Science Files – March 10, 2026

Conferences & Physics Presentations

Dan

It's time for science files. Dr. Rob, hello, hello there. How are things?

Rob

I'm pretty good. Just back from a weekend in PEI at a conference, specifically the Atlantic University's Physics and Astronomy Conference, which is an undergraduate conference. We had some great presentations. One of our students, Mackenzie, did really, really well and placed second overall. So it was a competition and there are awards for student presentations. Who did the best presentation? I will say Mackenzie's presentation was absolutely awesome, talking about detections of intermediate-mass black holes.

Dan

Oh, there you go. That's right in your bailiwick, isn't it?

Rob

Yeah. So anyway, that was a really good weekend. Lots of people there; people from Memorial were there out in Newfoundland, as well as people from New Brunswick, other Nova Scotia universities, and, of course, UPEI.

Dan

Do you all sit together at those conferences, Dr. Rob, in the sidelines and in the off times? Like when we go to Radio conferences, we go around and we talk about bits and different show ideas and everything else. Do y'all go sit around and talk about string theory and particle physics?

Rob

No, we all sit around and complain about the lack of funding, which sadly is a little bit true, although I’m mostly joking. But no, obviously, we talk about other things as well. I mean, we had a great dinner conversation about applications of physics in biophysics, and all of the stuff about learning about how collagen works—collagen is literally like a rope. So that was fun, yeah.

Science Fiction Realism & Inspiration

Dan

902-405-6000, 1-877-801-8255, that is the number if you want to get your question into Dr. Thacker. We're gonna start an email bag. Dr. Thacker, the email has been busy today. I can't figure out why, but it's been busy anyway. This says: "Hello, everybody. A month ago, Dr. Thacker recommended Amazon Prime Sci-Fi series The Expanse, which I watched all six seasons of, finishing last night. Is there another similar series he can recommend? I've watched all the Star Trek and spin-off series, including The X-Files."

Rob

Oh, wow. So I was going to say Strange New Worlds, because I think that's actually pretty good too. I haven't been a huge fan of every single Star Trek show, but I think Strange New Worlds is well done. Off the top of my head, I don't have another good recommendation. It's so ironic because literally, I was talking to one of my students about favorite sci-fi shows, saying The Expanse is my favorite, and the student was saying the same thing. So, swing and a miss on that one.

Dan

While most of us watch science fiction movies, Dr. Rob, and we know this did sort of come up that—

Rob

If you haven't seen the movie 2001, you really, really should watch it, because it's absolutely incredible, given that this was made in 1969. It's still holds up in terms of the subject matter that it covers. Now, admittedly, it feels very slow compared to a modern movie pacing, but it is absolutely mind-blowing in that context. It's not a series, I know, but if you haven't seen it, you probably have if you're a Trek fan. It is such an amazing movie, my all-time favorite movie.

Dan

Dr. Rob, how closely—and this is a broad question—how closely does the science fiction mirror what's happening in the scientific community? Do you all watch the new sci-fi films and say, "Hey, that's interesting. Maybe we should look at that?"

Rob

You won't be surprised that, yes, many physicists and astronomers are fans of science fiction. There's a lot of overlap there. Where things get interesting is how individuals are prepared to take their brain out and put it on the side. Some people get annoyed: "it did this and it shouldn't have done that." In general, anyone who has a creative bent and is interested in their own writing—there are actually a few colleagues who write science fiction short stories—those people are quite happy to suspend their belief and just watch how the story is put together, and have fun with that. There's a few other people I know who are less prepared to do that, and will go to social media about "this is wrong, that's wrong." I'm kind of in the middle. If it's a good story, I can watch even if they get a few things wrong. But if it gets it really wrong—like the Pixar movie Lightyear. They have in that a piece of relativity called the twin paradox where Buzz zips around the sun and comes back again. The concept is real—there is something called the twin paradox—but he just goes around the nearest star. If he goes around the nearest star, it wouldn't happen. Literally, you'd have to go around the star 33,000 times to get the same difference in time that was represented in the movie. So when that happened, I was feeling this is really bad. I literally put a question into homework for the students: "what's the movie got wrong?" That was particularly funny as the week before, I said, find a movie that has a good representation of the theory of relativity in it.

Dan

It's science in practical science. Dr. Rob, technology that shows up in science fiction movies and television shows, not necessarily spawning the creation of said devices, but I would imagine would be inspiration. The very first time that I saw a flip phone, I thought, "Hey, that looks like a communicator."

Rob

Yeah. To give credit for where this has been pushed in the popular vernacular, Bill Shatner has actually done TV shows on this talking about how Star Trek has influenced design of things. I tend to agree that a flip phone really does look like a communicator. I had a friend who literally programmed it to go "click click" as it opens up. So yeah, there is that element of inspiration, and that tends to flow through quite a number of people who I know go into biophysics and medical physics. They tend to be thinking about wanting to create that scanner or something like that, which we can't do quite yet, with the exceptions of things like MRIs and X-rays. But we don't have good portable ones yet. But people are working on that, actively working on that. So yes, those things do filter through from their imaginations to their professional desires, drawing inspiration from it.

Rob

I was trying to think of what my favorite science fiction TV series was before The Expanse. I like Trek, don't get me wrong, but the thing that really had my imagination in the 90s was Babylon 5. There's been a lot of issues with them trying to do a rework of it, but that's never quite got off the ground. But now the episodes are available freely on YouTube. I really enjoyed that; it was probably the first big space opera to really have a strong, strong story arc. I was absolutely enthralled with that, watching it all the way to the very end.

Dan

You said you're a fan of the Trek, Dr. Rob. Which series was the best one for you?

Rob

I try not to have the religious battle over that, because it's a no-win situation. But for me, it's two very different things. Growing up, I saw the original series and that blew my mind. Then Next Gen came out when I was at university. The incredible thing was, it came out and was just available in North America first—it wasn't actually taken over to the UK. My friend, who had a friend in North America, would get sent tapes of it, and so we watched it. We were like, "Oooo, we're watching this thing, it's only available in Canada and the US." It was kind of a thing to watch it then. I became a really, really big fan, but for entirely different reasons—there was always this real thrill of watching something that was so important, but only available in America at the time. I will say that I just love the episodes with the Borg; seeing how they expanded that philosophically was really interesting, too.

Dan

Deep Space Nine was mine. That was great. It was a departure from the bridge-based Star Trek and explored some different sort of encounters.

Rob

Really strong characterizations as well, right?

Dan

And it's, you know, I've been to Quarks. There used to be Quarks in Las Vegas, actually. Anyway, they're off the top—you don't press Latinum, yeah.

Climate Variability & Early Spring Weather

Dan

I've got to ask you about the climate because we're looking at perhaps a record-breaking day today. You obviously keep a close eye on what's going on with climate change. Is swings like we're seeing here from week to week, particularly early on in spring—is that a result of a changing climate, or is that just positioning of jet streams?

Rob

I was going to just come back with the usual thing, which is with the breakup of the jet stream making bigger wobbles, inevitably you're going to have systems pulled down from up north, and then systems pulled up from the south. That just leads to a lot of variation in weather. I mean, what is the high we're supposed to experience? 14 C? But let's remember we did have a year, probably eight or nine years ago, when it hit 23 in March. I remember people literally going down to Crystal Crescent just to take a picture of themselves sunbathing in March! And that was 23 degrees, which was a lot more insane than 14 degrees.

Dan

For sure. I'll take 14 any day of the week.

Rob

Well, I will certainly take this as long as we don't have another dump of snow. It's the 10th of March, so we probably got another dump of snow coming somewhere.

Dan

Sheila's brush. Yeah, it's the storm that everybody talks about around St. Patrick's Day.

Rob

Once it gets warmer, then you can have more moisture in the air. So all it takes is cold front in and there's a whole bunch of snow that comes. The good thing is, is that it doesn't stick around long because the ground's already warmed up.

Dan

Yep, we were talking about bubbles and troubles and troubles with Tribbles here on this edition of The Todd Veinotte show and science files, we're gonna take our first break. 902-405-6000, 1-877-801-8255, we're back after the break.

Plastics, BPA & Environmental Pollution

Dan

Let's go to the phones and say hello to Joe. Joe, how are you? Your question for Dr. Rob, please.

Joe

Good, hey. Dr. Rob—Dr. Thacker, I guess I should—

Rob

That's okay. Dr. Rob works too.

Joe

Right on. I just went down—we've had a discussion before about plastics and microplastics, and now I'm learning more about nanoplastics. But I just walked into the corner store, and I'm wondering: if I buy a can of beer, is that a potential thing where I'm going to be ingesting BPA?

Rob

I'm actually not sure off the top of my head what the lining inside beer cans is. Traditionally, many companies were using BPA, but they're shifting towards a safer material—a polyester-based material. So that is happening. But yes, you are in the right headspace if you're concerned about BPA, for sure. That's one of the reasons why it was an estrogen mimicker. We are moving away from that quite rapidly. There was a big discussion about that earlier on in plastic and water bottles and those kind of things where the plastic was leaking, and there was a big movement to get that out of containers and devices.

Rob

One of the challenges—Joe kind of hinted at this, talking about nanoplastics—is the fundamental problem with plastics: you can make them smaller, you can grind them up finer, but they're not going away because there are very, very few things in nature that will actually break them down. Now we're working—scientists really are trying to come up with enzymes that will break down the plastics more quickly, but we're not there yet. Plus, you've got to have the plastic there to break it down. If you're sticking a bunch of plastic into a river that's flowing out into the sea and then winds up in the ocean, then no, you're not going to be able to get your hands on that plastic to break it down. So there's a lot of pressure on us to use less plastic.

Dan

And we know that it's a massive problem. There are floating islands of plastics in the oceans around the world that are growing by the day.

Rob

When you see the pictures on social media of the plastic distribution in the gyre—that's probably just a really small floating area that they found and taken a picture of. What they really mean is there is a higher concentration of plastics within the center of the ocean gyres, which is the swirling current that keeps the plastic where it is, but it doesn't usually look like a giant sea of plastic covering the surface. Where you will see that is illegal dumping by cruise ships; then you will see these giant plastic islands of crap literally floating across the ocean. Anyone who has been to the Western Caribbean will know that many of the beaches, for example the beaches in Belize—

Dan

And I've seen this with my own eyes, Dominican Republic, too. They get absolutely covered in plastic wash that's been illegally dumped in the Caribbean. It's grim. You can have literally feet of this stuff on beaches. It's shocking. Rob, do we—I know we've been working on plastic probably since plastic was invented—are we making any headway on finding a suitable replacement for it? Because plastic is just about everywhere.

Rob

Plastic, because it's become so industrially processed, is incredibly cheap, comparatively speaking. Everything else that we would think of to replace it with—for example wood, bamboo, paper—while those things are handled industrially, they're not created at the same level as plastics are, and that's the economic problem. Like many of you who are prepared to buy a TV dinner will know that there are some brands that will give you it in a biodegradable container that you can literally throw in the trash and not feel bad, but those are inevitably almost twice the price. I suspect it's not entirely a gouge, because people want to be able to sell product. So there must be an additional expense in there, compared to just having a plastic container—the clam shells.

Dan

No matter where you go—we had a movement here in Nova Scotia, the government banning plastic shopping bags, which I'm assuming will help the problem. But if you just take a walk through the produce section of a supermarket, you just see how much plastic we're using.

Rob

Everything that is packaged, I know what you're talking about there. And so that's frustrating, because if you go back in time, we’ve been able to work in a situation where we don't have all of this packaging around four tomatoes. We have lived in that world. I think we can go back to that world. If it's a shipping issue, then just solve the bulk shipping issue. We're gonna have to pay for it anyway, because the planet is becoming filled with plastic.

Dan

And we have to cut down plastic usage. I get it that the grocery store has presentation issues—and I'm not picking on grocery stores—but you're talking about tomatoes and there are bulk tomatoes and bins in the grocery store already, and then there are tomatoes right next to them that are in the clamshell. So we obviously have a way to get these things to the store in a larger plastic container—like one container instead of 75.

Rob

The ultimate limit of this is what you sometimes see in Japan, which is where things are individually wrapped, which is just insane. We should be able to go back to loose items. I think we slowly are. I think there's a lot less plastic now in vegetable displays than there used to be. But even so, the things that I particularly like—like I love cherry tomatoes—I don't think I can buy them without a clamshell yet.

Standard Time, Observatories & DST

Dan

All right. Welcome back. It is science files. He is Dr. Rob Thacker, all the way from Saint Mary's University. Should you have a question for Dr. Thacker, the lines are open, 902-405-6000, or 1-877-801-8255. We welcome David to the show with a question that was burning on the minds of our callers on Friday. Hello, David.

David

I have to agree: I think Deep Space Nine, of all the Treks, really stands out—just the story, the subject matter, the characters, and the performances put in by the various actors, including Nana Visitor who played Kira Nerys. I'm actually really enjoying the new Star Treks, and Starfleet Academy wraps up this coming Thursday as well. Anyway, Standard Time: my understanding is that basically it's set whenever the sun is directly overhead at noon, and I'm just curious how that varies by season, and then also in terms of location within a specific time zone. Is there a calibration point within each time zone where the parameters for high noon hold perfectly true?

Dan

The Sanford Fleming experiment that was trying to keep the trains on time, right?

Rob

You don't have a perfectly circular orbit, hence there's got to be—trying to remember, what do they call it, the analemma? I think there's a certain amount of drift around the orbit due to changing speed, and you have to account for that. That's honestly why we had observatories—for timekeeping. People are always surprised that the government would build these observatories for very practical reasons. If you go back to the beginning of the 1800s, people building observatories then were doing it primarily for timekeeping. There's a long history of astronomers testing watches. I'm a watch geek—the Omega Constellation—I was looking at your wrist, I don't see an Omega on your wrist. No, I don't have the money to have one of those things! But the Geneva Observatory used to actually certify watches for the chronometry. So anyway, coming back to it, that's off the top of my head—yeah, there has to be a slight drift. How you would precisely calibrate that off the top of my head, I don't know how that was done.

Dan

We appreciate the call David. The legend is that Sanford Fleming built the railways—obviously has the Dingle here in Halifax—and devised this standard time zone, so that the trains would be able to stay on time. I didn't know—and no doubt that David's correct—that they based each, like Eastern Time Zone and Central Time Zone, on high noon. It would be interesting to dig into the calibration on that, because the sun's moving three minutes a day, right?

Rob

I'm sure that actually, my colleagues know about this in precisely. Well, certainly my colleague, David Turner knows about this in detail, but it's not something that I've ever looked at. So actually, now I want to know! Yeah, I mean, you can always calibrate depending upon where you'd put the time zone. But then, obviously, if the planet isn't on a perfectly circular orbit, then there would be a slight shift with time as it is moving at different speeds in different places.

Dan

Speaking of time, Dr. Rob, we sprung forward this past weekend. My argument: this is a process that we really don't even need to do anymore. I mean, your thoughts on daylight saving time and is it worth the effort of trying to figure out how to reset?

Rob

That entirely depends upon who you are and where your income comes from. If you are someone who gets income from tourism, then you probably want Daylight Saving. But in terms of the actual impact it has, in terms of the number of lost hours of work and so on, measured across the whole economy, it's probably we're better off not having it. It was a little bit fun coming in at the beginning of the week, because I teach very early on a Monday. Then coming in after the clocks change, we were coming in with the crows, which was kind of neat. But personally, I would rather we didn't have daylight savings time. I don't think I've made much of a secret of that.

Dan

And does it mess up when you guys are using your observatories and your observations of the night sky? Does it mess it up when you're switching hours back?

Rob

Not really. It all depends whether we have cloud or not! So as soon as if we're not observing, it really doesn't make any difference. But presumably, the queue—it depends upon how the software is written, to be honest—but I wouldn't think that's a big deal at the end of the day, because once an observation is done, it's recorded when it is done. That would be this daemon that's doing the queue, and ultimately that doesn’t matter about the over time; it’s what is in the queue. There's only so many things that have to get done.

Pop Culture: Tom DeLonge & Brian May

Dan

902-405-6000, 1-877-801-8255, hello Cheryl. What's on your mind?

Cheryl

On the weekend, I was listening to my podcast, Alan Cross, the Ongoing History of New Music, and he was talking in detail about Tom DeLonge, the co-founder and vocalist for Blink-182, and how he has done so much in space-related research and he's written several books, like Secret Machines. I just wanted to get Dr. Rob's take on Tom DeLonge and what I should read, if I should read anything, on his science.

Rob

It's funny, there is a musician who's done a lot of science, and that would be Brian May of Queen. So Brian actually got his PhD—he finished that off a few years ago. But Tom DeLonge, I've actually had to Google, and it's come up with he's interested in UFO and UAP stuff, so I've honestly got to have my foot in the skeptical camp. But without reading what this person has particularly written, I wouldn't be able to give you an assessment straight off the top of my head. But how can I put it? My spidey sense is tingling.

Dan

Brian May is an astrophysicist, is he not?

Rob

So Brian actually was doing his PhD when Queen got going. And so he ended up really wanting to finish it after Freddie Mercury passed away. And so he did then come back and actually finish it off, which is really impressive. I would say that although it's kind of amazing to be able to be in a field where things haven't changed so much in 25 years that what you were doing hasn't changed—I mean, I'm sure it had changed in some ways. But anyway, he's been a great supporter of astronomy in the UK. I think he's appeared on the UK Sky at Night fairly regularly.

Dan

So do all astrophysicists play guitar like Brian?

Rob

If only, if only! No, we don't. Some of us are musical klutz like me. I will say, though, that I can't play, but I certainly listen.

Dan

And I will suggest that when we're talking about some of the greatest to ever use the instrument, that Brian's name gets left off that list a lot, and I think that he is underrated for what he's accomplished as a musician.

Rob

The interesting thing is, if you look at the musical history of Queen, I would argue that he was never, ever going to outshine Freddie Mercury, so it's not really surprising. And so you can just see, regardless of how good his own solos may have been, everyone was there to watch Freddie and listen to Freddie. Yeah, because Freddie was a spectacle.

Dan

902-405-6000, 1-877-801-8255, that's the number. This is science files, and it will continue right after this break.

Jet Lag & Circadian Rhythms

Dan

All right, science files continues right to the top of the hour, Dr. Rob Thacker in the house, and we'll go to the phones and welcome Debbie to the program. Debbie, how are you?

Debbie

Hi, Dan and Dr. Rob. I think about this twice a year, whenever we change the clocks. I've always wondered why—I guess we hear that data shows that after we change the clocks, there are always problems with more traffic accidents and cardiovascular issues because of the way it affects our circadian rhythm. And yet, how is that any different from when we willingly travel and have to go through time zones? That changes that should affect us the same way, and yet I don't hear the same outcry about that?

Rob

Yeah, no, this is a really good question, Debbie. So the thing to remember is, everything you've talked about with what Dan has called jet lag is true. Whenever you travel somewhere and you go to a different time zone, then yes, you are going to have an experience that's going to shift your circadian rhythms, and it's not going to be great for you for at least two or three days. The main thing with having a daylight savings times change is you are forcing that on everyone in the province at the same time. And it's that accumulated large number of exposures all happening at the same time. That is the primary issue. So literally, instead of someone getting on a plane and going somewhere, you're literally putting everyone in the province in the same situation.

Dan

When you travel, you're just a drop in the bucket, whereas when you change it here, the whole bucket gets changed.

Rob

Yeah, exactly. So statistically, that's going to make everything jump up at a huge level. I have no idea what the total population that is away at any one time is, it's probably one or 2% or something like that. Now you're just doing 100%—boom, just like that.

Debbie

Okay, so I understand statistically why that would show in the data. Personally, I don't mind the time change—I just like to have the lighter hours always in the evening. I guess I just wonder why people, if they say it bothers them twice a year, and yet they're willing to travel through time zones and not have it bother them that way.

Dan

The "spring forward" has changed the daylight in my morning commute. I've found for the last two days that I've had trouble kind of getting started, getting the motor going.

Rob

Yeah, absolutely. It's quite interesting. I happened to be away when the time zone changed, and so I wasn't sleeping particularly well. So when I woke up on Sunday I looked at my watch, which, of course, changed already, and then I was like, “Okay, I'll just get up,” no problem. And so it felt completely normal on Sunday, and then on Monday morning, when I woke up, I was really tired. And I had to get up early on Monday morning as well to teach an 8:30 class. So yeah, it can impact you differently depending upon what your mindset is about it as well.

Dan

Mentioned jet lag—Dr. Rob, I know that you travel to the UK quite frequently. It can be anywhere from three to four hours difference. That one always hurts—can you defeat jet lag, or do you have to deal with it?

Rob

No, you have to deal with it, but there are different ways you can deal with it. So what I tend to do is to try and do a very long day. I'm a total mess when I arrive because I've been trying to stay awake for a long time, and then I'll take melatonin pills and then try and sleep to get everything back in the right time zone. And that, generally, for me, works reasonably well. I do also try to get out in the sun once you get there. That helps as well. Generally, I try and get myself so exhausted to the point where I sleep and I recover, and then I'm fairly good to go. But what I don't do is get there, rent a car and start driving on the left-hand side straight away. I don't do that!

Dan

I landed at Gatwick once, took the train, and walked out of the train station into a traffic circle. It was a red eye flight. I got there and I'm getting ready to walk out into the traffic, and everything was going the other way.

Rob

Yeah, seriously it can be dangerous. We went to Scotland last summer, and so for the very first week, we decided that we wouldn't drive around just to get used to it.

Practical Advice: First Telescopes

Dan

Let's see if we can squeeze one more in here. Hello, Brian. Brian, how are you? Your question, please.

Brian

I have a 10-year-old who's incredibly interested in space. We have access to a very nice light area up on the North Shore. I'm wondering if you have any affordable telescopes you would recommend.

Rob

So, if you got a 10-year-old, this makes it a little bit more tricky, because my first reaction is always to say binoculars, because binoculars show you everything the right way up.

Brian

Okay, we have binoculars now, and we're beyond that now. He wants a telescope.

Rob

So, one of the things I'm gonna say is that visually, a telescope will only help a bit if you get a fairly good one. Most of the time, there's something called a Dobsonian Telescope, which has a large mirror. But the challenge with any kind of telescope is, once you put any kind of magnification on it, you need to have motors that will move it. And that's what makes it somewhat difficult compared to binoculars. So I would tend to say, looking for a six-inch Dobsonian Telescope is probably a reasonable way to get going, but they're not easy to use. So here's my recommendation: visit my good friends at the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. The RASC have a whole bunch of people who are more than willing to help you work through learning how to use a telescope properly. It's more difficult than using a pair of binocs where you literally know where you're pointing. I totally recommend spending a Saturday going down to one of the meetings of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada in the Halifax center. That's a really good way just to get to see how to use a telescope.

Dan

Brian, I appreciate it, and best of luck. I hope that your youngster enjoys the experience. I think the best part for me is just being out there.

Rob

There is one experience of looking through a telescope that pretty much anyone who sees it for the first time is blown away by, and that experience is seeing Saturn through a telescope. Because once you see Saturn through a telescope and you see that point in the sky has some rings—that's just awesome! That is an experience that really, once you have it, you're like, wow, I want another thing like that. It's really hard to match it.

Dan

And then the obsession with toys begins, much like our photography obsession, right? I mean glass after glass.

Rob

Funnily enough I have binoculars as well, although I have very, very good Astro binoculars—very expensive ones—but I still prefer those over a telescope. In fact, I gave my telescope away, so I'm a big believer in binoculars, just because they're easy to use.

Dan

Dr. Rob, as always, a pleasure. We'll talk to you next week. Thanks very much everyone for the great questions. That is Dr. Rob Thacker. He's here every Tuesday from 12 until 1. Thanks to Vanessa VanDennes on the other side of the glass, rock star as always. We'll see you tomorrow. Be well, and remember: be kind to one another.