Category: ScienceNews

As the new administration in the US continues to make cuts to government agencies and scientific funding, NOAA – the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has been particularly trimmed. This week the professional organisation for weather forecasters – the American Meteorological Society has published a statement pleading for clemency, arguing that the whole US Weather Enterprise is at risk. It’s current president elect, veteran weather broadcaster Alan Sealls describes how it’s not just US weather forecasts that appear bleak.

As the journal Science Advances publishes a special edition highlighting areas of women’s health research, we speak with two researchers who may have found a link between menopause – or perhaps hormonal changes – and the age it occurs, with Altzeimer’s Disease. Madeline Wood or the University of Toronto and Kaitlin Casaletto of UCSF describe how synaptic health – the fitness of the brain - at death seems even to be less attenuated in women who used hormonal therapy during their menopause. It is not however, yet suggested they are causally connected.

But we do connect research vessel Polarstern to have an update from Autun Purser and Nottingham University’s molecular biologist Liz Chakrabarti on their nearly completed voyage to the Weddel Sea, in the challengingly chilly Antarctic. They are gathering data and surveying the fauna on the sea floor below what is mostly covered in 3-4 meters of ice. The Icefish they see there are some of the only vertebrates not to have haemoglobin – nor even red blood cells – in their blood. So how, we wonder, do they actually move oxygen around their bodies? Maybe when the team publish their findings – which they are racing to do - we’ll find out.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Alex Mansfield Production Coordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth

(Image: National Hurricane Center Monitors Hurricane Beryl's Activity In The Caribbean. Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

On their second job ever, Collette Yee and her partner were assigned a difficult job: locate transient whale poop in the ocean before it sinks. Luckily, Collette was partnered with Jack, a blue heeler mix trained to sniff out cryptic odors from things that conservation biologists have trouble collecting on their own. Producer Berly McCoy reports on Jack and the growing field of dog detection conservation that helps science by sniffing out everything from invasive crabs to diseased plants to endangered species.

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You've heard of the woolly mammoth. But have you heard of woolly mice? These critters were genetically modified by the Dallas-based biotech company Colossal Biosciences to have the same "woolly" and fat appearance as the ancient mammoths. The mice are a key step in the longer journey to de-extinct the woolly mammoth. NPR's Rob Stein takes us to the lab where it all happened.

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NASA’s partnership with the private sector took a key step forward with a successful moon landing. The Blue Ghost lunar lander, built by the company, Firefly Aerospace, stuck the landing safely early Sunday, making it the first commercial spacecraft to do so. It's carrying a number of experiments for NASA as part of a larger effort to have private companies make deliveries. Miles O'Brien reports. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

A new people has emerged in the digital age, that of ‘internet famous’ celebrities. And that new people has a class of social scientist focused on studying them, the digital anthropologist. Crystal Abidin, a professor at Australia’s Curtin University and founding director of the Influencer Ethnography Research Lab there, is such as digital anthropologist. Her research covers influencers – both adult and child and the general pop culture centered on social media, especially in the Asia Pacific region.

In this Social Science Bites podcast, Abidin offers interviewer David Edmonds a metaphor to understand how her cyber-ethnography and digital anthropology work in practice. “I often think of anthropologists as Mars rovers that you throw into these unknown planets, and slowly but surely, we roll around the planet looking for bits of data, bits of material that might be new or novel. We're not going for quantity and volume at this scale. We're looking for what's neglected, unseen, sidelined by the margins, not yet mainstream. And we're measuring how much of these things are characteristic of the planet and worthy of study. … [A]s an anthropologist, given that my fidelity is to people and their cultures, I don't always only go for the shiniest, most mainstream thing. I often look for what's left behind.”

In this conversation, though, Abidin talks about something very shiny indeed – those professional internet celebrities known collectively as “influencers.” She explains how while the top influencers do generate the paydays seen in popular media, the ecosystem extends down to individuals who are spending their own money in hopes of someday making it big. She also draws a distinction between influencers and creators, and also between influencers and memes. 

Abidin also dives into regional differences in influencer culture, using her own detailed analysis of Asia Pacific influencer cultures, to explore regional differences that should be understood when assessing content on global platforms. “[I]f we were to discount the hegemony of American popular culture and their stronghold and a lot of social media, the palette is so diverse, the markets are so varied, that trends go in many different directions. So we need to sometimes think about who we are speaking about, what the superpower of the day is, and whenever we make these generalizations, what are the limitations? Who's not included in them?”

In addition to her role at Curtin, Abidin founded the TikTok Cultures Research Network and is an affiliate researcher with the Media Management and Transformation Centre at Jönköping University. She was named an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow for 2019 to 2024. Currently the editor-in-chief of Media International Australia, she has written or edited a number of books that bridge popular concerns with academic rigor, including 2018’s Internet Celebrity: Understanding Fame Online and this year’s Influencer Marketing: Interdisciplinary and Socio-Cultural Perspectives (co-edited with Lauren Gurrieri and Jenna Drenten),

There are now two fully approved drugs on the market that can, sometimes, slow down the progression of Alzheimer's disease. Both have been shown to slow down the mental decline of Alzheimer's by more than 25%. But that's in a group of patients—an individual may do much better, or not be helped at all. NPR Science Correspondent Jon Hamilton has been talking to people who've taken these drugs. Today he has the story of two patients to receive them.

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It’s citrus season in the northern hemisphere, and fruit trees are bursting with oranges and lemons. But CrowdScience listener Jonathan wants to know what happened to the tangerines he ate as a child in the 1960s? He remembers a fruit that was juicy, sweet and full of pips, found each Christmas at the bottom of his stocking. Tangerines today, he thinks, just don't compare.

Crowdscience tries to track down this elusive fruit. Presenter Anand Jagatia traces the tangerine's origins back to Ancient China, as botanist David Mabberley explains that the name ‘tangerine’ comes from a fruit that made its way from Asia, to Africa and the Moroccan port of Tangier, before arriving in the US in the early 1800s. Professor Tracy Kahn from UC Riverside tells us about the hybridisation process that goes into breeding modern tangerines, but says that while the season for these fruits has been dramatically extended, there’s a cost in terms of diversity and flavour.

Who better to help us track down this missing mandarin than a fruit detective? Well, that’s one of pomologist David Karp’s other job titles, and he reveals exactly which cultivar we might be looking for: the Dancy. So where can we find one? Over on Friend’s Ranches in Ojai, California, Emily Ayala shows us two trees planted by her late grandfather, and explains that nothing grown since really matches its unique flavour.

So what will listener Jonathan think when we send him a box?

Presenter: Anand Jagatia Producer: Marijke Peters Editor: Cathy Edwards Production Co-ordinator: Ishmael Soriano Studio Manager: Jackie Margerum

(Image: Citrus oranges grow on tree, Hong Kong Credit: CHUNYIP WONG via Getty Images)

Unexpected Elements has a shake up looking into the topsy turvy world of science, all thanks to an upturned campervan in Western France.

Explore why scientists are suspending rhinos from cranes, brace yourself for a quirky elementary particle that is hard to get your head around and if you love getting yourself in a tizz then fasten your seatbelts to meet one of the scientists responsible for curating the perfect theme park thrills. Professor Brendan Walker is sure to inject a scientific rush that will make you question who you take on your next roller coaster ride.

Crack open the World Service archives to delve into the curious world of cryonics, exploring the science behind preserving bodies in suspended animation.

And, have you wondered what your favourite music genre says about you? We uncover the surprising psychology behind your musical tastes.

Presenters: Caroline Steele, with Andrada Fiscutean and Phillys Mwatee. Producers: Harrison Lewis, with William Hornbrook, Debbie Kilbride and Noa Dowling

Batteries are everywhere. They're in our phones, our remote controls, smart-watches, electric cars and so much more. They could also be the solution to a problem that renewable energy companies have faced for years: How to store the mass amounts of energy they produce for later use. Some companies are using batteries to make renewable energy accessible 24/7. Today, we dig into how the technology is rapidly progressing with Cooper Katz McKim, a producer from fellow NPR podcast The Indicator from Planet Money.

Listen to The Indicator's three-part battery series.

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Just two weeks ago the world learned of an asteroid that had an almost 3% chance of striking earth in less than a decade. Astronomers kept looking, and a team including Olivier Hainaut at ESO’s Very Large Telescope at Palanar, in Chile, have managed to narrow down the uncertainty such that we now know it will definitely not hit the earth. The secret of making such observations after most telescopes could no longer see it was down to the exceptionally dark skies there.

But these may be under threat. A plan has been made to build a large power plant, including sustainable hydrogen production around 11km away from the otherwise isolated site, and astronomers around the world are rallying to call for the plant to be built further away so that its construction will not spoil the otherwise unique observation conditions.

One of the signatories of a petition to that effect is Julia Siedel, also of ESO, who just last week published the first 3D atmospheric analysis of an exoplanet’s climate. As she explains, future similar observations using the forthcoming, co-sited Extremely Large Telescope could be thwarted before the telescope is even finished.

Back on earth, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current (AMOC) continues to bring warmer air and nutrients north towards the Arctic, and colder, denser water south in the global ocean overturn. But are reports of its collapse under climate change justified? A new paper this week suggests that for the next century at least it is stable though it might slow down. Jonathan Baker of the UK Met office explains how the winds in the south mean the cycle will keep turning, though it may slow down.

Talking of the Arctic, Yoel Fink of MIT has dressed a couple of royal marines in wearable computer fibres for their current icy patrol in the north of Canada. Far from going commando, their underwear is measuring temperature and calorific burn to help them avoid frostbite and the dangers of the extreme environment. Yoel’s paper this week describes the new device and the principle that in the future much of all of our healthcare will be provided by these sorts of wearable, stretchy, computing textiles monitoring our activities.

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Alex Mansfield Production co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth and Josie Hardy

(Photo: Celestial conjunction at Paranal. Credit: Y.Beletsky/ESO)