This week’s episode is a reminder that science is basically a grab bag of “that’s amazing” and “please don’t make me think about that”. We’ve got flight attendants quietly racking up cosmic radiation exposure, lasers that can “smell” disease, NASA flirting with the idea of turning plastic into food, and a deep-sea stash of radioactive barrels that looks like the world’s worst scavenger hunt.
The Hidden Cost Of Being Nice At 30,000 Feet
Let’s start in the air. Flight attendants and aircrew aren’t just dealing with turbulence and weird passenger behaviour, they’re also getting a much higher dose of cosmic radiation than most people realise. The higher you go, the less atmosphere you’ve got protecting you, and the more you’re exposed to radiation coming in from space.
It’s not the kind of danger you can see or feel, which is what makes it unsettling. So next time you’re sipping a gin and tonic and pretending you’re fine with the armrest situation, it’s worth remembering the crew are doing this as a job with a side serving of cosmic rays.
Lasers That Can Smell Disease
Next up there’s a woman, Joy Milne, who can smell Parkinson’s disease. Not metaphorically. Literally. Scientists took that idea and built a system that can detect the same kind of chemical signature using lasers.
The basic concept is that our bodies give off volatile organic compounds, and those compounds can shift when disease is present. By using lasers to analyse those chemicals, researchers can pick up patterns that might one day help diagnose conditions earlier and more reliably. The only downside is that once you’ve heard “belly button swab” in a serious medical context, you can’t go back.
Protein Cookies Made From Plastic, Because Space Is A Long Time To Be Hungry
Then we head into space food where we finally put a good use to plastic. NASA and other researchers are looking at ways to turn waste into something useful, because when you’re years into a mission, you can’t just pop down to the supermarket.
One idea is using microbes or chemical processes to break down plastic waste and turn it into edible protein, which can then be used in things like protein-rich cookies. It’s not a dinner party flex, but it is a very practical solution to a very real problem: if you’re trapped in a closed system, everything has to become something else, including your rubbish.
Radioactive Barrels “Not As Bad As We Thought”
Finally, we go deep underwater, where scientists have been imaging old radioactive waste barrels dumped on the ocean floor. The footage has strong “post-apocalyptic level in a video game” energy, except it’s real, and it’s sitting under kilometres of water.
The surprising part is that early findings suggest radiation levels around these barrels aren’t as catastrophic as you’d expect, and marine life is still doing its thing around them, including crustaceans treating the barrels like free real estate. That’s not a reason to feel relaxed about dumping waste in the ocean, but it is a reminder that ecosystems can be weirdly resilient, even when humans have been reckless.
So that’s the week: cosmic radiation in the cabin, lasers reading disease signals, plastic-to-protein space snacks, and radioactive barrels that look terrifying but aren’t lighting up the ocean like a sci-fi movie.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Intro
03:32 Cosmic Rays Explained
03:49 Radiation Limits Basics
10:37 Smelling Parkinsons
13:45 Swabs and Laser Sniffing
16:42 Belly Button Swab Tech
18:39 Plastic Cookie Protein
21:00 Microbes Upcycle Waste
26:37 Radioactive Sea Dumping
32:30 Radiation Levels Findings
SOURCES:
https://www.sciencealert.com/150000-tons-of-radioactive-waste-were-dumped-in-the-atlantic-decades-later-its-visibly-oozing
https://www.sciencealert.com/experiment-tested-out-of-body-experiences-two-reported-seeing-things-scientists-cant-explainhttps://www.futurity.org/psychiatrists-agreement-diagnosis-3344852/
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2852504#google_vignette
-
Rod: [00:00:00] So I saw this headline, job with highest risk of radiation cancer revealed. And I thought, got to know what it is, but also pretty confident guessing what professions would be on the podium. Like, you know, maybe not in order first, second and third, but, you know, up there. So my guesses were radiographers and people like them or nuclear medicine people, both the people who administer the tests and maybe the people who make the isotopes.
Rod: And I thought maybe astronauts and maybe uranium miners and people who play with that sort of thing. And, you know, I had a little think about that before I started reading. And as I read along, I looked at it and I thought I was absolutely wrong.
Will: It's time for a little bit of science. I'm Will Grant, an associate professor in science communication at the Australian National University.
Rod: And I'm Rod Lamberts, a 30-year [00:01:00] science communication veteran with a mind of a 15 to a 16-year-old boy.
Will: And today, as well as jobs dangerous, and I think, um, my, my job's dangerous is, uh- Ooh
Will: is leader of the Committee of Public Safety in the French Revolution. That's a jobs dangerous. We also had an I'd never thought to ask that. I have a soylent beige, and I just wanted to end with what I'm calling beautiful horrific.
Rod: Is that me?
Will: Uh, it could be.
Rod: That's what they used to call me at school. It didn't roll off the tongue, but it was a great T-shirt.
Will: No, it, it's awesome. Most dangerous job, of course. Yeah. Yeah, as I say, it is, uh, guillotine driver in the French Revolution, or-
Rod: Yeah, keep your fingers clear.
Will: All right.
Rod: Or your
Will: body clear. No, you're doing dangerous radiation jobs or dangerous
Rod: oil jobs.
Will: Radiation
Rod: jobs. Radiation jobs in particular.
Will: Eater of radiation.
Will: That guy- That is dangerous ... that guy who ate the pl- the p- plutonium capsule. Yeah. Or the demon core guy.
Rod: Ah, what a great story.
Will: Or the guy in Russia who got shot in the head by the proton beam. That's not quite radiation, but I guess it's proton beam.
Rod: Well, you're not supposed to stick your head in and have a look while it's on.
Will: Uh, all of those, dangerous.
Rod: So, [00:02:00] um, this recent study in JAMA, Journal of American Medical Association/Internal Medicine, so they analyzed, uh, US data from more than 500 occupations, and the number one highest proportion of radiation cancer mortality- Flight attendant
Will: Oh, yeah, okay. They're up near the sun.
Will: Like they're-
Rod: Exactly ... they're like- They're too close. They
Will: Icarus ...
Rod: they're like Icarus It's called Icarus cancer.
Will: Yeah. Don't tell me that, the Icarus can- That's not nice.
Rod: No one wants a disease named after them. I think of all those poor bastards like, "They're gonna call it after me." Craig Sellickoff.
Rod: "They're gonna call it after me." Yeah. Alzheimer's. Yeah. Lou Gehrig's.
Will: Lou Gehrig's, that's
Rod: right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, um, the close runner-up, very close runner-up, pilots.
Will: Yeah, well, yeah.
Rod: No surprise.
Will: Why do pilots get less than, uh, flight attendants? Well, I- Do flight attendants do more flights than pilots?
Will: It's
Rod: the hats.
Will: They've got protective hats. But that, but, but I... No. I don't know. I don't know Flight attendants might do more flights than pilots, just like- They might ... there might be regulations that say, you know, that allow, allow them to-
Rod: Yeah, like you can, you can [00:03:00] be basically brain-damaged, tired, and serve a drink, but maybe not fly a plane.
Will: I would, I would probably vote for if the two were the case-
Rod: Yeah ...
Will: I don't want anyone to be that tired. No. But if the two are the case, don't fly the plane.
Rod: Yeah, yeah. I'll take the wine being poured on me- Yeah ... rather than the plane being driven into the ground.
Will: Yeah, indeed.
Rod: So I'm not exactly sure why, and this is the thing, this gets a little- They're
Will: closer to the sun.
Rod: No, I mean why it's pilots slightly lower, but maybe it is that. So I was thinking why the fuck would this be? And one of my thoughts was, well, is it 'cause they're always going through airport security as well? Is it- What? No ... you know, like all the... 'cause they're always going through.
Will: What? Just...
Rod: Well, there's always special sauce.
Rod: But you're kinda right. Apparently, it's exposure to in-flight radiation from, in particular, cosmic rays.
Will: Yeah, of course.
Rod: Cosmic rays, it turns out, aren't science fiction. Energy particles from space. So yes, the higher up you go, less atmosphere to protect you. Radiation is also compounded by how long they spend in the air.
Rod: The question is how bad is it? So here's a bit of context. ARPANSA, the Australian Radiation Penis and Nuclear Society- No ... Authority.
Will: No.
Rod: Isn't that it?
Will: No. AR-
Rod: ARPANSA? Why do
Will: I have to work with this guy?
Rod: [00:04:00] Nuclear Authority and Regulation-y- Okay, all right ... People. They say okay level f- for radiation for radiation workers, 20 millisieverts per year averaged over five years.
Rod: 20 millisieverts per year.
Will: So you can have 100 millisieverts-
Rod: 100 is the premium ... in one
Will: dose, but don't get any more.
Rod: Yeah, then four years off.
Will: Then four years off. Off. Completely
Rod: off. Like wait. And, and maybe go a little lower than that. Um, you shouldn't have more than 50 millisieverts in one year.
Will: Oh, okay.
Will: Well, there you go.
Rod: So, so you gotta be careful of that as well.
Will: So what gives me a millisievert? Like what's, what's a-
Rod: Well, I'll give you a few. Okay. I'll give you a few. But I w- want to kind of put this in the context of airplane equivalents as well. Mm-hmm. So there's an informal unit of measurement called Flight Time Equivalent Dose, FED.
Will: Wow.
Rod: And it's a measurement of ionization, uh, ionizing radiation exposure. So it's expressed in units of flight time, so flight seconds, flight minutes, flight hours, et cetera. There are
Will: no flight seconds. From experience, I can show that, that, that, uh- ... no one measures flights in seconds.
Rod: There are... Oh, everyone
Will: knows.
Will: Even Kim Kardashian when she's hopping from one side to- Oh ... uh, of LA to [00:05:00] the other.
Rod: So let's get a, a, a baseline here. Annual background radiation, the worldwide average, which is things excluding your medical scans and other stuff that different people, you know, may differ on. Yeah, okay 2.4 millisieverts, which is about 600 flight hours.
Rod: So 2.4 millisieverts annual per person around the world. Background radiation, 600 flight hours equivalent. There you go. Airport X-ray, full body scan, a one-off exposure .00001 millisieverts. So
Will: that's doing nothing. Like
Rod: that's- Nine flight seconds.
Will: You could, you could lick the airport scanner- Well,
Rod: you should
Will: and you'd be fine.
Rod: Yeah, that one's not bad. So that puts paid to my, "Oh, maybe it's because the flight attendants are going backwards and forwards through scanners." One year of living near a nuclear generation station. Any guesses? A lot or a little?
Will: A little lot
Rod: A little lot. A lot of a little. .0000, four zeros, nine millisieverts, 1.3 flight minutes.
Will: Oh, do I have to keep all these numbers in my head?
Rod: You do. Okay. This is important later. [00:06:00] Eating one banana.
Will: Oh, yeah, that's way higher.
Rod: No, it's not so bad. P- .0001- Yeah, but you mean the flight time ... so three zeros, 1.5 flight minutes. You eat a banana- 1.5 ... you've been flying for, you know, radiation exposure. One and a
Will: half minutes.
Rod: Yeah. All right. Average Fukushima recovery worker for after their one-off dose was about 12 millisieverts, which is 3,000 flight hours, so-
Will: Okay ...
Rod: it picks up a bit. So
Will: they've been, they've been working.
Rod: Picks up a bit. At the top end for one-off exposure, like a singular non-accrued event, astronauts six months on the ISS, 72 millisieverts, 18,000 flight hours.
Rod: So they get a bit of a whacking.
Will: What's, uh, what's 18,000 flight hours? Like we-
Rod: That's a lot of flying.
Will: But, but, but basically a, an astronaut on the International Space Station, while they're up there- Yeah ... is getting more per, per... Are they getting more per hour than a flight attendant?
Rod: It would appear so.
Will: But, but- Yeah ... typically they are, they, they are l- unlikely to spend as much time-
Rod: Yeah ... at, at, at height ... it's acute exposure, not chronic. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And the lowest acute dose known to cause cancer is 100 millisievert. So your 100 for your workers in one hit.
Will: Okay.
Rod: 25,000 flight hours. [00:07:00] It's a lot. So back to the flight stuff then.
Rod: If you do 10 return trips across the USA in one year, you get the equivalent of 100 flight hours, which is .4 millisieverts, or about one m- mammogram. But pilots and flight at- and flight attendants accrue three to six millisieverts of cosmic radiation per year on top of whatever else they do. Yeah. Plus background- Yeah
Rod: plus scans, plus your infinity trips through the scanners, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So-
Will: Which we, which we established does nothing ...
Rod: it's very small. You'd have to go through a lot.
Will: Yeah.
Rod: Like, just spend all day going backwards and forwards. So in a study led by a bunch of people from Harvard Medical School, they looked at information from death certificates of 12.7 million people who died between 2020, 2024 across the occupations.
Rod: They separate into two kinds of cancer groups, radiation cancers and non-radiation cancers.
Will: Okay.
Rod: So the radiation forms, you're talking breast, thyroid, prostate, mu- uh, multiple myelomas, lymphoma- I
Will: had not heard this separation before.
Rod: Yeah, well, it's, it's significant here because the flight attendants and pilots had the highest and second-highest proportion of radiation-related [00:08:00] cancers, but were about the same for everything else.
Will: Yeah. Well, there you go.
Rod: So it's particularly about radiation. They were 50% more likely to experience cancer in that part of the cancers than all the other occupations, and that was flight attendants. Pilots, 36% more likely. So significant, no- notable. So what they, they basically, they show high levels of cancer compared to other jobs in general.
Rod: They don't show high levels of cancer compared to other jobs. But for radiation specific, way high, and they beat nuclear medicine technologists, radiographers, and stuff who are working around that shit all the time, obviously with more protection. There could also be... It's not just cosmic rays. There could be other cancer factors.
Rod: Things like pilots get more exposure to UV light than attendants do, 'cause they've got windows.
Will: Yeah, okay.
Rod: And also circadian rhythm, sleep disruption, shift work times- Yeah, yeah,
Will: yeah, yeah ...
Rod: that can fuck with you quite hard. But for me, I'm like, "I wonder what this says about the radiation worker okay levels when they're talking about 50 millisieverts in one hit- Mm
Rod: and so forth." Like 50 in one year averaged over five years is okay, but if you're getting [00:09:00] boomed all at once, uh.
Will: Oh, look, I don't doubt- Yeah ... a bunch of these things will suggest that some professions need to be limited in time.
Rod: Yeah, like academic. You only get f- 47 years, and then you cut off.
Will: 47. Really?
Will: That, that... But, but still- 47 ... I can, can imagine that, a- and your exposure as a firefighter or something like that because of the toxic chemicals that we need to, need to use-
Rod: Yeah ...
Will: and we can't do firefight- And look, firefighting sits in one of those really important in the sense of I think we would lose pilots, um, before we would lose firefighters-
Rod: Yeah
Will: in, in the hierarchy- Yeah ... of things we need in society. Yeah. '
Rod: Cause when you dial triple zero or 911, they never say, "Fire, police-" Pilots "... ambulance, or pilot"
Will: You need a pilot emergency. You need a pilot. Look, and, and a, a crucial part of society, no doubt, but I'm just saying- Yeah ... that there might be a bunch of occupations where we need to relook at these things- Mm
Will: and say, "Look, actually, you can do them for a time" Yeah. "And they, they come with a consequence on your body, but maybe we cap them out."
Rod: It's just, it's just... When I, when I read it was flight attendants, I just thought, "That's shitty" [00:10:00] 'cause they've got... Honestly, they've got a pretty tough job. They've got to deal with a lot of poo.
Rod: Do you? They've got terrible hours. A lot of- Plenty of people got
Will: to deal with poo ...
Rod: little jobs. Why are you so worried? No, I don't mean just poo. I mean as in they've got to deal with all kind- they got often angry people, very tired people, drunk people, frustrated people. I just think it'd be a tough job.
Rod: Plus the hours, plus having to look put together no matter what time of day or night it is. Look,
Will: I get the put
Rod: together- I think it'd, I think it'd be
Will: hard ... no matter what. Like I, I feel like that's a, that's a challenging one, and the amount of space to put yourself together. Oh,
Rod: yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. It, I, I think it'd be a tough job.
Rod: So when I r- read that as well, I'm like, "Oh, come on"
Will: Well, there you go.
Rod: That's a bummer.
Will: Well, thank you, flight attendants. So, uh, a few years ago, Joy Milne discovered she had a, a, somewhat of a superpower. It's, it's, it's, uh, not a superpower that you would expect, and the way she discovered it is, is not a great story.
Will: It's kind of sad.
Rod: So not really a superpower and, and- No, it's a- ... well, not
Will: great to have. It's, it's... Well, all I'm saying- ... you're not likely to make a Marvel movie about this type of superpower. So
Rod: we're more down the Boys and Agent V than we are-
Will: Uh, we're [00:11:00] more, we're more, okay, that's unusual and, um, not everyone has that.
Will: It could be useful. Okay. Anyway, her superpower was, uh, that, uh, she could smell Parkinson's- Like- ... disease ...
Rod: not, not the families.
Will: No, not the families. You're a
Rod: Parkinson.
Will: You're a Parkinson.
Rod: You're a Smith. You're not gonna fool me.
Will: No. She could smell Parkinson's disease on people. But she detected a weird odor on, uh...
Will: a strange musky odor-
Rod: Ooh ...
Will: on her husband. And I, I can imagine if a significant other starts changing their smell, you know, you get... You, you are really used to their smell. Yeah. And then suddenly it's different. Then you're like, "Hmm. Hmm." Wait
Rod: a minute.
Will: She detected it on her husband years before he was actually diagnosed.
Will: The-
Rod: Years before?
Will: Yeah, years before. She, she detected the change, and then afterwards it was, it was shown to be Parkinson's, and then other work. Oh, she
Rod: came to you and she goes, "I knew it."
Will: But this is not a story about Joy Milne. This is a story about some scientists who said, "Well, we've read the Joy Milne story, and, uh, [00:12:00] maybe we can do that."
Will: Ah. "And maybe there's some more that the world could put to this." So this group of researchers said, "If we can detect some things on people by smell, maybe we should dial it up." Now, the standard response would be, let's train dogs to do that. Of course. And I think there's other things out there. But these, these guys are like-
Rod: Sharks.
Rod: They should train sharks 'cause they've got a really good sense of smell.
Will: Uh, that's true. Not as trainable.
Rod: Well, no.
Will: Or useful.
Rod: No. But really good sense of smell.
Will: Well, they went with the second, the third one. Uh, dogs, sharks, lasers, and they said- How do you
Rod: train a laser?
Will: How do you train a laser? So what we've got here is this great story where these researchers have said, "You know what we wanna do is get, um, some chemical profiles swabbed from different people and see if we can detect things."
Will: So they started with Parkinson's.
Rod: Uh.
Will: But they also looked at mild cognitive impairment.
Rod: Mild cognitive impairment isn't a thing.
Will: Yeah, indeed. But you can smell it. [00:13:00]
Rod: Isn't that just the smell of alcohol? Like, you smell like a brewery. Mild cognitive impairment. There you go. Not my fault.
Will: There you go. Don't
Rod: need a laser for that.
Will: So what they wanted to check is, is, well, could this be a way of detecting some of these things- Sure ... for, for vastly cheaper, and may- Yeah ... and maybe we can actually start doing tests in this sort of way.
Rod: Oh. Oh, a laser's cheaper than dogs.
Will: Oh, uh, well, a laser's cheaper than dogs. Yeah, I think actually they are.
Rod: Like when I go to the RSPCA to get a puppy, they go- Okay, you
Will: can
Rod: get a- ... "Would you like this $40 billion 17 gajillion kilowatt laser for a-"
Will: It depends. It depends. Um- "...
Rod: or this dog?"
Will: Okay. A laser pointer-
Rod: True. Cheaper than a puppy ...
Will: cheaper than a, a certainly a pedigree, you know, genetically engineered dog. A schnooz
Rod: hound.
Will: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So they're in the mix. Look, they're in the mix. They're in the mix. It's true. Yeah. I'm not... But I'm not saying they just use the laser pointer here.
Rod: No, no.
Will: But what they did, so the theory is that these conditions, and obviously things like COVID-19, which was respiratory.
Will: Mm-hmm. You know, so y- you are emitting volatile organic [00:14:00] compounds that come out of your sweat, come out of your skin when your skin is, uh- Yeah ... when you're shedding skin, all sorts of things like that. All your micro
Rod: holes.
Will: Yes, all your micro holes. So they said, "Well, you know, we could get some swabs from various parts of bodies."
Rod: Ooh.
Will: From the nose.
Rod: Have you ever had to swab yourself for, for medical purposes?
Will: Uh, w- what, what area are we talking here?
Rod: Uh, all areas.
Will: You, you need a total swab, sir.
Rod: Last, last- All,
Will: all over ... last I was
Rod: in
Will: hospital- Any, anywhere you can get to, that's, that's where you got to swab ...
Rod: I had a bad time in hospital years ago.
Rod: Um, and they said, "We need you to take the swabs 'cause you may be contagious." Do it yourse- Where from? Uh, everywhere. All the places no one needs to touch.
Will: Oh, really? Yeah.
Rod: And I remember thinking, "Oh, God. I'm glad I'm not a lab technician," 'cause it was- ... it was, it was horrid. So yeah, the, the... where you're swabbing matters.
Rod: You
Will: know, you know, I was reminded, and sorry to jump into ancient history here, but rem- I remember I told you about the, a robot study that was trying to detect how far people would go when told by a robot what to do.
Rod: Oh,
Will: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and so this is, this is, you know, the robot is telling them to take all their [00:15:00] clothes off 'cause we need to weigh you.
Will: Yeah. Um, now in- It, it, it demands ... now insert, insert the, um, the rectal thermometer. And then, that I love, because this is normal in Western Europe.
Rod: So you're telling me I might have been punked? We need you to swab around the-
Will: We need you to
Rod: swab everywhere ... swab around the circumference Because
Will: this is normal in Western Europe.
Rod: Exactly. Swab the circumference. I really don't want to.
Will: I think if anyone says, "Because this is normal in Western Europe."
Rod: What era are we talking?
Will: Ah.
Rod: Anyway, we seem to have digressed.
Will: Indeed, indeed. Yeah. Doesn't matter. So, uh, what they did is they said, "All right, let's see where we can, um, we can swab people- Mm ... and then put it in front of the laser to detect various diseases."
Rod: Oh, the smell.
Will: Yeah, yeah. This is literally by smell. So they got a swab of people who were confirmed to have a variety of these conditions.
Will: Yeah. Whether it was Parkinson's or not- Yeah ... uh, COVID-19 or not, and [00:16:00] then they swabbed them in the ear-
Rod: Yeah ...
Will: in the nose, in the belly button.
Rod: Ooh.
Will: And where, where was the other one?
Rod: The circumference.
Will: The circumference. Anyway, and so, well, turns out they could, they could replicate Joy Milne's finding, the, the smell is here.
Will: So Parkinson's was really quite detectable. Huh. And if, if you look at these graphs and, and, and it's connected in the show notes- Yeah ... there, there are distinct clusters of the volatile organic compounds that, um, that just the swab from some- the belly button turned out to be the best one.
Rod: Well, you get years' worth of data there.
Will: Maybe. Maybe it's like an archeology. You, you-
Rod: How deep do you go?
Will: Yeah, it's going all the way in.
Rod: I mean, I clean mine every, every year at Christmas, and man, I find stuff.
Will: Yeah, indeed. But get in the belly button-
Rod: Yeah ...
Will: and, uh, and then put the, put that in front of a laser, and, um-
Rod: And then you... Do you smell the waft?
Rod: Is, how, what's the detect, or is it
Will: like- If, if Joy Milne is around, she could smell the waft, but normal people need to put it in front of the laser, and the laser, it's weird. [00:17:00] It's a, it's a laser acoustic setting. Basically, the laser blasts the organic compounds, makes tiny little shock waves, and the shock waves are different depending on the molecule, and then they hit the microphone.
Rod: So if the, if the, if the acoustics sound like Megadeth- It's so true ... you've got Parkinson's.
Will: It's so
Rod: true. If it sounds like Simon & Garfunkel, you're very, very calm and you're probably not sick at all.
Will: Like it's, it's totally put it in the science machine, but when you go, oh, the laser- It's true ... blasts the chemicals, uh, in the air, and they make little shock waves, and then the shock wave, the, the microphone can pick them up.
Will: But anyway.
Rod: So we listen to the smell.
Will: So swab from the belly button, listen to the smell of that when it's blasted by a laser. And boom, Parkinson's. And boom, Parkinson's. So there you go. We can replicate a weird skill that other people had, and potentially quite useful.
Rod: So do they sell the detectors on Amazon?
Rod: I want, I want one for my
Will: Mercedes. Not yet. Not yet. I think, um, I think our friend Elizabeth Holmes might-
Rod: Oh,
Will: good ... might be swabbing everything soon. It was blood, and now Theranos will be doing the swab technique for everything. Oh,
Rod: get in early, buy shares. It's gonna be great.
Will: Hey, are [00:18:00] you on the protein binge at the world is on right now?
Rod: I only eat protein.
Will: Only protein, of course.
Rod: I don't, I don't eat anything but protein. Like, I, I literally have four cans of tuna a day.
Will: Yeah, yeah, good.
Rod: And a cube of sugar.
Will: A cube of sugar.
Rod: On the weekend as a treat.
Will: But you know, the world has gone a little bit protein mad. Um-
Rod: Well, isn't it, you need... Is it nine kilos of protein a day for every gram of body weight?
Will: It is not that number.
Rod: Ish.
Will: It depends what you're doing and depends what your goals are.
Rod: Obviously getting buff.
Will: Look at me. Yeah, exactly. Obviously. Exactly. Some scientists have, have turned to a new source-
Rod: Oh ...
Will: a new source for protein, which is moderately-
Rod: Human-based ...
Will: uh, n- no, no. In fact, scientists have turned to plastic waste to make protein-rich cookies.
Rod: Plastic and protein, I know they both start with a P. I didn't know the similarities ran any deeper.
Will: So this is a project, um, NASA-led. Um- Of course.
Rod: So it's gotta be good.
Will: So [00:19:00] NASA is not just about can we turn plastic into food, but instead, of course, you know, NASA is a little bit interested in, okay, you're in deep space-
Rod: Mm
Will: you gotta recycle the food. Like, you're on- Yeah ... you- you're on the two-year, 10-year mission out to the, out to, you know, Planet Cosmos.
Rod: When you're like, "Well, I, I need two and a half tons of tuna."
Will: Yeah, exactly. Treat. And, and at some point you get sick of eating your own recycled poo. So-
Rod: When? ...
Will: at some point you go, "What if I recycled the plastic as well?"
Will: Yeah,
Rod: what if I eat this bottle? It's better than poo. Fuck me.
Will: So they said, "What if we looked at the plastic?" Of course. "We were trying to develop technologies," this is the researchers say here- Yeah ... "for plastic upcycling to make more valuable products," which is a legit thing, and we thought, why not focus on making food?
Will: Because plastic is carbon and food is carbon.
Rod: Uh-huh. Oxygen a gas and so is cyanide at certain levels, so-
Will: Indeed. And everything is all atoms. But it's actually, actually pretty fascinating work that they're doing here. So [00:20:00] what they have achieved actually is, well, not tested on humans and not declared testable on humans yet by their university ethics committee.
Rod: We would like to declare this not testable on humans.
Will: I'm, I'm just gonna say here, the team reports that data shows the cookies are safe to eat. Ah. And, and here I've just got to pause. We have done work on Scientists That Have Guts before, uh, who have done their own research when necessary. Yep. And then they say, "Although institutional approval is still pending before researchers can conduct taste tests."
Rod: Eat it, you wusses. Just eat it. Just eat it. Eat one.
Will: Just eat it. But anyway, what they've done-
Rod: You can shit plastic. Just eat the plastic cookie.
Will: You can shit plastic.
Rod: Yeah.
Will: There you go. So they got a bunch of, you know, all sorts of plastic, plus a bunch of other sorts of, uh, discarded waste, discarded corn stalks, leaves, other biomass.
Will: And then-
Rod: Like old tires.
Will: Uh, well, I, I... Well- A
Rod: broken toaster. I
Will: mean- But, but they're saying- Yeah ... what we want is waste. Yeah. And we want- Yep ... you know, stuff that includes household garbage that is like plastic. Yeah, fair
Rod: enough, fair enough. [00:21:00]
Will: Then they put it through a couple of different processes. Mm. First they did like a super breakdown process, which they're calling hydrothermal dissolution.
Will: Hot water and oxygen, I think. They're, I think they're blasting- So
Rod: they boiled the shit out of
Will: it. I think they're... Well, oxygen and water at high temperature and pressure to break down tough material so that they, they're smashing it- Smash it to bits ... they're, they're pulverizing it first. Okay. Then- They've got some engineered microbes, which is the cool part.
Will: This is actually the fascinating thing- Yeah, yeah ... in, in not only this work, but actually I think this is a future- Yeah ... huge area of research. Engineered yeasts or engineered other microbes that can do, like, gut reactions, but on industrial scale. Like, I, I think this is- And
Rod: they can eat plastic and, and shit gold or whatever, yeah.
Will: But no, that's, that's literally- Yeah, yeah, yeah ... what they're attempting here. Yeah. And I think, I think it's, it's laughable to say the protein-rich cookies that they turn out with at the end, that's not actually the point. But I think the point there is that engineered yeasts that could- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Will: break down household garbage, including plastic, that's [00:22:00] wild. Yeah, that is. Yeah. Like, if we can make microbes that can turn garbage into useful things, that's unlocking a lot for the planet.
Rod: Yeah, yeah. Forever chemicals and microplastics turn into something you can use. So it's basically a biological equivalent of a Star Trek replicator.
Will: Let's go with, you're right with biological equivalent. Yeah. So then once they've got the household garbage- Mm ... the plastic and other stuff- Mm ... and then blast it in the hydrothermal process- Mm-hmm ... then, um, putting it into these engineered yeast. And again, I think, you know, the, the potential to break down a range of different things to, to make microbes that can- Into
Rod: useful bits
Will: can either break down things-
Rod: Yeah ...
Will: or can make things based on, uh... Like, I, I actually think this is a huge, huge area- Yeah ... of future industry. Now, the, the researcher says here, "The microbes are very clever, so they, we're using their traits to solve problems that humans have created."
Rod: Uh-huh.
Will: So they programmed, and, and here the language is a little bit...
Will: Okay.
Rod: Um- Well, clever's already problematic, and now programming, yes ...
Will: several kinds of yeast, including, including baker's yeast, to, to transform molecules [00:23:00] found in the plastic and agricultural waste- Yeah ... into various proteins, vitamins, flavorings, and other food components. So it spat out a bunch of, like, what are technically edible proteins.
Will: So they, they added some other stuff to make them more plausible as food, so they went in there and then they, they added some fiber and starch and sweetener. I
Rod: was gonna say corn syrup. It's all corn syrup. Yeah,
Will: yeah, yeah. But look, problem- High
Rod: fructose.
Will: Problem... But, but I mean, as a proof of concept-
Rod: Yeah
Will: like, the idea that you could blast them through first- Yeah ... a, a destructive process and then through an enzyme microprocess. Great. And so they, they have produced, and there's a photo here, like, of this, like they're calling micro bites. Of
Rod: course they
Will: are. Like, the, the cookie that is, it's protein rich and made from plastic, and technically- possibly edible.
Will: But, uh-
Rod: Would you eat one?
Will: Would I eat one? I'm not deeply concerned about plastics. They're inside your brain, inside your sperm, they're everywhere.
Rod: Yeah, but what about you? I'd eat one.
Will: I, I would worry breaking down [00:24:00] heavy metals, I'd be more concerned about. Like, I, I feel like I don't see how microbes can get rid of heavy metals.
Will: If it's like-
Rod: Yeah ... "
Will: Deal with this uranium," I'm like, "I don't want to eat a cookie made o- out of uranium fixtures."
Rod: Cha- changed uranium.
Will: Whereas as, as they say, plastics come from the carbon chain sort of world. Sure. Yeah. That like, like we're not, we're not in the heavy metal world. So I think there's actually some chemistry here.
Will: Yeah,
Rod: yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah.
Will: I, I think there is breaking down various sorts of waste. I, I don't- Hmm ... I don't have an enormous problem with that. Um- No, give
Rod: it a crack.
Will: I mean- But, but I think there are other things that, that I would not eat. So I'd give it a go.
Rod: I, I like how left field it is. Like, the idea that you go, "Well, we've got all this plastic.
Rod: What do we do? Let's make it edible." You're like, "What the fuck?" I mean, that, that in itself, I, I like the chutzpah.
Will: No, but flip it around and just go, what would get a little bit of air time for our research? You know, make it into something that catches a bit of zeitgeist, then people go-
Rod: Yeah ...
Will: actually, you know, what you've achieved there is actually something pretty wacky to go from- Yeah, yeah
Will: to go from plastic through to an [00:25:00] edible like that. Yeah, yeah. That is, that is just wild. So,
Rod: um- And, and you're right, that does get air time because that there are other stories before this that do talk about microbes or other sub-creatures- Yeah ... turning plastics into something
Will: better. I feel like, I feel like this is the area.
Will: You know, this is... I, you know, I, I do a, a bunch of work with people that are doing genetically modified, genetically engineered agriculture. Yeah. And, and so often I'm, I'm just so disappointed with the, we can make an apple that doesn't go brown in a kid's lunchbox. And I'm like, "What, what are we doing here?"
Rod: Like- Eat the fucking brown apple too.
Will: Yeah.
Rod: Like, seriously.
Will: Or don't cut it up and it's still fine otherwise. Like- No,
Rod: no, that's the wrong apple.
Will: I just... There are- Yeah, yeah ... there are- Yeah ... that is not the problem. I think- Yeah, I agree ... I think, you know, growing food in, in harsher conditions, that's, that's a legit problem.
Will: Yeah. Or using genetic engineering to solve things that are unthought of, and I think this microbe engineering- Mm, I agree ... to be able to break down things otherwise, I think it's actually mind-blowing. So look, all hats off to them. I think they've gone a [00:26:00] wacky way around this to say- Love it. Love it
Will: "Here's a protein-rich cookie made of plastic." Good on them, but no, it's great. I love it.
Rod: I didn't need the protein part. Here's a cookie that's edible made of plastic. Like, fuck yeah.
Will: It's just the modern zeitgeist. You just
Rod: got to- That's all I need ... you, you- Not made of plastic, of stuff that was plastic.
Will: Well, there you go.
Rod: Like, you know, your underpants and clothes and things can be made of what used to be plastics. Why not a cookie?
Will: I guess this is an update, but it's also... I've, I've labeled this beautiful horrific because-
Rod: As long as it's update, I don't care ...
Will: I, I wanna show you some photos. Ooh. And, and I appreciate, you know, we're, we're not doing very well on the visuals right now here.
Will: But I told you a while ago about the history of dumping radioactive waste at sea.
Rod: We don't do it enough.
Will: Well, we don't do it anymore, and- Don't ... we did do it a lot.
Rod: Don't we?
Will: And, and when there's a we, it's not all of us. So from the 1950s through to the 1980s- Mm ... a bunch of countries around the world when they had leftover radioactive waste were like, "Where do we put it?"
Will: [00:27:00] And they went-
Rod: Straight to the Pacific ...
Will: well, or m- actually much more the Atlantic. Like, like let's just dump it. Like you just push it off a ship.
Rod: The water's deep.
Will: And the water is deep.
Rod: Who's gonna touch that?
Will: And, and just a reminder here, the two champions of this procedure, um-
Rod: Is you and me ...
Will: no. Uh, well, was, uh, unsurprisingly, the Soviet Union.
Will: Even though they've got a whole bunch of land and they have a whole bunch of super radioactive sites- ... they also put a whole bunch at sea, in part by accident. And, and I told you, I, I always love- Mm ... the story of where they- Mm ... th- they kicked the, the melting down reactor off a ship. They literally like, like it just- Water to make cool.
Will: Water to make cool ... and, and, and like tipped it off the side. There is also a bunch of Soviet submarines that had meltdowns that are at the bottom of the sea- Oops ... somewhere. The Kosmonavts, I'll come to that in a bit. But also next, next behind them is the United Kingdom. They-
Rod: Really? Yeah, yeah. The Poms are second.
Will: Well, but remember, I'll tell you who, who makes the top 10 list, and you'll be like, "You naughty, naughty, naughty people." But i- yeah, the Poms, Poms are number two. [00:28:00] Y- you know, other produce, big producers of, of nuclear waste, so the US, they've got area they can bury it. So yeah, the English put a lot of nuclear, nu- radioactive waste at sea.
Will: Typically what they're doing is you seal it in a barrel and, yeah, you go out somewhere slightly deep and you-
Rod: Ploop
Will: Bloop, and then it is-
Rod: Well, Rule Britannia, Britannia rule the waves.
Will: You know? And then, then, then you put a strike through on your checklist. Yeah, I just wanted to put a reminder out there that our little brothers across the Tasman Sea, the New Zealanders, made number, number nine in the list.
Will: They
Rod: made the list at all?
Will: They made the list of top 10 dumpers at sea of radioactive waste, and I'm like, "New Zealand need radiation?"
Rod: From what?
Will: But anyway, this is an update to that story because I, I love this- Huh ... and, and I love the outputs of this story. This is just- Mm ... this is just research that makes me so happy.
Will: What the fuck happened to all of that waste?
Rod: It stayed there.
Will: Well, indeed it did. So more than 200,000 barrels of low-level radioactive [00:29:00] waste totaling, uh, it's like 150,000 tonnes. So some of these barrels must be pretty big barrels. Uh, dumped between 3,000 and 5,000 meters, a lot of it in the North Atlantic, and for a long time no one really knew what had happened with them, but-
Rod: Perfect.
Rod: Out of sight, out of mind ...
Will: but, uh, you know, the combination, and this is what you needed, the combination. Nuclear engineer Patrick Chardon and marine geologist Xavier Escartin of the French National Center for Scientific Research said, "All right" Let's go check it out. So- Ah,
Rod: he's always a troublemaker ...
Will: they- they've had a couple of expeditions, so they've done two.
Will: The first expedition set sail in June 2025. The next one came in May 2026, and so they've just reported back. Wow,
Rod: very recent.
Will: And, and, and what I've gotta say, what I really love, like they sent down a robotic autonomous underwater, like a robotic submarine first, looking across the sea floor to map and photograph the barrels.
Will: Yeah In the most recent expedition that they're just back from, they sent down a three-person [00:30:00] submersible vehicle, like a submarine.
Rod: Oh.
Will: It can go down to 6,000 meters, so this is deep- Whoa ... deep water without imploding, definitely. Nice. And to go and photograph these barrels, detect the radiation, see what's going on down there.
Rod: And- Can you imagine on the ship? "Who wants to go?"
Will: I'd go. I would go- Would you? ... in such a heartbeat
Rod: To the radiation. I'm not talking about the submersible issue, I'm talking about the radiation issue.
Will: No, yeah. Well, I'll tell you about that in a second. Yeah. So for me, you, you talked about radiation jobs before- Yeah
Will: and I am like the trade-off of being down there- Yeah ... and I'm taking that. Going down- It's
Rod: not like you're gonna become a flight attendant. You're not crazy.
Will: No, indeed. I'm, but going down to the bottom of the ocean and flight attendanting down there- Yeah ... I
Rod: would,
Will: I would do that. Yeah, well you- And here's what I, I just wanted to shout out, 'cause I'm gonna show you, and these are in the show notes, the, a link to these pictures.
Will: They've got these shockingly beautiful photos. It's like bottom of the ocean. Yeah, you can have a look at that. Bottom of the ocean, these nuclear, nuclear radiation barrels, and some of you can see like nuclear symbols on them-
Rod: Very clearly ...
Will: in this eerie bottom of the ocean sort [00:31:00] of lighting. With a
Rod: greenish tinge.
Will: With a greenish tinge. Yeah. And it's just like these are, these are low-res that I've got them for you. They look like video game sights. Like- I was gonna
Rod: say, "I've played this game" Like it
Will: is- I was exactly gonna say that ... it is so wild, and I can just imagine you are- Whoa ... peering out of a submarine, seeing- Face
Rod: pressed against
Will: the glass
Will: seeing like these barrels. And look. Yeah So what they have found, they found a bunch of these bar- and they're sort of just randomly scattered around these sites. Like-
Rod: Well, you know, the ocean will do that
Will: Indeed, and they are in different states of decay. One-
Rod: Can you imagine the original people, "Wait, the barrels decay?"
Will: Actually, this is the thing. The original policy, but... Well, policies 'cause it was obviously different countries-
Rod: Yeah ...
Will: was like, so long as they hold, hold intact until they hit the bottom, like, "What is the problem?" I don't know which accent that was. It was a sort of- There was a
Rod: bunch
Will: of them ... it was, it was North European accent.
Will: No, it was an
Rod: Esperanto accent
Will: It was, it was all of them. And I, I feel like, but they- Ah ... they actually said- Fucking A ... "No, the goal is to make sure they stay together until, so they're not dispersing too much. And at the bottom, they're gonna decay." So here's the [00:32:00] thing, one of the photos, there's barnacles, and there's a whole bunch of under- undersea creatures and stuff- Mm
Will: growing on this. Many of the barrels have decayed significantly. Some are fully intact-
Rod: Mm ...
Will: but others have, have fallen apart. We've got anemones have attached themselves to the barrels. Like it's, it's like just sand otherwise. Yeah. And then there's like anemones, sea cucumbers, fish, and crustaceans living on them.
Will: Of course. With crabs apparently particularly fond of, of them. And so some of them- Um- ... some of them look in worse state of repair. But what I will say in terms of the radiation, a recent study of the sunken Soviet submarine, Komsomolets, Komsomolets, which had a meltdown and sank-
Rod: Mm ...
Will: bottom of the ocean- Mm
Will: and show it's, it's like worst level radiation. Of the things that we've done- Yeah ... nuclear meltdown is, is... Okay, a bomb is possibly worse, but short-term. Yeah. But a n- a nuclear, like it's, it's the wor- And it so is absolutely still leaking radiation- Just sits there
Rod: cooking.
Will: No, it, it doesn't. Like it's still leaking radiation.
Will: Yeah. [00:33:00] And they found that radionuclide levels hundreds of thousands of times above the background immediately around the leaking reactor. Wow. But those levels dropped sharply within just a few meters-
Rod: Really? ...
Will: as, as the material dispersed into the sea. A few
Rod: meters.
Will: So I don't wanna be, I don't wanna be apologist for dumping waste at sea.
Will: You're not
Rod: apologizing. You're describing.
Will: But it seems like they've- Within a few meters ... they've found the barrels, shit's growing on them-
Rod: Yeah ...
Will: and the radiation levels around them are really not that bad. And like, look- No, fair, fair, fair, fair ... and so the, the, the, the Komsomolets is, is high-level ri- waste.
Will: Yeah. Most of the barrels are low-level waste. And so it was not, it's, this is not a good thing, but it says when you asked, "Would you go down there?" They didn't necessarily know this- Hmm ... well, the robot might have detected this for them, but the radiation levels, I don't have them in millisieverts or anything like that, but it just, it's not like it's a void of deathly decamita- uh, decaminate, de- what, what is the word?
Rod: Contamination.
Will: Contamination. Yeah, I was, I was trying to put in a D in front of
Rod: it. You got there.
Will: It's not. It's, [00:34:00] it's
Rod: like- So that's interesting. So that begs the question then when, like people like me, at least initially, and probably many people listening would go, "That's evil and wrong, and they shouldn't have done it" It's like, all right, where should they put it then?
Will: Well-
Rod: And if that's the case, that it's only a few meters around and creatures are growing on it and stuff, name me a better place on Earth.
Will: In a secure mountain, man.
Rod: Oh, in Yakutano
Will: Ge- ... whatever ... ge- geological s- But, uh, but look, uh, look, I just, I just wanna say check out the photos anyway. They just look- Pretty
Will: so... I, I love the annual science photos and there's- Yeah, yeah, yeah ... one of these that says- Yeah ... "Is there a category where there's photographs of radioactive waste?"
Rod: Beautiful horror
Will: Uh, this has been your little bit of science Mm.
Rod: Not too much.
Will: No. '
Rod: Cause if we gave you any more than this, your brains would explode.
Will: No, that'd be too much science.
Rod: We have a lot more, but no, you can't have
Will: any. No, no. That's for later.
Rod: Yeah.
Will: That's for later. You should, you should send us some stuff-
Rod: Yeah ...
Will: via the email.
Rod: Cheers@alittlebitofscience.com.
Will: [00:35:00] Cheers@alittlebitofscience.com.au.
Rod: Oh, there is an... I always forget which emails have AUs.
Will: Ours does.
Rod: I should get better than that.
Will: Ours does.
Rod: Also, rate us on everything really highly, because that would help our Rolls-Royce fund. Another sponsor of the show.
Will: Rolls-Royce?
Rod: Yep. Rolls-Royce and Qatar Airways business class or above
Rod: They're gonna email us
Will: They will
Rod: Bring it down. Nice. Check
