The LIUniverse with Dr. Charles Liu

• Chuck GPT Apocalypse, Part 2

  It’s the end of everything! Welcome back to Part 2 of our season finale featuring Dr. Charles Liu, co-host Allen Liu, and our guest archaeology expert and author, Hannah Liu, MEd. (If you haven’t caught up to Part 1, we highly recommend you do before embarking on the next leg of this journey! Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts!) We pick right up where we left off, with the next question from our audience. Daniela asks, “If a black hole hits the Sun, will Earth be destroyed?” Chuck explains a few ways a black hole can mess with our day, including the fact that long before any actual collision took place, the Sun would start shedding material that would destroy us. He compares that unlikely event to the actual example of cosmic destruction we’re watching in NGC 4676 – aka “The Mice” – which are two galaxies swirling together in a death spiral playing out over hundreds of millions of years. Naturally, this leads Chuck to ponder what happens when civilizations fall apart here on Earth, and Hannah brings up the collapse of the Roman Empire. As she explains, “the fall of Rome happened a lot of times, and also, no time.” From 44 BCE and the assassination of Julius Caesar, to the 476 invasion and conquest of Rome by the Germanic tribes denoted by Edward Gibbon in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, to the fact ever since nations have claimed to be the descendants or inheritors of Rome. Chuck points out the influence of Gibbon’s book on Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” series, followed by a very quick romp through “Decline and Fall of America” literature including The Handmaid’s Tale, A Canticle for Liebowitz, Man in the High Castle, and the zombie apocalypse tour de force, World War Z. Then it’s time for another question from the audience: Michael says, “I heard that scientists brought back a dire wolf. Could they bring back dinosaurs or animals that could destroy us all?” It turns out, these resurrected animals are just gray wolves that have been engineered to have some characteristics of the extinct predator. It’s still a pretty impressive feat, though, and you’ll hear how they collected bits and pieces of dire wolf DNA to “resurrect them.” Allen also brings up similar modification experiments they’re doing on chickens to make them more dinosaur-like. Allen points out that bioengineered germs are far more likely to cause our destruction than resurrected dinosaurs, regardless of the world envisioned in the Jurassic Park franchise. And speaking of Michael Crichton, Chuck gives us a breakdown of his sci-fi classic, The Andromeda Strain, about bacteria from space that cause a biological outbreak here on Earth. Hannah points out that historically, some of the biggest killers of human beings have been plagues. She gives us a guided tour of the bubonic plagues, from the Black Death, which may have wiped out as much as 60% of the population of Europe, to the Plague of Justinian a thousand years earlier that killed as many as 100 million people, while also name dropping the Antonine Plague and the Spanish Flu!) And that’s it Season 4 of The LIUniverse. Stay tuned for Season 5 after the summer. If you want to find out more about what Hannah’s impending book, check out the Mixed Identity Project  We hope you enjoy this episode, and this season, of The LIUniverse. If you did, please support us on Patreon Credits for Images Used in this Episode: NGC 4676, aka “the Mice” are two galaxies swirling together.  – Credit: NASA, H. Ford (JHU), G. Illingworth (UCSC/LO), M.Clampin (STScI), G. Hartig (STScI), the ACS Science Team, and ESA; The ACS Science Team: H. Ford, G. Illingworth, M. Clampin, G. Hartig, T. Allen, K. Anderson, F. Bartko, N. Benitez, J. Blakeslee, R. Bouwens, T. Broadhurst, R. Brown, C. Burrows, D. Campbell, E. Cheng, N. Cross, P. Feldman, M. Franx, D. Golimowski, C. Gronwall, R. Kimble, J. Krist, M. Lesser, D. Magee, A. Martel, W. J. McCann, G. Meurer, G. Miley, M. Postman, P. Rosati, M. Sirianni, W. Sparks, P. Sullivan, H. Tran, Z. Tsvetanov, R. White, and R. Woodruff. Plaster replica of Statue of George Washington by Antonio Canova at the North Carolina Museum of History.– Credit: Creative Commons / RadioFan (talk) Dire Wolf Cover of TIME magazine, May 12, 2025. – Credit: TIME magazine Page Museum Display of 404 dire wolf skulls found in the La Brea Tar Pits. – Credit: Creative Commons / Pyry Matikainen The spread of the Black Death in Europe, 1346-1353. – Credit: Creative Commons / Flappiefh - Own work from: Natural Earth ; Cesana, D.; Benedictow O.J., Bianucci R. (2017). Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes the Plague. Direct Fluorescent Antibody Stain (DFA), 200x. – Credit: CDC 2057 - US Government public domain image, Courtesy of Larry Stauffer, Oregon State Public Health Laboratory Little Ice Age Temperature Chart. – Credit: Creative Commons / RCraig09 - Own work #liuniverse #charlesliu #allenliu #hannahliu #sciencepodcast #astronomypodcast #hannahliu #apocalypse #armageddon #doomsday #ngc4676 #themice #blackhole #romanempire #direwolf #bubonicplague #blackdeath #yersiniapestis #theandromedastrain #michaelcrichton #jurassicpark #littleiceage

  --------  

  24:21
• Chuck GPT Apocalypse, Part 1

  As our fourth season draws to a close, we’ve got an apocalyptic, 2-part ending lined up. That’s right, we’re talking Armageddon, and we don’t mean the 1998 Bruce Willis blockbuster. And of course, if we’re going to delve into the end of everything, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu are going to need the help of our ever popular archaeology expert and author, Hannah Liu, MEd. As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing, the failed Soviet-era Kosmos 482 lander that was designed to withstand entry into the Venus atmosphere but never actually let Earth orbit and finally just came crashing back home on May 10, just a few days after we recorded this episode! Chuck, Allen and Hannah ponder the possibilities of cataclysmic destruction that the more than half-ton object could produce. Then, without missing a beat, Hannah takes us all the way back to Greek mythology and the Titanomachy, the legendary fights between the Gods and the Titans that were possibly inspired by catastrophic volcanic eruptions that laid waste to the ancient Mediterranean. Chuck jumps continents to discuss the Norse apocalypse known as Ragnarök – casually dropping that is inspired the massively popular Baldur’s Gate 3 as he does. Not to be outdone, Hannah brings us all back to the original Armageddon itself: the final battle between good and evil that is foretold in the Book of Revelations to take place at Har Megiddo, the “Hill of Megiddo” in Hebrew. You’ll also hear about where the word apocalypse comes from, and why it’s become associated with the end of the world, as Hannah gives us all a quick lesson in eschatology, or the study of the end of the world. Our first question comes from Ahmed, who asks, “What are the odds that a killer asteroid will kill us all?” Allen gets a little excited about asteroid 2024 YR4, an asteroid the size of a 15-story building, that is predicted to pass safely by Earth in 2032 but at one point had as high a chance of hitting us as 4-5% – and still has about a 3% chance of hitting the Moon. Chuck explains that the odds of a true “dinosaur-killer” extinction event asteroid impact from an object at least a mile across is about 50 million to 1 in any given year. Hannah points out that it’s far more likely that Mount Vesuvius, the volcano that inundated Pompeii, will erupt again. The last one was in 79AD, and since it tends to blow its top every 2,000 years or so, we’re due. Moving back further, Hannah tells us about the Minoan Eruption that devastated the isle of Santorini in the Mediterranean, wiping out the city of Akrotiri, around 1600 BCE and was reported as far away as China. And that’s just a few of the disastrous historic collapses Hannah shares with us, including the Hekla 3 eruption in Iceland that had may have had something to do with the Bronze Age Collapse. It turns out that the apocalypse is too big for a single episode! Join us in two weeks for Part 2 of our journey into all things apocalyptic. We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon. Credits for Images Used in this Episode: The Kosmos 482 lander probe reentered Earth's atmosphere on May 10 at 06:24 UT over the Indian Ocean. Because the Russian probe was designed to withstand entry into the Venus atmosphere, it is possible it survived reentry, but has landed in the ocean west of Jakarta, Indonesia.– Credit: NASA On March 26, 2025, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope captured images of asteroid 2024 YR4 that indicate the asteroid is about the size of a 15-story building. – Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Andy Rivkin (APL) Santorini island, Greece. Satellite image of Thera. The bay in the center of the island is the caldera created by the Minoan eruption.– Credit: NASA EOS Excavation of Akrotiri in 2018– Credit: Creative Commons: By Rt44 - Own work The Bull-Leaping Fresco from the Great Palace at Knossos, Crete – Credit: Creative Commons / Gleb Simonov Detail of Abraham Ortelius' 1585 map of Iceland showing Hekla in eruption. The Latin text translates as "The Hekla, perpetually condemned to storms and snow, vomits stones under terrible noise". – Credit: Creative Commons / Abraham Ortelius #liuniverse #charlesliu #allenliu #hannahliu #sciencepodcast #astronomypodcast #hannahliu #apocalypse #armageddon #doomsday #kosmos482lander #asteroid2024yr4 #titanomachy #ragnarak #baldursgate3 #bookofrevelations #harmegiddo #eschatology #mountvesuvius #pompeii #minoaneruption #hekla3 #bronzeagecollapse

  --------  

  27:00
• Finding Your Place in Space with Sadie Coffin

  Who are the “Redshift Wranglers” and what can they tell us about the evolution of our universe? To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome back astrophysics PhD candidate Sadie Coffin from the Rochester Institute of Technology whose focus is galactic evolution, and in particular, the spectroscopy of galaxies and their lights. As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing: the Lucy spacecraft fly-by of asteroid 52246 Donaldjohanson, which was named after the American paleoanthropologist who discovered the Australopithecus afarensis “Lucy” fossil the spacecraft was named after. Then it’s time to learn a little about Sadie, who explains how questioning the unknown is what drove her to study astronomy. Chuck, Allen and Sadie talk about the awe embodied in the study of the universe and the universe itself. Like Chuck, Sadie studies galaxy evolution, but Sadie focuses on a galaxy’s light, spread into spectra, and dissecting different features in that light. You’ll hear about the citizen science project called “Red Shift Wranglers” that helps Sadie sift through all the spectroscopic data, and get an awesome explanation of the doppler effect and the way red shift, which measures speed, can be used to help build better maps of galactic evolution. Find out how you can get involved with the project and join the ranks of the 3,500 Redshift Wranglers who’ve participated so far in “Wrangling galaxies and the universe together.” (See below for links.) You’ll also hear about other citizen science projects on Zooniverse like Galaxy Zoo. Sadie talks about the value of non-experts engaging with experts in a community, and the surprising number of people who want to get involved. For our first audience question, Nina asks, “If nothing can go faster than the speed of light, why can galaxies have Z greater than 1?” Sadie’s explanation gets pretty technical, so we’ll let her do it in the episode. Our next question comes from Jerry, who asks, “Will we someday no longer need scientists and have AI do all our research?” Sadie, who gets similar questions all the time relative to citizen science, believes these two things can be complimentary, and that in the name of improving science we can’t forgo either for the other. We finish with a discussion about what defines an act of science and a work of art, the process of questioning, and the roles of humans and machines in these processes. Plus, Sadie tells us about the science-themed travel posters by Dr. Tyler Nordgren on her walls. Chuck also gets Sadie to talk about rowing and the lessons she’s taken from the sport into other aspects of her life and journey as a scientist. If you’d like to know more about the Redshift Wrangler project on The Zooniverse and get involved, or to reach Sadie, visit https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/jeyhansk/redshift-wrangler or find Redshift Wrangler on Facebook and X (Twitter).   Listen to the COSMOS project episode referenced in this show with Dr. Jeyhan Kartaltepe, an astronomer and professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Watch Sadie’s previous appearance in this short video shot at the COSMOS Team Meeting 2023. We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon. Credits for Images Used in this Episode: The inner Solar System, with the Jupiter Trojan asteroids shown in green. – Credit: Mdf at Wikipedia/Public Domain. Lucy skeleton (AL 288-1) Australopithecus afarensis, cast from Museum national d'histoire naturelle, Paris. – Credit: Creative Commons. Absorption lines in the optical spectrum of a supercluster of distant galaxies (BAS11) (right), as compared to those in the optical spectrum of the Sun (left). Arrows indicating Redshift. – Credit: Creative Commons / Georg Wiora (Dr. Schorsch) created this image from the original JPG. Derivative work:Kes47. Color composite JWST NIRCam image of distant galaxy JADES-GS-z13-0. – Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb), L. Hustak (STScI). Science: B. Robertson (UCSC), S. Tacchella (Cambridge), E. Curtis-Lake (Hertfordshire), S. Carniani (Scuola Normale Superiore), and the JADES Collaboration. Dr Tyler Nordgren’s VLA NRAO travel poster – Credit: NRAO/Tyler Nordgren. #liuniverse #charlesliu #allenliu #sciencepodcast #astronomypodcast #sadiecoffin #redshiftwranglers #citizenscience #zooniverse #galaxyzoo #spectra #dopplereffect #redshift #galaxyevolution #tylernordgren #jeyhankartaltepe  

  --------  

  45:58
• Shredding and Stitching Stars with u/Andromeda321 (Yvette Cendes)

  If a black hole shreds a star and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound? To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome Professor Yvette Cendes, (aka u/Andromeda321 on Reddit), a Radio Astronomer studying transient radio signals from space. As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing, a report by the Dark Energy Survey that seems to show that the amount of dark energy originally described as the cosmological constant by Albert Einstein might in fact be variable. As Prof. Cendes explains, the data indicates that universal expansion is still accelerating but the rate might be changing. After Yvette explains what she does, and how radio astronomy works in concert with optical astronomy to deliver a more complete understanding, Chuck asks her to explain Tidal Disruption Events, or TDEs, about which she’s a world expert. A TDE is when a star wanders too close to a supermassive black hole and ends up getting shredded. Yvette prefers to call them “Shredders.” Our first audience question comes from Nachama, who asks, “When will the black hole in the Milky Way eat the Sun?” The good news, according to Yvette, is that will never happen. As she explains, black holes actually don’t suck any more than anything that massive would, and we’re 25-30,000 light years away from Sagittarius A* – too far away to worry about. Next, Chuck asks Yvette about one of the most famous transient signals we’ve ever found, the so called “Wow!” signal detected in 1977 by Jerry Ehman at the now-defunct Xavier Observatory in Ohio. Because the signal looked exactly like what might be expected if it were of extraterrestrial origin, Ehman circled it on the printout and wrote, “Wow!” Unfortunately, it never repeated. The most likely explanation, according to Dr. Cendes, is that it was some sort of manmade interference, although the signal is currently being reinvestigated. Yvette recounts how she ended up ended up as a first-term professor at the University of Oregon after studying in the Netherlands and Toronto and working at Harvard. Then she answers an audience question from Yan Min, who asks, “Where is the best place in the world to study astronomy? I live in New York – Is it New York?” Unfortunately for Yankees fans, Yvette says it would most likely be Cambridge, Massachusetts thanks to Harvard, which has the biggest number of astronomers under one roof and operates the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, and M.I.T. on the other side of town if you get bored. Chuck asks Yvette what happens after a black hole shreds a star. Shredders, she explains, are rare. In our own Milky Way, they probably happen once every million years. Once a TDE is classified by optical astronomers, Yvette and her team point their radio telescopes at the tidal radius outside of the event horizon to discern the outflows weeks, months and even years after the initial event. He also asks Yvette if she has any hobbies to help her decompress from thinking about violent events in the universe. She likes to cross stitch, the “original pixel art.” Yvette shows us a cross stitch she made of the James Webb Space Telescope complex mirror, another featuring an 8-bit Mario screen with the words “What doesn’t kill me makes me smaller,” and a third with objects in the Solar System. She also embroiders and shows us a hoop featuring the constellations visible in the northern hemisphere night sky. We end with Yvette and Allen schooling Chuck about Reddit’s immense reach and value in scientific discourse. One subreddit, called r/Space, has “27 million intelligent lifeforms” subscribed to it. On Reddit, Yvette’s username is u/Andromeda321, and she’s one of the top users on the platform over 1 million karma points. She’s known for starting her posts that explain or comment on recent discoveries with the phrase, “Astronomer here!” If you’d like to follow Dr. Yvette Cendes, you can find her on Reddit, where she’s u/Andromeda321, and her dedicated subreddit, reddit.com/r/Andromeda321. You can also follow her on Bluesky @whereisyvette.bsky.social. Links to the astronomy cross stitch kits shown in the episode: Wonders of the Solar System cross stitch by Climbing Goat: https://www.climbinggoat.co.uk/products/wonders-of-the-solar-system  Constellation Series Star Map by Kiriki Press: https://kirikipress.com/products/star-map  We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon. Credits for Images Used in this Episode: Artist's conception of a tidal disruption event (TDE). – Credit: Sophia Dagnello, NRAO/AUI/NSF The Wow! signal represented as "6EQUJ5". – Credit: Big Ear Radio Observatory and North American AstroPhysical Observatory (NAAPO) Artist’s illustration of the material generated by a TDE or “Shredder” – Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Queen’s Univ. Belfast/M. Nicholl et al.; Optical/IR: PanSTARRS, NSF/Legacy Survey/SDSS; Illustration: Soheb Mandhai #liuniverse #charlesliu #allenliu #sciencepodcast #astronomypodcast #yvettecendes #andromeda321 #astronomerhere #radioastronomer #transientradiosignals #darkenergysurvey #cosmologicalconstant #universalacceleration #wow!signal #6equj5 #tde #tidaldisruptionevents #supermassiveblackhole #shredders #sagittariusa #milkyway #crossstitch

  --------  

  48:24
• Early Galaxies, Intelligent Plants and the Geometry of D&D Dice With Justin Cole

  Why is it so difficult to study the evolution of early galaxies? Are metallic D&D dice better than plastic ones? And can you have too many Pokémon tattoos? To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome Justin Cole, who is currently a grad student at Texas A&M studying the evolution of distant galaxies in pursuit of his PhD in Astronomy and Astrophysics. As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing – the recent – and remarkable – discovery of four planets orbiting Barnard’s Star, a tiny star not much bigger than Jupiter with the highest measured proper motion of any star in our sky. Chuck and Justin discuss why the discovery of new exoplanets is so challenging, which leads to Justin explaining what he’s studying: galaxies in our universe that developed less than 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang – about 2.5 billion years before the birth of our own Milky Way Galaxy. We’ve got a handle on what’s going on with our neighbors like the Andromeda Galaxy, but when it comes to early galaxies, we have a very limited range of wavelengths and scant data to study. This makes it harder to derive understandings of galactic evolution and whether they support or conflict with the standard model of physics. Our first audience question comes from Ricardo, who asks, “What if we discover extraterrestrial plant life and find out it’s intelligent? Actually, what if we discover plants on Earth are intelligent? Would it be unethical to eat them?” After Chuck shares a little about Marvel’s intelligent, telepathic species of plants called the Cotati, and imitates Audrey 2 from Little Shop of Horrors, Justin weighs in on the ethics of eating intelligent plants and asks a critical question: Would we understand them enough to know? What would happen if we bit into a head of alien lettuce and it started screaming? The ensuing discussion is… tasty, albeit a little unsettling. Our next question is from Thomasina, who asks, “I read that the Big Bang theory is in trouble – what does that mean? And did the Big Bang never happen?” Justin, who is an early universe guy, clarifies what’s going on here. We occasionally find galaxies that seem to be too big for the amount of time that they’ve had to grow. We’re also finding black holes that with our current instruments, also appear to be too big. In each case, we’re finding better ways to simulate these situations, and it’s not that they’re too big, or that the Big Bang isn’t supportable, it’s that we’re using tools that are calibrated to “nearby and today” that aren’t as good at helping us assess early galaxies. Next up, Justin, who is getting ready to run a Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition roleplaying session after the podcast recording, talks about using D&D Beyond to create his own campaigns (set in the World of Warcraft universe!). Chuck and Justin discuss the benefits of rolling metal dice, and Justin shows off a couple of his beautiful D20. Not to be outdone, Allen shares his 120-sided die, the largest die allowed by three dimensional Euclidean geometry in conventional space. Meanwhile, Chuck tells us the sad story of his old, worn plastic dice. As Allen points out, Chuck was in the hobby before it was cool! And as we run out of time, Justin shares his intention to get one Pokémon tattoo for every state he and his wife visit. If you’d like to know more about what Justin’s up to, he suggests you Google “Justin Cole Astronomy” or “Justin Cole A&M.” We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon. Credits for Images Used in this Episode: Size comparison between Jupiter, Barnard's Star, and the Sun. – Credit: Creative Commons. Diagram of evolution of the (observable part) of the universe from the Big Bang (left), the CMB-reference afterglow, to the present. – Credit: NASA/WMAP Science Team. Evolution of the gas density overlaid with a transparency mask to only visualize regions with significant ionizing radiation in the Thesan-1 simulation. – Credit: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. #TheLIUniverse #CharlesLiu #AllenLiu #SciencePodcast #AstronomyPodcast #JustinCole #Astronomy #Astrophysics #BarnardsStar #GalacticEvolution #BigBang #StandardModelofPhysics #ExtraterrestrialPlantLife #IntelligentLife #D&D #Pokemon #Tattoos

  --------  

  38:10

More Fiction podcasts

Trending Fiction podcasts

About The LIUniverse with Dr. Charles Liu