Will: well probably, but I don't think, I mean, how there's a key, there's a bunch of key problems. You're basically producing tiny amounts. So this particular, trucking incident, they had a cloud of 92 Antiprotons, so, uh.
[00:21:31] Rod: Oh,
[00:21:31] Will: So, so we're talking, you know, we're not at, not at, you are not getting to a kilo. A kilo of antiprotons would be in the, in the trillion, trillion.
[00:21:41] Trillions don't, don't count that number. But, but, but we had 92. And so if, if someone says they've got a kilo, then, then they'd be lying to you. Don't, don't buy a kilo of antimatter from someone in the pub,
[00:21:52] Rod: I'm so glad you told me that 'cause I was about to click and buy on the internets from the Amazons. So thank you for warning
[00:21:59] Will: But [00:22:00] not a jar. But in this, and, and this is actually, 'cause what they wanna be able to do is produce anti-matter in an anti-matter factory. So this might be at cern, but there are other facilities. Well, the problem with the factory is the production of that, of the anti-matter makes the other sensors in the experiments that you might want to use it for.
[00:22:19] Actually throws 'em out of whack. So because there, because there's uh, large magnetic fields, there's a bunch of things that are happening in the factory that mean you can't use it as precisely as you would if you had it in another scientific experiment down the road.
[00:22:32] Rod: so as in the production of it fucks them up or the use of anti-matter fucks it
[00:22:38] Will: Uh, it, the pro, the production facilities can't be isolated because, 'cause they, you, you're dealing with, um, huge magnets, huge, huge facilities there that are, that are that mean that if you are doing a hypersensitive sort of experiment, you know, you're smashing one proton into an anti-proton or something like that, uh, that you wouldn't be able to detect it nearly as cleanly as if it was more isolated from the production facilities.
[00:23:00] So you actually,
[00:23:00] Rod: so you need a clean source or clean source machine.
[00:23:04] Will: Right now. Right now you would, you would have to use it there. Um, you'd run your experiment because you can't actually move it around very much at all. But this is, this is the development that now they've built a fridge sized, box that, that includes
[00:23:18] Rod: is, is it a fridge,
[00:23:19] Will: Ah, fridge. No. Well, it is a fridge. Yes it is. It is a fridge because you do have to keep them at not, um, absolute zero, but eight degrees above absolute zero, so really quite cold. so, so you need facilities to keep it cold, and then you need magnets to, to make a magnetic bottle, to trap the antiprotons in there.
[00:23:38] So it's gonna be super cold. Super ty. And. Uh, yeah, basically fridge sized because you wanna be able to get it through doors and you wanna be able to move it around. So yes, it theoretically could get, uh, into the back of your Ute, but here is the new facility for the Dan Brown novel. It's about a fridge sized sort of thing, uh, can trap the Antiprotons, um, and then you can drive them around and so
[00:23:59] Rod: harder to [00:24:00] smuggle under your paper robes. To be fair though, that would kind of take away the drama.
[00:24:05] Will: A little scroll. Like what, what are those? What's the, another Dan Brown novel? What are those, um, ancient, uh, codex
[00:24:11] Rod: Oh, the things that, yeah, that tells you that actually Jesus, the Holy GRAIL's. A
[00:24:15] Will: Yeah. Yeah. I filled my codex full of
[00:24:18] Rod: Oh, spoiler it. Spoiler all it. Sorry.
[00:24:21] Will: is French.
[00:24:21] Rod: Yes. Where his daughter is.
[00:24:26] Will: So they, um, they drove it from their facilities. They went for a 10 K lap around town, while the lead
[00:24:31] Rod: We're just going, yes.
[00:24:34] Will: well.
[00:24:35] Rod: the horn, doing the trucker thing.
[00:24:36] Will: I think they were driving fairly carefully. 'cause, 'cause you know, they're worried that, okay, the disturbing of the road, you know, maybe it's gonna wobble around in the magnetic bottle's, not gonna be able to hold, hold them very well.
[00:24:47] Um, the, the power source for the, um, helium cooling wouldn't work very well. All of those kinds of things. So the lead researchers driving behind, checking an app on his phone the whole time to see if we're getting, um, any of the
[00:24:58] Rod: See kids today, never pay attention. Oh, okay. That was a related app, not like
[00:25:02] Will: He's paying attention. Well, he's paying attention to the antiprotons, not necessarily to the road, but maybe he's got a research assistant driving and he's, um, and he's
[00:25:11] Rod: Oh, can you imagine that? Here's your first job as a research assistant. Take the keys. We're gonna drive antimatter around Geneva. It's gonna be cool. 10 Ks.
[00:25:20] Will: And they got it back. now, so, so that was just a 10 kilometre trip. and it seemed that, I don't know if they have exactly the 92, antiprotons, uh, but the, the sensors seemed to be that they kept them, kept them all in there, air
[00:25:35] Rod: What? They may have lost some
[00:25:37] Will: maybe
[00:25:38] Rod: like, no, no, man. They were in 92 when they loaded it up. I don't know why it's only 87 now. Shut up. You
[00:25:44] Will: Shut up, fell off, mate. Whatever.
[00:25:47] Rod: Fucking what you get into,
[00:25:48] Will: percentage,
[00:25:48] Rod: it. Road tax, but with a Swiss French accent. Exactly.
[00:25:53] Will: So there you go. Uh, you are now happily able to drive anti-matter around, around the streets of Europe. [00:26:00] Anyway. I dunno, I dunno what the world rules here in Australia are, but, um.
[00:26:04] Rod: Oh, it's okay. It's okay. Um, if you're in the, in the, in the great outback, you can drive some from Cober PD to, to Bathurst, but most other roads you
[00:26:13] Will: Yeah.
[00:26:14] Rod: That's hear. Yeah. I love it. So you like whiskey,
[00:26:19] Will: I do, I do. I do like
[00:26:21] Rod: you drink a whiskey and you like the whiskey that doesn't have an E in it?
[00:26:23] Of course.
[00:26:24] Will: Uh, I can never remember which one's which I, I think the trick is to go deliberately wrong, and then the Scottish people get angry and the Irish people get angry, and then, then we're all happy.
[00:26:33] Rod: Uh, that's what I do with, you know, always, always ask someone if they're Canadian, not American. 'cause you just, you know, it's safer. Although nowadays it'd even worse anyway. So commercially viable whiskey probably needs in a, to be mature in a barrel. At least probably three years, like some time. And that would be a younging and it's a barrel ageing.
[00:26:50] And I know you know this. It's a barrel ageing that helps the, you know, the flavours become more sophisticated and interact the woods interact with the liquids, you know, it's all part of the magic. Um, there's a big problem, which is
[00:27:00] Will: Oh.
[00:27:01] Rod: And there's two kinds of leakage, two kinds. One is liquid, you know, as you'd expect, but the other is, um,
[00:27:08] Will: We doing what? Like leaking outta the barrel. We're just leaking outta That's,
[00:27:11] Rod: Yeah, yeah. There's leak leakage outta the barrel, but there's also, they call it leakage when it evaporates through the barrel walls or if there are little gaps in things. this is not unexpected. And apparently the Scots at least call this, uh, some evaporation. This, they call it the angel's share.
[00:27:27] Will: Oh yeah. Yeah. The
[00:27:27] Rod: So that's, you know, that's, yeah, exactly.
[00:27:30] It's the sacrifice for that You offer to the, the Lords and mighty upstairs for your delicious Um, so the angels, they say on average take about. 2% of a casks volume per year through probably evaporation, but possibly also Um, some distillers have in the past tried to, you know, deny the angels by wrapping the barrels in plastic.
[00:27:49] Will: seriously. No.
[00:27:50] Rod: yeah, I know. It just feels wrong,
[00:27:51] right?
[00:27:52] Will: well, look like, are you, I, why are you saving money there? Like, that's the, that, come on buddy. I, you know, I,
[00:27:59] Rod: Yeah. I don't think it [00:28:00] caught on.
[00:28:00] Will: I'm not religious, but I feel like you, you're kind of tempting fate here, like
[00:28:05] Rod: I, I, this is exactly my reaction too, and I looked up a couple of sources about, you know, how many people do it and whether you should or shouldn't, and no one said it didn't really work. They all just kind of petered out with sort of, don't, don't, ew, don't, don't wrap your whiskey barrels in plastic. It's just, ugh.
[00:28:21] And that's even before microplastics were considered. So, I mean, yeah, your reaction is mine as well. It's like, that doesn't sound right, so it's not cricket or golf or whatever Scots play anyway. So high levels of evaporation, particularly can visibly drain a barrel. In ways you wouldn't expect, particularly if you just leave it sitting there and it can change the flavours of whatever's left Um, evaporation can speed up when barrels are damaged. When they're manipulated. The metal hoops that hold the, the, the staves, I think they're called it, the barrel together can sometimes loosen a little. The stopper in the old B hole can sometimes
[00:28:52] Will: Yeah, if you take that out, yeah. Then it's gonna not gonna
[00:28:55] Rod: Yeah, you don't want to. Yeah, I think that's more than linkage.
[00:28:58] That's more than the angels. That's the devil's stealing. Um, also natural expansion and contraction of the timbers can cause at least, you know, some gaps to allow some whiskey, steam. It's probably a nice way of drinking whiskey. Anyway. Traditionally, warehouse workers, workers would, they'd walk along and they'd tap on the barrels to kind of get a feel you know, how
[00:29:16] Will: lost. Like, like you can see where the hollow bit is or the, the full bit. Yeah.
[00:29:20] Rod: Let's hear it like a duck, duck, duck, duck, duck. You know, like you do when you're doing your stud finder in the walls, um, your tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. It sounds different. You go, okay, we've lost, you know, six whatever Scottish whiskey units are. Six down, I think is what they call you can tell then by the thumb, et cetera, but in mega warehouses, like the one that doers is made or one of the, one of the many, that doers is stored into mature.
[00:29:43] Which I didn't know this. Did you know Bacardi owned doers and many men? Bacardi's one of the biggest, the biggest spirit company on
[00:29:50] Will: assume they're all owned by each other, like, like, you
[00:29:53] Rod: I, I always assume
[00:29:54] Will: and they're all owned by the pen tavern at the top. Like, I, I just think no one owns, you know?[00:30:00]
[00:30:00] Rod: Yeah, there's no, there's no unique brands anymore. It's all one brand anyway, so there, there's lots of doers.
[00:30:05] So they have apparently on average a hundred warehouses full of ageing barrels, possibly 25,000 casks in each of these a hundred warehouses, which they live for three to 12 years. And that's just for doers.
[00:30:19] So there's a lot of whiskey out there And waiting as the angels, you know, rub their fingers together and going, woo, I can't wait for my share.
[00:30:26] Um, and so they can't, the problem is that they can't have dudes just walking around tapping on the barrels because the way they do it, they store the barrels upright instead of lying down, which apparently matters, but also they stack them right up to the ceiling. And that's tall. We're not talking two barrels.
[00:30:40] Yeah, we're multi, multi mega levels.
[00:30:43] Will: you're gonna say they've invented like a, a long stick for
[00:30:46] Rod: A ladder. Yeah, they got a ladder. This, this is the invention of the ladder. Duck, duck, duck. Honestly, I think the reason that was my first thing, like just get a fucking ladder. But it turns out, you know, they're so squished in together that you're not really walking, I think. I think. I think. But anyway, The only way they can really tell if there's been leakage is once they pull 'em out to blend them and bottle 'em and do, you know, so it's like, oh, turns out that one's half empty. That's a bummer. So Bacardi went to the National Manufacturing Institute of Scotland and said, what? What do you reckon? How do we get better at this?
[00:31:17] The knocking thing won't work. We need something else. And they of course come up with the solution for them, which was, go get yourself a Boston Dynamics spot. Robot, dog.
[00:31:26] Will: A a, a robot dog.
[00:31:28] Rod: Robot.
[00:31:28] Will: I was not gonna guess that. I thought, I thought you were gonna say it's like, it's like lasers or it's like a new, new version of sound listening or something like that. A
[00:31:36] robot dog.
[00:31:38] Rod: no. Go to Boston Dynamics. Get a robot doc. Oh, well modify it, but modify it. I mean, it only cost a hundred K and they don't give a shit that's pocket change. So they modified, they, they 3D printed an arm that had a, an ethanol sensing sort of electronic nose that could sniff for fumes. On the robot dog.
[00:31:57] So that's what, that's what they, they bought one of those and they modified [00:32:00] it up with their 3D printer. And apparently the, uh, this guy called Angus, he's Bacardi's whiskey category director. There's a job you, you're wasting your time as an academic. You could have been the whiskey category director.
[00:32:12] Will: Oh, I'm happy with that.
[00:32:13] Rod: Next time. Next time. So he says the robot dog, this is his, his quote, it moves with some pace and it makes that horrible horror movie floor scratching sound as it chases around the room. Yeah, like this. And but louder and heavier.
[00:32:28] Will: of the problems you
[00:32:29] mentioned, one of the problems you mentioned to me is that they're all up very high and they're squished together. Can the dog solve that?
[00:32:35] Rod: No. So what happened was, first off, what it does solve is it's very good at checking out the cast that it can reach,
[00:32:41] Will: Great. Great. We can solve all the problems like on the floor. That's great.
[00:32:46] Rod: Yeah. And then look at that, you know, 10% of the cask were getting some kind of, you know, they need some maintenance before it all starts draining away. And the, and they quoted us saying that we found enough leaks to make it worthwhile to continue what we're doing. But as you well, well noted, the max climb on a dog is one and a half metres.
[00:33:04] So, or it's reached, so maybe we're talking. Two barrels. I'm like, what the fuck are you doing? But it's okay. They solved that problem. Or they may have because they found a spider robot that can climb Fritz. What are you doing? And also stuff of nightmares squared like this. You imagine you go into the the whiskey factory or the whiskey maturing harbour, and you look at it and you go, this is so exciting. And then the stuff of sci-fi nightmares comes running at you and sniffs you for
[00:33:32] Will: this is press release backwards science. Like, it's like we solved, we solved half a problem. And, and someone in there is like, can you put a robot in? Just because we need to seem high tech. Like I, I, I really don't think this was necessary. I think a stick
[00:33:46] would've been fine. Pay me a hundred grand and I'll, I will give you a stick and you can tap on high.
[00:33:53] Rod: I'll throw in a ladder for 98 grand. So, yeah, they, um, what they, they, they come to the, the end of the article. This [00:34:00] is in y and they said, uh, also, we might start using drones. You are like, no shit. They already used drones to check security around their warehouses, to check out damages to roofs and fences.
[00:34:11] That it's like, yeah, why, why don't you just go straight for drones then fellas, or build a couple more warehouses with slight gaps between the Ladders. Although the idea of the spider with the bionic nose crawling over the barrels does kind of excite me. I'm thinking that'll turn into a terrible made for television movie.
[00:34:31] there you go. Your whiskey now is unchanged by the fact that there's a robot in one warehouse in Dures.
[00:34:37] Will: Well, that's great. I, I'm glad
[00:34:39] that the, that, uh, robots are helping us make whiskey because, um, you know, you wouldn't want any tradition, um, in any of this kind of stuff. A little bit of science is the place where you get your little bit of science. I'm will Grant.
[00:34:53] Rod: I'm not, I didn't know we did our names
[00:34:55] Will: Yeah, you can do names at the end. We're mixing it up, man. Anyway,
[00:34:58] Rod: Lambert's, the same guy.
[00:34:59] Will: give us some comments and some feedback. You can, uh, write to us at Cheers at a little bit of science.com au.
[00:35:05] Rod: Yeah. And show us, uh, send us pictures of your robot dog improving your life in ways that you didn't need. Oh, other people's lives.
[00:35:13] Will: Yeah, Just doing, doing all the low jobs that you can't not reach to, I dunno.
[00:35:18] Rod: Yeah. Which one and a half metres. Who, what human could get that high.
