The Year Of The Higgs, And Other Tiny Advances In Science

Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider announced the discovery of the Higgs boson on July 4, the long-sought building block of the universe. This image shows a computer-simulation of data from the collider.

Barcroft Media/Landov Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider announced the discovery of the Higgs boson on July 4, the long-sought building block of the universe. This image shows a computer-simulation of data from the collider.

Barcroft Media/Landov

It's a year-end tradition to cobble together a list of the most important advances in science. But, truth be told, many ideas that change the world don't tend to spring from these flashy moments of discovery. Our view of nature — and our technology — often evolve from a sequence of more subtle advances.

Even so, chances are good that this year's list-makers will choose the discovery of the Higgs boson as the most important discovery of 2012.

The Higgs is a long-sought building block of the universe. It finally put in an appearance at an accelerator in Europe. But though it was big news, it wasn't apparently a revolutionary discovery.

"There are certainly a number of physicists who are actually disappointed," says Sam Arbesman, a scientist and mathematician at the Kauffman Foundation. "They were hoping to find something a little different from what all the models predicted."

“ It's not necessarily true that we need to find these singular big discoveries. Because the truth is, the way we make discoveries is oftentimes based on the accumulation of a lot of smaller insights and smaller ideas and discoveries.

- Sam Arbesman, scientist and mathematician, Kauffman Foundation

Instead, they got a discovery that mostly assures them the universe works pretty well the way they thought it did. So big news doesn't necessarily change the way we look at the world.

Arbesman and science historian W. Patrick McCray took a few minutes recently to talk about the nature of discoveries in science and technology. Each has just written a book about the process of science and technology. Arbesman's is The Half-Life of Facts; McCray's is The Visioneers.

McCray, at the University of California, Santa Barbara, says revolutionary discoveries don't necessarily announce themselves when they happen. Consider this story: In 1988, a French scientist and a German scientist independently discovered a basic physics phenomenon known as giant magnetoresistance.

The discovery seemed so arcane it didn't make a splash, like the Higgs boson. But, as it turns out, this phenomenon provided an extraordinarily powerful new way to get data on and off a magnetic disk, "and became the basis for a multibillion-dollar market for computer hard drives," McCray says.

That fueled a technology revolution and eventually led to a Nobel Prize for the scientists. But Arbesman says even this story distorts how science often progresses.

"It's not necessarily true that we need to find these singular big discoveries," he says. "Because the truth is, the way we make discoveries is oftentimes based on the accumulation of a lot of smaller insights and smaller ideas and discoveries. And oftentimes in the aggregate, those kinds of things — the things that we expect or the things that we don't expect — are often what drive science."

One classic example of this is the observation that the Earth's surface is always rearranging itself, as continental plates drift around the globe. This theory, now called plate tectonics, was first proposed in 1912, "but it took decades for enough evidence to be accumulated to support the theory, and also for scientists to come around to the idea that the continents were moving," McCray says.

Plate tectonics is now an indispensable way of understanding many things about our world — not just about what drives earthquakes, but how animal species came to be distributed around the planet. This kind of slow burn happens more often than you might think.

"I think the laser, initially, in terms of a technology, was one of these great examples where it was a really cool thing, but I think no one had any idea what it could be used for," Arbesman says, "and now it's ubiquitous."

There's a lesson in that for Arbesman. It's not so easy to figure out what fields of science to fund in order to get breakthroughs in return.

"The truth is, we don't really have a good track record at predicting which ones are going to be relevant in the long term," he says. "And we want to make sure that we support the creation of knowledge. And to do that, we have to really make sure that we support everything all across the board."

That means, of course, most of the time we will be supporting research that may fill in facts around the edges but won't be revolutionary.

McCray argues that one of the most notable trends in science this year wasn't a discovery at all. It has to do with how much the public accepts what scientists tell them.

"Debates over climate change, evolution, whether vaccines cause autism, things like that — all are part of a larger debate about the role and place of experts in American society," he says.

Americans still accept that science is a way to learn truths, but people are less likely to trust scientists as objective experts, McCray says. "And I think it's certainly something that a decade from now, we might look back upon and find quite curious, and indeed, quite serious."

That trend affects how we make use of the discoveries that flow from science — so it also matters a lot.

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Chef Jack Bishop on 'The Science of Good Cooking'

What's the secret to making a fluffy omelet or the perfect pie dough? Jack Bishop, chef and editorial director at America's Test Kitchen, stops by to debunk cooking myths and highlight some of the surprising finds from the show's new cookbook, The Science of Good Cooking.

Copyright © 2012 National Public Radio. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

IRA FLATOW, HOST:

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY; I'm Ira Flatow. Chefs are like, a little bit like golfers: They're always looking for tips to improve their game. So as you prepare for the last big party of 2012 or the first one of 2013, we have some gastronomical tips to improve your cooking and baking skills and the reasons behind why they actually work.

What's the trick to making a perfect pie dough? We have the answer to that, and I think it's going to surprise you. How do you poach an egg without turning all the boiling water into a swirly mess of egg whites? We're going to teach you how to do that, too. It all boils down to this: If you want to unlock the secrets of good cooking, you have to understand the science.

That's the idea behind the newest cookbook from America's Test Kitchen, "The Science of Good Cooking." It's really a great cookbook to have in your arsenal because it meticulously explains what works, what doesn't and why. And my next guest is here to give us a glimpse of some of the Test Kitchen's more surprising finds.

JACK BISHOP: Jack Bishop is a chef and cast member on the cooking shows "America's Test Kitchen" and "Cook's Country." He is the editorial director at America's Test Kitchen and contributed to the show's newest cookbook, "The Science of Good Cooking," and he joins us here. We're cooking in our New York studio. Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY, Jack.

Hi Ira, great to be here.

FLATOW: We are surrounded by cooking stuff.

BISHOP: I know, we don't really - you know, the are wires and all the radio things with cooking things. Let's hope it goes well.

FLATOW: Well, let's get right to the first thing. We have a pot of, a simmering pot of water here. Well, it's not actually a pot, is it?

BISHOP: It's a skillet. So I am going to re-teach you how to poach and egg, and you're going to be successful.

FLATOW: In a - I've never done it in a skillet. Usually I take the big pot of water, and that's wrong, you're saying.

BISHOP: You're - the big problem with the saucepan, if you're doing a narrow pot, it's a long way down for the egg to drop into the pot. A lot of people crack it right on the side of the saucepan, and then it falls apart. I mean, the challenge when you're poaching an egg is to keep the white to surround the yolk, so you end up with a set white and a creamy yolk.

FLATOW: All right.

BISHOP: The skillet makes it much easier. So I've got boiling water in a 12-inch skillet. You can use a smaller skillet if you'd like. And I - the trick here is we're going to gently coax the eggs in. So I've got two teacups, one in each hand. They have little handles on them that allow me to get close to the water, and I've got two eggs cracked into each, and I'm just going to turn them ever so gently into the skillet.

And I'm going to add a little bit of vinegar. The pH is going to help...

FLATOW: Ah, the acidity is going to help.

BISHOP: And a little salt really just for flavor, and I'm going to turn off the heat. The other big mistake people make is they boil, and the turbulent water will cause the eggs to break apart.

FLATOW: You don't want to boil it.

BISHOP: And now I'm going to turn my timer on. And so by using residual heat, you are sort of - no churning of the water, so you're not going to blow apart the eggs. And you also get a really consistent result because, you know, if you've got a really powerful cooktop, it can be going much sort of faster coming back to the boil, and we're basically just doing it with residual heat.

If you were doing it on a real cooktop, we're on a little induction burner, you might even slide it off the burner onto a cool burner. We don't have a cool burner, so we're going to hope this induction burner cools down.

FLATOW: And the vinegar coagulate the egg whites, is that - the acid does that?

BISHOP: We're lowering the pH of the water, and that helps the proteins in the white to sort of unfurl more quickly and bond together and hopefully protect the creamy yolk.

FLATOW: Could you use lemon juice instead?

BISHOP: You could use lemon juice. I just use distilled white vinegar. You don't want to use a colored vinegar, like balsamic would give you lightly tinged whites, which may not be that attractive. But, you know, the vinegar will give a little bit of flavor to the eggs, balance a little of the richness to the eggs, which is a good thing. So we like that.

FLATOW: Well, while we're waiting for the eggs to cook, let's talk a little bit about more in your book. What is the secret - I heard, I read the secret to the perfect pie crust, and it's something I would have never imagined. Tell us what that is.

BISHOP: You know, pie dough seems like it should be simple. It's really just four or five ingredients. There's flour, salt, a little bit of sugar, fat and ice water. The problem is that most recipes are engineered to use a minimum amount of ice water, and the theory is that when the water is mixed with the flour, you are activating the glutens, and you're developing this sort of strand of protein network, which is great if you're making bread. It's what gives bread great chew.

But in pie dough, it will make it fairly tough, and so you use as little water as possible in order to just get the flour to sort of hold together with the fat. The problem is most recipes don't use enough, and so you go to roll out the dough, and it's cracking, it's really difficult to manage, and most cooks end up adding more water than the recipe says.

A typical recipe for a double-crust pie will call for five or six tablespoons of water, but it's really not quite enough. So we said: What is wet that could give us more moisture so that we could hydrate the dough and make it easier to roll out with less cracking but would not form gluten? And it turns out that alcohol does not form gluten when it's mixed with flour.

And so we replaced half of the ice water with chilled vodka in our pie dough.

(LAUGHTER)

FLATOW: Do you need a high brand vodka, first-shelf vodka, or...?

BISHOP: You're not going to taste it because what happens is in the oven, when you're baking the pie crust, the alcohol's going to cook off. We tested whiskey, rum, tequila...

FLATOW: What a party that was testing...

BISHOP: Oh yeah, and we have - we were testing them, unfortunately, in the pie dough.

FLATOW: I see.

BISHOP: You cannot taste the difference, really, between all of them. The important thing is to use something that's 80 proof, that's 40 percent alcohol, so that you are in effect, where our recipe calls for four tablespoons of water and four tablespoons of vodka, but because of the alcohol in the vodka, it's really the equivalent of six tablespoons of water, even though you get the sort of rollability of eight tablespoons of water.

And it seems like it's a really small trick, but it makes it so much easier to roll out the pie dough, and it's really flaky, and it's really tender.

FLATOW: So does this come about from actually testing things in the Test Kitchen, the ideas and recipes?

BISHOP: The Test Kitchen has about 25 people who work full-time who are trained cooks. We also have a science editor. And so this was one of those questions that we discussed with our science editor. We said: What's wet that you could add to pie dough that's not going to form gluten? And he said, well, alcohol. And, you know, then we went into the kitchen and ran a series of tests.

Our usual protocols will do sort of one variable test. And so, you know, we'll do the standard recipe with water, and then we'll do variations, in this case with vodka, and easy to tell the difference.

FLATOW: So people who have picked up their ears now from hearing this, what's the recipe, how much vodka for how much water?

BISHOP: So you want to use half-water and half-vodka. If you have a favorite pie dough recipe that calls for ice water, just replace half of the water with chilled vodka. It's really important that the water is cold so it doesn't melt any of the fat in the dough.

FLATOW: Wow, talking with Jack Bishop, chef and cast member on the cooking show "America's Test Kitchen" and "Cook's Country," also contributor to Cook's Illustrated "The Science of Good Cooking: Master 50 Simple Concepts to Enjoy a Lifetime of Success in the Kitchen." A great book. Why did you decide - did you decide that people needed to know more about science in the kitchen?

BISHOP: We really feel like science is the key for many people to finally become a good cook. You know, I think there's a sort of generational issue that many people didn't grow up in homes where they could watch cooking. And so how do you learn how to cook? And a lot of people get frustrated because they make mistakes and think oh, I shouldn't be making mistakes. Well...

(SOUNDBITE OF TIMER)

FLATOW: You'd better...

BISHOP: We're a slave to our timer here.

(LAUGHTER)

BISHOP: So that means our poached eggs, you're going to have to wait for my answer on this one.

FLATOW: OK.

BISHOP: So I'm going to take the lid off of the skillet.

FLATOW: Right. Ooh, those are gorgeous.

BISHOP: I'm going to now reach in with a slotted spoon to try to take out each of the four poached eggs. I'm going to transfer them to paper-towel-lined plates. The paper towel is going to soak up the extra water that is still on them. The slotted spoon is getting rid of most of the water, but there's still some in there.

And as you can see, they came out fairly nice.

FLATOW: Thank you, that's great, very little white left in the water.

BISHOP: Very little white. I think you might want to at this point season them with a little bit of pepper, make them taste a little bit. And I think, Ira, you have to do - you have the honors.

FLATOW: Somebody has to take over the show while I eat here.

BISHOP: You at least have to sort of crack and see...

FLATOW: All right, crack one open. This looks good because poached eggs are among my favorite food. I need a little English muffin here, I think.

BISHOP: Yeah, I didn't bring the Canadian bacon and English muffin. Now five minutes gives you a runny yolk.

FLATOW: That is good. OK (unintelligible)...

(LAUGHTER)

FLATOW: A runny yolk, do if you overcook it, it's going to get a little harder, and five minutes works. But the secret, as you said, is not boiling the water but simmering it...

BISHOP: And the five minute works whether you're doing one egg or eight. If you're going to do more than eight, you might want to go to six or seven minutes because there are so many eggs in the water. And of course if you want a more set yolk, you could go an extra minute. But for a sort of runny yolk, five minutes is sort of guaranteed to work.

FLATOW: And eggs are a good place to start if you want to learn about the science of cooking, right? There are so many things you can do with eggs.

BISHOP: It's - you know, they don't call it the incredible egg for nothing because you really can do so many things, not just different cooking methods. You can, you know, scramble it, you can fry it, you can poach it, but it's a key ingredient in so many savory and baked goods.

FLATOW: If you're making scrambled eggs, or you're making just plain sunny-side-ups, is there a perfect temperature that you want? People throw it in, you know, they heat the skillet up very hot, and then they throw the egg in, and it's sizzling. Does that wreck the egg, or do you want to cook it on a lower temperature?

BISHOP: For scrambled eggs, the key is fairly high temperature because what you're trying to do is convert the water that's in the eggs - and we also add some half-and-half to our scrambled eggs.

FLATOW: Oh, you do?

BISHOP: Yeah, the fat keeps them tender, and the additional moisture creates steam, which is what makes them fluffy and light. And so if you're using low temperature for scrambled eggs, if you want really fluffy, light eggs, you're not generating enough steam. So you want fairly high temperature, and you have to work really quickly because you don't want them to get tough or brown.

For fried egg, we actually heat the pan over low for 10 minutes, trying to get a really even heat, then crank it up so there's no hot spots, and add the fried egg.

FLATOW: Should you use a smaller pan, like an omelet pan, for one or two eggs, or should you use a bigger pan?

BISHOP: A small pan is much better, yeah.

FLATOW: A small pan, and that will take - an omelet pan, which is a lot thicker metal, will take a longer time to heat up at that lower temperature.

BISHOP: And it will be a much better job.

FLATOW: OK, a couple of egg lessons. What's the biggest mistake people make with eggs? Is it they use the wrong temperature, or they just don't treat it with respect?

BISHOP: Yeah, that they don't add enough fat, usually. In most egg recipes, what you're doing is you're coagulating the proteins. And, you know, there the tendency is to then squeeze out the moisture. And if you add a little bit of fat, whether it's a little half-and-half in your scrambled eggs - when we make an omelet, we add little cubes of frozen butter to the scrambled - you know, to the eggs that we've sort of beaten by hand so that there's a little bit of fat in there to ensure a sort of nice soft set that doesn't squeeze out the moisture in the eggs and make them tough.

FLATOW: Cubes of frozen butter in the omelet. I have to remember that because I love to make omelets. We're talking with Jack Bishop about Cook's Illustrated "The Science of Good Cooking," our number 1-800-989-8255. When we come back, we're going to talk about another secret, and that is how to fluff up some egg whites. There's the right way to do it and the wrong way to do it. I guess it'll be a meringue sort of thing.

And if you want to make - go along with us, call us at 1-800-989-8255. We're on our website at sciencefriday.com. We'll be right back after this break with Jack Bishop. Stay with us.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

FLATOW: I'm Ira Flatow; this is SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

FLATOW: This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. We're talking this hour about the science of good cooking. My guest is Jack Bishop, chef and editorial director at America's Test Kitchen and contributor to "The Science of Good Cooking: Cook's Illustrated: Master 50 Simple Concepts to Enjoy a Lifetime of Success in the Kitchen."

If you need a basic kitchen book, this is it, you know, how do I do this, how do I do that, and you want to have basic recipes and the right way to do it, boy, this is a great book. There are a lot of great tips in the book. And I want to dive into one in particular, which is the case for brining meat. What is brining meat?

BISHOP: So brining meat is the solution to overcooked lean protein. So we're talking about the white meat in chicken or turkey, lean cuts of pork like a pork loin or pork tenderloin. There's very little fat, and it can really dry out and be chalky and tough. We've all had a horrible Thanksgiving turkey.

FLATOW: Yes.

BISHOP: The solution next year is to brine the turkey, and you are putting the protein in a bucket with a solution of salt and water. And what is happening is that the salt is changing the structure of the muscle fibers and creating spaces that can then trap the natural juices in meat.

Most meat is 75 percent water, and the goal is to preserve that natural moisture, and by changing the shape of the proteins, actually the sodium and chloride ions have negative and positive charges, and they're changing the way the mosaic of charges on the proteins are working, and you are getting more water to be held into the meat, its own natural juices, in addition to obviously some of the water that's in the brine makes its way into the meat.

And basically we found in side-by-side tests you can cut moisture loss by 25 percent, which is a really...

FLATOW: Doesn't it taste salty, the meat, when you take it out?

BISHOP: You don't want to season it too much. The average amount of salt, if you brine it, is going to be about an eighth of a teaspoon per serving. So it's about the same if you buy a kosher chicken or if you buy a Butterball, which has been injected with salt. You wouldn't brine those because they already have about that level of salt in them.

FLATOW: Yeah, when they kosher a turkey, they already put the salt and whatever in there, that sort of thing, koshering it. 1-800-989-8255. A tweet came in that says: How do you hard boil an egg so that it peels easily? What's the secret to that?

BISHOP: Well, the secret to hard boiling an egg is much like poaching, which is to use residual heat. So you bring the eggs in the water to a boil, turn it off, take it off the burner, and it's exactly 10 minutes because then it...

FLATOW: Exactly.

BISHOP: Exactly 10 minutes, and then drain out the water and then crack the eggs in the empty pot and sort of, you know, break up the shells. And then put them in ice water. The ice water will cool them down so that they won't continue to cook, and you won't get that green ring, and the water gets under the cracked shell and makes it much easier to then peel off the shell if you put them in an ice water bath for 30 seconds to 60 seconds.

FLATOW: All right, we have another wonderful in-studio demonstration that we're going to talk about, what's the right way to - or what have you got here? I'll let you explain it.

BISHOP: I have two identical bowls, two identical whisks. Inside each bowl are three egg whites. Now whipped egg whites are the secret to everything from soufflés to cakes. We are going to both take a bowl and start whisking and see who can make better progress.

(SOUNDBITE OF WHISKING)

BISHOP: Now I know you're going to say...

FLATOW: I used to be good at this, but this is not working.

(LAUGHTER)

BISHOP: Well, so what we're doing is we're creating a foam here, and as you can see in my bowl, Ira, I'm already...

FLATOW: I got nothing.

(LAUGHTER)

BISHOP: Yeah, you got nothing. I actually kind of did something not very nice to your bowl: I sprayed it with a little bit of Pam cooking spray, and...

FLATOW: You dirty rat.

(LAUGHTER)

BISHOP: The fat is - the point here is that if you get even a teeny bit of fat, and that can be leftover grease from not washing the bowl very well to the fat from the yolk, it will prevent those whites from whipping properly, and you really can't get a stable foam.

FLATOW: No, I was really surprised because I'm pretty good at making a meringue sort of thing, or if I make an omelet, I make the egg yolks separate than the whites and then put them back together - nothing.

BISHOP: Nothing, and so, you know, it's a really delicate operation. You are taking, you know, a couple tablespoons of liquid whites and a lot of sort of horsepower in your arm and turning this into a stable foam. And if there's a little bit of fat in there, it will cause the foam to collapse or really even just prevent the foam from forming.

FLATOW: So you want to make sure that it's a very clean bowl, and, you know, you haven't put butter or something in it beforehand.

BISHOP: And never use plastic. It's almost impossible to get a plastic bowl really clean. There's always traces of fat in plastic. So I had stainless steel bowls here. Glass is fine. But avoid plastic because it just doesn't really get as clean as it should.

FLATOW: What about the temperature of the bowl, or, I mean, I've heard people say you need to have a cold bowl, or the yolks, the whites should be cold. What's with that?

BISHOP: It is much easier to separate the yolks when they're cold because the yolks are much firmer and taut, and the eggs will not separate. So separate the eggs right from the refrigerator. In terms of the whipping, whether those whites are at room temperature or cold isn't going to make much difference in the ability to create a foam.

FLATOW: All right, I'm going to go to the phones and take one call here, see if we can get a phone call in. Let's go to Jeff(ph) in Pittsburgh. Hi Jeff.

JEFF: Hi Ira, how are you?

FLATOW: Hi, how are you?

JEFF: I'm well, thank you.

FLATOW: Go ahead.

JEFF: I have a question about pizza dough. I'm hoping that maybe the vodka solution might work for it. My pizza dough always turns out heavy like a lead brick, and I'm not sure if it's because I'm overworking the dough or not letting it sit long enough. Is there any chance that the vodka might tenderize it or help it rise?

FLATOW: Should you put vodka in your pizza dough also, besides your...?

BISHOP: No, if you drink the vodka, it might make the pizza dough taste better...

(LAUGHTER)

BISHOP: But the vodka is not going to improve pizza dough. Two things is to make sure that you have enough water. If you don't have enough water, the dough won't rise properly. The second thing is to try letting rise in the refrigerator. We find that a lot of bread doughs do much better, you know, under conditions called cool fermentation, and really let it go even overnight.

You know, make the dough before you go to bed, or make it first thing in the morning, and then through it in the refrigerator and let it just rise gently. You often get a much better result. You get sort of more bubbly pizza dough crust. So give those two things a try: a little more water and let it rise in the refrigerator.

FLATOW: Are there any new techniques based on science? I've heard people using vacuuming, they vacuum-pack the food before they cook it.

BISHOP: Yeah, I mean it's a really interesting time in food because in the world of professional cooking, in restaurants, there's so much science and technology. I mean, molecular gastronomy is really changing the way that a lot of chefs prepare dishes in restaurants.

At home, the technology is kind of the same old technology. You know, the microwave sort of came and went, and people use a microwave to, you know, warm coffee, but they don't really cook in a microwave. And so the technology - even though, you know, we spend a lot more on the equipment than we used to in our kitchen, it really is basically the same equipment with nicer finishes.

FLATOW: Let's talk a little bit about the different type of cooking oils. There's so many different ones. What's the science behind which type of oils to use for what purposes?

BISHOP: So the first thing you want to think about is are you going to be heating the oil, and if you're heating the oil, then the smoke point is hugely important. And in that case, you want an oil with a high smoke point because once the oil starts smoking, it's a sign that it's breaking down and degrading. And so olive oil, for instance, has great flavor, but because it's not fully refined, it has a fairly low smoke point. It's not really great for frying or sautéing.

Vegetable oil, soybean oil, corn oil, canola oil, those can withstand more heat, and...

FLATOW: But all of Italian cookery is based on using olive oil, isn't it?

BISHOP: As long - I mean yes, most of that olive oil - I mean, my Italian grandmother would sauté in it, but she was using refined olive oil. And so, you know, if you've got a really high-end extra virgin oil that's got particulate matter in it, you don't want to be frying in it because that means it's going to smoke at a much lower temperature.

FLATOW: So you use a worse grade of oil to fry in?

BISHOP: Well, if you're going to be cooking, yes. You know, for salad, I wouldn't use anything other than really good extra virgin olive oil. But for cooking, we use a lot of vegetable oil in the test kitchen.

FLATOW: Peanut oil? Peanut oil is good?

BISHOP: Peanut oil has a great high smoke temperature. It has a sort of nice flavor that it can add. Most of the flavors are really subtle, so the difference between corn and safflower and sunflower and canola are really very minor. The one thing is we don't like to fry in canola oil. We find that it gets a little fishy tasting, actually, when it's heated for really long periods of time when you're frying. So we don't fry in canola oil.

FLATOW: Is there one oil healthier, the unsaturated oils, that's...?

BISHOP: I mean, olive oil is probably - you know, and the canola oil get the best marks from the nutritionists. You know, I think we like olive oil except for super-high-heat applications.

FLATOW: Let's talk about America's favorite food, the hamburger. I mean, I saw some tips of America's Test Kitchen investigating the best way to make a hamburger.

BISHOP: Yeah, the biggest problem with hamburger is actually the meat. And so, you know, what you buy in the supermarket, there are two problems. One is you don't actually know what cut of meat it comes from, and so if you - you ideally want something with a fair amount of fat, from the chuck, short ribs make a super burger.

The second thing is the way it's packaged in that shrink-wrapping makes it almost impossible to get anything other than a dense hockey puck.

And so we actually grind our own beef. You only need a food processor. You freeze the meat, and then you can grind it in the food processor, and it makes a much tastier burger, more fat, and it's got a lighter texture, and it's not that dense heavy hockey puck that you get from supermarket ground beef.

FLATOW: Yeah. It's like the old days.

BISHOP: It's like the old days.

FLATOW: Going to the butcher, bringing the meat home, grinding it up.

BISHOP: Yeah. And there's nobody grinding meat in any supermarkets in America anymore.

FLATOW: They're all coming in with the meat ground already, yeah.

BISHOP: Yeah, it's been grounded in plants in the Midwest and then shipped all over the country, and that's really the problem.

FLATOW: I think I've seen that commercial. We're going to - I want to bring on another guest to talk about how our eating habits have changed with the invention of the fork and what's the single greatest achievement in cooking technology. Jack, you can have a seat.

(LAUGHTER)

FLATOW: Sit down. Make yourself at home because I hope you'll stick around for a few more minutes with us.

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The Science Behind Santa's Christmas Eve Journey

With billions of children to visit in just one night, how does Santa make it to every house? And how does he fit down the chimney — assuming your house has one. Astrophysicist Neil De Grasse Tyson talks to David Greene about the science of Santa.

Copyright © 2012 National Public Radio. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, as we all know, has a very shiny nose. And so would you, if you were at the head of a team of reindeer bolting across the night sky, helping Santa deliver Christmas presents to two billion children in a single night. Now, to help us understand how Santa manages to pull this off every year, we're joined by a friend of this program, astrophysicist and science guru Professor Neil deGrasse Tyson. And happy holiday to you, Professor Tyson. Thanks for coming on again.

NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: Thank you. You know, you guys ask me about everything. Man.

GREENE: Well, you know everything. I mean, what do you want us to do? Well, this will be particularly interesting, I think, to a lot of people because it's - I mean, I'm sure that Santa employs some Christmas magic that's beyond our understanding to get all this done. But there must be some science involved, too, right?

TYSON: Well, a couple of things. Let's back up for a minute. So, Rudolph's nose...

GREENE: Right.

TYSON: ...now, to me, the word shiny means it reflects light. If you only reflect light, that's not really good to lead the way through the darkness of the night.

GREENE: 'Cause there's no light to reflect.

TYSON: You have to radiate light. So, let's presume that his nose actually radiated red light. Well, it turns out red light is ideal for getting through foggy, cloudy nights, because red light penetrates through fog better than blue light. And that's why, for example, they don't want you to put on your brights when you're driving through fog. The brights are bluer than your low beams. So, the fact that Rudolph has a red nose, that's awesome.

GREENE: You're saying Santa found the right reindeer.

TYSON: Yes, he did. (Laughing) Rudolph's brother, who had a blue nose, no. That would not have worked.

GREENE: You know, Santa has to go really, really, really fast to get to all these places in the world. I mean, is there a sense for what he's doing?

TYSON: OK. So, now, yeah. So, it turns out if he traveled the speed of light, you know, light can encircle the Earth seven times in one second.

GREENE: Seven times in a second, OK.

TYSON: Yeah, light is awesome. Problem is: We all live within Earth's atmosphere. So, if you could go that fast through the atmosphere, then you'll just burn up. And I learned from speaking to an expert in comic book heroes that the Flash has atmospheric separators in front of him when he goes quickly from one place to another so that he does not burn up.

GREENE: So, Santa could have atmospheric separators, in theory.

TYSON: He could have atmospheric separators. So, now, you can go keep doing this calculation, have him go to every home. So, I realized that what he really needs is that - what they have in that movie "Monsters, Inc."

GREENE: Yeah.

TYSON: You remember that movie where...

GREENE: I do, but remind me.

TYSON: ...just manufactured doors. And the door in the "Monsters, Inc." factory is the door of the children's closet. And you just carry the door home with you. You go through that door, and you show up in the kid's closet and terrorize them in their sleep, because they're monsters, of course.

GREENE: And if he can go in these secret doors in all the houses that don't have chimneys, I mean, that's - he's able to travel magically into a lot more homes.

TYSON: Yeah, so, in that point, it's not magic. What "Monsters, Inc." never told you is that they're essentially wormholes.

GREENE: So it is possible that he's just up there doing kind of a lap around the Earth to kind of get the - do the photo shoot, and he's actually delivering all these presents in some other way, using wormholes and other devices.

TYSON: Yeah, he could be up there just for show. You know NORAD, right?

GREENE: The military - the folks who track flying objects.

TYSON: Yes. These are the folks that track missiles coming in from the Cold War threat. After the Cold War, you know, they said: Well, what else are we going to do? So, at the 24th, you go to the NORAD website, and they track Santa from the North Pole. You can know where Santa is at all times.

GREENE: You know what's really interesting about all this, this could explain why the kids have never been able to catch him coming down the chimney. I mean, maybe he's got the kids distracted by that, and he's actually getting in in some other way.

TYSON: You know, that's brilliant. That's brilliant, because he has to keep telling people to look at the chimney, and then he sneaks in another way. He creates a distraction. Yeah, I'll go into that. Yeah.

GREENE: Yeah, let's work on that theory. Well, I hope you get everything you wish for. Neil deGrasse Tyson, thanks for talking to us, as always.

TYSON: Thank you. Always good to be on with you.

Copyright © 2012 National Public Radio. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.

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Why Some Kids Have An Inflated Sense Of Their Science Skills

If you're a student at the halfway point of the academic year, and you've just taken stock of your performance, perhaps you have reason to feel proud of yourself.

But a recent study suggests some of the pride you feel at having done well — especially in science — may be unfounded. Or at least your sense of your performance may not be a very accurate picture of how good you actually are.

A massive analysis of some 350,000 students at nearly 14,000 schools in 53 countries has uncovered a paradox: Students in many countries that are mediocre at science have an inflated sense of good they are.

First the good news: The United States isn't among the worst offenders. Students in countries such as Thailand, Jordan, Mexico and Brazil seem to be worse than U.S. students when it comes to science knowledge, but they have even higher levels of self-esteem when it comes to their beliefs about how good they are at science.

But compared to countries such as New Zealand, Australia, Sweden, Japan, South Korea and Great Britain, American students appeared to have an inflated sense of their science abilities. Students in those other countries were better when it came to scientific knowledge than American students, but it was the Americans who had the higher opinion of themselves as students of science.

The study, published in the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, focused on the academic performance of 15 year-old students. It was conducted by Eva Van de gaer, Aletta Grisay, Wolfram Schulz and Eveline Gebhardt.

The paradox between performance and students' impression of their performance has been noted before. The paper proposes an explanation for it: The reference group effect.

The study argues that countries have very different standards when it comes to science education.

In countries with elite science education standards, you can be a very good science student but, since you measure yourself against an elite standard of performance, you think of yourself as mediocre. On the other hand, if you live in a country with average (or mediocre) science standards, you might be just a decent student, but compared to general expectations of how good students are supposed to be, you feel like a genius.

In an interview, Schulz offered me an analogy. He asked me to think about a person who was 5-foot-10 in China and a person who was the same height in the Netherlands. The Dutch, on average, are taller than the Chinese.

"The person would in China probably think of themselves as a tall person," Schulz said. "If you go to the Netherlands, such a person would rather say, 'ah, I'm a short person,' because you compare yourself to those who surround you."

The same thing happens with science education, he said. Students in countries with elite science standards are much more likely to think of themselves as mediocre, whereas students in countries with mediocre standards are much more likely to think of themselves as elite.

Schulz works at the Australian Council for Educational Research, which studies educational issues in science, mathematics and reading.

Schulz told me the reference group effect could potentially be a double-edged sword: In terms of preparing students for competition with one another, it makes good sense to get a realistic sense of how good you actually are compared to, say, your peers in South Korea. On the other hand, Schulz said, there was also something to be said for having an inflated sense of your own abilities.

"For motivating students to take up science studies, how you perceive yourself is actually more important than how much you know," he said. "If your general belief (is) you're not that good at science, that might have this powerful effect of saying, 'Ah, I'd better stay away from it in the future.' "

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Debunking Doomsday And Exploring Maya Science

The ancient Maya had many scientific accomplishments: they tracked the Moon and the planets, knew a solar year was 365 days, and even invented the concept of zero. As for the 2012 apocalypse? It's simply a misinterpretation of the Maya calendar, say archaeologists Marcello Canuto and William Saturno.

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Using Science to Care for Your Christmas Tree

Nothing beats the smell of a live Christmas tree in your home, but how can you keep the needles on your tree and off your carpet? Rick Bates, professor of horticulture at Penn State University, offers tips for how to properly care for your Christmas tree this holiday season.

Copyright © 2012 National Public Radio. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

IRA FLATOW, HOST:

Up next, it's the most wonderful time of the year, so how about something to get us into the holiday spirit - the science of Christmas trees. That's right, we're picking up where we left off a couple of years ago at this time. We spoke to a Christmas tree researcher in Canada named Raj Lada and we learned something startling.

This was amazing when we learned it: If you want your Christmas tree to stay healthy, don't leave a fruit basket gift underneath it. It knocked me out. Here's how it sounded: If you have a large bowl of fruit, will it give off ethylene?

RAZ LADA: Yeah, of course, don't keep your fruits close to your trees.

FLATOW: Seriously, keep the fruit...

LADA: Honestly, yes.

FLATOW: Yeah, yeah, if you get a fruit basket for Christmas, don't put it under the...

LADA: Exactly...

FLATOW: Don't put it under the tree. Get the fruit basket away from under the tree.

LADA: Get away, yeah, that's correct, actually, Ira.

FLATOW: And there you have it. Did you know that? I didn't know that. And so we thought we would tell you some more interesting stuff about Christmas trees. This is not to say that you should, you know, opt for an artificial tree if you have a fruit basket.

So if you are going with a real tree, what advice can we offer you this year? How about knowing which tree you should get? Yeah, or if you already have your tree set up, how can you keep the tree healthy and your home relatively needle-free? Well, my next guest has some handy tips on how to make a Christmas tree last into the New Year.

Rick Bates is an associate professor of horticulture in the College of Agricultural Sciences at Penn State. He joins us from WPSU in University Park. Welcome to the program.

RICK BATES: Good afternoon, Ira, thanks for having me.

FLATOW: Is there a specific species that makes a good Christmas tree, one better than the others?

BATES: There are. If you look at kind of everything that's out there on the market, you're going to see spruce, you'll see pine, you'll see Douglas fir, and then what we call true fir. And the true fir tend to be kind of like the Cadillac of the Christmas tree species.

In the east, Fraser fir tends to be the species of choice. In the western U.S., a lot of people really like noble fir.

FLATOW: So it's a fir tree?

BATES: Yeah, it's a fir as opposed to a pine or a spruce. Now...

FLATOW: How do you - do you know how to ask to see, you know, if you're getting the real fir tree or not?

BATES: Well, usually a retailer, even somebody at a big box store, for instance, usually could tell you the difference. Certainly the true fir, the needles tend to be soft. You can run your hand over a branch, and they'll be nice and flexible and soft. When we think of Christmas tree aroma, we're often thinking about firs, whether we know it or not. Balsam fir or Concolor fir tend to be really aromatic.

FLATOW: Right.

BATES: The spruce tend to have a - kind of a spinier, prickly needle. So if you grab hold of, let's say, a Colorado spruce, you're going to know it. The pines - for instance, white pine - tends to have a real thin, long, fine needle, real soft, real fine texture.

FLATOW: 1-800-989-8255 is our number if you'd like to ask anything about Christmas trees. You know, there's a lot of research. When we were researching this, Rick, we found that there's a whole bunch of research in Christmas trees, a lot of it going on. Why is that?

BATES: Well, there is. It's a big industry. If you look at how many Christmas trees we consume as a nation - the U.S. uses about 30 million, take or - you know, plus or minus a year. Europe, Western Europe particularly, they're closer to 50 million. So it's a billion-dollar-a-year-plus industry.

There are a lot of Christmas tree farmers across the country, probably in the neighborhood of 15 to 20 thousand producers of Christmas trees. So it's a big industry.

FLATOW: We're going to take a break, and we come back, we'll talk more with Rick Bates, associate professor of horticulture in the College of Agricultural Sciences at Penn State. Our number, 1-800-989-8255. You can tweet us, yes, tweet us @scifri, at S-C-I-F-R-I. If you have questions about what's the best time to put up the tree, what days, how to water it, what about a tree you want to keep live, how to replant - we're going to get into all that stuff, 1-800-989-8255 is our number. You can also tweet us @scifri, S-C-I-F-R-I, or go to our website at sciencefriday.com. And also go on our Facebook page @scifri. So stay with us. We'll be right back after this break.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

FLATOW: You're listening to SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. Of course we'll keep you up to date on the multiple shootings at a school in Newtown, Connecticut, and all the details will be available to you at ALL THINGS CONSIDERED tonight on the news.

Right now we're talking about Christmas tree science with Rick Bates, associate professor of horticulture in the College of Agriculture Sciences at Penn State University. Our number, 1-800-989-8255. Rick, let's get into some of the dos and don'ts of a Christmas tree. For example, when is the best time to buy the tree?

BATES: Well, usually sometime after Thanksgiving is when the Christmas tree sale season starts to heat up. It kind of depends on what your estimation is of how long you want to leave the tree up. You know, I normally go out and get a tree the weekend after Thanksgiving, and I procrastinate in taking it down, and so it sometimes doesn't come down until after the first of the year. So that may be five or six weeks.

So you don't want to push the envelope, or you might end up with more needles on the floor. So, you know, generally four to six weeks ought to be the limit. So if you're, let's say, you know, choosing a species that maybe doesn't have the best needle retention, let's say a white pine or a Scotch pine, maybe you want to wait until the first of December, in that first week of December, or the second week of December.

You may not want to try to leave it on display for quite as long.

FLATOW: Let's talk about a live tree. We've had a number of tweets. Nathan Rider(ph), (unintelligible), they want to know, first: Should I dig up an X-mas tree to plant after the holidays, how can I make sure it lives, how do I keep the tree and replant it after Christmas? What are the dos and don'ts for a live tree?

BATES: Those are all good questions, and it tends to be a little bit more complicated, you know, than the face value of the question. We have a lot of trouble keeping trees, live trees alive when we transplant them back outside in the landscape after Christmas.

And probably the best way to go about it, rather than actually digging up a tree and hauling it inside, would be to go to a local garden center or some of the retailers that are now offering this kind of product, like a containerized conifer, maybe a little bit smaller than a six- to seven-foot tree, but they're out there, and they're becoming more common.

Start with that kind of product, and then rather than planting it outside directly after the display period, after, you know, the first of the year, keeping it inside, something like an unheated garage. The light doesn't matter so much as just not exposing it to the real cold temperatures, especially here in the Northeast, after you've had it on display. And then...

FLATOW: Do you water it? If you have it in your garage, do you water the root ball at all, or...

BATES: You know, because it's a cooler environment, and it's not exposed to the wind, it doesn't use a lot of water. So rather than maybe a once-a-week watering, just check it frequently, maybe once a week, but I bet you only have to water it once every couple of weeks. It's not going to use a lot of water.

And then just as soon as the ground becomes workable in the spring, that might be March for some parts of the country, maybe April, that's when you want to go out and actually plant it. If you do that, I think your chances of that tree surviving in the landscape are going to be a lot better than if you just dig something up from a farm or from your yard, drag it inside and then replant it.

The other thing to keep in mind is that the longer you keep that kind of live tree inside on display in a warm living room, the worse your chances are going to be for that plant living once you plant it back outside. So you want to kind of limit the amount of time to maybe a week to 10 days inside on display versus a cut Christmas tree, you know, that's going to be recycled after the display period, anyway, so you can leave it inside until it actually starts to shed needles.

But for this live product that you want back out in your yard, you know, try to limit the amount of time that you're going to have it inside.

FLATOW: That's some shock it goes through if it's going to go from the warm to the cold.

BATES: Yeah, exactly.

FLATOW: Yeah, let's go to Bonnie(ph) in North Little Rock, Arkansas. Hi Bonnie.

BONNIE: Hi, I'm just wondering about what variety of tree is least likely to cause allergy problems. I've had some trouble over the past three years with when the tree comes in the house, and I'm thinking about an artificial tree, it would be the first one I've ever had. So I love a live tree.

BATES: That's a good question, and I hope you kind of stick with it and continue using a live tree. I don't know that there are really big differences between species in terms of allergies that we know about. There are some environmental factors that I think can lend, you know, to a tree maybe having the spores or the mold that might cause a problem.

If you have a period of time when the tree's been harvested that it's wet or particularly if it's warm and moist, and there in Arkansas you may have some November temperatures and conditions where it's relatively warm, there's a lot of moisture around, often when a Christmas tree producer or retailer has a cut tree, they will bail it, which means they'll wrap it in twine, bundle it up so that it stores better.

That kind of traps some of that moisture inside. So something like opening that tree up before you bring it inside, especially if it's been on display at a retail outlet under those kind of warm, moist conditions, that can help. Let it dry out.

FLATOW: Should you cut - put a fresh cut where the old one is?

BATES: Well, that's going to help in terms of the longevity and the quality of the tree inside. It may not do much in terms of allergies or spores. The other thing is a lot of choosing cut farms and the better retailers, they're probably going to shake the tree before you buy it. So they'll put it basically on a device that simply vibrates the tree, and that knocks out any kind of loose needles or dead needles that may be up in the tree.

And that gets rid of a lot of the debris, a lot of the structures like the dead needles, where, you know, there might be a spore or something on that needle. And that can kind of clean the tree up. So that can help. Most conditions, people generally don't have much of a reaction.

FLATOW: Bonnie, thanks for calling. Good luck to you.

BONNIE: OK, thank you.

FLATOW: 1-800-989-8255. Let's go to Stan(ph) in Tallahassee. Hi, Stan.

STAN: Hey, yeah, I had a question. We have a - one year we let our tree stay out on the back lanai, and we're in North Florida, and the temperature was cool, and there was a lot of sun. And I was wondering: Does the - does that affect - how does temperature and light affect how long your tree will live? And I'll take it off the air.

FLATOW: OK, thanks. Yeah, what affects how long your tree with live? And maybe you can throw in that question I asked about cutting it when you get it home. Does that affect how long it lives?

BATES: It does. The best way to look at it, I think, Ira, is it's a combination of genetics and environment. And the genetics are based in the tree. So there'll be some tree-to-tree differences and some differences between these species that we've talked about. But then the other big factor are the environmental conditions that the tree is exposed to.

And really what we're talking about are the environmental factors that relate to water, to hydration of the tree and to how quickly the environmental factors around that tree pull water out of the tree. And so the key is if you want to control the environment is to try to keep the tree as hydrated as you can during the entire display period.

And so that would start with, like you mentioned, fresh half-inch or inch cut on the base of the tree if you don't know how long it's been since the tree was harvested. That's going to open up the xylem vessels to take in water. It's going to open the tree up to absorb water. And trees actually can drink a lot of water, especially when they're freshly cut.

So it's not uncommon for a tree to absorb a gallon or more a day.

FLATOW: A gallon a day?

BATES: A gallon a day. A good rule of thumb is about a quart of water per inch of stem diameter per day. And this goes down kind of over the lifespan of the tress when it's inside. But initially, that could be a lot of water. And then...

FLATOW: What about those plant packets they put inside? Do those help keep the tree alive?

BATES: The research that we have to date don't really indicate that there's much benefit from that. You'd be better off concentrating your efforts on things like making sure you've got a proper reservoir of water, something that holds at least a gallon, keeping freshwater in there.

Like your caller suggests, maybe keeping it out of the sun, out of drafts, away from heat, a heater vent, or something like that can tend to dry the tree out. So what you're really trying to do are modify or reduce all those factors that would suck moisture out of the tree, and that's going to probably do more than anything else to extend the life of the tree on display.

FLATOW: One question for you about, you know, we're looking forward - what's the best way to dispose of your tree once the holiday's over?

BATES: Well, when the holidays are over and, you know, I don't know if you're like me, I tend to push the envelop and I don't really take the tree outside until I kind of start to see needles dropping and it clearly is on its way out. Most municipalities now have a good recycling program where they will turn that Christmas tree into mulch, just like they would branches or leaves in the autumn. So they'll take the tree, and they'll put it into that composting waste stream and turn it into something useful that the municipality then often either gives away or sells in the form of mulch. So it's a great way to recycle. And actually, if you get on the website realchristmastrees.org, you often can actually find a recycling program in your municipality.

FLATOW: I heard that you have a novel or have come up with a novel method of disposal of Christmas tree that we wouldn't have thought of or expected - in a lake. Is that correct?

BATES: Yeah. If you're out in the country or around a reservoir or a farm pond or farm lake, some people will take the Christmas tree and actually toss it into the lake, and it actually provides some habitat for small fish.

FLATOW: Will they allow you to do that?

BATES: Oh, you probably want to ask first. I - a number of years ago lived on - next to a farm and - that had a couple of farm ponds, and the farmer was happy to have the Christmas trees in the lake because there was a pretty healthy bass population and bluegill population. So it's a good practice. Not everybody can do that if you're in an urban area, but certainly that or recycling the tree is a real good solution. It really is a renewable resource, and so we grow the trees and turning them into mulch after the season is a good way to dispose of them.

FLATOW: And what about the temperature of the water? You say we need a gallon jug to put it in, to keep it filled with a gallon. Does it help to make it hotter water than, you know, than average temperature?

BATES: It really doesn't matter. Cold water is fine. What does matter is the fresh cut on the base of the tree. If it's been, you know, a day or so since that tree has been harvested, putting the fresh cut opens up those pores that are going to draw in the water. And if the water is cold or hot, it doesn't matter so much as having a fresh cut and no sap covering that base of the trunk.

FLATOW: So, that's the most important thing then? Enough water...

BATES: Yeah.

FLATOW: ...give it a fresh cut and have a Merry Christmas.

(LAUGHTER)

BATES: Yeah. And enjoying the tree, and, you know, those things like keeping it maybe out of the sunlight...

FLATOW: Out of the sun.

BATES: ...out of drafts, away from heater vents. But then checking the reservoir routinely because I find that commonly people are surprised just with how much water the trees, especially in that first week, so keeping an eye on that Christmas tree stand reservoir.

FLATOW: And keep the fruit baskets away from it. Thank you very much, Rick.

BATES: OK. Thank you.

FLATOW: Happy holiday to you. Rick Bates, associate professor of horticulture at Penn State University. I'm Ira Flatow. This is SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR.

Copyright © 2012 National Public Radio. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.

View the original article here