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>> Elliott: Hey, Joe, what's your favorite thing about old stuff?
>> Joe: I like when it gets real old.
>> Elliott: Like, how old?
>> Joe: Like how-could-you-possibly-know-it's-that-old-old.
>> Elliott: That's my favorite kinda old, too, so guess what! You're gonna love this
new 4.4 billion-year-old crystal that was found in Western Australia.
>> Joe: My, what a gem, Elliott! Real find! Scientists say they discovered how old the
crystal was by studying its uranium and lead atoms. However, they could've just said,
"You wouldn't understand" and I would've stopped there.
>> Elliott: Now, this isn't just some rock -- like, ooh, look at the old rock. What
this crystal, whose magical properties have yet to be determined, proves is that the Earth
had a crust a lot sooner than previously estimated.
>> Joe: Now, at this point, Elliott and I would normally say—
>> Joe and Elliott: SCIENCE!
>> Joe: -- as a way to mask our general ignorance on the matter --
>> Joe and Elliott: NO PUN INTENDED! GET IT? MATTER! PUN RE-INTENDED!
>> Joe: --but rather than simply
>> Joe and Elliott: SAY SCIENCE!
>> Joe: We're gonna explain to you that way back in the day, it's believed that
a Mars-sized something-or-other smacked into our planet and produced the moon and before
that, it's believed that our planet was just an inside out Hot Pocket of lava, covered
in molten magma.
>> Elliott: Oh, and for the record, uranium decays into lead atoms very slowly and thus
can be used to determine this shard's age.
>> Joe: Pfft, what a shard.
>> Elliott: Shard alert!
>> Joe: Further implications based on this discovery are that our planet was ready for
life far sooner than we thought -- cue Snape "MY BODY IS READY" meme. Thank you.
>> Elliott: Lead author Professor John Valley, a shard-lover for sure, stated, "This confirms
our view of how the Earth cooled and became habitable. We have no evidence that life existed
then. We have no evidence that it didn't. But there is no reason why life could not
have existed on Earth 4.3 billion years ago."
>> Joe: Coulda had life.
>> Elliott: Coulda not.
>> Joe: You can't NOT prove it!
>> Elliott and Joe: SCIE—aaaah.
>> Elliott: These shards are called zircons, by the way, but we're told they come in
peace.
>> Joe: More like come in PIECES!
>> Elliott: BUNCHA SHARDS IF YOU ASK ME!
>> Joe: Shards that indicate it only took 100 million years for our planet to form the
crusty ground we walk on today and could have, if the temperatures were low enough, even
supported life.
>> Elliott: Or they could all just be making this stuff up.
>> Joe: Could go either way.
>> Elliott: If you could be any kind of scientist, what would it be? I'd be a cryptozoologist,
because you can never be wrong if none of what you study actually exists.
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