Transcript
[0:01] 00:00:00.513" data-end="00:00:12.828">This is Space Time, Series 26, Episode 10, for broadcast on the 23rd of January, 2023. 0:08">Coming up on Space Time… 0:10">What brought the dwarf planet Ceres to life?
00:00:13.377" data-end="00:00:16.186">Lons de Light in the sky with diamonds?
00:00:21.056">0:17">And failure for Britain's first orbital rocket launch from home soil?
00:00:29.356">0:22">All that and more coming up on Space Time. 0:27">Welcome to Space Time with Stuart Gary.
[0:29] 0:45" data-start="00:00:29.360" data-end="00:00:45.200">Music.
[0:46] 00:00:46.190" data-end="00:00:57.011">A new study suggests that the radioactive decay of some elements 0:50">could account for all the heat needed to drive active geology early in the history of the dwarf planet Ceres.
00:01:10.337">0:58">At 945 km, Ceres is the largest spot in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. 1:05">But even though it contains a full third of the mass of the entire main asteroid belt,
00:01:13.980">it's still so small it was always assumed to be inactive.
00:01:14.583" data-end="00:01:28.528">1:15">The belt includes hundreds of thousands of asteroids spanning the snow line. 1:20">The distance from the Sun where it's cold enough for volatile compounds 1:24">such as water, ammonia, methane, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide,
00:01:30.958">1:29">to condense into solid ice grains.
00:01:31.517" data-end="00:01:38.736">1:32">And Ceres appeared indistinguishable from any other mainboard asteroid 1:36">in early telescopic observations from Earth.
[1:40] 00:01:39.736" data-end="00:01:51.266">But all that changed in 2015, when this hazy orb suddenly came into sharp focus, 1:46">thanks to the spectacular observations undertaken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft.
00:01:52.015" data-end="00:01:57.266">All of a sudden, Ceres became a real world, and one quite unique.
[1:58] 00:01:58.019" data-end="00:02:09.983">We now know the dwarf planet appears to be differentiated to a rocky core in an icy mantle, 2:04">and it may even have a remnant internal ocean of liquid water hiding under its icy crust.
00:02:10.460" data-end="00:02:17.104">Ceres' surface is a mixture of water ice and various hydrated minerals, such as carbonates and clays.
00:02:29.306">2:18">The data and images collected by Dorn have given a clearer picture of the dwarf planet's surface, 2:23">including its composition and structure, and it's also revealed unexpected geological activity.
00:02:38.475">2:30">See, Dorns discovered a large continental-sized plateau on one side of Ceres, which actually 2:35">covers a significant fraction of this frozen world.
00:02:39.186" data-end="00:02:53.743">Surrounding it were fractures in rocks, all clustered in one location. 2:44">And there were visible traces of an ocean world, thanks to deposits all over the surface, 2:49">where minerals had condensed as water evaporated, evidence of a freezing ocean.
00:02:54.326" data-end="00:03:03.844">And all this raises the question, where did Ceres get the energy to allow for the kind 3:00">of geological activity that could account for the surface features seen by Dawn?
00:03:04.386" data-end="00:03:08.750">A possible answer is in a report in the journal AGU Advances.
00:03:09.466" data-end="00:03:18.301">It concludes that the heat needed to keep a small ward like Ceres active could be found 3:14">in the decay of radioactive elements within Ceres' interior.
[3:19] 00:03:19.026" data-end="00:03:33.713">The authors of the study reached their conclusions following detailed computer modelling. 3:24">The study's lead author, Scott King from Virginia Tech, says studies of big planets 3:29">such as Earth, Venus and Mars have shown that planets all start out hot.
00:03:34.266" data-end="00:03:38.683">Collisions between objects that form planets creates this internal heat.
00:03:39.386" data-end="00:03:45.794">But in contrast, Ceres simply never got big enough to become a planet and generate the to hate in that way.
00:03:46.542" data-end="00:03:56.507">3:47">To learn how Ceres could still generate enough heat to power geological activity, 3:51">King and colleagues used theories and computational tools previously applied to bigger planets,
00:04:01.692">3:57">in order to study the dwarf world's interior. They then looked for evidence that could support,
00:04:17.986">4:02">their models in the data returned by the Dawn mission. The team's model of dwarf planet interiors 4:08">showed a unique sequence. It seems Ceres started out cold, but then heated up because of the decay 4:15">of radioactive elements such as thorium and uranium.
[4:19] 00:04:18.832" data-end="00:04:24.567">And this alone would have been enough to power geological activity until the interior became unstable.
00:04:25.312" data-end="00:04:34.236">King says he then noticed that all of a sudden one part of Ceres' interior would start heating 4:30">up and moving upwards while another part would be moving downwards.
00:04:43.013">4:35">And it's that instability which could explain at least some of the surface features that 4:39">have been formed on Ceres as revealed by the Dawn mission.
00:04:52.096">4:44">The large plateau that formed an only one side of Ceres with nothing on the other side 4:48">and the big fractures that all clustered at just one location around it.
00:04:59.649">4:53">The concentration of features in just one hemisphere signalled to King that instability 4:57">had occurred and had left a visible effect.
[5:01] 00:05:00.532" data-end="00:05:13.395">King says it turns out that he could show through the modelling that where one hemisphere 5:05">had an instability that was rising up that would cause an extension at the surface and 5:10">And that was consistent with the patterns of fractures seen on Ceres.
00:05:14.052" data-end="00:05:20.201">So based on this model, Ceres didn't follow a typical planetary pattern, hot first, then 5:19">cold later.
00:05:32.291">5:21">But instead it had its own pattern of cold first, then hot, and then cool again. 5:27">King says it shows that radiogenic heating on its own is enough to create interesting 5:31">geology.
00:05:33.052" data-end="00:05:43.892">He sees similarities to Ceres in the moons of Uranus, which is study commissioned by 5:38">NASA and the National Science Foundation recently deemed a high priority for a major robotic mission.
[5:45] 00:05:44.921" data-end="00:05:57.696">NASA's Dawn spacecraft was launched back in September 2007 5:50">on a mission to explore the two worlds of Vesta and Ceres, 5:54">the two largest bodies in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
00:05:58.281" data-end="00:06:09.264">The 1,218 kilogram spacecraft achieved orbit insertion around Vesta in July 2011. 6:06">Vesta is by far the brightest asteroid visible from Earth,
00:06:13.756">and it contains some 9% of the total mass of the main asteroid belt.
00:06:14.278" data-end="00:06:24.738">The 525 kilogram wide world has a differentiated internal structure, typical of terrestrial 6:20">planets, with a metallic iron-nickel core surrounded by a rocky mantle.
00:06:25.279" data-end="00:06:34.848">Then after 14 months of surveys, Dawn left Vesta and travelled to its second target, 6:31">the dwarf planet Ceres, arriving there in March 2015.
00:06:35.491" data-end="00:06:44.390">Dawn studied Ceres until October 2018 when it ran out of fuel, and it remains in orbit 6:42">around the frozen dwarf world.
00:06:45.051" data-end="00:06:47.847">This is space time. Still to come.
[6:49] 00:06:48.651" data-end="00:06:55.967">Lons of the light in the sky with diamonds. 6:52">And failure for Britain's first orbital rocket launch from home soil.
00:06:56.611" data-end="00:07:21.651">6:57">All that and more still to come on Space Time. 7:17">Scientists searching for meteorites in outback South Australia are finding diamonds embedded.
[7:00] 7:15" data-start="00:07:00.080" data-end="00:07:14.800">Music.
[7:22] 00:07:22.632">In the space rocks.
[7:24] 00:07:23.591" data-end="00:07:35.469">These are microscopic grains. 7:26">They're known as Lonsdalites and they reside deep inside Uralite meteorites. 7:32">Lonsdalites are a rare hexagonal form of diamond crystal.
00:07:36.131" data-end="00:07:45.391">And these are now thought to have originated in the mantle of an ancient dwarf planet which 7:41">was hit by an asteroid around four and a half billion years ago.
00:07:54.491">Lonsdalite is named after the famous British pioneering female crystallographer Dame Kathleen 7:50">Lonsdale. 7:51">the first woman elected as a fellow to the Royal Society.
[7:55] 00:07:55.256" data-end="00:08:01.405">A team of scientists carried out a series of tests trying to determine how lonsdolites formed.
00:08:01.971" data-end="00:08:14.107">8:02">The authors used advanced electron microscopy techniques in order to capture solid and intact 8:07">slices of meteorites to create what are really snapshots of how lonsdolite and regular diamonds 8:13">are formed.
00:08:25.912">8:15">Their findings, reported in the Journal of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 8:20">PNAS, suggest that Lons Delites are formed in very different ways to other diamonds.
00:08:32.778">8:26">And during their analysis, they also discovered what are now considered to be the largest 8:30">Lons Delite crystals known to date.
00:08:33.432" data-end="00:08:38.026">These are up to a micron in size, still much thinner than a human hair.
00:08:47.676">8:39">The authors say they think there's strong evidence that there's a newly discovered formation 8:44">process for Lonsdaleite crystals as well as regular diamonds.
[8:49] 00:08:48.512" data-end="00:08:58.713">This would be like a supercritical chemical vapour deposition process that has taken place 8:53">in these space rocks, probably in the dwarf planet, shortly after a catastrophic collision.
00:08:59.325" data-end="00:09:10.785">And that's interesting because chemical vapour deposition is one of the ways humans make 9:04">artificial diamonds in the laboratory, essentially by growing them atom by atom in a specialised chamber.
00:09:11.432" data-end="00:09:23.496">The study's lead author, Professor Andy Tompkins from Monash University, says the hexagonal 9:17">structure of Lonsdaleite atoms makes it potentially much harder than regular diamonds, which have 9:22">a cubic structure.
00:09:24.072" data-end="00:09:32.085">The unusual structure could help inform new manufacturing techniques for ultra-hard materials, 9:30">especially in things like mining applications.
00:09:43.512">9:33">Tompkins says Lonsdaleite in meteorites form from a supercritical fluid at a high temperature 9:38">but at moderate pressures, almost perfectly preserving the shape and textures of the pre-existing,
00:09:51.358">9:44">graphite. He says that later it was partially replaced by a diamond as the environment cooled 9:50">and the pressure decreased.
00:10:02.872">9:52">Tompkins thinks Lonsdaleit could be used to make tiny ultra-hard machine parts. That's 9:57">if they can develop an industrial process that promotes replacement of pre-shaped graphite 10:01">pads with Launch Delight.
[10:04] 00:10:03.503" data-end="00:10:13.112">But he says the important thing is that the study helps address the long-term standing 10:08">mystery regarding the formation of different carbon phases in urolight meteorites.
00:10:21.432">These are the diamonds we found in urolight meteorites, one of the largest group of achondrite 10:18">meteorites that we have in the global collection.
00:10:34.308">Scientists have known about the diamonds in urolights for quite a long time. 10:24">But there's been a long debate about how the diamonds might have formed. 10:27">So the long thought idea is they formed at high pressure when there was a big impact 10:32">that disrupted the ureolite parent body, parent asteroid.
00:10:47.312">And we're suggesting a new way that they formed 10:37">by a sort of a mechanism that's similar to the way 10:39">that they made today in the lab. 10:41">How are they made in the lab these days? 10:43">OK, so a lot of the time in the lab, 10:45">they're made by a process called chemical mapadeposition.
00:10:53.447">And the way that works is they use a little seed diamond, 10:50">like a tiny little diamond particle, 10:51">and then they grow more diamond on top of that.
00:11:00.118">10:54">And they do that in a low pressure atmosphere that's 10:57">hydrogen and methane and carbon monoxide.
[11:01] 00:11:11.632">And the methane has carbon in it so the diamond literally goes from the carbon 11:05">gas onto that sea diamond. So that happens at very high temperatures, 11:08">1000 degrees plus and lower pressure, so less than one atmospheric pressure.
00:11:23.152">11:12">And we're suggesting a similar sort of thing happened inside Demetra as the asteroid was 11:17">disrupted by a large impact. Now that's very different to the way 11:19">diamonds are normally formed on Earth usually in giant vents.
00:11:37.837">Yeah, so on Earth they normally form in the mantle, they're around about 150 feet down, 11:27">and they're brought to the surface by volcanoes in their mind in Africa and Australia and Canada 11:34">as those vent deposits of diamonds are brought up in the lava.
00:11:49.117">11:38">You stated the unusual structure of the diamond. 11:41">Yeah, so I was actually looking down the microscope at these diamonds just to try and 11:45">understand it a little bit better and we found these unusual fold shapes looking like,
00:11:53.872">11:50">bent crystals of diamond. The diamond is really really hard so if the immediate,
00:11:54.320" data-end="00:11:56.517">what comes to mind how and if you possibly hold diamonds.
00:12:03.188">11:57">The hardest thing you know. 11:58">And so we did a little bit more work 12:00">sort of delving into what could be going on here 12:02">with Electron, lots of smooch.
[12:04] 00:12:14.059">CSIRO and the transmission electron microscope at MIT and found out that the diamond was actually 12:10">a hexagonal diamond called Lonsdaleite. So it's a little bit different to normal cubic diamond that
00:12:26.855">we're used to thinking about diamond rings and that sort of thing. This one's hexagonal and maybe 12:18">even a little bit harder than regular diamond. So we were able to map the distribution of Lonsdaleite 12:23">and normal regular diamond in the meteorites using some of the electron microscope techniques.
00:12:27.499" data-end="00:12:34.859">12:28">And that was, we were able to make some pretty cool maps out of that process. 12:31">Are all Lonsdalite diamonds from extraterrestrial sources?
[12:36] 00:12:35.767" data-end="00:12:42.059">I think they've been able to make some in the lab as well by chemical localization. 12:40">Right. But they haven't been out.
00:12:46.859">So yeah, the ones in Nausia that have been overflown in the future, it's a kind of a future as well.
00:12:46.859" data-end="00:12:57.633">12:47">And the other exciting thing is their extraterrestrial origins. 12:50">This is where dwarf planets in our area of the universe comes in. 12:54">Yes, the other area is, I think that the Eurylochian body was quite large.
00:13:06.897">12:58">And if it was larger than about 500 kilometers, it would have been probably just getting into a 13:03">better size range where it could start forming a spheroidal shape, something like this, or.
[13:07] 00:13:07.401" data-end="00:13:16.699">Sort of bordering on being a dwarf planet and a serous dwarf planet, sort of thing. So they're 13:11">the biggest asteroids in the solar system. Yeah, and so the urolights are thought to be from the
00:13:28.826">13:17">mantle of a dwarf planet, or a very large asteroid. We're not quite sure how big it is. So they come 13:22">from very, very deep down beneath the surface. And they were sort of liberated by a gigantic,
00:13:31.842">13:29">impact that happened about five million years after the asteroid first formed.
00:13:32.031" data-end="00:13:44.553">Our listeners may have noticed that you're fading in and out and that's because you're 13:35">at a really interesting place right now. You're basically on the very edge of the Nullarbor 13:40">Plain in outback South Australia near Old Deer. Tell me about it. What are you doing there?
00:14:03.206">13:45">Yeah, so we're out on the Nullarbor Plain and trying to find more meteorites. Nullarbor is probably 13:50">the best place in Australia to try and find meteorites because it's this large limestone 13:54">covered plain in a sort of a desert sort of environment. So limestone's good because it's 13:59">a white rock and meteorites tend to be dark so it can walk around across the desert for many,
00:14:07.230">14:04">kilometers and pick out all the dark rocks amongst the light colored rocks and the dark one.
[14:08] 00:14:08.139" data-end="00:14:12.219">Has a good chance of being meteorite. And then the desert is lonely because the low rainfall.
[14:13] 00:14:13.378" data-end="00:14:22.849">Meteorites don't weather away and rust away and be destroyed over time. And they don't get buried 14:18">by sediment either. So basically what we do is turn out here and try and find some more meteorites.
00:14:41.099">14:23">We have quite a large collection of meteorites from the motherboard now. That's where most of 14:27">Australia's meteorites come from. We even have found urulite meteorites in the motherboard as 14:31">well. They were included in that study we've just published. So you get some pretty cool 14:35">science results on the meteorites we find here. That's Professor Andy Tompkins from Monash University.
00:15:00.819">And this is space time. Still to come. Failure for Britain's first orbit rocket 14:48">launch off home soil and later in the science report. New data shows COVID-19 14:54">is now the third highest cause of death in Australia. All that and more still to 14:59">on space time.
[15:01] 15:16" data-start="00:15:01.040" data-end="00:15:15.760">Music.
[15:16] 00:15:29.042">Britain's Air Accidents Investigation Board will work together with Washington's FAA 15:22">to determine the exact cause of Virgin Orbit's failed rocket launch from the UK spaceport 15:27">Cornwall earlier this month.
[15:30] 00:15:41.799">The mission saw Virgin Orbit's modified Boeing 747-400 airliner Cosmic Girl drop-launch the 15:36">company's two-stage rocket launcher-1 from a pylon under the jet's port wing in the,
00:15:42.125" data-end="00:15:48.001">skies 35,000 feet above the North Atlantic Ocean off the coast of southwestern England.
00:15:59.805">Following its launch, the first stage of the Launcher One rocket performed nominally. 15:53">We have, it looks to be a successful ignition of the Stage One engine as we make our way to space.
00:16:09.245">16:00">We're actually getting towards the end of our Stage One burn. Everything is nominal so far. 16:06">We've had our pitch up on the bottom on the burn time.
00:16:23.245">We have made it through Max-Q alpha, which is one of the most stressful physical moments for the rocket. 16:16">Very comfortably through Max-Q and then also through our aerodynamic heat heating.
00:16:32.245">We have made it through MECO, our main engine cutoff. That is our Newton 3 engine shutdown is reported as nominal. 16:30">Bearing, brake wire is broken.
00:16:43.086">Once that was exhausted and jettisoned, the second stage lit up. 16:36">The trajectory is now tracking Launcher 1 as she makes her way down the Atlantic Ocean,
00:16:47.525">towards the Canary Islands.
00:16:48.525">Stage 2 trajectory nominal.
00:16:48.848" data-end="00:16:53.070">16:49">That means our flight path is as expected being picked up by those ground stations.
[16:54] 00:17:04.412">We're probably almost coming up on halfway through our stage 2 burn number 1. 17:02">Altitude now is looking at around about 600,000 feet.
00:17:18.636">17:05">Approximately three miles per second. 17:07">Bus voltages for the batteries are nominal. 17:09">We had a lower voltage while we were in captive 17:11">air and that's because the power was being provided 17:15">by Cosmic Girl at that point before we switched 17:17">over to the rocket's internal batteries.
00:17:25.725">17:19">Stage two burn is a little longer than the 17:21">stage one burn so this might take a little while 17:23">for us to get to second engine cutoff one.
00:17:32.725">17:26">There are points of the flight where we don't have 17:29">the telemetry coming from the rocket because we 17:31">are out of view of the ground stations.
00:17:44.925">17:33">Flight software folks have implemented a store and forward on our rocket which 17:38">means that when we are out of view of the ground stations we are storing that 17:41">data so that the next time we do come in view of ground station we can download,
00:17:45.130" data-end="00:17:58.165">it and from target back from Madrid data source switch to Madrid Madrid ground 17:51">station has locked on to our rocket and is streaming the data now confirmed 17:55">signal from mass below miss switching telemetry source to mass below miss.
[17:59] 00:18:00.165">Newton 4 shutdown initiated.
00:18:07.797">You just heard the call for a Newton 4 shutdown. Newton 4 is our stage 2 engine. 18:04">engine. So that is the completion of the first burn.
00:18:08.149" data-end="00:18:24.319">Of our second stage. But then failed to deploy its nine satellite payload, apparently due to a 18:14">technical issue somewhere in the second stage rocket engine. It appears that Launcher One has 18:20">suffered an anomaly which will prevent us from making orbit for this mission. We are looking at,
00:18:35.439">the information and data that we have gotten. The failed launch was also the first rocket launch 18:29">attempt by Virgin Orbit outside its home base at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California.
00:18:43.347">And it comes in the lead up to plans for a demonstration launch at Queensland's Toowoomba 18:41">Airport in 2024.
00:18:52.773">18:44">Britain has previously successfully launched orbital rockets. 18:47">They were in association with Australia from the Woomera rocket range in outback South Australia.
00:18:53.241" data-end="00:18:58.048">But the Virgin Orbit launch failure was the first launch attempt from British soil.
00:19:20.059">18:59">Is space-time. 19:17">And time now to take a brief look at some of the other stories making news in science.
[19:00] 19:15" data-start="00:19:00.240" data-end="00:19:15.120">Music.
[19:20] 00:19:20.059" data-end="00:19:22.300">This week with the Science Report.
[19:23] 00:19:23.083" data-end="00:19:40.296">A new study shows that COVID-19 is now the third highest cause of death in Australia. 19:30">The figures were reported by AusAGE, a broad group of medical experts looking at the well-being 19:35">of Australians before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
00:19:50.946">19:41">The organisation provided a comparison of causes of deaths in recent years and says 19:46">it's clear more needs to be done to reduce the excess deaths coming from COVID.
00:19:51.579" data-end="00:20:08.473">19:52">This would include higher levels of booster vaccinations, delivery of safe indoor air 19:57">in public settings, the use of masks in poorly ventilated indoor areas, the return to free 20:03">wildly accessible testing and a review of the mitigations being used in high-risk settings,
00:20:10.633">20:09">such as aged care facilities.
00:20:11.299" data-end="00:20:21.355">The group warns that there's every indication that unless Australia changes its stance on 20:16">managing COVID-19, this trend will continue well into 2023.
00:20:22.059" data-end="00:20:34.183">So far over 6.8 million people have been killed by the COVID-19 coronavirus since it was first 20:29">detected near the Wuhan Institute of Virology around September 2019.
00:20:46.858">20:35">The World Health Organization now estimates the true death toll from COVID-19 is likely 20:40">to be around 16 million, with some 672 million confirmed cases globally.
[20:48] 00:20:48.407" data-end="00:20:59.537">It's often been claimed that working from home can boost productivity, but new research shows 20:54">that this was actually less likely to have been the case during the COVID-19 pandemic.
[21:00] 00:21:00.326" data-end="00:21:13.297">The findings reported in the journal PLOS One are based on 37 studies, two-thirds of which were 21:06">conducted before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold. Pre-pandemic, the researchers say the majority of
00:21:22.075">studies showed working from home actually boosted productivity and performance, and 21:18">mostly positive impacts on work-life overall were noted.
00:21:35.057">21:23">However, follow-up mid-pandemic studies say 27% showed positive impacts, 38% showed negative 21:30">impacts and another 38% reported mixed results.
00:21:45.292">Researchers say that while more studies are now needed, especially around productivity 21:39">and performance, their research indicates that non-mandatory working-from-home arrangements 21:44">may be more successful.
[21:47] 00:21:46.817" data-end="00:22:00.749">A new Australian study suggests that boiling peanuts may reduce most of what triggers allergies 21:53">from the legumes, meaning that ultimately peanuts could potentially be reintroduced 21:58">to people to eliminate their peanut allergies.
00:22:01.377" data-end="00:22:12.173">The findings, reported in the journal Clinical and Experimental Allergy, are based on tests 22:06">conducted on 70 children aged between 6 and 18, all of whom had peanut allergies.
00:22:22.777">22:13">They were each given 12-hour boiled peanuts for 12 weeks, 2-hour boiled peanuts for 20 22:18">weeks, and finished with roasted peanuts for 20 weeks.
00:22:29.466">22:23">Researchers found that 56 kids, that's 80% of the 70 participants, became desensitised to peanuts.
00:22:30.157" data-end="00:22:39.873">But the authors say treatment-related adverse effects were still reported in 43 participants 22:35">at 61%, three of whom had to withdraw from the trials.
[22:42] 00:22:41.566" data-end="00:22:56.185">Paranormal enthusiasts around the world have been hotly debating the scenes shown in a 22:47">disturbing video of a flock of sheep in Inner Mongolia in China that have been apparently 22:52">walking around in a circle for at least 12 days straight.
00:23:06.517">22:57">The farm owner claims what makes the entire ordeal mysterious is that although there are 23:02">34 sheep enclosures on the farm, these sheep were all from the same enclosure.
00:23:07.159" data-end="00:23:19.060">Number 13. 23:09">And as you'd expect, that sent the supernatural snoops into a feeding frenzy, looking for 23:14">any signs that this is the number of the beast, which I actually thought was 666.
00:23:33.545">23:20">Tim Mendham from Australian Skeptics says, despite a multitude of supernatural explanations 23:25">being offered by paranormal investigators, the real answer is a bacterial disease called 23:30">Listeriosis, which does affect sheep in this way.
[23:34] 00:23:34.249" data-end="00:23:51.629">Caused by sheep eating contaminated food and it can be treated with an early 23:39">aggressive course of antibiotics. There's a video which has just appeared recently 23:43">which has been described as eerie and bizarre which shows a flock of 23:47">Mongolian sheep walking in circles which they did for about 12 days.
00:24:04.152">23:52">They thought it's really weird, is this paranormal, is this sort of strange behavior that's 23:57">been coming from outer space or aliens or whatever. The interesting thing is 24:01">There is actually a disease called Listeriosis.
00:24:06.799">It causes exactly the same circumstance.
00:24:12.629">24:07">It actually makes things walk in circles and often actually favor one side more than the other.
00:24:12.629" data-end="00:24:21.309">24:13">So when you get a flock of sheep that are going around in circles for this, it's normally 24:16">– it's probably only this disease, this Listeriosis, which does exactly what they 24:20">was talking about.
00:24:28.215">So the article I saw about this thing, about this sheep, ran through all the paranormal 24:25">explanations and said, oh, by the way, this is the reason why it's happening.
00:24:58.067">24:29">It's rather sad that people make all 24:30">this effort to promote a occurrence whether 24:33">it's eerie or not with the most simple 24:36">rational and exact accurate assessment of it that 24:39">finds out the real cause. 24:42">Sheep walking in circles 24:44">is probably due to Listeriosis, end of 24:46">story. Occam's razor, the simplest 24:48">explanation is usually the best. That's right 24:50">Occam's razor says you don't have to go to 24:52">all this extent of finding 24:53">paranormal explanations and things for 24:55">something which is readily explained very,
00:25:01.909">That's Tim Mendam from Australian Skeptics.
[25:03] 25:17" data-start="00:25:02.960" data-end="00:25:17.200">Music.
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