The Universe Is Expanding Faster Than Expected

KATHLEEN DAVIS: This is Science Friday. I’m Sci Fi producer Kathleen Davis, sitting in for Ira Flatow. Later in the hour, we’ll talk to the author of a new book about history and climate change. But first, there’s still a lot to be learned about the physics of our universe. And one of the most perplexing ideas is an observation made around a decade ago that the universe seems to be expanding faster than it should be. Now, two years of James Webb Space Telescope data back up that finding.

Joining me now to talk about that and other topics from the week in science news is Casey Crownhart, climate and technology reporter at MIT Technology Review. Welcome back to Science Friday, Casey.

CASEY CROWNHART: Thanks so much. Great to be here as always.

KATHLEEN DAVIS: Great to have you. So explain this story to me. The universe is expanding too fast. What does that mean?

CASEY CROWNHART: I know, this one, as most space stories do, broke my brain a little bit.

[LAUGHTER]

So basically, there are a couple of different ways that we can measure or observe how fast the universe is expanding. One of them is by looking back at the earliest light from just after the Big Bang, basically, and then doing calculations based on our understanding of how the cosmos works.

Another way is to take Space Telescope data, look at things that are very far away– stars, supernovas– and you can tell how far away they are and how fast they look to be moving. The problem is that those two ways of observing and measuring the expansion of the universe don’t line up.

And like you said, we’ve known that since the Hubble Space Telescope, but now the James Webb Space Telescope really confirmed that. So now we can’t really blame Hubble anymore and think that it’s just some instrument error. It looks to be a real problem.

KATHLEEN DAVIS: So when we say too fast, we’re talking about in the context of our own understanding of the universe, right?

CASEY CROWNHART: Absolutely. Yeah. So it’s– and I mean that we’re talking about huge timescales, huge length scales. So it’s significant. It’s about 8% faster, I think, than what it, quote unquote, “should be.” But it’s significant.

KATHLEEN DAVIS: So if we have confirmation that it wasn’t just some telescope error, where does that leave physicists?

CASEY CROWNHART: Yes, with a lot of questions to answer. [LAUGHS]

KATHLEEN DAVIS: Right.

CASEY CROWNHART: So there are definitely theories about where this might be coming from. Some of the leading ones are that dark matter or dark energy have something to do with this. These are things that we know exist in the universe, but are sort of invisible to us. We just infer them based on how they affect regular matter and energy. So that is a leading theory, but there’s a lot of research to be done still for sure.

KATHLEEN DAVIS: I’m going to keep us on the head-scratching topics for just a little bit longer. Quantum computing– Google made an announcement this week about quantum computing. Tell me about this.

CASEY CROWNHART: Yes, definitely in the same category of brain breaking. So Google announced this week that it has a new quantum computing chip called Willow. And there are two really interesting things about this new chip. One is that it’s capable of performing a computing challenge in less than five minutes, whereas today’s– the world’s fastest supercomputers would take longer than the age of the universe to do the same kind of work.

The other thing that’s really interesting about this is that they were able to do error correction in a really interesting way. So one of the big problems that’s keeping quantum computers from being useful is that the universe is a really noisy place, and things like the movement of electrons and atomic effects can introduce errors into quantum computing. So the other interesting thing about this Google chip announcement is that they showed that as they built bigger computers or bigger quantum chips, they were able to correct errors.

KATHLEEN DAVIS: So do we have any idea if this is something that Google’s going to save for themselves and do quantum Googley things, or are they maybe planning to sell this technology to other people?

CASEY CROWNHART: That’s a great question. They didn’t say in their blog about this, what exactly the plans are. But I mean, to be fair, we’re still pretty far from this being useful. I mentioned that this is better at correcting errors than most quantum computers are, but it’s still way, way, way off from doing things like solving algorithms or doing good simulations of chemistry, which are some things that quantum computers might eventually be used for. So we’ve still got a long way to go with the research here.

KATHLEEN DAVIS: So let’s move on to some more concrete electronics. You have a story for us from this week about improving the electronics of prosthetic devices, right?

CASEY CROWNHART: Yeah, so this is a really interesting story in Wired this week. Phantom Neuro is an Austin-based startup that’s trying to provide more lifelike control of prosthetic limbs. So basically what this company is doing is they want to build a thin, flexible muscle implant that they could put inside a limb, and that would allow amputees to have a wider, more natural range of movement. And also, it would have a faster response time. So this would be a lot better than current prosthetics at basically acting more like a biological limb.

KATHLEEN DAVIS: So there are other groups that are trying to do more neurological control directly in the brain, right? How does this compare to those things?

CASEY CROWNHART: Yeah, so this would be basically implanted in the muscle, so close to where the amputation is. In theory, it could be less risky than doing a brain implant. Messing with the brain is like, what’s going on there? And so this could be a little bit easier and less risky of a surgery and of a process.

But also, this company hasn’t actually done implants yet. They just announced data testing out a wearable version of their device, which they did show worked pretty well. But the next stage, which they want to do next year, is start to do these implants to see how they really work.

KATHLEEN DAVIS: What kind of prosthetics have they made, or do they plan to make, in terms of parts of the body?

CASEY CROWNHART: Oh, yeah, so the test that they did was an arm. And they want to do this with upper limb amputees. And so they were able to have people doing opening and closing their hand, moving their wrist around, stuff like that. So arms is the target for this first test.

KATHLEEN DAVIS: Well, great. Well, let’s hope that that technology advances to where people need it. Let’s pivot away from electronics to some climate news. There’s been kind of an Arctic climate report card that’s come out with some– as you might imagine, some bad news about the tundra, right?

CASEY CROWNHART: Yes, the news is not great in the Arctic. Based on this data, researchers are able to say, for the first time definitively, that for the past 20 years, the tundra has been emitting more CO2– carbon dioxide– than it has removed. This is different from what’s been happening for the last thousands of years.

Usually, the Arctic tundra locks away more carbon than it emits. Plants grow. They soak up carbon dioxide as they grow. They get buried in the soil, and that kind of gets locked away. And that’s a great thing for climate change because we want less of that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere warming up our planet.

But as temperatures have risen, in part because of human activities and fossil fuels, temperatures have started to thaw the tundra. So microbes are kind of active, breaking down that stored plant matter. There are wildfires. And so– yeah, we’re seeing that the balance has flipped in the Arctic.

KATHLEEN DAVIS: Is this report card all bad news, or is there maybe some good news here?

CASEY CROWNHART: Definitely a lot of bad news, but there are some glimmers of good news, which I always love to look for. So ice seal populations around Alaska that have been challenged by rising temperatures, those populations look to be pretty healthy. There was also a pretty cool winter, which helped Greenland’s ice sheet shed the smallest volume of ice in over a decade, which is exciting. But to be clear, it’s still melting. It’s just melting slower than it has. So good news, but things are definitely serious.

KATHLEEN DAVIS: OK, we’ll take it with a grain of salt. Let’s shift gears here. We’ve been hearing a lot recently about bird flu H5N1. And it’s not just in birds, it’s in cattle as well. But now there’s news about a testing program for milk?

CASEY CROWNHART: Yes, so this is the first mandatory testing program. The USDA announced it this week. So for about nine months, we’ve seen the virus H5N1 spreading through dairy cows. And there have been some states that have started testing for this to really understand where dairy herds are being affected and to what extent. But now we’ll have a mandatory testing program starting with just six states, but it should expand. And this should, hopefully, help researchers get a better handle on where this virus is spreading and how.

KATHLEEN DAVIS: Do we know what’s going to happen when a test comes up positive? At poultry farms, for example, we’ve heard that there’s been a ton of culling of animals. Would that possibly happen here, too?

CASEY CROWNHART: Yeah, it’s a really different situation because when birds are affected, it can be really deadly for them. Cows seem to very rarely die from infection, so I don’t know that that’s very likely. I think that really the main goal right now is just tracking and understanding.

The virus is– it’s possible that it’s spreading to humans through cows. We don’t really know if infected milk is able to infect humans. But it’s possible that if the virus goes through mammals, it could become more dangerous for humans. So just getting a better understanding is, I think, really the key thing here.

KATHLEEN DAVIS: Well, we’ll definitely be keeping an eye out on that news into the new year. But let’s shift to some more positive animal news. There’s been work towards protecting the monarch butterfly. Tell me about this.

CASEY CROWNHART: Yes. So the US Fish and Wildlife Service is adding monarch butterflies to the threatened species list by the end of next year. It’s kind of bad news, but we’ve known for a long time that monarch butterflies– we’ve seen populations going down.

And so this status would basically, like you said, help protect the butterfly. It would prohibit people from killing or transporting it. There would be restrictions around what people can do with milkweed, which is an important food source for monarchs. And it would protect some of their key habitat in California.

KATHLEEN DAVIS: So would this actually lock away habitat from development?

CASEY CROWNHART: Because this would list them as a threatened species and not an endangered species, it’s not quite as strict. But yeah, those 4,000 acres in coastal California, there would be restrictions and certain rules around development. So it definitely would affect some people, but it’s not quite as strict.

KATHLEEN DAVIS: A lot of things are potentially going to change with this new political climate that we’re entering into. Is this something that might be affected by a new administration?

CASEY CROWNHART: Yeah, so this actually– this announcement opens up a public comment period of about 90 days. And so after that, the agency can lock this in or tweak it or cancel it. So it’s not a done deal just yet. And we’ll have to watch. The agency has until the end of next year, if they decide to do it, to actually make this final.

KATHLEEN DAVIS: OK. So finally, our last story, we’re going to move from butterflies to moths, and a story about how they can actually listen to plants, Casey?

CASEY CROWNHART: Yes, I wish I were a moth because I would love to be able to listen to what my houseplants say to me.

[LAUGHTER]

Like what I’m doing wrong with them.

KATHLEEN DAVIS: I’m thirsty.

CASEY CROWNHART: Literally. So yes, researchers have known for a while that some plants, when they’re under stress, they make noises. They make ultrasonic clicks. So these aren’t something that humans can hear, but some animals can, including some insects. And now researchers found that some moths are able to hear those sounds and interpret them as clues to decide where to lay their eggs.

So basically, the researchers put two healthy plants on either end of a room. Both were thriving. Both were hydrated. But they played the sounds of a dehydrated, not very happy plant from one of those. And the moths avoided that one. Even though it was totally fine, it sounded like it wasn’t, and so they really tended to prefer the healthy plant that wasn’t making any distress noises.

The idea here is that the healthy plant will be able to nourish their eggs. It’ll provide a good food source. So they’re really going for the healthy plants here. They want the best home that they can possibly get. So that’s what researchers think is happening with their listening skills.

KATHLEEN DAVIS: Thank you so much, Casey. Always appreciate your time.

CASEY CROWNHART: Thanks so much for having me. It was great to be here.

KATHLEEN DAVIS: Casey Crownhart, climate and technology reporter at MIT Technology Review.

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