Had I been problems, inspire us to push the world forward. That's why so many people work with us on everything from city traffic to ocean plastic. Smart loves problems, IBM, let's put smart to work, visit, IBM dot com, slash Smart, to learn more. This progress has brought you buy. A lobbying elbow being, doesn't want anything to come between you and the perfect day outdoors, not even cold weather. That's why, EL being outer. Where is packed with industry leading innovation like new down tech, Pfc Free, a repellent down which states dry fifty percent longer than the original down tech find innovative winter outer, where at L, l being dot com, Au Albion be an outsider. Hey San Francisco. We want to get back to our city by the bay. So we are this January. That's right! Man we're going back to Sketchfest. It's become an annual deal for us there at the Castro theater always summer. Sciences of here you are

our people and we love coming to see you so get your tickets to see us at the Castro. What they were there, we're gonna be Saturday January eighteen tried for primetime show. Yep so go to ask why ass K live dot com and follow the link to get information and tickets. We'll see you guys in January, Welcome to step. You should now of production of Iheart radios. How stuff works. I awoke wounded. Podcast, I'm Josh Clark, those Charles the reach of Brian over there, there's Jerry right there, this laughing it up. You should know, did joke Sir Jerry Dent Science? Addition a jacket die slowly, and so In addition, you know it's not gonna do just fine. This is also intuitive. It's wonderful! I'm not worried about not doing fine, but thanks for the region,

Well, then, I'm I'm really excited about this. If you know that I think you're gonna do fine the euro, going to as well I'm going to see to it that Jerry's gonna do great Jerry. How are you doing everything? Ok, she's present I have never seen or press by up to her new, a kind of weird sound effects. This happened after touching on those buttons lawyering carriages, After all, the might pick better. I always like ok, you're, officially stalling now, there's quite laughter the here and now to set its own nose. Yes, he's all knows whose Jerry laughing hard there, some syrian iridescent areas as the MAR triggering going on reality and theirs it's not on the microphone cover are eight carbon fourteen dating it work sort of the end you set the worst description of it ever now we can do better than that. Yes,

really you did a great job with this, but I also you know my advice to anyone. You don't understand a science thing, you're an adult, Just don't worry about what anyone behind you. Thanks is looking at your laptop and I go to the most prudent Rachel Dron sides website you can find here and then always helps. There is No shame in that. No shame seriously the people right. Those websites are probably some of the best science explaining our planet, and then I had a really just not damn it down. His kids are smart, brick, that's funny! You flip flatiron, kids, apparently you mean stupid, gets you always so they were done until this now so we're all over the map, where I feel like we're really grown up these days. So so karma. Fourteen for those of you who don't know, is this really clever scientific method where you can actually

kind of look inside of a material and figure out how much carbon fourteen is in there and by doing so, you can actually tell how old it is, or at least how long ago it was since the thing you're dating was alive. Yes, it is a comparative others. Another word for that. What to call them relish? dating year, relative dating back as comparative, isn't the worst word right, especially if you tell him literature reflect because but they're doing is comparing it two things that are alive today and because the gobbled gook we're about to talk about that equals a route, pretty good estimate, and then from their there even further things it one can do one we're so inclined as a scientist and there are a lot of people who were inclined. It is a very exciting, energetic field of science,

now I give you wanna. If you want to jump into an ever evolving constantly moving be a The old the apparatus field, kind of of science are start studying radio carbon dating back would be a break field has done. The for bad attitude. Did I think so Oh no one in radio carbon dating has a bad attitude now, but they are bs right, but you're right it as it is every evolving in their constantly looking for better ways to pinpoint more accurate timelines on things right, so it's not like your job, you're gonna get in and be like of this whole thing again right now and it's it's a site there constantly filling in blank and stuff like that. It has its good work. That is so what they're? Looking for the people who do radio carbon dating is carbon. Fourteen said, and that is radio carbon. It's called there because

it's a radioactive form of carbon the tried and it's everywhere on earth? It's just all over the place. It's part of the carbon cycle in its part of the web of life, but it starts out way up in outer space, cosmic re that's right. Should we give it the basis definition before he jumped to the not an ounce of Radio carbonate, yes, are you I mean, I think that, like the most rudimentary definition, ok might help some people out, but, like you said, carbon eighteen is everywhere, including inside us, because it's in plants via photosynthesis yet and we plants and animals eat plants, some people eat animals, sure and because of that, it's kind of in every living thing right and carbon. Fourteen dies away very slowly and because we know this, and because we know what happens predictably right then we can measure that in a sample and then compare it like, I said to something living

and then you do little math ipso facto its of echo. Is it a question of ginger oppressor changes by being button but of being banned Jovi. What was that? Being bout boom. Bunch area, though, is yours. Was it man? You came up with that and cares Zoo Atlanta about two thousand and twelve- that's right, that's where that's carbonated losing joke! but because we know that we can compare it to something it's alive today, with a little math. We can figure out the a rough estimate of heralded as yet Radio, carbon gaining in a nutshell for sure it right, but, like you said it starts out, is cosmic rays way out in outer space right and so a cosmic grey we're not entirely certain where they come from, but there's super higher energy particles usually like pieces of atoms that are just shooting toward earth and through outer space.

Herbal speeds and when they encounter the atmosphere, they start running into the atoms that make up the atmosphere and because these particles are so high energy? The cosmic rays, when this I kinda atoms and other particles and in molecules, and they just burst him apart and yet not just burst. Like an arrow into like its protons neutrons ill tear apart a neutron like like it's, nothing actually create other high energy, articles, like morons pie funds x Ray what else as axons right now. There was a video game, was it Zack slot yeah sure anyone with a z I think it was the a double ex o n familiar enough familiar with that than the diary. Ok, I wasn't and actually it may have been, but I played on pleaded auditory because I could see a kid in a kiss teacher or playing that game stand up in an arcade. Yes, it sounds like that.

That would have been me had not been deathly afraid of kids how back because they were devil It's in the faint manservant assigned me that's right, ok, all these movements x rays pie, and all that there is one other little particle that can be created when a cosmic gray collides with an atom, and that is a neutron high energy neutron right. That's right! Ok, so what's happening now is a chain reaction, because cosmic rays are bombarding the This fear that's right in what can happen as they can get really pushy if high energy neutron collides with. Let's say a nitrogen fourteen Adam you'll get pushy and they'll just knocked approach on often move right in there and say this is my house now right what was once a stable Adam, nitrogen fourteen, which had seven proteus and seven neutrons

in each is now an unstable Adam with six protons and eight neutrons now it's no longer nitrogen fourteen which you have fella is carbon. Fourteen ass, an unstable meaning radioactive, but not radioactive meaning. Like scary, dangerous, no, it just means that it's it's in a higher energy state. Its temporary eventually wants. Did it came back into that nitrogen fourteen states Yes event, it does that yeah, eventually it sometimes spontaneously sometimes down the road that neutron will turn back into a protein which sound like magic until you realize that in all of the particles that make up atoms are really just vibrate, of energy and temporarily go to a higher energy state or a lower energy state, and that is how they would change from like a higher GI neutron back to a proton right

And you said that carbon fourteen is everywhere, which is true, but that doesn't mean there's like tons and tons of relative to carbon fourteen or wait carbon twelve yet it a lot more carbon, twelve right, so carbon twelve is the stable version of carbon. Yet, way more abundant carbon fourteen come fourteen is kind of like a freak, a monster that gets made accidently the trend is extremely rare, even though there is a ton of it, but compared to carbon. Twelve is very rare, something like one carbon fourteen Adam for every trillion. Thea carbon atoms. That's right! That's that's pretty rare, but it also gives us a ratio, Chuck There's a big initial point: yeah and, like you mention before two or maybe I said it, it's. This is part of the carbon cycle, so it's inside all the plans. The animals ring. The plants were eating plants. Some people eat animals, so it's inside all of us in its everywhere,

but that ratio is really important because, like we said it starts to decrease because it it craves homeostasis and wants to get back to its former life as a stable particle right, animal boy, stable boy, The errors that horse anybody will be an atom because is going from carbon fourteen item to nitrogen fourteen Adam right but their ratios important, because as its dies away there going to be fewer and fewer carbon fourteen items with that debt. Organism overtime, whereas if something is alive, it has that steady amount and that's where the comparison comes and right, because, as far as plant or you or a dog or anything living is concerned. There is no difference whatsoever between a carbon fourteen molecule, carbon dioxide and a carbon twelve molecule carbon

yeah I mean it sounds hard to digest because we set its radioactive, but there really is no difference as far as were concerned right. It basically takes a human side. Tests to analyze it using an extremely sophisticated machine to be able to tell the difference. I try. So them Is there when it does come down. The atmosphere spewed out by Ok, no or something like that. The edges becomes part of the food chain, like any other Adam of part of carbon. Sure that's locked him with oxygen reform form, carbon dioxide, so as you're living like you're saying you are constantly taking it in your constantly eating. It's just a part of life as carbon fourteen and carbon twelve, But when you die, you stop taking in carbon of all kinds and all of a sudden, a clock has said because that decay of carbon fourteen the tried and then

Kay like we said it happens spontaneously and Adam might suddenly convert from carbon fourteen dick nitrogen fourteen. Will you can't predict women? going to happen because of the uncertainty. That's part of quantum physics right, but If you have a large enough sample, then you can start to predict when x, number or ex percentage of that that's ample of carbon fourteen will have spontaneously changed from carbon. Fourteen to nitrogen fourteen, that's called the half like that, which is everyone has heard up. That's the athlete! that's the standards that yeah, I think everyone has heard of half life and abet. Ninety percent of the people that know that term dont really fully grasp it. Quite yet. Just this, the the amount of I'm it takes for half of the radioactive atoms in any given sample to convert back into a stable form. Yeah! That's it

easy and we know in this case the half life and we'll get to power. We figured all this out, but half life of carbon fourteen is fine. Thousand seven hundred and thirty years? If you know you keep going, it goes to a quarter life then I guess an eighth yeah, just he's going to it so like a view of a hundred carbon fourteen atoms. If you come back and fifty seven hundred and thirty years unifying you have fifty if you visit in another fifty seven hundred thirty years, you're going to have twenty five right now four and a half or thirteen. Maybe I don't know, media keeps going until there's, ultimately None left over a long enough, stretcher time, which is with carbon fourteen like fifty or sixty thousand near yes or sixty thousand mostly, but then I think it start can get a little kinky at fifty. So fifty to sixty is pretty good and I think it gets here

here at this point because are because of the equipment were using the measure. It really, I think, as our equipment gets more more sensitive, that time will go further further out, because as long as you have two Adams, you should don't be a item. You know for sure in one probably. I'm not gonna go out on a limb for their own sake, that's not what I'm gonna carry out. There would probably ok, let's take a little break here. Going come back here and a second talk about the very smart dude you figured all the stuff out. Two years ago, everybody, this episode establish, knows brought you buy Amazon and in particular Amazon's Alexa, whose with right now because Chuck you know, we know a lot about carbon dating right yet! Well, we

but Alexa here also knows a lot about it. That is true, so watch this everyone Alexa tell us about carbon dating police sure radio, carbon dating is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radio carbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was developed in the late nineteenth forties at the University of Chicago by Willard Libby, who received the no El Prize in chemistry for his work in nineteen sixty while she's good. That's really good actually about this Alexa. What's the half life of carbon fourteen Card for teens. Half life is five thousand seven hundred years now. That is crazy and you know what actually, I think that's about as old as the oldest living individual trees. If I can recall from our Pando episode, o is a good question to ok Alexa. What is the

this living tree in the world- a great basin bristle cone, the Californian White mountains, is believed to be the oldest verified three alive at five first sixty six years old. Oh so close, why you like six hundred years off by the US? I guess it's kind of technically close. Well Alexa! Thank you for bring us out today? I hope we can do is again in the future anytime. I love to chat, like you said, I know a lot of stuff I took this three real quick. So I think this is up. Bears that? Ok, ok, you got carbon fourteen the part of the food chain. You take it in his you're living when you die. You stop taking it in and so those carbon fourteen out of start to decay, which means that if you can, dead organism to a living organism and the ratio of carbon fourteen carbon twelve in the dead organism compared

living organism you be able to tell how you go, the dead organism was alive and taking a more carbon, that's the bases of radio carbon dating that's right. So that is, we have a man to thank the urgency of Chicago Name, Willard Libby, Graham, I his name was wild manner, wild bill. While men Willard Livy yeah, because he's crazy, I guess must have been a party. Who knows you don't get? nickname like wild bill now now for nothing They don't go around handing those out to just anybody yet not even just figuring out carbon fourteen dating you would in a wild men for that no like even Chris Farley, wasn't call while Bill they Willard Libya had aside aside gig dear, you know, but use the party, Maybe it receive Chicago in the nineteen forties, perhaps so

he figured out how carbon fourteen work and how it could be used to do this before we were even positive sides, even knew for a fact that there was such a thing as carbon. Fourteen this pretty impressive. And, in fact, in nineteen, forty six, it was just a few short years after we had discovered cosmic rays, he was really on the leading edge of science. You know he was a while may be. I write it. He's like these particles I am sure they exist, but if they do, we could figure out how to use them to write dead organism. Anyone a noble prize in nineteen sixty four, this, I think rightfully so in chemistry, yeah for sure, even though as well you got a few things wrong we're. In the one thing is, it cannot talk to wrap your head around here. Is he and this is is it just is what it is at this point I think, but he's elected one thousand nine hundred and fifty the year. Nineteen fifty is year, zero right for his experimentation.

And he compared all samples against this, and that is still what we do today right that we do we didn't revise a lot of stuff. You know interesting knowing like they definitely or like. Ok. I think the reason why, because by the time it started sorted become sophisticate, hidden in more refined. So many say had gone through. There is like we're just gonna stay as it is. If you know how I got. Fifty truly interesting nineteen fifty when your radio carbon dating an object that is year zero, so any time get a date back which will talk about its actually saying. This is how long before nineteen. Fifty. This thing was last alive right in not talk in it. It doesn't have to be like up a plant fossil because we said Urban is in you know, virtually everything right, so a leather belt comes from. I'll go. Eight, the plant near old wooden latin show seed, a pig fabric yeah? Oh, you define poop course old, poop older,

old, alcohol or beer near because of yeast, right. There are many many many things, obviously, bodies, Oki yeah, our power Yet as long as whatever you are dating was at one point alive. Which means it was in Iraq, right or mineral from birth, like it's can data. You should be able days armies it's about fifty or sixty thousand years or younger yeah, but there was a problem early on in this process because he needed a lot of this material near to basically destroy to find out how old it is, and people, We want to give up these great finds like I found a skull and, unlike what can we destroy? That's, to find a hold. It is, and you know it, would turn rounds. I know it's my school right right among the radio carbon researchers sea like I was just asking to be pleasant. Gimme that school but then you would say no, it's my

go, and I'm just happy, does call it old right and world booby would step in India's. Do like the wild may have piled driver on the guy with that's all. I got the name. You d come in and crush me hiding, maybe in another room barriers of interest pounds I wanna go to soar. But here's the thing we ve done a lot better overtime equipment is in the lot better more sophisticated, so we don't need Much now and people are given up their finds because I'm a little gram of bone from the skull. And I think everything I'll be ok, yeah Enzo, because that, like it's gotten a more common to radio carbon date stuff! I read. The UK they really started dating everything they found, because the UK passed away said too few developer- and you turn up anything

archaeological key logical evidence. I'm like one year, buildings are developments, you have to pay to have it dated and so like it started, can it gets the burden for paying, for it was shifted to end three now advanced, so it so to really blow up that help kind of pushed the technology along and help blower the expense and increase the sophistication of the machines that were being you yeah, pretty pretty me how their happens. Well, here's which to do if you're going to start out this process, as you got to really clean your sample very well. Otherwise, it's going to you can mess up everything and not just the test that you're making. If you have what a hot sample, which means you didn't clean it well enough for its contaminated, a gram of hot sample, you can decide boy, a lab, basically to the point where they'll just

to shut down for four weeks or even months right to get everything right in everything in there might be destroyed like yeah, while the other samples it may be super valuable. My skull now in a sorry third, the big deal. If something isn't cleaned right, because it really throws everything often can ruin everything else, but once you do cleaned when you dated there's few differ is that you can use, but the one that I saw as the most common is actually turning that carbon based sample into carbon graphite like pure carbon, and then you take that little piece of pure carbon that you just created an you shoot. A beam of air he threw it? A lot of energy yeah like two million volts near which is not all at once, I think they're ramp up. Don't you over time, but at some point it's got. It's it's been accelerated too, two million vault of energy right, ok, and then

once you have this thing. Basically, a particle many particle accelerators pass through a spectrometer which can act we measure the different masses of the ad. In this beam that you ve shot through the graphite detritus, detecting the little bits of carbon yeah. That's pretty impressive stuff! This is the case. This is the level technology were right now in two thousand nineteen, and this has been around since, like the eighties or ninety there to single. What's coming next, what are they use before the spectrum They use fifty in eighty beta accounting and it was conquered. Inexpensive and not nearly as reliable. Basically, what it did was something different where it would sit there in in study a piece a fighter gas, the they often gas. If I start to your gas and then it would just like should have been through. Instead, I think a beam. It would somehow study the sample four days may

and they would count the number of atoms that head spontaneously converted from carbon fourteen Deckard. Twelve and then it would do a little mathematic, rigamarole and say this is how this is her at this rate of decay. This is how all this organism is will thank goodness we have, spectrum it or now than here cause it's much more precise and silent ass to itself more futuristic to the mass spectrometer here, so you get it. This beam, you're gonna, throw it in the wonder machine. Actually, another wonder machine! Wonder machine already taken recently writes a thoughtless peace of mind, and then you compare that ratio to again yours euro, which is the ratio in nineteen fifty which is still little, can,

seeing TAT, Conky hit is very lucky and then that difference basically like we ve, said eight times now shows how many years have passed to produce that amount of decay run at sample right. So if you took like a sample of wood from an old ship you found out right or help? That's the new right. By the way, did you say right, yeah, ok, an you analyze and you found that based on amount of carbon fourteen and there it was something like it dated two like eight hundred forty five BC? Ok, you Billy Now we know where the ship is from, but if each to go out and published a study with that. Hopefully, your radio, carbon colleagues available well yeah, there's a few more steps, I'll. Tell you here, and I think there was a precise radio carbon date. Any one would ever given you'll be laughed out of the field. If you do this yesterday that instead there's a couple of things that you have to do, first,

radio. Carmen dates are given as a span of time, church bit of a right, so it will say, and also because its comparing to nineteen fifty is given. Not as a day like busy ear, a d or sea, or anything like that. It's BP, before present the years before present, attract so far that peace. I would say you actually get something like twenty seven hundred and fifteen years before present, plus him is thirty years? So is it always thirty years it now we can begin to bend a camp range dramatically right, like at sea, there. They have em down to about three hundred or three hundred fifty years. Ok and dug the the shorter the span

time is a plus or minus years or the window of years that you get the less confidence you have. So maybe you'll have like twenty six percent confidence that its from you know eight hundred and forty five b c, two eight hundred fifty five bc right, but you have ninety five percent confidence that there's like this two hundred year span it's somewhere in there. That makes sense, because I have a million per cent confidence that somewhere within the last eighteen millionaire exactly exactly right. Scientists keeps the larger the window, the more confident you are, but I mean still who you're talking a hundred too. Years, depending on how all the samples, how good the sample is yellow is still pretty it's pretty they. Indira weight in pretty well and that scientists job is to not say well as just make a right big range right, and that will be good enough right. They want zero in as much as possible. Like you know, that's then still be accurate right so that

it is those if you do that if you do the math they were waiting on your example yeah twenty seven hundred fifteen years before present, plus or minus thirty years, gives you, change of between seven hundred and twenty six in six sixty six b c e, but that's not even close to what you said yeah, which was eight hundred and forty five before right, right yeah. So why wouldn't eight hundred and forty five be in the sample chuck because, like we said in the very first sentence, radiocarbon dating is not super I mean it's accurate on a wide range, but it's a little clunky it is part of is because there is actual problems like known problems, building and write to the actual process radio, carbon dating and the results that they get back, throttling the outbreak of it that Paul

I just had it really long replay, probably felt like a yellow taken. Brakemen right will come right back and talk about more so Bread for this ram trucks, motor turns back to back truck of year, we're not bragging about. It will just be an honest: the landscapes changed and we ve changed with a stronger, more powerful in and more luxurious. You think an award like this will give us permission to take a victory that well, you'd be dead wrong we think, on our mind, is getting better, delivering harder for our customers and pushing the limits of what is possible.

Because, when you lead from within you redefine what a truck can do, ran failed to serve ram is a registered trademark about here? U S! Llc So I thought this was a was this from Helstone Works, and you in your brain and again a bunch of other places too, and you and your brain church, but it there's. An interesting thing to note here, which is science, makes a lot of assumptions when it comes to dating stuff. Is the best way to say it if you find like they. Finally, Weathershield shield that they dig out of a of archaeological site, the super excited and they can date the shield, and they can say

Are they probably will say? Well, whoever this heroic person was in the battlefield died on this around this date, because that's where the shield is dated from right, but That is not necessarily true, because their dating the shield from that the cow skin. That's on the handle, let's say, and that says when that cow is alive. Lass right has nothing to do with. When this and made the shield how long that letter had been around right for they went out on the battlefield and took an error, the forehead yeah. Maybe they re like super and vintage leather. Their shield handle your dad's. It sounds predict but it's ultimate already possible. But the thing is: is archeologists our archaeologists based on making assumptions and presumptions based on the context right- and it's like this- is true fine is widely accepted. This is not new or scandalous at all, but like that is part of archaeologists job essay. Here's the context of this find right for an based on this.

Carbon Data, this it's a pretty good guess that they killed the cat. Made the leather made the shield. The guide died, probably within it, ten team your window church in winter, I mean the idea. It would be even weirder assumption to think that it was an ancient hipster who collected told for mothers cigar my that's right. And then the other part of it, too, is the also use it to compared to other stuff like if there in a pit Phil If other soldiers of a certain you know from certain nation or land or whatever in knew of the lost grade. They may have found that, if a grain of roughly correlate to the date, there are thinking like there's a lot of a lot of stuff that they put together. They don't you say, here's what the radio Carbon Day says that this is what it is that right. So science does. This Libby was certainly doing this. The wild man was doing this and he was making Commission's and he was in here not knocking. The guy is no one, a noble as for this year, but he

assumed a couple of things that were not correct, one of which was he half life wrong. Yeah he's Half life of carbon fourteen was five thousand five hundred and sixty eight years. We actually know fifty seven thirty like we said, and he so presumed that car Fourteen in the atmosphere is very steady, overtime and its something we can really depend on being like there being a certain amount. Ellie and is not really the case either. No, it's that second wins a big one like the first one you can dismiss, aroused math and be like okay. Well, this is the actual half life well, but it's interesting, that's what we ve to do. Because that's another thing, we didn't go back and change because it was all done on the basis of fifty five sixty eight right rights of the initial stuff, the initial dates that were done when Libby invented it were based on a half life, a fifty five hundred sixty eight dry nineteen, fifty right, but from

I don't I don't know exactly when they figured it out, but at some point in the ensuing decades they figured out know the half. Life is actually five thousand seven hundred and thirty rather than just go back and wreathed red analyze. The old samples which actually may have been destroyed by this time right, they said, were just and stick with this convention and follow it? We can Do the math and to say action. This is the real half life converted the Libby half life and then have a radio carbon date yet but the other thing you go wrong, like you said, is, is the bigger problem, because it can't just be solved with math, and that is his presumption that carbon fourteen in the upper atmosphere, produce at a steady rate. We know now that there are all kinds of things that can and have affected rate over the years. Everything from ocean currents too provoking knows to solar flares to the earthquake.

Eric field, it is what you waited alot overtime, yeah from year to year, yeah we're starting to find that it's not at all steady and that's a big one, because one of the foundations of Radio Carmen Dating is this idea that that it's like a reliable clock that distorts clicking backwards. You know at any point in time, whatever you come in on your gun, to be able to compare it to modern sample and get a coherent rate, carbon date. There I make sense. That's just absolutely not the case because of all those fluctuations right, that's something that this feels defiling grappling with which if we will be able to overcome and largely has already because they use other types of dating to calibrate their radio, carbon dates which is really cool. We were talking about the relative dating of carbon fourteen dating

what they are now trying to do on that now they been doing it while as absolute dating like what you're talking about comparing it to known quantities. In one of those is tree rings, and I'm surprised we talked about. Rings a little bit here and there, but I wonder if it could be already on its own. It least yeah, maybe more we'll just our rapid honour in whether if it turns into a real deal, episode will go here will just cancel our dinner plan. He go, but a tree ring dating is called dinner. Chronology counting tree rings and not all trees have tree rings will get to that which can be a problem, but a lot undue and some of them grow every year. Just like you, ve learned- and everyone probably thinks is true for my kid Science- glass right. Is like once a year tree has a ring, so he got a tree down. You can now the rings and a whole that is, which is a meme basically right, depending on the tree. Exactly

here's the thing is, trees absorbed that carbon fourteen just like everything else, but those tree rings don't once they have. Pleaded a tree ring cycle. That tree ring is essential. Dead inside the tree in is not accepting any more carbon fourteen gets like a fossil. It's like, if you look at the outside of a tree, that's the living part like as big as a tree is enormous, that it is the actual living part of it is just this outside veneer, unlike the leaves and everything I area. So everything inside is what used to be out but is now inside track, because a new ring of growth grew around it. So, since is not taking any more carbon, it's like a snapshot of the carbon fourteen that was in that Miss the year, that tree ring grew,

and we know this and now we have something to compare against those carbon fourteen data results. Yet because a few chop, the tree down today, he would say thank you, Father tree Mother tree for sacrificing your life for science. That's all you have to say first, and you start counting. The tree rings backwards. If you get to other tree that much older, but that lived that the lifetime of which overlapped with the tree you just cut down. Yes, you can actually jump over from the tree just cut down to this older, Frida and keep counting backwards and then just keep. If you find enough old trees keep leaping from tree to tree, counting tree rings as if it was one big old tree, that's really cool it is in. There are very, very old trees that do exist on earth that you can count back birds from over very long spanned the time, but you can also use multiple trees, yeah enlightened,

if you're sitting at home or in your car thinking well on our to find the oldest tree and go there like you, that overlap, because you want to complete record right because stuff you're dating might fall. You know in that they they need everything to follow that range right, and so this is been extremely helpful for radio carbon dating because they have managed to compile basically I of triggering data going backwards. Fourteen thousand five hundred years, amazing called the Holocene Tree record one of the I didn't even know existed now I unjust, I love it. Yeah sprinkle I wanna like wanna, abound copy of it to hamper the coffee able or something and lay in a hammock in the middle of pan you can read. It can be like earlier this year can now. What do you think would happen this year in panda? Would hug you so I was trying to think of something you do back depend oh, but they I've

I go along with it, feels good So there are other places in nature that have the same kind of snapshots. If you wanted more than that because need more just dinner, the tree record, they can use coral because there's clearly carbon in the ocean stalactites and still lag mites, which are called speedily offence. They were never by set out at a party here. You'll know what they're talking about his back away. He probably should because everyone else issues can be done about? I can never remember which ones are we? Actually? Oh, you mean No, you just let me educate you goodbye, they are made of carbon and they are deposited in layers just like the tree rings, and the coral, in fact they, found some in China kind of recently they go back fifty four thousand years. Yes, I think they were really recently found someone, so there hasn't been like fully vetted, but there are super excited about it that the idea

that it gave up. Basically along Mineral rich tree ring library, year of fifty four thousand years of the carbon fourteen concentrations of atmosphere, that's all some that if they but does pan out. There will be amazing, and what's the deal that, with the lake in Japan, reliably puts down a new layer of sediment every six months. It's pretty cool yeah, and so they ve taken course samples and in these core samples they ve turned up. Leaves trapped in single layers and something like six hundred and fifty different spots. So all they have to do is count backwards, find you know the UN, though the year that this them leaf is trapped in drinks and then testing, fourteen in the leaf and you ve got like a picture right there, and that is called what will call, a library of atmospheric carbon fourteen concentrate

yeah they should have a name it does is called in Kehl Coca. I anticipate and on this different programmes, that you can run all this through like it before back in the forties and fifty's therein, I guess using slide rules and stuff like this year too, to come up with these now we have basically machine, learning algorithms running these righties computations forest, but they have programmes they use this calibration library. To basically say here is the: what the radio carbon day is saying what does the library of absolute date say yes and then what they do is they actually was a computer. I should say overlaps with called the wiggles. They hold it up to the light and they find like where these kind of wiggles overlap, which her confidence intervals. I guess there and where the two most confident that you have a pretty good idea, of what the ranges for the age of the sample and

means we know exactly how old everything is always right precisely through the day. That is not because all the things we just mentioned speedily affirms the coral everything has its own individual problems. Coral at turns out isn't a great material four calibrating the stuff because ocean cons- Patients of carbon are not the same as in the atmosphere right so that gonna throw that operate there. It does. So if your comparing like something that lived on land to quarrel the library, Indifferent Kehl Library, adds like in a second calibrate. Very well tree rings are a problem, two because they figured out that, depending on the hemisphere that Tree, grew, and I will give you a different atmosphere- concentration because the southern EM, fear has more oceans and those oceans absorbed more carbon dioxide

there is actually less carbon fourteen on land in the southern hemisphere than there is in the northern hemisphere. So if you checked out a water logged oak. There grew in Ireland in ten eighty to see If you found a Cody tree, the county get tree in New Zealand that grew that same year. They would have different radio carbon dates right because they have different carbon radio carbon concentrations, so it there's a lot of things confounding this stuff, that's keeping it from being less precise, that right and it gets even worse because there have been long stretches of tat I'm on earth in our history, where carbon fourteen production, really increased every year over, you know hundreds of thousands of years, tens of them

yeah. Well, there's stretches the so all over the radio carbon calendar year. There are these things called plateaus, I think, the longest that they ve ever found is a few hundred years. When I said a thousand just like a radio carbon date and appeals about they found this thing called the hall Start Plateau more like the hostile disaster here. So some people call him a right. I'm shows what Willard Libby called lecture, but basically their periods during earths history. This one in particular goes from seven sixty two four twenty b c e, where the the production of carbon fourteen in the atmosphere, just increased basically it steadily every year. So nothing ever got older relative to new stuff right, which means that if you'd radio carbon date, something at the six seven sixty BC,

and something in four twenty BC they're going to give you the same exact radio, carbon date for twenty, nor does it make sense for it to those responsible for twenty, her hey, there's people out there, thinking it to them. Start disaster Willard will be, would be proud that he was the one so this is why all this is important is not just to put a date on something. So we know how old it is, and we can just put it down at a museum or history book or whatever It really opens up. All of science then all of ancient history to interpretation and kind of right the world about a lot of things that we thought were true, then aren't true. Yet we call it the radio carbon revolution and like for guidance and really well one good example, is in the UK there we talked about Stonehenge. They used to think that stone,

and was the result of the heavy pronounced that miss any Mycenae donor. Mycenae you'd think I know my syn II. So my Sunday civilization in Greece, but the a in the e en that's gotta, do something more than like and I just add a why, instead of any I'm with you- and you know some you see the and the EU together, conjoined sure I guarantee and Donnie Galleon breath you know while so what is that at its own thing? we used to think that came from an ancient greek civilization. Because a radio carbon dating said. None of this is we had the age all wrong and Stonehenge came before that. Never happened before the civilization was even their right, so it really helps clear picture of everything from outside ice man to knowing that

out of her and was only seven hundred years old is so can firm things and they can quash other things right and then The way that they used to do before was they would just kind of dig in the earth and turn a part of hacks and because in the fact was closer to the ground. Right then another one. May I just meant it was more recent. That's like as precise as they could go real Karmu is like. Not only are we going to do that, but get this pal here's a date in a pretty good estimate of a date that this thing existed. That's how much it change things they to be like this is older than this. Now it's this, but the ice man was running around you know. In thirty three, Ruby right and in doing that also changes. Everything in that they're saying oh well boots. He was also found with tattoos item that seem to see ass, acupuncture, which apparently they didn't think anymore, but but that chain

the idea of how old acupuncture what right then he had certain tools on it. We didn't know that there are making these tools background, but now there, reliably dated at sea. We know that these this this to making complexes much older people have professions much sooner than we thought. Yes, I just opens up everything when you have a date for one thing he had, the tendrils are far reaching right, exact and broad in it happened actually here in the United States too, America, you know we did in whole episode on the Clovis police, now sure the Clovis, the idea that the key these people were the first americanism and they came over from crossing over the Yes, the bearing Lambert right when the ice sheet receded and so will Libby did a test that showed there is no way that the ice sheet was open anywhere, but for twelve, thousand defy fifteen thousand years ago, so he actually set a baseline. This is

the earliest people, possibly could have been here. Well, we ve been finding radio, carbon dating settlements that are older than that, one in Idaho, on the snake I can remember the name of the island. That's like almost sixteen thousand years old, and it shows definitively that since the ice was there. They couldn't come around the very member. So now we think the first Americans came over by boat tried because a radio carbon dating amazing we're screwing it all up for the future because of you an activity that were burning alot of fossil fuels and we we're releasing a lot of carbon into the atmosphere, and so much that that that consistent, It reliable ratio, of carbon twelve, the carbon fourteen. It's been knocked out a whack because of us and in the next what thirty The thirty to forty years,

we may not be able to date things accurately using this method anymore. It because when you know when they say, will you burn fossil fuels? You really so out of carbon dioxide, while those few used to be alive, so they used to have carbon fourteen. A number so old. There isn't any carbon fourteen. Now it's all just carbon twelve and we're releasing tons of when twelve into the atmosphere that would normally be there at tried and nuclear tests that we conducted had a big actually have the opposite effect between one thousand nine hundred and fifty five and one thousand nine hundred and sixty three, the concentration of carbon fourteen in the atmosphere, doubled almost doubled yeah. So there's aloud We know it is a very scary so much so that now they have modern samples, they have a bee harvest from the seventies that they used to replace a beat from France from nineteen. Fifty that, to be like this is the baseline. Now from the outer does were reduced to a sampling beats. For God's sake, that's how my

things up a beat, but they have figured out how to use this kind of modern screw Venus to also date. Recent remain switch. Everyone thought was just impossible that you couldn't you couldn't, tell when a body lived and died if it were just as you know, a decade or so bright, dead or less, but we have historical records for this stuff. I know it's a big deal but like and were screw and step up the future, but isn't it the utility of carbon fourteen dating because it was pre history yeah. That's it helps and yeah. I guess you, rather than that, having a record would definitely help quite a bit. I'm not USA like who cares then right, but at least we have that for good point, the below the leather see from this automobile, let us say: maids is this leather shoes from three thousand years before, which is which right

They have figured out how to use it for forensics, based on your teeth, enamel, which are like tree rings and based on yourself tissues for yourself tissues, degrades who they figured out the big actually test the casings from the larva they eat yourself tissues. As your decomposing said, the soft tissue is the carbon fourteen and the scenario yeah, which are constantly remaking. And then, as you die, gets it stops being taken in and then starts decaying. And, as you are being eaten by these new bug, larva they shed their casings and the casings don't degrade. So you can come along and test the casings and they ate your carbon fourteen and you can figure when that person. That body last lived based on the cases of the bugs that aid and in a million years, if I were not to get cremated and they were to bury me into the ground the

thing, that would remain of me. Are the three titanium screws hold again my three fake teeth: Daphne a million years who thought very? Is they had thirty Jack one number three the anything else there may be more than that by then to my before five so anything else, you think I got I e that we keep talking about this and have no dinner plans. Ok, well. I think we're gonna stop with carbon forty. We want oppressor, I can t go pretty well took. I told you annexes I and since I said when pretty well it's time for listener. Male right, I was preparing, Next episode regardless and email me right of recall, this soup follow up If you remember, we talked about, can soup and previous episode on what else augmented reality, I think we're pegged is

aggressive guys because you, you spoke up first with a name brand right, I'm a camel I hate, I don't discriminate. I like Campbell's chunky too. I just kind of went along with it. I don't want to ruffle any feathers. Okay, I didn't speak up, but this is about that hey guys. There are no words to describe how much enjoy enjoy your podcast. I listened to every single up continue to do so, each and every week. Thank you for bringing wonderful science exe, nation for knowledge and laughs to my days so far I listened to the latest episode on augmented reality, while the plane to Boston, and it could not stopped laughing when he got to a full one cent tangent about cancer I thought this is my moment. This is my instead in I've, been to starstruck before, but here we go. I know cancer. All too well. I spent seven years right out of college working for general mills. Yes, they make the cereal, but they also on Progresso. I worked in sales managing our business

with our EAST Coast a national accounts. Three years ago I left general mills and went to work for Campbell Soup. Oh it's like they use in Panama. I guess I'll just Philadelphia, I guess you could say I do everything began soup. I currently in a jar soup and prego business and one of our largest EAST Coast grocery chains, and although it does seem complicated, I can tell you. A lot of work goes into you enjoying. Can a red and white Chicken Noodle soup. I still love that cables took a little so good thing. How do we measure the classically? Well There is also a progressive chicken noodle about it when you mentioned episode brought by Progresso as a joke. I just waiting for you to plug that you Campbell's Campbells as well, and even more haha, either way industry. Both the joining our soups be happy you too are of Campbell Soup, H, Q forever and Philly, thanks to the

our team for all you do you guys are a legend combined into a singular from Kathleen and Kathleen no shade the progressive, but I'm a camels man, eight three soups a day I candlestick anew eight chicken corn chowder However, it has an eight. There are New England, Clamp, Javert, yeah, that's who who eats Manhattan, Clam Chowder or manner had a clampdown would not even manner hadn't headlights daily, give this away gimme the real study gimme that creamy goodness Jerry me ball alphabet, now, Oh, no, oh and in those meatballs, but I grew up on them and let me now that's all If so, you, though, it's weird, I have three soups a year. Do the chunky, stuff Campbells chunky? I mean in large Kansas, I like a hungry, may well that lets the the

corn, chowder and then I have had then is get. Those are chunky, heavier the chicken papa. I know but I just made a homemade gluten free chicken part by Biscuit topped what how do you make a biscuit without gluten you mean picket with one one flower instead of wheat, flour look flowers, not wheat, flour. What is the white Flour, you never free pasta, and no, I mean I've heard of it. I haven't eaten. It has just made with flour without gluten. It's called wonder: wine is in the right now. I see I got so. Basically you by the gluten free flowers, I'm this rice work, ok tapioca, but have you checked p flower annulled think so Sub M M amicably created is so get enjoyed chicken pot pie sure. But you know you lay out you make the little chicken biscuit the little biscuits and you lay a month.

Of your papa. I myself and then you brush it with a egg nice and then it bronzes up to a shiny brown top. People living on the beach, Maria, so good. There's nice man make pandemic gotcha. Have you had it already, but I haven't like dispense weakened, but I have not had the soup, which is what led me to that end, its good, I won't, I know, progressive Campbell, it's all good will check, is checking is found to see what time so I guess we should probably end this episode. If you want to get in touch with us to offer us at or where you work, that's always nice. Thank you then go on to step. We should note I come together social links or you can send an email to stuff pike, I heard radio dot com stuff you should know, is production of I radios how stuff works for more podcast, my heart, radio, that I heard you apple pie,

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