Chilled lorries are the backbone of our food distribution system, keeping our pork pies and hummus safe and fresh on route to the supermarket. The problem for our air quality and carbon emissions is that many of the refrigeration units are powered by diesel engines.
Tom Heap meets a team converting these Transport Refrigeration Units from diesel to liquid nitrogen. If successful they could take a bite out of greenhouse gases in the west and, more importantly, offer a clean chilling option for farmers and food companies in the developing world. Food that spoils on the way to the consumer hurts farmers, causes hunger and increases carbon emissions. If meat, dairy, fruit and vegetables can be kept fresh for longer then everyone wins.
Dr Tamsin Edwards of King's College, London helps Tom calculate just how much carbon dioxide could be removed from the environment if we use techniques like this to slash food waste.
Producer: Anne-Marie Bullock
Researcher: Sarah Goodman
Produced in association with the Royal Geographical Society. Special thanks for this episode to Dr Harry Kennard from University College London.
Some food crops convert just one percent of the sun's energy into edible food. If we can improve the process of photosynthesis we can grow more food on less land. Tom Heap visits a Yorkshire greenhouse to meet the team from Glaia with a cunning idea to do just that. Back in the studio, Dr Tamsin Edwards, climate scientist and fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, considers the potential impact on our global carbon emissions.
Producer: Alasdair Cross
Researcher: Sarah Goodman
Produced in association with the Royal Geographical Society. Special thanks for this episode to Professor Vincent Gauci from the University of Birmingham.
Trees are often thought to be the good guys when it comes to climate change. In Siberia, however, it's not always the case. The landscape was changed when humans arrived and the forest that took over from grasslands is causing problems. In Pleistocene Park, Russian scientists are carrying out a radical rewilding - removing trees and reintroducing species of grazing animals to help protect the permafrost - the deep frozen ground - from thawing and releasing methane into the atmosphere. Tom Heap and Dr Tamsin Edwards consider how this ambitious idea could help in the fight against climate change.
Producer : Anne-Marie Bullock
Researcher: Sarah Goodman
Produced in association with the Royal Geographical Society. Special thanks for this episode to Professor Vincent Gauci from the University of Birmingham.
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
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Dr. Mia Taormina, infectious disease specialist at the DuPage Medical Group, explains the latest coronavirus science and the precautions to take to navigate the pandemic. Look for our latest interview with her in your podcast feed every Sunday.
For more Reset interviews, please subscribe to this podcast and leave us a rating. That helps other listeners find us. For more about the program, you can head over to the WBEZ website or follow us on Twitter at @WBEZreset.
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.
