Category: ScienceNews

Many of us are worried about the environment, but the aim of living in a truly sustainable way is hard to pin down. Do we all need to stop buying things? Is it down to governments to make the changes for us? Is there somewhere in the world painting a picture of the end goal?

It’s a question that has bothered CrowdScience listener Cate for 20 years! She’s worried we’re not doing enough for the environment and just wants a clear scenario of what it might look like to live sustainably, in a way that could work for all eight billion of us on the planet.

It’s a big question, so this week presenter Caroline Steel has teamed up with her friend and colleague Graihagh Jackson from The Climate Question podcast to answer it.

They head to the remote Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea, which is aiming to go carbon neutral by 2025 and zero waste by 2032. How are they going about it and could this be replicated elsewhere? We visit a ground-breaking project turning nappies into compost, meet a glassblower making tableware out of wasted insulin vials, and find out how pig waste can power homes.

This edition of CrowdScience hones in on Bornholm’s zero waste goal. Will the island make it?

Listen to The Climate Question’s look at the island’s quest to go carbon neutral here: BBC World Service - The Climate Question, Going carbon neutral - lessons from Denmark - www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct5bkg (Available from 3rd September)

Presenters: Caroline Steel and Graihagh Jackson Producer: Sophie Eastaugh Editor: Richard Collings Production Coordinator: Jonathan Harris

(Image: Dr David Christensen, Project Manager at BOFA, Bornholm’s waste authority with presenter Caroline Steel in front of a giant mound of waste bound for the island’s incinerator. The incinerator will be shut down in 2032 when the island aims to be zero waste. Credit: Sophie Eastaugh)

Food allergies have risen in the United States over the last few decades. Research suggests that 40 years ago the actual prevalence of food allergies was less than 1%. But this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released data showing that almost 6% of U.S. adults and children have a food allergy. But this trend is not present in all countries — and what people are allergic to varies globally. Today, we dive into the complex world of food allergies with Dr. Waheeda Samady. She's the Director of Clinical Research at Northwestern University's Center for Food Allergy and Asthma Research.

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Global sea levels are rising more than 3mm per year under current climate conditions. At this rate we are due to hit an alarming 7mm rise per year by the end of the century. If this is not slowed, it could lead to the drowning of essential coastal ecosystems like mangroves and lagoons, professor of environmental science Neil Saintilan tells Science in Action.

The seas are also heating up. We’ve covered the devastating effect of marine heatwaves on vibrant sea life like coral reefs before. But what about the less glamourous bottom-dwelling fish? Ecologist Alexa Fredston has found that they may be more robust than we think.

Also this week, bird virus expert Michelle Wille tells us about the imminent threat of bird flu spreading from South America to Antarctica where hundreds of thousands of sea birds are at risk.

And from one south pole to another, we have an update on how India’s mission on the lunar south pole is going with Lunar and Planetary Institute scientist David Kring.

Image Credit: Marie Hickman

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber Editor: Richard Collings

India's successful moon landing has the Unexpected Elements team engaging in some serious lunacy. We look at where the moon even came from, how it helps us navigate, and whether it has a cultural and ecological heritage.

Also on the show, is Dr. TikTok leading to a raft of self-diagnoses, should we be eating banana peels and worms, and we go back to the moon to see if it has any effect on our sleep.

Smallpox is a deadly virus. At one point, it killed almost 1 in 3 people who had it. Almost 300 million of those deaths were in the 20th century alone. It was extremely painful, highly contagious and many people thought it would be impossible to wipe out—until it was.

On May 8, 1980. the 33rd World Health Assembly declared the world free of smallpox. This marked the first—and only—time a human disease was eradicated globally.

Epidemiologist and host of the podcast Epidemic: Eradicating Smallpox Céline Gounder has been looking into this history. Today, she shares the intense journey to eradicate smallpox in Bangladesh (spoiler alert: there are literal speedboats) and reflects on what this history tells us about the importance of healthcare that meets the needs of individuals and communities today.

Click here to check out the second season of Céline's podcast from NPR partner KFF Health News.

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Workers in Japan started releasing treated radioactive water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean on Thursday. Reactors at the plant began melting down after a 2011 earthquake and tsunami that hit the area. To stop the meltdown, plant workers flooded the reactors with water. But even now, when the plant is offline, the reactors need to be cooled. All that water—about 350 million gallons—is being stored on-site in over 1,000 tanks. And now, these tanks are almost full.

Today on the show, host Regina G. Barber talks to NPR reporters Geoff Brumfiel and Kat Lonsdorf about the official plan for the radioactive wastewater, the science behind the release and why some are unhappy about it.

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For hundreds of millions of years insects controlled the skies. Before birds, bats and pterodactyls, insects were the only creatures that had evolved the ability to fly: a miracle of physics and physiology requiring their bodies to act in coordinated ballet.

This week three separate CrowdScience listeners have been asking questions about the flight of butterflies and moths. How do they move so erratically, yet land so precisely? What makes such tiny insects such accurate flyers?

Presenter Anand Jagatia -- not the biggest fan of either butterflies or moths -- visits Butterfly Paradise at London Zoo to meet keeper Mark Tansley. Anand tries to get over his aversion by immersing himself in fluttering creatures.

He then meets insect flight expert Sanjay Sane to learn the hidden mechanics behind their aeronautical skills: the vortexes of air generated by their wings and the complex muscle architecture inside their torsos. Next, aerospace engineer Amy Lang explains how the scales on their wings reduce air resistance by clever manipulation of the air and how this function trades off against other uses of the scales: for colour, for keeping dry, and much more.

All of these abilities are put to the test during the incredible global migrations that some butterflies undertake. Gerard Talavera tells Anand how he turned previous thinking about butterfly migration across Africa on its head.

Presenter: Anand Jagatia Producer: Phil Sansom Voiceover: Kitty O’Sullivan Production Coordinator: Jonathan Harris Editor: Richard Collings

(Photo: Crowdscience presenter Anand Jagatia crouches next to a butterfly. Credit: Phil Sansom)

A journey through some of the latest science stories catching our eyes. This time, we consider the Russian and Indian lunar landing attempts, how scientists are reconstructing music from people's brains and lessons from wildfires that contributed to a mass extinction of North American land mammals 13,000 years ago.

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Advances in brain-computer interfaces have allowed patients with paralysis to communicate faster, more accurately and more expressively with direct brain to speech translation. Co-author of an exciting new paper in the field, bioengineer Alex Silva, tells Science in Action about his team’s work with patient Ann.

The world has been following the Indian and Russian race to land on the lunar south pole. Producer Ella Hubber gives a timeline of the events leading up to that historic landing.

Also this week, a new prediction model allows us to better prepare for future extreme weather events. But is this worst-case scenario model scaremongering? Roland talks to author Erich Fischer about the projections. And virologist Connor Bamford talks detecting bird flu in wastewater for betting monitoring.

Image Credit: Noah Berger

Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Ella Hubber Editor: Richard Collings

This week, we start off by digging into conspiracy theories. What’s behind their enduring allure? And have they always been around? Marnie and the panel investigate.

Many conspiracy theories are based off of misinformation… but what’s actually going on in our brains when we lie? We look into the case of the man who was physically unable of spreading tall tales.

Sometimes, the truth is there, but is difficult to uncover. Delving for this deeper meaning is something particle physicists like Dr Harry Cliff have been doing for decades. Harry tells us where we are in the ongoing quest to understand our Universe.

Also, we hear the ingenious way Costa Rican scientists are dealing with pineapple waste, and we answer a South African listener’s question about evolution.

Presenter: Marnie Chesterton Producer: Sophie Ormiston, with Margaret Sessa Hawkins and Alex Mansfield