Welcome back to Part 2 of Gravitational lenses on Whimsical Wavelengths. In part 2 we finally get to the real star of the show, strong gravitational lensing and the paper that was underlying the topic.

“Euclid: A complete Einstein ring in NGC 6505 “

A lot less to setup this time. No need to stretch this out like gravity stretches time.

But.....

How did gravity stop the reckless driver?

It pulled some strings… mainly the ones holding the car to the road.

Before everything gets pulled downhill, time to jump in Please welcome back Dr Georgios Vernardos!

Paper at the center the this episode:

https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2025/02/aa53014-24/aa53014-24.html

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Whimsical wavelengths is here again to show that it is useless to fight gravity.

Every time I have, it has brought me down.

To begin I'll mention Newtonian mechanics of gravity here in the show notes as it works really well for nearly all things within our solar system. But there are things that does not fit. Mercury’s orbit is one famous example. It gave the wrong prediction for the precession of Mercury's closest point to the sun.

Then Einstein developed a theory about space…

And it was about time!

It was a leap forward changing how we viewed the universe and how we would measure it.

It can be argued that this seminal work together with observations from Hubble on Galaxies existing outside of the Milky Way and expanding universe was the beginning of the modern age of cosmology .

Today we are going to get into one topic from relativity directly, gravitational lensing. To be fair to history, the idea that light traveling close to massive objects bends was actually first postulated by Newtonian mechanics of gravity.

And to get out from that enormous weight Dr Georgios Vernardos (Assistant Professor in Physics & Astronomy at Lehman College) has volunteered to come on the podcast. To get from relativity to gravitational lens and to tell the story correctly is hard to do in one episode. So I have planned this one as a pair! So no it is not time dilation due to the weighty subject

Paper at the center the this and the next episode:

https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2025/02/aa53014-24/aa53014-24.html

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Today the topic should do more then whimsically tickle your ears, Today I have a guest to get the slobbering sensor in your mouth working. Yup buckle in for a flavorful ride!

So I guess definitions first. Food Science is a discipline that investigates food chemistry, food microbiology, physical, sensory, and nutritional properties of food. The discipline also gets into the process of making the food with respect to the manufacture, preservation, quality assurance, and development of food products.

If your favourite snack food is ummmm bet you can’t eat just one? It is practically guaranteed that a food scientist has been involved at some point of the process.

Dr Bryan Le joins the podcast to help us on this falvourful ride of whimsical wavelengths.

The papers discussed talking about Unami and how to get ingredient to be Kitchen Chemistry ready:

1. Hartl, Daniela M., Oliver Frank, Victoria S. Hänel, Vinzenz Heigl, Corinna Dawid, and Thomas F. Hofmann. "Isolation and Identification of Novel Taste-Modulating N 2-Guanosine 5′-Monophosphate Derivatives Generated by Maillard-Type Reactions." Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 72, no. 25 (2024): 14284-14293.

2. Suess, Barbara, et al. "Human taste and umami receptor responses to chemosensorica generated by Maillard-type N 2-alkyl-and N 2-arylthiomethylation of guanosine 5′-monophosphates." Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 62.47 (2014): 11429-11440.

There is lots you can do in science!! Including food science!

Dr Bryan Le's website: https://www.mendocinofoodconsulting.com/

Also check out his Book!:

150 Food Science Questions Answered Cook Smarter, Cook Better

By Bryan Le · 2020 ISBN:9781646118342, 1646118340

Thanks again Bryan for sending one to me! It's a good read (wish I had it before the episode!)

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Today the pod shows its fitness with im-peck-able wordplay. That's right, today's episode is for the birds. At least those which have a raven-ous appetite for knowledge.

Our guest, PhD candidate Miranda Zammarelli (Dartmouth College) has research that takes place in what I guess can be best described as the closest we can get for lab conditions in the natural world. The site for her work is the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest - located in New Hampshire.

The forest is her laboratory and this discussion does its best to get at how and why it happens!

For thoses that want to get involved in Citizen Science (PLEASE DO!) check out these apps for your smartphone

Merlin: https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/

ebird: https://ebird.org/home

Also don't forget about the future when its time for the Christmas Bird Count (https://www.audubon.org/community-science/christmas-bird-count)

Or the Great Backyard Bird Count !

(https://www.birdcount.org/)

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Welcome back where everyone comes to hear sunny quips and cloudy cuckles! Yes we at Whimsical wavelengths are amazing at precipitating a good story.

Today the pod gets into climate vs weather and the increasing extremes. It might feel odd that a general science podcast would take soooooo long to get around to a climate episode. Well it is because the data is overwhelming, humans have changed the chemistry of our atmosphere which is causing it to change.

That is an observable fact. No political beliefs or anything else in that. What to do about it? That is political. Generally (there will be caveats) I plan to NOT get into politics but perhaps I would have a lot more listeners if I did. This is one of those science topics that for some reason crosses the political line.

To show how we know what we know about our changing climate and weather extremes Jared Rennie a Research Meteorologist with NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information joins us!

Useful links from the discussion

A book that came up and well worth a read: Saving Us: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World by Dr Katharine Hayhoe

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/56379758-saving-us

Organizations that also calculate Earth temperature from data separately (not exhaustive):

https://www.copernicus.eu/en

https://berkeleyearth.org/data/

https://wmo.int/

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/

https://www.csiro.au/en/

https://www.jma.go.jp/jma/indexe.html

https://www.nasa.gov/

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Today I am picking my favourite paper that I wrote. The origin of Mauna Loa's Ninole Hills - Evidence of rift zone reorganization. In geophysical research letters in 2015. It is already nearly 10 years old!

Well then a 10 year anniversary tour then?

In the past 4000 years lava has repaved 90% of Mauna Loa’s surface! Mauna Loa is huge. It is a very dynamic place. The Ninole Hills are 100,000 to 200,000 years old. Something special must have allowed for these rocks to be at the surface and not buried beneath newer lava flows. Today we are going to dive into one of my papers to figure out the the most likely candidates to explain this enigmatic feature on the slopes of Mauna Loa volcano.

Some useful show links

Hawaiian Volcano Observatory for all of your volcano updates!: https://www.usgs.gov/observatories/hvo

Where I was when I wrote the paper:

https://www.sfu.ca/volcanology.html

The paper itself (using the link above go to Journal articles and look for the citation if you want the paper without the paywall):

Zurek, J.M., Williams-Jones, G., Trusdell, F., Martin, S. (2015) The origin of Mauna Loa's Ninole Hills - Evidence of rift zone reorganization. Geophysical Research Letters, 42, doi: 10.1002/2015GL065863.

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Part2 jumps in where part 1 left off so more about Theropods! specifically about one of Dr François Therrien's recent studies about a Gorgosaurus and what was found inside its stomach!!!!

did I forget to mention T-shirt giveaway?

incase you missed it from the notes of the last episode:

Dr François Therrien - The Curator of Dinosaur Palaeoecology at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller Alberta https://tyrrellmuseum.com/

Dr François Therrien's Professional Highlights (lifted from the museum's website)

• Discovered the first feathered dinosaurs from North America.
• Researched Cryodrakon boreas, a new species of pterosaur that was among the largest and oldest in North America.
• Published on a theropod site from Mongolia that reveals that colonial nesting behaviour first evolved in the dinosaurian ancestors of birds.
• Researched Thanatotheristes degrootorum

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Bluesky: @whimsicallambda.bsky.social

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Great discussion! Soooooooo good I split it into two parts! In Part 1 we start retro!

It's hard for me to think of 1993 as retro. But yes that is where we are going, Jurassic Park. Honestly, what a movie! It was how you say DINO -might!. Dinosaurs brought to life on the big screen in ways that had not been done previously. Not only was the movie good (the book too btw), I think it was pretty accurate to what we understood at the time. We will find out in a moment but I suspect it was like Dante’s peak which definitely had some problems but the most accurate volcano disaster movie made for hollywood?

So Today we are going to explore what we knew when Jurassic Park was created and how it has changed since! We will also talk a lot more about an evolutionary cousin to the famed T-rex the And again I have brought in a guest to get it done! Great discussion! soo good I split it into two parts!

Dr François Therrien - The Curator of Dinosaur Palaeoecology at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller Alberta https://tyrrellmuseum.com/

Dr François Therrien's Professional Highlights (lifted from the museum's website)

• Discovered the first feathered dinosaurs from North America.
• Researched Cryodrakon boreas, a new species of pterosaur that was among the largest and oldest in North America.
• Published on a theropod site from Mongolia that reveals that colonial nesting behaviour first evolved in the dinosaurian ancestors of birds.
• Researched Thanatotheristes degrootorum

Links for Whimsical Wavelengths:

Bluesky: @whimsicallambda.bsky.social

www.facebook.com/WhimsicalWavelengths

instagram: @whimsical.wavelengths

Email: whimsical.wavelengths@gmail.com

Patreon: patreon.com/WhimsicalWavelengths