Why wasn’t the Russia mega earthquake as damaging as previous ones?

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This is the podcast of BBC Inside Science, first broadcast on the 31st of July, 2025.

Hello!

As the streamers settle on the Lioness's footballing victory, the science begins in earnest.

Can the data generated at the women's Euros predict the next champions?

And we talk scrumping and scrumpy.

Turns out we aren't the only ape that likes a tipple.

And technology journalist Gareth Mitchell is here with me to bring a rundown of the innovations that could change your life.

Any hints for what you'll be talking about, Gareth?

Yeah, I can give a few hints.

There's a little bit about the Airbus A380 and also how VR can be a little bit clunky, you know, those big VR goggles that we have to wear.

That might be about to change, but maybe in the near future, or not so near future.

Brilliant, thanks, Gareth.

First of all, though, the whole Pacific region was on alert this week after an enormous and rare 8.8 magnitude earthquake struck just off Russia's east coast.

And yet, it hasn't created the devastating tsunamis like the ones that hit Fukushima in 2011 or the Boxing Day disaster of 2004.

Dr.

Stephen Hicks is lecturer in environmental seismology at UCL and joins me now for the lowdown.

Welcome to Inside Science, Stephen.

Hi Marni.

So first question I guess, the earthquake caused a tsunami, but why wasn't it as bad as previous tsunamis?

So yesterday's earthquake was of magnitude 8.8 and so the previous cases you mentioned there were actually magnitude 9 plus earthquakes.

So actually even though it's a fraction in terms of a number that makes quite a lot of difference in terms of the amount of fault movement and the area area of geological fault or plate boundary that moved.

But also, I think what it probably comes down to primarily is the depth at which the fault, so these two blocks of rocks, slid alongside each other during that earthquake.

If that fault, if that rupture breaks the,

reaches into the sea floor,

then it can create one of these really worst case scenarios like the 2011 Japan earthquake.

So that one did break the sea floor.

It's likely that yesterday's earthquake offshore of the Kamchaka Peninsula didn't quite reach the seafloor.

So that would have really reduced the tsunami waves because when that fault moves, it moves vertically, it moves up and down, and that can then create or displace a lot of water in the ocean over the top of the fault, which creates the big tsunamis.

But it's still been described as a mega earthquake.

I don't know what that means.

Is that an official science term?

Yeah, it's, I think, an earthquake of magnitude 8.5 or greater.

So yesterday's earthquake was magnitude 8.8.

So that makes it the sixth largest earthquake we've ever recorded since we've sort of had our detailed network of seismometers around the world.

So, since about 1900, it's huge.

These earthquakes come every sort of decade or so, or a few decades.

So, it's definitely, you know, even though the tsunami across the Pacific wasn't too large, it's definitely not an earthquake to take lightly.

One of the big things to come out of this was how well the warning systems in this case worked.

I mean, more than two million people across the Pacific were ordered to evacuate, but the damage didn't end up being that major.

So, Steve, was this a case of undue panic?

If we think back to 2004, the Boxing Day earthquake in Indonesia, back then we didn't really have an international tsunami warning system.

So that's why people in places like Sri Lanka, Thailand sadly didn't get any warning, even though it took that tsunami sort of hours to cross the Indian Ocean.

So what we've got now is pretty amazing, really.

So we've got a network of seismometers around the world, which tells us sort of where and when the earthquake happens and then that sort of initial earthquake then triggers the tsunami warning systems and we have this network of sea floor sensors, tide gauges which communicate to satellite which are then sort of triggered to then detect the tsunami wave and analyze sort of its height and the time it takes to travel to certain locations as it progresses and refines those forecasts.

So these forecasts are amazing now and given these initial forecasts come out within minutes of the earthquake happening.

It's fantastic that we have these.

There are lots of different uncertainties that go into these models.

Like I said before, we don't always know exactly at what depth the earthquake happens relative to the seafloor, and that really controls the height of the tsunami.

But given that these mega earthquakes, these magnitude 8.5 plus earthquakes happen

generally decades apart, it's not like we're having these sort of warnings every day.

So they're really important to steer on the conservative side, I think.

And finally, given that this was a mega earthquake, was it felt in the UK at all?

This earthquake, it wouldn't have been felt by humans in the UK, but our network of seismometers all around the world will be picking up this earthquake.

And it will be picking up this earthquake probably for a few more days to come.

So there's the ground vibrations caused by this earthquake felt on the other side of the planet, somewhere like the UK.

These will be in terms of sort of a fractions of a millimetre in terms of the ground motion.

So, Steve,

you say network of seismometers.

You've got one in your shed, right?

Yeah, so as a dedicated seismologist, I'm currently testing a new piece of kit, just running it in my garden shed at the moment.

And this is still picking up seismic waves from yesterday's earthquake.

So we have two types of sort of signals being picked up.

So one is called surface waves, so they're vibrations which travel all the way around the outer part of the planet.

And these keep going round and round.

for hours to days after a large earthquake.

And there's another type of specific type of seismic signal which we can pick up only after these really large earthquakes, and they're called normal modes.

And it's basically picking up the earth resonating almost like a bell.

So, if you were to hit a bell, it resonates at a particular frequency.

The earth does the same after large earthquakes.

So, even though these earthquakes happen on distant parts of the planet to where we are, they're still impacting the ground beneath our feet and will do for probably a few more days to come.

Thank you, Dr.

Stephen Hicks, seismologist at UCL.

There's lots of ways to win a football match, and we repeatedly did it the hard way.

As we always have a plan, and we tried to execute that, and the players on the pitch, and we just kept having hope.

It's incredible to stand here today and with a winner's medal around our neck.

The group effort that we had in this tournament was unbelievable.

From every single player won to 23, it was...

I've never seen anything like it.

They won the Euros and brought it home twice.

Yes, we are midway through a much proclaimed summer of sport.

For details, may I recommend BBC Five Live.

Over here in our science corner of Radio 4, we're wondering if it has actually been the summer of sports data.

It's being measured in ever more powerful and precise ways, and the tech just keeps getting better.

But what's being gathered and how will it be used?

Could data help the lionesses in their quest for the ultimate footballing prize, the World Cup?

I spoke to Professor of Sports Engineering at Sheffield Hallam University, Steve Haik, and asked, has this been the summer of sports data?

It absolutely has, blimey.

I mean, you know, we've had Wimbledon.

Wimbledon creates so much stats.

We have hawkeye trajectories left, right, and centre and player maps on the court.

I've always loved stats with tennis and then of course we've just had the Euros.

I'm thinking that England manager Serena Wiegman is

probably sitting by a pool right now with her feet up, maybe having a well-earned rest.

But when she is back to work, what kind of player data will she be crunching?

So, while she's away,

the performance analysts will be looking at copious amounts of video.

Now, some of this video will come pre-tagged, so UEFA has kindly been recording videos, and what they have is they have people tagging crosses and passes and shots and corners.

So you get lots of information about what has happened during a game, where players were and things like that.

And she might maybe go on holiday to her pool and ask her performance analysts to stay behind and look at particular aspects of the team, particular players that came on.

Chloe Kelly came on in the final.

Things kind of changed.

So how did they change?

What was the causes?

What would they do next time?

So she might have some very specific questions to ask of a performance analyst and of her players.

Will you get very specific answers though?

Or will you get, oh, this player made 0.3% difference maybe to the, I don't know, number of crosses?

What Sueen will be looking for is what was the story of the match?

But then there will be this kind of coaching insight.

You know, and 20 years ago, it used to be watch a game, maybe have a video, a grainy video and go, right, this is what I think happened.

What they have now is they have like an overload of data.

And actually what we're looking for is looking for knowledge, not just data.

And every coach will have their own way of dealing with that.

Some are good, some are not so good.

Serena seemed very good at taking in all information and making very good decisions.

In any game, you get the player that gets all the attention, the person of the match.

When scientists look at the data afterwards, does the data usually correlate with people's gut instinct of who the best player is?

You know,

yes, quite often, you know, your gut instinct is, oh my goodness, that midfielder

did most of the tackling, most of the crosses.

And that can come out and you go, oh, yes, yes.

There's a little bit of self-bias because you tend to look for stats that back up what you're thinking.

But, you know, quite often, I'll think of that.

There was a defender that used to play for Man United,

Jap Stam.

And he was not necessarily in favour with Alex Ferguson.

And that was because he felt that he didn't do enough last-ditch tackles.

He didn't seem to go down on the ground and do these amazing tackles that he expected.

But Jap Stam's approach was: if I position myself right, I will always make a tackle without doing a last-ditch tackle, which is actually that, last ditch.

You shouldn't have to do that if you're doing your job appropriately.

So that doesn't always come out in the stats.

So it doesn't always work.

So that's football.

Are there other sports that

use more data than football does?

The kind of sophistication depends on how much equipment is involved.

Because when you've got equipment, you can attach the kit that you need to for the recording to something.

So like rowing, rowing, we, you know, we're working with rowers and we're putting camera systems on front of the boats and

systems in the oar locks to measure forces.

Cycling is a great example.

If you look in the Tour de France, you've got cars following the cyclists, and the cars will be picking up all sorts of information from the bikes.

And that car is talking directly into the gear back of the athlete and giving them direct feedback.

So that's quite sophisticated.

The pinnacle of all of that, I suppose, is Formula One.

So, what I want to know is, is there any useful data now that could give us a window on the lioness's chances in the Women's World Cup?

What Serena will be doing is trying to get the probabilities of success on her side.

So, you know, have a really strong squad, you know, quality in depth.

So that's what she'd be looking for.

Understanding how the bits of her team fit together.

So, you know, hemp was kind of moved across the pitch, you know, central midfield, right of midfield.

So she needs to know where her players can play and who's those utility players that she might have access to.

So she needs to know all that information.

She has that and she has this kind of big, big squad to choose from, then success is quite probable and she can make, go, okay, we have a really strong chance of success.

But then on the day, there's all sorts of things that can happen.

You could have someone sent off, you know, you could have some three or four players who are injured and suddenly every plan

has gone to pot.

Is the future going going to be taking these predictions out of our hands and just using AI?

There is a chance that might be possible.

I'm not sure coaches will ever go for that,

partly because,

you know, their jobs rest on their decisions and the one thing they trust is themselves.

But it might allow you to just have the information at the tip of your fingers.

So for instance, in the dynamics of a game where something suddenly changes, you know, someone goes off injured and the coach goes, all right, I've got A or B to put on.

Who should I put on?

Quick question to the AI and the AI will go, okay, this is what we've discussed previously.

This is likely scenarios.

And then that allows you to make some decisions based upon the probabilities that come out.

Professor Steve Haik, Gareth, bringing you in here because this really is your area of expertise.

It hasn't all been plain sailing, though, when it comes to handing over the reins, particularly to AI.

Not amazingly, and I'm not going to win any prizes for originality by harking back to Wimbledon, fresh in our memories, where, of course, you know, we had the line judges, they were cast aside for a bit of AI line calling technology.

And

by and large, to be fair, it worked reasonably well.

But, of course, the incident that we all, and certainly I remember, was when Sonny Cartel went down to that notorious centre court defeat because of a faulty call.

And it turned out that the problem wasn't with the technology itself, it was with the technology operator.

They hadn't switched it on.

Q Red Faces at Wimbledon.

Thanks, Gareth.

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Now, since I've got you, Gareth, what are your views on scrumping?

Well, I've actually been the victim of scrumping when I was a child.

Beautiful, bucolic mid-Wales upbringing.

And we had apple trees and the naughty kids from up the road used to come and get our apples.

And it made me quite cross as a seven-year-old.

So I think apples should be shared.

Anyway, the BBC is obviously not condoning fruit theft, but I do think windfalls are fair game.

Now our closest ape relatives are similarly partial to a bit of fruit.

The thing is, there's a big difference between being a fruit eater and a windfall eater.

Sometimes 1-2% alcohol by volume difference.

And up to now, science hasn't had the language to distinguish between teetotal fruit eaters and fermented fruit eaters.

It's something Professor Kat Hobater at the University of St Andrews has been looking into and she joined me to share her unusual new work looking at how science has overlooked the role of slightly boozy fruit in our evolution.

We know we have a long-standing relationship with alcohol in many different forms but we maybe had no idea just how long that's been going on.

And there's been some interesting genetic hints that, you know, this might might be something that was quite

special to African apes in particular.

But we just weren't sure why.

And so it turns out that it's been right in front of our noses the whole time and we just were looking in the wrong place.

So let's go back to the beginning.

How are apes consuming alcohol?

Apes are consuming alcohol the way lots of different animals are, which is through eating fruits, ripe fruits in particular.

all are going to contain a small amount of ethanol, of alcohol.

And so that's something that lots of different species are exposed to.

And it's not necessarily like it's a super kind of like boozy kind of like alcohol-soaked cherry or something like that.

But even small amounts of alcohol, when you're eating pounds and pounds of fruit a day, chimpanzees can be eating, you know, up to 10 pounds of fruit a day.

That's going to add up.

And crucially, they've got the genes that allow them to break down alcohol.

So the sort of things that wouldn't have evolved and lingered unless they were useful.

So what do these genes tell tell us about apes and their history with alcohol?

Well about 10 years ago there was a really interesting genetics paper that essentially showed that African apes, so gorillas, bonobos, chimpanzees and us, Our version of the gene that helps you metabolize alcohol is about 40 times more efficient than that in other primates.

So other primates can, but we are sort of supercharged to be able to do this.

And nobody really knew why, because, you know, if we were talking about it being an ape thing, the orangutans should be included, but they're not.

They seem to be quite different.

And so that was the puzzle we set out to try and solve.

Your paper, Kat, contains this great quote, which I love this.

The history of ideas is paved by constraints of language.

Are you saying that the scientists have kind of missed this idea that apes consume alcohol because there isn't a neat word to describe what they're doing?

Yes.

Now, you would think that if you've sat there, as many primatologists do, watching these primates every day, you would be, and you know, this is quite literally our job to pay attention to their behaviour, that you would be noticing all of the small details, and we do try, but it's definitely the case that if you don't have a word for something, sometimes it just doesn't catch your attention.

And there's all sorts of really beautiful examples of this.

And we've needed words to be able to talk about what have been quite complex concepts in science, things like symbiosis or Richard Dawkins' gift of the word meme, which has now been repurposed everywhere.

And so in a kind of similar vein, what we realized was that we didn't really have a word for discriminating when primates are eating fruit in trees or eating fruit on the ground.

And that might turn out to be really important because the fruit that's on the ground is the really overripe stuff, the stuff that's had a chance to ferment, get a little bit more alcohol and ethanol in it.

And so it might be a great situation to be exposed to alcohol.

But we didn't really have a way to describe it because we just described primates as frugivorous.

Eating fruit is eating fruit.

At the same time, actually, we all had that data available to us because we pay a lot of attention to where a primate is.

Is it on the ground?

Is it up in the tree?

And we pay attention to what it's eating.

We just had never put those two data sets together.

And we think one of the reasons that that was overlooked was there wasn't really a conveniently simple term for feeding on fermented fruits on the ground.

So Kat, what word have you picked?

So we decided we would go with the beautifully euphonic word scrumping, partly just because it makes you really happy to say it out loud, but also because it's a perfect example.

So scrumping refers to gathering windfall and fruits, often apples, from the ground.

It's related to a much older Germanic word that meant sort of shriveled or overripe.

And so that also tracks with this idea of these overripe fermented fruits that the apes are gathering up off the ground.

And so we think scrumping is a really important part of ape behavior.

It's going to allow us to ask all kinds of really interesting questions about apes and humans' evolutionary relationship with alcohol.

And now we've got that word, we've been able to go out there and look for data and ask lots of other primatologists if we could have their data sets too.

And so far everybody's been on board.

So it's really exciting.

So let's get this straight.

This is a word that I associate with stealing fruit.

You're repurposing for science

to mean

when apes are eating fruit off the ground.

Exactly.

So it's all of those windfall and fruits, and it's definitely got that slightly cheeky, maybe they're not quite yours edge to it.

But we're constantly, that's the beautiful thing about language is that language evolves.

We're constantly repurposing words and shifting them and changing their meaning.

And we think that this is one that was just really well suited to what we wanted to do.

And also, do you want something that's a little bit memorable?

And, you know,

wouldn't like to use the word scrumping more often in their day-to-day work life?

Cat hobeter there.

Gareth Mitchell, BBC tech broadcaster, is still with me.

And Gareth, you've been scouring the latest news science to share the best of the rest for us.

I think you've got updates on a story that we got very excited about back in spring.

Yes, that's right.

Regular inside science listeners, or other people out there in the world who are just interested in this stuff, may have heard back in April the discovery of some

what was being hailed anyway by some not us as the potential for signs of life on a planet outside the solar system so this is a little planet called K218b

catchy as you do it's 124 million light years away and it was exciting because the James Webb Space Telescope, it's an infrared telescope, but it seems to have sensed traces of some molecules that are associated with life.

That's the bit where scientists get excited and go, oh, there could be life out there.

What's the update?

The update was that the Cambridge team, who originally announced that research in April, have teamed up with another team at Caltech and they've gone through another load of data from the James Webb Space Telescope.

This time looking at different wavelengths within the infrared, they've kind of reassessed and reappraised.

And the upshot seems to be that any hint of molecules associated with life may be a little bit premature.

So I'd say the chances of there being even those molecules, or let alone anything like life, on K218B has become more remote.

It's vanished in a puff of smoke.

I think so, in a puff of infrared.

Oh dear.

Moving on, mixed reality 3D.

Yeah, I love this.

You know, because I'm a bit of a tech geek, as you know.

And people who do a lot of gaming, they'll might be using those VR goggles.

And they're great, but even like the best ones now, they're still quite clunky.

They're really bulky.

They sort of take over most of your head.

They're definitely not for claustrophobic people.

No, and your head begins to hurt.

So there's this team at Stanford who have come up with a technology that could lead to much sleeker, meaner, lighter, more comfortable headset.

And when I say headset, this might be technology that could literally just fit into something a bit like your reading glasses.

So quite a step forward.

What has changed?

How have they made it better?

Yeah, okay.

So what goes on is they're using a technology called laser holography.

And I've looked at a few holograms in my time.

And anybody who has will know that, I mean, they're impressive.

Don't get me wrong.

It's like a 3D image that you see.

But one thing is they don't exactly have that pin sharp clarity that you might get on your mobile phone screen.

And another thing is you might get a half-decent image, but if you just move your gaze a little bit, then the image just goes all blurry.

So what the Stanford team have managed to do is to make this perfect space, as you might call, you know, as you move your eyes up and down, you know, it's a wider kind of space.

And they've done it by getting very good at making these things called waveguides, so these tiny little bits of either glass or plastic they can be that channel the light towards where our eyes are.

But that's still not perfect.

So they're kind of compensating for any imperfections in that whole waveguide mechanism mechanism with machine learning.

Just a prototype miles off being anywhere near the consumer electronics show, but who knows.

Okay, and finally, you promised us Airbus 380.

What's going on with the Airbus?

Yes.

So the Airbus A380, believe it or not, has been flying now for 20 years.

Its maiden flight was 20 years ago.

And by a weird coincidence, my car, for instance, happens to be 20 years old.

And I've noticed when I take my 20-year-old car to its MOT, more stuff seems to be wrong with it and I have to fix more things to get it through the MOT.

Classic.

And aeroplanes are very complicated things, especially the A380.

Of course it's absolutely massive, very complicated machine.

So things are inevitably going to be going wrong and that's been causing a little bit of concern in recent years, probably since the pandemic when all the planes or many of the aircraft were grounded and that's according to a Bloomberg report.

Okay.

If you get a problem with your car and it stops working,

that's upsetting.

But you really don't want that to be happening with your aeroplane.

Is it still safe to fly?

Yeah, I mean, that's the main point.

You know, I mean, you will read reports of fuel pumps being a problem.

There's a 24-hour delay because of a fuel pump.

There have been a number of these so-called airworthiness directives that have ordered airlines to fix these issues in the A380.

But the main, really important point here is that this is, if anything, a good news story about how aviation is meant to work.

You know, that the aviation regulators, working with the airlines and the engineers and crew, you know, pick up these problems before they become very serious and problematic to passengers.

So if you're going on an A380 over the summer on your holiday or something like that, have a nice flight.

It's a safe plane.

Also, I would like to say trains are also available.

Yes.

Thank you, Gareth.

Musical interlude time.

There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium, and hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium, and nickel,

and finally, satirical songwriter, and I didn't know this, mathematician for the US's National Security Agency, Tom Lehrer, died this week.

He is, I think, best known for the elements song that we've just heard a snatch from.

We've got a challenge for you, listeners.

Tom sang.

At the end of this list of elements, there may be many others since this song was sung at Harvard.

Alas, we cannot put them in, they have not been discovered.

Gareth, since he sang that, 1959, I think it was, do you know any of the new elements that have been discovered?

What a brilliant intro.

I'm still getting over that.

Yeah, there's one or two.

And one thing that strikes me, of course, it's a scientific breakthrough when these new elements are discovered.

But they don't work very hard on the names of these elements.

Go on.

Guess where this one was discovered?

Moscovium.

Oh, yes.

the Russians are big into trying to make new elements.

Oh well.

Well, Inside Science is going to be putting a list of our newest elements on the web page.

We thought if any listeners want to have a go at updating Tom's Elements song, please, please do have a go, send your voice notes of the newest verse to insidescience at bbc.co.uk and you never know, we might play your version on the radio next week.

You've been listening to to BBC Inside Science with me, Marnie Chesterton and my guest Gareth Mitchell.

Hello.

Hello.

The producers were Jonathan Blackwell, Dan Welsh and Claire Salisbury.

Technical production was by Kath McGee and Steve Greenwood.

The show was made in Cardiff by BBC Wales and West.

Bye!

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