The folate debate, and rewriting the radiocarbon curve

The folate debate, and rewriting the radiocarbon curve

Some 80 countries around the world add folic acid to their food supply to prevent birth defects that might happen because of a lack of the B vitamin—even among people too early in their pregnancies to know they are pregnant. This year, the United Kingdom decided to add the supplement to white flour. But it took almost 10 years of debate, and no countries in the European Union joined them in the change. Staff Writer Meredith Wadman joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the ongoing folate debate. Last year, a highly anticipated tool for dating ancient materials was released: a new updated radiocarbon calibration curve. The curve, which describes how much carbon-14 was in the atmosphere at different times in the past 55,000 years, is essential to figuring out the age of organic materials such as wood or leather. Sarah talks with Tim Heaton, senior lecturer in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Sheffield, and Edouard Bard, a professor at the College of France, about how the curve was redrawn and what it means, both for archaeology and for our understanding of the processes that create radiocarbon in the first place—like solar flares and Earth’s magnetic fields. This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy. [Image: Andrew Shiva/Wikipedia; Music: Jeffrey Cook] [Alt text: close-up photograph of layers in volcanic tephra] Authors: Sarah Crespi; Meredith Wadman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Grappling with declining populations, and the future of quantum mechanics

Grappling with declining populations, and the future of quantum mechanics

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When we’ll hit peak carbon emissions, and macaques that keep the beat

When we’ll hit peak carbon emissions, and macaques that keep the beat

First up on the podcast, when will the world hit peak carbon emissions? It’s not an easy question to answer because emissions cannot be directly measured in real time. Instead, there are proxies, sate...

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A headless mystery, and a deep dive on dog research

First up on the podcast: the mysterious fate of Europe’s Neolithic farmers. They arrived from Anatolia around 5500 B.C.E. and began farming fertile land across Europe. Five hundred years later, their ...

20 Marras 202532min

Solving the ‘golfer’s curse’ and using space as a heat sink

Solving the ‘golfer’s curse’ and using space as a heat sink

First up on the podcast, Online News Editor David Grimm joins host Sarah Crespi for a rundown of online news stories. They talk about lichen that dine on dino bones, the physics of the lip-out problem...

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Understanding early Amazon communities and saving the endangered pocket mouse

Understanding early Amazon communities and saving the endangered pocket mouse

First up on the podcast, Contributing Correspondent Sofia Moutinho visited the Xingu Indigenous territory in Brazil to learn about a long-standing collaboration between scientists and the Kuikuro to b...

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Detecting the acidity of the ocean with sound, the role of lead in human evolution, and how the universe ends

Detecting the acidity of the ocean with sound, the role of lead in human evolution, and how the universe ends

First up on the podcast, increased carbon dioxide emissions sink more acidity into the ocean, but checking pH all over the world, up and down the water column, is incredibly challenging. Staff Writer ...

30 Loka 202545min

The contagious buzz of bumble bee positivity, and when snow crabs vanish

The contagious buzz of bumble bee positivity, and when snow crabs vanish

First up on the podcast, the Bering Sea’s snow crabs are bouncing back after a 50-billion-crab die-off in 2020, but scientists are racing to predict what’s going to happen to this important fishery. C...

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Hunting ancient viruses in the Arctic, and how ants build their nests to fight disease

Hunting ancient viruses in the Arctic, and how ants build their nests to fight disease

First up on the podcast, Contributing Correspondent Kai Kupferschmidt takes a trip to Svalbard, an Arctic archipelago where ancient RNA viruses may lie buried in the permafrost. He talks with host Sar...

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