Whimsical Wavelengths

Congrats on this very nice article about the effects of the infamous 1988 Yellowstone wildfires 🔥 on 🌲 forest recovery (or the lack of it in places)- the doctoral research of @nathankiel.bsky.social, currently a postdoc in my lab @sunyesf.bsky.social. Published in Ecological Monographs-well done❗️🧪🌎🌐

The longevity bottleneck hypothesis: Could dinosaurs have shaped ageing in present‐day mammals? The longevity bottleneck hypothesis states that early mammals spending over 100 million years as small, short-lived animals led to gene loss or inactivation of traits associated with longevity and le...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Hunting for Sasquatch (events) at Biscuit Basin in Yellowstone Sasquatch is a mythical creature with scant evidence to support its existence.  Likewise, eruptions from Black Diamond Pool since last July were almost mythical, with few sightings and ambiguous evide...

Shared on behalf of the USGS: YVO Yellowstone Caldera Chronicles for August 4, 2025
#volcano #earthscience #geology

"Hunting for Sasquatch (events) at Biscuit Basin in Yellowstone"

www.usgs.gov/observatorie...

Picturesque scene of Lillooet Lake in BC Canada. Summer day with blue sky's and fluffy cumulus clouds.

2/2🧪 early mammals spent >100 million years as small, short-lived animals led to gene loss or inactivation of traits associated with longevity

To talk about this & the #evolution of aging the pod welcomed ,Dr Molly Burke from OSU!

Hope it's awesome summer for everyone. New eps September 15th!

1/2🧪⚒️ on summer hiatus to gear up for season 2! So have an encore from earlier in season 1 where we deep dived into a #hypothesis "The longevity bottleneck hypothesis: Could dinosaurs have shaped ageing in present-day mammals?”
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Could be! Idk. Glad it is so! One place where I don’t have to deal with as much pseudoscience

Frontiers | When volcanoes record Milankovitch cycles Cyclic fluctuations in the frequency and intensity of volcanic activity are recorded during periods of global climate change. Volcano-sedimentary successions...

🧪🌋⚒️You ever read a paper and then knew it was going to take time to follow different lines on inquiry and citations?

This has got me "alternative hypothesis suggests a direct gravitational effect [...] by orbital oscillations in Earth’s inclination and rotation"
www.frontiersin.org/journals/ear...

#camping with #kitten What are doing this #summer?

Those with science papers reach out and come on the podcast!

Over on FB I constantly come across people with their pet "ideas"
Physics theories of everything, or something that supersedes plate tectonics or the opposite of germ theory or or or

It's nice I don't run into that here! #bluesky

Cat on a leash at a campsite in B.C. 🇨🇦

#Camping with the podcast’s mascot Astro - AKA adventure #cat. / #kitten. 5 months old and learning how to deal with dogs and not being scared of the sound of water 😂
Anyone else have a cat they take camping?

2nd time I have done this via social media! Would you consider discussing a paper or results on a science podcast?! (Ie this one? Whimsical Wavelengths)

Whimsical Wavelengths - A Science Podcast Podcast · Jeffrey Mark Zurek · A whimsical journey through science topics hosted by Dr Jeffrey Zurek, who is a volcanologist and geophysicist. A passion for science communication, teaching, hearing hi...

🧪2/2 This topic dovetails with most recent 2 episodes of the podcast! A historical look at the rise and fall of leaded gasoline and the greatest researcher you probably have never hear of, Dr Clair Patterson.

open.spotify.com/show/62yumbm...

Trump administration shuts down EPA's scientific research arm The agency is closing the Office of Research and Development, which analyzes dangers posed by hazards including toxic chemicals, climate change, smog, wildfires, water pollution and more.

🧪1/2 With the announcement that the research arm of the #EPA is being shutdown...... It seems that organization was expressly put into place to stop things like the rise of leaded gasoline and CFC's.
This is 🥜s. Its like history is doomed to rhyme!
www.npr.org/2025/07/20/n...

Dr. Makenzie Lystrup, director of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, announced that she will leave NASA, effective Friday, Aug. 1. As center director of Goddard since April 2023, Makenzie also was responsible for guiding the direction and management of multiple other NASA field installations including Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, Katherine Johnson Independent Verification & Validation Facility in West Virginia, the White Sands Complex in New Mexico, and the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Texas. Having served in a variety of science and aerospace civilian and government roles in her career, Makenzie contributed to a variety of NASA's priority science missions including successful operations of our James Webb Space Telescope and Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer, as well as development of the agency's Roman Space Telescope, and more. As a planetary scientist and astronomer, Makenzie's scientific work has been in using ground- and space-based astronomical observatories to understand the interactions and dynamics of planetary atmospheres and magnetospheres - the relationships between planets and their surrounding space environments. We're grateful to Makenzie for her leadership at NASA Goddard for more than two years including her work to inspire a Golden Age of explorers, scientists, and engineers. Following Makenzie's departure, Cynthia Simmons will serve as acting center director Cynthia is the current deputy center director. She previously served as the Director of the Flight Projects Directorate at Goddard and has extensive experience supporting missions for NASA, DoD and commercial space and science missions. We are confident Cynthia is prepared to guide Goddard through this transition. Before joining the agency, Makenzie served as senior director for Ball's Civil Space Advanced Systems and Business Development, where she managed new business activities for NASA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and …

Goddard Director resigned…

Whimsical Wavelengths - A Science Podcast Podcast · Jeffrey Mark Zurek · A whimsical journey through science topics hosted by Dr Jeffrey Zurek, who is a volcanologist and geophysicist. A passion for science communication, teaching, hearing hi...

3/3⚒️🧪With this season 1 is done!
thanks to all the guests that agreed to come on the podcast! They took a chance to share their work. A unknown podcast showing up in an email or call out ask.

open.spotify.com/show/62yumbm...

The next 3 eps will be encore additions. Season 2 starts Sep 15!

🧪⚒️2/3This time the 📖 starts with Dr. Clair Patterson. His PhD was to find the age of the 🌍 But lead was everywhere. Eventually developed first clean room & found the age of the 🌍 by dating a ☄️. His work brought down leaded ⛽️. His story has been told many times before but not like this.

Photo of Dr. Clair Patterson, a mid 20th century geochemist best known for determining the age of the earth. Pictures here in a suit and tie with glasses.

Black and white photo of the Alpha-1 racetrack at the Y-12 electromagnetic separation plant in Oak Ridge Tennessee, during the Manhattan Project. The image shows a large, circular arrangement of electromagnets used for Uranium-235 enrichment through electromagnetic separation.

Photo of a fragment of the Canyon Diablo meteorite, an iron-nickel meteorite with a dark, weathered surface and rough irregular edges. This is the type of fragment used by Dr Clair Patterson to measure lead isotopes and determine the age of the Earth at approximately 4.55 billions years

1/3🧪⚒️This ep includes the greatest scientist you may have not heard of.

Dr. Clair Patterson (Pic ⬇️) geochemist

-ties to manhattan project
-age of the 🌍
-enviromentism
-scientific clean rooms
-ending the lead poisoning of generations

VSO at deer 🦌 lake park Burnaby British Columbia

Not science related however did get out to listen to some wavelengths last night!

Whimsical Wavelengths - A Science Podcast Podcast · Jeffrey Mark Zurek · A whimsical journey through science topics hosted by Dr Jeffrey Zurek, who is a volcanologist and geophysicist. A passion for science communication, teaching, hearing hi...

🧪🌋⚒️If you are a researcher who has science to share reach out! Planning season 2 now!

If you need another science podcast in your ears check it out and subscribe!
Season 2 will see new guests, topics and branding.

open.spotify.com/show/62yumbm...

Two volcanologists in protective gear collect lava samples from an active volcanic vent ok Kilauea Volcano in 2004, with glowing molten lava emerging from a vent and steam rising from the surrounding hardened black lava field.

A Red-winged blackbird with brownish wing markings perches on a branch surrounded by leafless twigs and wet vegetation. The background is a blurred mix of brown and gray, showing a damp, overcast day on the shores of Burnaby Lake Canada.

Promotional image for the "Whimsical Wavelengths" science podcast, styled like a Jurassic Park movie poster. Dinosaurs roam a lush tropical jungle with palm trees and a mountain in the background, while a safari vehicle is parked on a dirt road. The podcast logo features a T. rex silhouette with bold red and black text. The bottom notes it was AI-generated for advertising purposes.

A deep-space image of the Fornax Dwarf Galaxy, showing a dense concentration of faint stars at the center surrounded by a sparse field of individual stars. The galaxy appears as a hazy, diffuse glow against the black background of space, with a few bright foreground stars creating starburst effects.

1/2 🧪⚒️🌋 One more episode to go in the inaugural season of Whimsical Wavelengths - A #Science #Podcast!
We have dived into peer reviewed #research with guests covering
#Birds
#Volcanoes
#Gravitational Lensing
#Galaxy modeling
#Evolution of aging
#Dinosaurs
& More!

Hey want to come on Whimsical Wavelengths to share/explain more?
I am planning season 2 and therefore beginning to look for diverse guests and projects to jump into and communicate the hard stuff so the average science minded person can enjoy the paper(s) as well.

I reach out to you because the Earth Science Moderator's post seems to be no more

Whimsical Wavelengths - A Science Podcast Podcast · Jeffrey Mark Zurek · A whimsical journey through science topics hosted by Dr Jeffrey Zurek, who is a volcanologist and geophysicist. A passion for science communication, teaching, hearing hi...

Not sure if I need to reapply or I made a mistake.
I have a PhD in volcanology/Geophysics and run a science podcast Whimsical Wavelengths - A Science Podcast.
My last 2 posts didn't get on the science feed. Still able to post to the Earthscience & volcano feed open.spotify.com/show/62yumbm...

🧪Yep the ep covers a scientific #disaster story. It's not the hollywood variety but it should be? Although to tell the #story requires many main characters. Perhaps a series. This episode tries to take a #nuanced scientific approach to the story telling. #History of lead, #health, other fuels etc

Photo of Thomas Midgley Jr. A scientist solving corporate problems which almost brought down society as we know it through leaded gasoline (1921) and CFC's.

The molecular diagram for the lead additive tetraethyllead to gasoline to reduce engine knock by increasing the octane of the fluid.

A diagram of an combustion engine from before leaded gasoline was invented.

🧪⚒️Today the pod starts at the ⛽ & the 🙋: Ever wondered why all pumps say “unleaded gas”? Or perhaps why would ⛽need to? The story is #scientific discovery, advocacy, #environmentalism & corporate greed. Has direct ties to the manhattan project & the age of the 🌎.
open.spotify.com/show/62yumbm...

toss in a little corporate greed, prohibition, alcohol and some scientists, you get quite a story. The sibling ep will be in 2 weeks plus a day, is how the poisoning of generations came to an end with the Manhattan project and the age of the Earth!

Meme showing a shield formation of a troop of roman soldiers and the words "Getting ready to defend my use of MontyPython quotes in a science podcast Does this mean I think about Rome too often"

🧪Tomorrow a new episode taking a scientific trip down history to look at Leaded gasoline. Why? The short answer is engine knocking. The episode starts with a #history of lead which went through the roman empire & wasn't something viral about the #roman #empire? #meme
open.spotify.com/show/62yumbm...

toss in a little corporate greed, prohibition, alcohol and some scientists, you get quite a story. The sibling ep will be in 2 weeks plus a day, is how the poisoning of generations came to an end with the Manhattan project and the age of the Earth!

landscape of Wernecke Mountains in central Yukon showing majestic mountains.

Happy Canada Day!
To celebrate here is a picture from one corner of the country I took in the Wernecke Mountains, Central Yukon Canada in late July / early August (2006)!

Hey researchers! Share your research 🧪 on a podcast?

Winding down season 1 of Whimsical wavelengths - A Science Podcast & preparing for season 2!

Communicating peer reviewed articles to the general public in a fun and accessible way. Last question each interview is "what is you favourite 🧪joke?!