Monitoring a nearby star’s midlife crisis, and the energetic cost of chewing

<p>On this week’s show: An analog to the Maunder Minimum, when the Sun’s spots largely disappeared 400 years ago, and measuring the energy it takes to chew gum</p> <p>We have known about our Sun’s spots for centuries, and tracking this activity over time revealed an 11-year solar cycle with predictable highs and lows. But sometimes these cycles just seem to stop, such as in the Maunder Minimum—a 70-year period from 1645 to 1715 with little or no sunspot activity. News Intern <a href="https://www.zacksavitsky.com/">Zack Savitsky</a> joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/nearby-star-midlife-crisis-suggests-our-own-sun-may-lose-its-spots-again-decades">a nearby star that appears to have entered a similar quiet period</a>, and what we can learn from it about why stars take naps.</p> <p>Also this week on the show, <a href="https://adamvancasteren.com/">Adam van Casteren</a>, a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Manchester, joins Sarah to talk about <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abn8351">measuring how much energy we use to chew up food</a>. Based on the findings, it appears humans have turned out to be superefficient chewers—at least when it comes to the gum used in the study—with less than 1% of daily energy expenditure being spent on mastication.</p> <p>This week’s episode was produced with help from <a href="https://podigy.co/">Podigy</a>.</p> <p>[Image: NASA/SDO; Music: Jeffrey Cook]</p> <p>[alt: photo of the largest sunspot from our latest solar cycle with podcast overlay symbol]</p> <p>Authors: Sarah Crespi; Zack Savitsky</p> <p>Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ade4241</p> <p>About the Science Podcast: https://www.science.org/content/page/about-science-podcast</p><p>See <a href="https://omnystudio.com/listener">omnystudio.com/listener</a> for privacy information.</p>