Digging and excavating are bywords for archaeology. But why does history end up deep under our feet?
This question struck CrowdScience listener Sunil in an underground car park. Archaeological remains found during the car park’s construction were displayed in the subterranean stairwells, getting progressively older the deeper he went. How had these treasures become covered in so much soil over the centuries?
CrowdScience visits Lisbon, the capital of Portugal – and home to the above-mentioned multi-storey car park. The city has evidence of human habitation stretching back into prehistory, with remnants of successive civilisations embedded and jumbled up below today’s street level. Why did it all end up like this?
Human behaviour is one factor, but natural processes are at work too. Over at Butser Ancient Farm, an experimental archaeology site in the UK, we explore the myriad forces of nature that cover up – or expose - ancient buildings and artefacts over time.
Contributors:
Dr Mariana Nabais, University of Lisbon
Carolina Grilo, Lisbon Museum of the Roman Theatre
Dr Matt Pope, University College London
Presented by Marnie Chesterton, Produced by Cathy Edwards for the BBC World Service.
In the 1950's, a particle physicist made a landmark discovery that changed what was known about how the universe operates. Chien-Shiung Wu did it while raising a family and an ocean away from her relatives in China.
Short Wave's Scientist-In-Residence Regina Barber joins host Emily Kwong to talk about that landmark discovery—what it meant for the physics world, and what it means to Regina personally as a woman and a Chinese and Mexican American in physics.
Tree mortality in tropical moist forests in Australia has been increasing since the mid 1980s. The death rate of trees appears to have doubled over that time period. According to an international team of researchers, the primary cause is drier air in these forests, the consequence of human-induced climate change. According to ecologist David Bauman, a similar process is likely underway in tropical forests on other continents.
Also in the programme: the outbreaks of monkeypox in Europe and North America… Could SARS-CoV-2 infection lingering in the gut be a cause of Long Covid? News of a vaccine against Epstein Barr virus, the cause of mononucleosis, various cancers and multiple sclerosis.
Image:
Credit: Getty Images
Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker
Love the bitter bite of dark chocolate, leafy greens or black licorice? Your genetics may be the reason why. Today on the show, host Aaron Scott talks to scientist Masha Niv about how our bitter taste buds work and how a simple taste test can predict your tolerance for some bitter things. Plus, what bitter receptors elsewhere in the body have to do with your health.
Apps can be a great way to stay on top of your health. They let users keep track of things like exercise, mental health, the quality of their skin, and even menstrual cycles.
But health researchers Giulia De Togni and Andrea Ford have found that many of these health apps also have a dark side — selling your most personal data to third parties like advertisers, insurers and tech companies. Emily talks to the researchers about the commodification of data, and their suggestions for increasing the security of your - the consumer's - information.
Any hour now, the U.S. is expected to officially mark one million lives lost to the COVID-19 pandemic. Health correspondent Allison Aubrey shares how this misinformation first entered the parenting world--and how some are fighting back.
Today on Short Wave, researcher Fatima Aysha Hussain talks to host Emily Kwong about how microbes in the vagina can impact health and how transplanting vaginal microbiomes from one vagina to another could help people managing bacterial vaginosis.
To learn more about the vaginal microbiome transplant study, visit https://motifstudy.org/.
The heaviest thing in the Galaxy has now been imaged by the biggest telescope on Earth. This is Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of our Galaxy – a gas and star-consuming object, a 4 million times the mass of the Sun. The Event Horizon Telescope is not one device but a consortium of radio telescopes ranging from the South Pole to the Arctic Circle. Their combined data allowed astronomers to focus in on this extreme object for the first time. Astronomer Ziri Younsi from University College London talks to Roland Pease about the orange doughnut image causing all the excitement.
Also in the programme…
Climatologist Chris Funk talks about the role of La Niña and climate change in the record-breaking two year drought that continues to threaten the lives and livelihoods of millions of people in East Africa.
Was a pig virus to blame for the death of the first patient to receive a pig heart transplant? We talk to the surgeon and scientist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine who led the historic animal to human transplant operation this year.
How easy will it be to grow plants in lunar soil on future moon bases? Plant biologist Anna Lisa Paul has been testing the question in her lab at the University of Florida, Gainesville, with cress seeds and lunar regolith collected by the Apollo missions.
And….
Does photographic memory exist?
Most people are great at remembering key points from important events in their lives, while the finer details - such as the colour of the table cloth in your favourite restaurant or the song playing on the radio while you brushed your teeth - are forgotten.
But some people seem to have the power to remember events, documents or landscapes with almost perfect recall, which is widely referred to as having a photographic memory. CrowdScience listeners Tracy and Michael want to know if photographic memory actually exists and if not, what are the memory processes that allow people to remember certain details so much better than others?
Putting her own memory skills to the test along the way, presenter Marnie Chesterton sets out to investigate just what’s happening inside our brains when we use our memories, the importance of being able to forget and why some people have better memories than others.
Photo: First image of Sgr A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy
Credit: EHT Collaboration, Southern European Observatory
Presenter: Roland Pease and Marnie Chesterton
Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker and Hannah Fisher
Most people are great at remembering key points from important events in their lives, while the finer details - such as the colour of the table cloth in your favourite restaurant or the song playing on the radio while you brushed your teeth - are forgotten. But some people seem to have the power to remember events, documents or landscapes with almost perfect recall, which is widely referred to as having a photographic memory.
Crowdscience listeners Tracy and Michael want to know if photographic memory actually exists and if not, what are the memory processes that allow people to remember certain details so much better than others?
Putting her own memory skills to the test along the way, presenter Marnie Chesterton sets out to investigate just what’s happening inside our brains when we use our memories, the importance of being able to forget and why some people have better memories than others.
Produced by Hannah Fisher and presented by Marnie Chesterton for the BBC World Service.
Contributors:
Stephen Wiltshire
Annette Wiltshire
Dr Farahnaz Wick
Professor Craig Stark
If the U.S. Supreme Court rules in line with the draft decision leaked in early May, the decision to reverse Roe v. Wade affect a much broader group than people who get pregnant. But research shows abortion restrictions have a disproportionate impact on young women, poor women and especially those in communities of color.
NPR health correspondent Yuki Noguchi talks to Short Wave scientist-in-residence Regina G. Barber about how this ruling would affect those women and how groups helping them get abortions are preparing.
