Electricity from the sun is cheap and clean but the solar cells we see on our rooftops could be much more efficient. Henry Snaith of Oxford PV has developed a new material which helps solar roof panels extract more energy from the solar spectrum. Tom Heap visits Henry's lab and joins Dr Tamsin Edwards to consider the carbon-cutting potential of a new generation of solar energy.
Producer: Alasdair Cross
Researcher: Sarah Goodman
Produced in association with the Royal Geographical Society. Special thanks for this episode to Professor Stephen Peake from the Open University.
Odds are, if you have ever seen a photo of the president of the United States over the last 60 years, there has been someone in the background or walking a few steps behind, who had in their hand a leather satchel.
In that bag was everything the President would need to start armageddon.
Learn more about the Nuclear Football, what it is, and why it is always around, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Mutant strains of SARS-Cov2 have been identified not only in the UK, where it was first identified, but also in at least 30 other countries. And to complicate matters, another alarming variant, with some similar mutations, has arisen in South Africa. Roland Pease talks to Ravi Gupta, a virologist at Cambridge University and Tulio de Oliveira of the University of KwaZulu Natal about these new strains.
There’s only so much that can be learned about the virus by looking at the patients it infects. Thanks to techniques developed to study HIV, Ebola, flu and other viruses in the past, researchers have methods for growing key parts of viral structures in the lab and watching closely how they behave in cell cultures. Jeremy Luban of the University of Massachusetts and Alli Greaney at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center talk to Roland about how they are studying the biology of the mutations to discover how the new strains might respond to vaccines.
And, one of the more surprising consequences of the pandemic has been the trend for people wanting to move out of cities and back to the countryside. Not everyone has that privilege of course, but undoubtedly for some living in urban areas during lockdown, the lack of access to green spaces took its toll on their mental health and physical well-being. Now, with renewed hope of a global vaccine roll-out, ensuring more people have better access to nature is more important than ever, especially in cities of glass, steel and concrete.
Italian CrowdScience listener Enrica loves nothing better than walking along the verdant riverbank near her home after a hard week at work. But is this activity doing more than making her feel good? Is it having an actual effect on her health? Presenter Anand Jagatia meets Enrica and visits a radical scheme in the city of Milan, where officials have been working hard to increase urban green features and have committed to planting 3 million trees and building twenty new parks by 2030.
One such idea is the innovative Bosco Verticale - or vertical forest, planted up the side of two high rises apartment blocks. Amongst other benefits It’s hoped it could provide cooling microclimates to reduce the dangers
What can ants tells us about whether something deserves to be popular? This is a question tackled in David Sumpter?s book ? ?The Ten Equations that Rule the World: And How You Can Use Them Too.? He tells Tim Harford about some of the algorithms that you see in nature, and those harnessed by tech companies such as YouTube.
The musical Brigadoon is about a Scottish village which appears for one day every 100 years. The village can be thought of as a metaphor for things that are fleeting, or why we must take advantage of opportunities when they appear.
Brigadoon doesn’t exist in our world, but we do have the next best thing.
The Mc Rib.
Learn more about the sandwich which only occasionally appears on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Frederick Barbarossa's Crusade had failed miserably when the German Emperor accidentally drowned in a river while crossing Turkish-held Anatolia. The Crusaders left in the Middle East were desperately hanging onto Tyre, Tripoli and Antioch. Quarrels between them undermined their hopes of resisting Saladin. But at the moment of despair, there was an unexpected development that would give the Crusades a whole new lease of life.
Please take a look at my website nickholmesauthor.com where you can download a free copy of The Byzantine World War, my book that describes the origins of the First Crusade.
Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Joshua Geltzer, a former senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council under President Barack Obama and the founding executive director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Law. He also wrote this piece in February of 2019.
On the Gist, how do 39% of registered voters “approve” of Trump’s performance? 39%; really?
In the interview, Mike is joined by Stan Barnes to talk all things Arizona. Arizona just gave its two Senate seats to Democrats in a shocking upset for the long-time red state. Barnes is a former Republican state senator turned party consultant for the Copper State. He talks to Mike about the impact of Wednesday’s Capitol chaos on the Republican party and how there’s no “putting Humpty Dumpty back together again.”
And, today in Remembrances of Things Trump, the people who left the Trump administration before it became en vogue.
In the spiel, a slew of resignations following the chaos.
Email us at thegist@slate.com
Podcast production by Margaret Kelley, Cheyna Roth, and Jasmine Ellis.
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