Deadly heat has been building over the Indian sub-continent for weeks and this week reached crisis levels. India experienced its hottest March on record and temperatures over 40 degrees Celsius (and in some places approaching 50 degrees) are making it almost impossible for 1.4 billion people to work. It’s damaging crops and it’s just what climate scientists have been warning about. Roland Pease talks to Vimal Mishra of the Indian Institute of Technology in Gandhinagar about the impact and causes of the unprecedented heatwave.
What could be behind the incidence of hepatitis in young children around the world in recent months? Ordinarily, liver disease in childhood is extremely rare. Could a virus normally associated with colds be responsible or is the Covid virus involved? Roland Pease talks to virologist William Irving of Nottingham University.
Also in the programme: how climate change is increasing the likelihood of animal viruses jumping the species barrier to humans with global change modeller Colin Carlson of Georgetown University, and myths about the personalities of dog breeds are exploded with new research by Elinor Karlsson of the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
(Photo: Woman cooling herself in India heatwave
Credit: Debajyoti Chakraborty/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker
Probes to Uranus and to one of Jupiter's moons where conditions might support life; a better plan high-quality science on the moon--those are some of the recommendations in a new 700 page report to NASA. NPR science correspondent Nell Greenfieldboyce has looked at that report and talked to the experts. Today, she sifts through all the juicy details of where NASA is headed the next few decades.
Probes to Uranus and to one of Jupiter's moons where conditions might support life; a better plan high-quality science on the moon--those are some of the recommendations in a new 700 page report to NASA. NPR science correspondent Nell Greenfieldboyce has looked at that report and talked to the experts. Today, she sifts through all the juicy details of where NASA is headed the next few decades.
COVID cases are up due to the Omicron sub-variants and masking is likely to remain optional as the courts wrangle with the transportation mask mandate that a Federal judge struck down last week. NPR correspondent Allison Aubrey talks about both of these issues with host Emily Kwong, and updates listeners on what to expect with children and the vaccine.
COVID cases are up due to the Omicron sub-variants and masking is likely to remain optional as the courts wrangle with the transportation mask mandate that a Federal judge struck down last week. NPR correspondent Allison Aubrey talks about both of these issues with host Emily Kwong, and updates listeners on what to expect with children and the vaccine.
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Cryptocurrencies may exist only in the virtual world, but their impact on our natural resources is huge. That's largely because the technology underpinning crypto is an energy vampire that devours more electricity than do many countries. But that's only part of the story.
Short Wave Host Aaron Scott talks to Producer Eva Tesfaye about the many environmental impacts of crypto - beyond its strain on energy - and what various local, state and national governments are doing about it.
Check out Short Wave's previous episode about how cryptocurrency works and why its technology sucks up so much energy here: n.pr/3ETHXVq
As cryptocurrencies become increasingly popular, the environmental impact of the technology is gaining more attention. Local, state and national governments are trying to figure out how to regulate the massive amounts of energy that some cryptocurrencies consume.
Short Wave host Aaron Scott and producer Eva Tesfaye are joined by Planet Money reporter Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi who unpacks what cryptocurrencies are, how the technology works and why it all sucks up so much energy.
Check out the episodes of Planet Money and The Indicator that Alexi mentioned: - Bitcoin Losers: What happens when you lose access to your bitcoin - n.pr/3La5y6x - Such Cryptocurrency. So Amaze.: The origin of Dogecoin. - n.pr/3k5sg3S - The $69 Million JPEG: A record-breaking NFT sale. - n.pr/3rM2iGB
As a series of UN climate reports have warned recently, drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions – a halving over the next decade – are needed if we are to keep global warming down to manageable levels. No sign of that happening.
An emergency measure to buy time that’s sometimes discussed is solar geoengineering – creating an atmospheric sunscreen that reduces incoming solar heat. Sulphate compounds in volcanic gases or in industrial fumes attract water vapour to make a fine haze and have that effect. The difference would be starting a deliberate programme of injecting sulphate particles into the stratosphere.
There are a host of arguments against it, including a revulsion against adding another pollutant to the atmosphere to offset the one, carbon dioxide, that’s giving us problems in the first place. Another objection, outlined this week, is that it could set back the global fight against malaria - a major killer in its own right. University of Cape Town ecologist Chris Trisos tells Roland Pease what his team’s modelling study revealed.
Yale University neurologist Kevin Sheth talks to us about a revolution in medical scanning – small-scale MRI machines that can be wheeled to the patient’s bedside.
According to palaeontologist Maria McNamara, an amazingly preserved pterosaur fossil from Brazil proves that some of these flying reptiles did have feathers similar to those of birds (and some dinosaurs), and that the feathers were of different colours, possibly for mating display.
Primatologist Adrian Barnett has discovered that spider monkeys in one part of the Brazilian Amazon seek out fruit, full of live maggots to eat. Why?
The ancient Maya flourished in modern day Mexico and Central America for millennia. They built incredible cities and they had sophisticated knowledge of astronomy, architecture and the natural world. But although Maya culture continues to exist today, around 900 AD, many of their great settlements collapsed, and today they lie in ruins.
CrowdScience listener Michael wants to know - how did the Maya sustain their populations successfully for so long? And what happened 1000 years ago that led them to abandon their cities?
To find out, Melanie Brown travels to the forests of Western Belize. She visits the archaeological site of Xunantunich to learn about what life would have been like for the Maya living in what was once a prosperous city. She hears about the importance of water to the Maya way of life in this region, and their ingenious methods for capturing and storing rainfall.
She meets archaeologists using lasers and drones to map Maya settlements that have lain hidden by jungle for centuries. And she discovers what material from the bottom of lakes can tell us about how the Maya faced a changing climate, which may have had huge consequences for their society.
(Photo: Illustration of a mosquito biting
Credit: SCIEPRO/Science Photo Library/Getty Images)
Presenters: Roland Pease and Melanie Brown
Producers: Andrew Luck-Baker and Anand Jagatia
The ancient Maya flourished in modern day Mexico and Central America for millennia. They built incredible cities and they had sophisticated knowledge of astronomy, architecture and the natural world. But although Maya culture continues to exist today, around 900 AD, many of their great settlements collapsed, and today they lie in ruins.
CrowdScience listener Michael wants to know - how did the Maya sustain their populations successfully for so long? And what happened 1000 years ago that led them to abandon their cities?
To find out, presenter Melanie Brown travels to the forests of Western Belize. She visits the archaeological site of Xunantunich to learn about what life would have been like for the Maya living in what was once a prosperous city. She hears about the importance of water to the Maya way of life in this region, and their ingenious methods for capturing and storing rainfall.
She meets archaeologists using lasers and drones to map Maya settlements that have lain hidden by jungle for centuries. And she discovers what material from the bottom of lakes can tell us about how the Maya faced a changing climate, which may have had huge consequences for their society.
This episode is being released on Earth Day 2022. As we face an uncertain future of our own amid a climate crisis, are there any lessons we can learn from the Maya about how to live sustainably on this planet?
Presented by Melanie Brown and produced by Anand Jagatia
Featuring:
Elias Cambranes, Maya expert and tour guide
Prof Lisa Lucero, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Prof Tim Murtha, University of Florida
Dr Eben Broadbent, University of Florida
Prof Mark Brenner, University of Florida
Photo: Ancient ruins of the Mayas deep in the forest of Belize
Credit: Simon Dannhauer/Getty Images
Dr. Jessica Hernandez's new book examines the role of displacement — Indigenous peoples like her father, who was displaced by the civil war in El Salvador, and plants like the banana tree, brought from Asia to Central America — in science. Jessica, an environmental scientist, talks with Emily about how important it is to make sure that Indigenous people and their knowledge are centered as humans work to save or restore land in the era of climate change.
