Roland Pease

Brad and Joy Ryan had not spoken in 10 years, but now they have rekindled, and Brad has even written a book about their adventures.

Brad and Grandma Joy have been speaking to my colleague, Casa Alum.

Well, it started when I was 85.

He called up, wondered if I wanted to go camping, and I said yes.

Erica Santoro is a microbiologist turned ecologist.

She's been testing a probiotic treatment on reefs in the Red Sea.

She's been speaking to my colleague Roland Pease.

Every single organism on planet host, uh, bacteria and other microorganisms, and this is not different in the ocean as well.

As the gas falls into the black hole, a lot of energy is released, and so that is the light that we actually see.

Anna de Graaf told Roland Pease that the discovery may change our understanding of how we get super massive black holes.

Now, we know that these monsters are in the center of galaxies, but we've not understood how they were formed.

So her discovery, and that of her team, might answer that question, and it all began with something seemingly ordinary when the Webb telescope picked up unusually intense pinpoints of red light, but they didn't shine the way ordinary red shifted stars do.

Thank you.

you.Anna de Graaf is an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy.

[outro music] This show would not be possible without its luminous stars, Senior Producer Gary Niederhoff, Producers Brian Edwards and Shannon Rose Geary, and consultants Nsikan Akpan and Roland Pease.

I am the Executive Producer of Big Picture Science, Molly Bentley.

License 0093350.

Sticking with doomsday science, of course, but let's go back 66 million years, where Roland Pease has been taking a look at the great extinction at the end of the Mesozoic era.

In the form of a lump of dino poop with a tiny feather caught in it, preserved in exquisite detail, which may hold clues to how the K-T asteroid impact wiped out much of life 66 million years ago.

Besides all the dinosaurs, many early Mesozoic bird species died out, too.

They need more prevention tools.

This show is thanks to the talents of senior producer Gary Niederhoff, assistant producer Brian Edwards, and contributors Sikhan Akban and Roland Pease.

A special thanks to producer Shannon Rose Geary, who oversaw the production of this episode, and to Science Magazine reporter Catherine Offord for sharing her reporting from Malawi.

I'm the executive producer of Big Picture Science, Molly Bentley.

Thank you, Deborah.

Okay, time to check in with Roland Pease.

Roland, what should we be aware of this week?

You've not been paying attention if you're not aware of the evolving El Niño, already set in and forecast to peak around December with temperatures in the Central and Eastern Pacific towards South America three or so degrees above normal, with a whole bunch of weather impacts to follow.

Um, well, look, we, we, we can't guarantee that you will live to 110 thanks to our episode.

All we can really guarantee after all that is that we are all, like, like space probes everywhere, 30 minutes closer to burning up in our own fiery death.

Um, we hope it was a wise use of those 30 minutes, and Roland Pease will be with you next time when we will all have shuffled a week further along the mortal coil.

Until then, it is goodbye from Caroline.