War & Peace & Science

Kiki Sanford (0:00)

This is TWIS. This Week in Science, episode number 1083, recorded on Wednesday, November 11th, 2026 War & Peace & Science. Hey everyone, I'm Dr. Kiki, and today we will fill your head with cold, noise and dark mushrooms. But first, thanks to our amazing Patreon sponsors for their generous support of TWIS. You can become a part of the Patreon community at patreon.com/thisweek in Science. Disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer. When we celebrate those who fought because of governmental decisions to allow us the freedoms we have today, it makes me stop and think that it might be nice to eventually celebrate all those who helped us get to a point of never fighting another war again. Why fight only so we can repeat atrocities? Why die so people can die again? It's not just personal freedom these battles have been fought over. It's the freedom from war forever. Maybe we can find that at some point in the future. As we celebrate the people who have fought for our freedoms today, in a country battling increased surveillance and increasing global aggression, it seems appropriate to express that freedom in a battle-free zone. This Week in Science, coming up next.

Good science, everyone, and welcome to another episode of This Week in Science. It's just me tonight to talk about all the science that I thought was interesting to bring to the show. I have copied and pasted all the stories that Blair was gonna report tonight to next week for Blair, because she is out tonight with a dog emergency. Hopefully, her little dog, Sadie, will be feeling better soon. We do know that Sadie has been struggling with health issues for the last couple of years, so my thoughts, and I hope yours as well, will be going out to Sadie and to Blair and to her whole family. Happy Day of Science. It is our Wednesday Science Day, and I have stories about ultimate cold, maybe heart repair, nodule neighborhoods under the sea, the artful noise of the art of noise and conversation, a little bit of signal to noise in the world, and elephant bots. Then additionally, I've got friendly foxes, dark mushrooms, and well, you're talking cats. If you have a cat, your cat's talking to you. That's the nut of that story. We'll get to that at the end of the show. But before I jump into all of the science tonight, I do want to say a celebratory Veterans Day, on this Veterans Day here in the United States. I would like to say thanks to all of those who have served in the armed forces and who have fought for our freedoms, and for our democracy, and for our ability to vote for our future. Hopefully, we will make good choices moving into the future. As we jump into the show here, I want to remind you that subscribing to the TWIS podcast on your favorite podcast platform is the best way to get TWIS in your ears every single week. You can find us on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch streaming live weekly, 8 p.m. Pacific time-ish. We're usually around almost on time. And those recordings live on those platforms week after week. You can also look for This Week in Science on online social media platforms. TWIS Science is usually the handle. Our website is twist.org. That's where you can find show notes, links to shows, and also links to our Patreon and Zazzle accounts.

But now it's time for the science. Are you ready? You ready for some science? I'm going to turn on my comments on stage because I just want to be with you. It's just me here with you. So we need to be talking together about all this stuff. So are we ready to dive in? Let's dive in.

What's colder than cold? It's not just ice cold, as in that wonderful song. No, what's colder than cold is almost absolute zero. Researchers on the Chinese Tiangong Space Station in Earth's orbit, it's been reported in Science this last week, that they have actually achieved the coldest temperature recording of anything ever. They took a bunch of rubidium isotope atoms and they stuck it into a special box. They've got a special atomic cold box where they are, it's called the Cold Atom Physics Pack or Physics Rack. And so this rack on the Tiangong Space Station was the spot where they were able to magnetically hold these rubidium ions in place, keeping their electrons from dispersing, keeping energy from dispersing, and they were able to super cool these atoms to a mind-boggling. You want to know how cold it was? The last time this was done, it was 38 picokelvins above absolute zero was the last record. This, they have measured an equivalent temperature of just 9.7 picokelvins. This is the absolute closest to absolute zero that we have ever gotten. And let's talk about what a relative temperature is as opposed to an absolute temperature.