Category: DailyShorts

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Bay Curious - State of Drought 5: Desalination, Water Recycling and More

A lot of listeners, including Steve Held, want to know why Bay Area cities aren't investing more in desalination plants as a long term fix to our water problems. We’re a state with 840 miles of coastline. Most of our big population areas are near the ocean. Why don’t we have more desalination plants? In this episode, we'll also talk about wastewater recycling and water budgeting.

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Reported by Katrina Schwartz. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz, Sebastian Miño-Bucheli and Brendan Willard. Additional support from Kevin Stark, Bianca Taylor, Erika Aguilar, Jessica Placzek, Kyana Moghadam, Isabeth Mendoza, Paul Lancour, Suzie Racho, Carly Severn, Ethan Lindsey, Vinnee Tong and Jenny Pritchett.

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Everything Everywhere Daily - Behold! The Potato

What did the first Chinese Emperor Qin, Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Gengis Kahn, the Queen of Sheba, and all their contemporaries who lived when they did have in common? None of them ever ate a potato. The potato is a rather new addition to the diets of the old world, and one which revolutionized civilization. Learn more about the potato and how changed world history, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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Bay Curious - State of Drought 4: Saving Water In Your Home

Even though California’s population has grown since 2017, we’re using 16% less water. Good job everyone! We’ve already made some big strides in water conservation that are paying off. Today, we’re going to look at more ways individuals can conserve water at home.

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Reported by Nina Sparling. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz, Kevin Stark, Katie McMurran and Brendan Willard. Additional support from Erika Aguilar, Jessica Placzek, Kyana Moghadam, Isabeth Mendoza, Paul Lancour, Suzie Racho, Carly Severn, Ethan Lindsey, Vinnee Tong and Jenny Pritchett.

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Everything Everywhere Daily - The Elgin Marbles

Beginning in 1801, the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, the Earl of Elgin, began a project to document the sculptures located at the Parthenon in Athens. He then took it one step further and took half of the sculptures at the Parthenon and shipped them back to England. It has been a source of controversy and diplomatic conflict ever since. Learn more about the Elgin Marbles on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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Bay Curious - State of Drought 3: Are We in a Megadrought?

We've been flirting with exceptional drought on and off in California for many years now. Bay Curious listener Nicholas Hardy is wondering if it's time to call it a megadrought. That got us wondering: what is a megadrought and are we in one?

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Reported by Amy Mayer. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz, Kevin Stark, Katie McMurran and Brendan Willard. Additional support from Erika Aguilar, Jessica Placzek, Kyana Moghadam, Isabeth Mendoza, Paul Lancour, Suzie Racho, Carly Severn, Ethan Lindsey, Vinnee Tong and Jenny Pritchett.

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Everything Everywhere Daily - Ignaz Semmelweis and His Simple Great Idea

In the mid-19th century, a Hungarian physician named Ignaz Semmelweis advocated for an incredibly simple technique that would go on to save millions of lives. However, when he first proposed it, his idea wasn’t just ignored, it was vehemently rejected by the very people who could have used it to save lives. Not only was the idea rejected, but he was ridiculed to a point that might have led to his early death.

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Everything Everywhere Daily - The Planet Mercury

The planet Mercury is the smallest, fastest, and most pot-marked planet in our solar system. It is in many ways, unlike any other planet. However, there is more to this overlooked planet than meets the eye. It isn’t just a scarred, hot rock near the sun. There are some things about it that I’m quite sure will astonish you. Learn more about Mercury, the first planet, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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39 Ways to Save the Planet - New Nuclear

Nuclear power should be a powerful ally in the fight against climate change but cost and safety issues hold it back. Could a new generation be safer and cheaper? Tom Heap meets the team behind the molten salt reactor that can use nuclear waste as fuel and is claimed to be significantly cheaper and safer than current reactors.

Ian Scott was a senior scientist at Unilever, pioneering research into skin-ageing, but when he retired from the field of biological sciences he became fascinated by the costs of nuclear power. Why had nuclear electricity- which we'd once been promised would be 'too cheap to meter'- become one of the most expensive forms of energy generation. The answer lay with the safety mechanisms that have to be built-in to reduce the risk of another Chernobyl or Fukushima. If he could develop a system that would be much safer then it would, almost certainly, be much cheaper.

Scott's central idea- to use molten salt as a coolant rather than water- caught the eye of energy authorities in Canada and Ian's company, Moltex, has plans to build its first reactor in New Brunswick. Significant safety concerns remain, with some in Canada concerned about Moltex plans to use spent fuel from conventional reactors and others raising fundamental issues about the corrosive qualities of molten salt and the generation of radioactive tritium

Tom visits the Moltex laboratories and climate scientist, Tamsin Edwards, gauges the potential impact on greenhouse gas emissions.

Producer: Alasdair Cross Researcher: Sarah Goodman

Produced in association with the Royal Geographical Society. Special thanks for this episode to Professor Ian Farnan and Dr Eugene Shwageraus from the University of Cambridge.