Blue Streak Science Podcast

Do we love our pets, or what? Today's episode is sure to please many of our canine family members. It may also annoy more than a few felines in the audience, though I suspect their reactions will be more toward haughty indifference. 

On This Week's Show

• Why people seem to match up so well with their pets
• How we can tell if someone or some thing is conscious
• Why our dogs are so frightened of fireworks

Science News with Nevena Hristozova and Chris MacAlister Why pet people's personalities match those of their pets Nevena Hristozova

• First, using online questionnaires to establish the main traits of one's personality, Sam Gosling from the University of Texas established, that there is partial truth in the common conception that there are dog-people and that there are cat-people and that in general, the personalities of dog people differ from those of cat people.
• "Compared to cat people, dog people tend to be more extroverted, agreeable and conscientious, and less neurotic and open," says Gosling. That means they tend to be cooperative, goal oriented and, perhaps surprisingly, more empathic and thoughtful than cat people. Self-confessed cat people, meanwhile, were more likely to say that they disliked structure and agendas.The biggest surprise was that they were also more adventurous and unconventional than dog people – something you might not expect of more neurotic, introverted types.
• These character distinctions go even further – they vary sometimes with the breeds and the different qualities we attach to them.
• Next, researchers developed a personality test for the animals – obv one that is being filled-in by the pet-owner.
• Based on those two personality tests (owner and pet) a study found that the personalities of owners are more similar to those of their dogs than to those of their friends or spouses.
• Obviously each pet owner is convinced their pet is the most amazing, smart, cute, loving and loyal pet in the history of pets. But what if we actually attribute our own qualities to our pets?
• On one-hand, obviously, some pet breeds are preferred by their new owners exactly for their specific qualities.
• On the other hand though, it seems that pets character gets influenced a lot by the one of their owner and carer. 
• "With higher neuroticism were more likely to have pets suffering from a range of issues, including obesity and stress-related illnesses," says Daniel Mills at the University of Lincoln, UK.

Sources: New Scientist

How Can You Tell if Someone (or Something) Is Conscious? Chris MacAlister

• Psychologist Tam Hunt of the University of California, Santa Barbara has written a piece for Live Science about the work that she has been doing Johnathan Schooler, another psychologist from the same institute. 
• They are building a framework that will allow for a more nuanced assessment of consciousness, and there are various measures that they are using to assess this. Since there are no direct measures of consciousness available, they are instead having to look for indirect measures.
• Possibly the closest thing that we have to a direct measurement of consciousness are brainwaves. Not only do these waves show great correlation to normal conscious states, but they are also a good indicator of whether vegetative or minimally conscious patients are likely to make significant recoveries. Such tests have been used to assess newborns, who perform reassuringly well.
• Possibly one of the biggest changes in this field is the attitude toward animal consciousness. For years this has been an absolute no, no, with any credit being accused as anthropomorphism. But any cat or dog owner will swear blind that that their pet has feelings and it seems like academics are finally starting to pull their fingers out their ears and stop going "la-la-la, I can't hear you" and are actually starting to address the question rather than dismiss it. 
• The correlation between the behaviours of conscious beings like us and other mammals cannot be overlooked. Their brains may not be the same as ours but then, maybe their consciousness isn't either. There is no doubt that human consciousness is remarkable, but it may not be the only show in town, and once you start considering that this entire field gets a whole lot more interesting.
• But what about the machines? One symptom of consciousness is its ability to leave an intentional physical impression of itself. Art is a great measure of this and it's something that AI is already having a rather successful pop at. So much so that an Art-Turing test is fast becoming a realistic prospect.
• The final approach involves information. If you consider any system that processes information as having some level of consciousness (including your microwave) however small, you can start the quantity things. But it's not all about processing power. Remember we are also looking for patterns and synchrony in the information handling.

Sources: Live Science

Why Dogs Hate Fireworks, and How You Can Help Them Nevena Hristozova

• Fireworks are terrifying for most pets, but especially for dogs. 
• That's because for dogs, like it is for humans, loud noises are usually associated with danger.
• The main difference is – dogs are not such idiots to blow stuff up for fun, nor do they know what on earth we all of the sudden are.
• Much like in my previous story, different breeds do different things to cope with the stress of the firework noise and light – some pace nervously, others hide, some whine.
• And like with people, stress in animals can have long lasting effects, so if you see unusual behaviour esp in response to noises you might want to take your pupper to the vet to be on the safe side.
• Some dogs, especially older, start associating noise with pain since due to the stress some muscles might get thence and wake up elderly aches, which can make your dog ultra sensitive every time there's noise and make its ageing worse and painful.
• In some cases, spraying calming pheromones in a dark and quieter room can help your pup to find a safe place from the annoying celebrations. 
• Also, if your pet seems to feel comforted by it, give it attention, hold and pet it to console its scared soul.
• And make sure you give it some tasty treats to make up for the weird human habit of blowing their world up every time there's a big holiday.

In Other Science News this Week

• Toxic processionary caterpillar plague spreads across Europe
  • BBC News Europe
• Lava lake discovered
  • BBC News Science and Environment, Live Science

• The largest seaweed bloom ever detected spanned the Atlantic
  • Science News, Live Science, New Scientist
• Large Earthquake Rocks Southern California
  • Live Science
• CSI Paleolithic: Scientists Pin 33,000-Year-Old Murder on a Left-Handed Paleo Killer 
  • New Scientist, Live Science

In Closing

That concludes this episode of the Blue Streak Science Podcast.

If you have any suggestions or comments email us at [email protected]

You can subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast or any other podcast player of your choice.  

If you have an iOS device like an iPhone or an iPad you can get the Blue Streak Science app from the App Store. 

Our hosts today were Nevena Hristozova and Chris MacAlister.

I'm JD Goodwin.  

Thank you for joining us. 

And remember…follow the science!

On This Week's Show

• A weird star just rapidly dimmed and we don't know why
• Trump administration doubles down on anti-science
• Study of marathon runners reveals a 'hard limit' to human endurance

Science News with Chris MacAlister, and JD Goodwin Crazy Star Chris MacAlister

• Little green men were being given the credit for some brief and irregular dips in luminosity of a star in the Cygnus constellation: the fetchingly named KIC 8462852. Maybe I should call it Kate for short. 
• Whilst we don't know for sure what caused these dips, the leading theory is that some interstellar dust may have been the culprit. Which is slightly more probable than extraterrestrial spacecraft.
• But it seems that Kate hasn't finished bamboozling astronomers just yet. Anecdotal accounts of this star dimming between 1890 and 1989 lead Josh Simon and Ben Montet of Carnegie and Caltech to perform a review of data from this star using a series of Kepler calibration images that had not previously been used for scientific measurements.
• What they found was that over the first three years of the Kepler mission, Kate dimmed by about 1%. Over the next 6 months it dimmed 2% and remained there for the remaining 6 months of the mission. Doesn't that seem odd?
• It may "seem" odd, but that's not how we do things in science. So Simon and Montet compared this data with another 500 stars, to see just how odd it really is. Turns out this is quite odd. A handful of stars also dimmed over time, but none did to quite the same extent as Kate.
• So how do we explain something like this? A collision or breakup of a planet or comet in the star's system could explain the rapid 2% dimming, but explanations are thin on what is causing the longer term trend. Especially if it has been going on as long as the rumours suggest.  

Phys.org

Trump administration halts fetal-tissue research by government scientists JD Goodwin

• From the journal Science by Meredith Wadman on the 5th of June
• United States President Donald Trump has ordered the elimination of federally funded research that depends on fetal tissue from elective abortions
• Will also be tightening regulations on non-fetal stem cell research
• The result is that the Department of Health and Human Services will no longer allow government scientists working for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to conduct studies that use fetal tissue. 
• On top of that HHS also said university scientists who want NIH funding for such studies must now have each proposal examined by a government advisory board. 
• At least one theologian must be on that government advisory board
• The Trump government is also killing a roughly $2 million annual contract between NIH and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) 
• UCSF has been a leader in stem cell research for years. 
• Why did this happen?
• Special interest and lobbying groups encouraged Donald Trump to make this move, and are delighted about the elimination of fetal stem cell research.
• This new policy also means that any university researchers who submit applications that pass scientific review and score high enough to be funded by the NIH will have yet another barrier to clear, a wall against science..which will be that government advisory board
• The Secretary of HHS can overrule the advisory board if he/she decides
• According to HHS, the new ban on fetal tissue research by NIH scientists will put an end to three active projects. 
• Including the NIH's Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana
• This project used fetal tissue to create mice with human-like immune systems, and was examining whether an antibody might prevent HIV from establishing reservoirs in the human body.
• There are currently clinical trials using fetal stem cells to treat diseases like ALS, Parkinson's, and even spinal cord injuries. 
• And research using fetal stem cells is giving us a window into understanding globally important diseases like the Zika and Nipah viruses, HIV, and cancer. 

Nature,  New York Times, Science

Study of marathon runners reveals a 'hard limit' on human endurance Chris MacAlister

• A new study in Science Advances quantifies a "ceiling" for endurance activities such as long-distance running and biking.
• When exercising for up to a few hours, it's well established the mammals max out at about five times their resting, or basal, metabolic rate. But what about over longer periods?
• Study on the Race Across the USA in 2015. Runners covered 4957 kilometers over the course of 20 weeks in a series of marathons stretching from Los Angeles, California, to Washington, D.C.
• Put on by Bryce Carlson, an endurance athlete and former anthropologist at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.
• Calories use was examined using, what I like to call, wonky-water. Where the traditional H2O is replaced with harmless, uncommon isotopes—deuterium and oxygen-18. This allowed the team to trace how these isotopes flush out in urine, sweat, and exhaled breath, scientists can calculate how much carbon dioxide an athlete produces. CO2 production directly relates to calorie burn.
• They found that no matter the event, energy expenditure sharply leveled off after about 20 days, eventually plateauing at about 2.5 times an athlete's BMR. 
• At that point, the body is burning calories more quickly than it can absorb food and convert it into energy, representing a biologically determined ceiling on human performance. After an athlete hits this ceiling, their body must dip into fat reserves for energy.
• It also finds that pregnancy's metabolic toll resembles that of an ultramarathon.
• It's hypothesized that humans evolved their remarkable endurance in order to hunt down large rewarding prey animals, because human endurance really is impressive among mammals. It's also thought that this led to our species losing so much body hair in relation to other primates. Now, those same metabolic adaptations appear to allow human mothers to birth larger babies with bigger brains we are now presented with another chicken and egg situation.

Science

In Other Science News this Week

• A "pumping" heart patch containing millions of living, beating stem cells could help repair the damage caused by a heart attack, according to researchers
  • Sewn on to the heart, the 3cm by 2cm patches, grown in a lab from a sample of the patient's own cells, then turns itself into healthy working muscle.
  • It also releases chemicals that repair and regenerate existing heart cells.
  • Patient trials should start in the next two years, according to the British Cardiovascular Society.
  •  BBC Health
• New DNA research shows that ancient Siberians may have set the stage for the first Americans
  • Northeastern Siberia hosted migrations of three consecutive ancient populations that created a genetic framework for Siberians and Native Americans today, scientists say.
  • As each new population surged into Siberia they replaced those already living there, but not without some genetic mixing. 
  • Teeth from two children unearthed at Russia's 31,600-year-old Yana Rhinoceros Horn site yielded DNA representing a previously unknown population that the team calls Ancient North Siberians. Those people migrated from western Eurasia to Siberia around 38,000 years ago
  • Science News
• Tiny plastic debris is accumulating far beneath the ocean surface
  • We recently heard that plastic bags and candy wrappers have been spotted as deep as the Mariana Trench. 
  • Now, a survey of microplastics at various depths off the coast of California suggests that this debris is most common several hundred meters below the surface, scientists report online in Scientific Reports.
  • The researchers sampled microplastics in Monterey Bay at depths from five to 1,000 meters. 
  • The team also measured pollutants in the guts of 24 pelagic red crabs and eight mucus filters from giant larvaceans — both of which eat organic particles about the same size as microplastics.
  • Science News
• Special protections are planned for minke whales and basking sharks in their feeding grounds around Scotland
  • A consultation has been launched on creating four new Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) covering about 13,000 square kilometers of sea.
  • These proposals would also protect Risso's dolphins and a wide range other life.
  • The proposed sites are at the southern trench in the outer Moray Firth, north east Lewis, the Sea of the Hebrides and Shiant East Bank.
  • BBC Scotland

In Closing

That concludes this episode of the Blue Streak Science Podcast.

If you have any suggestions or comments email us at [email protected]

You can subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast or any other podcast player of your choice.  

If you have an iOS device like an iPhone or an iPad you can get the Blue Streak Science app from the App Store. 

This show is produced by the Blue Streak Science team

Our hosts today were Chris MacAlister, and me.

I'm JD Goodwin.  

Thank you for joining us. 

And remember…follow the science!

Summer is here. The pool is finally warm enough, and the barbecue grill is doing its magic. Time for some grillin' and chillin'!

Plug in your earpods as you flip those shrimp on the barbecue, drink that ice cold beer, and listen to this awesome episode of Blue Streak Science!

On This Week's Show

• Lessons learned from the mole rat
• We're talking about fungus again
• Also, some interesting news on the Ebola front
• A report on eastern European universities…from an eastern European

Science News with Dr. Amrita Sule, and Nevena Hristozova A type of African mole rat is immune to the pain of wasabi Amrita Sule

• Almost all animals including mice, flies, flatworms will try and naturally avoid allyl isothiocyanate (AITC), the compound responsible for wasabi's pungent taste.
• Study published in Science last week reported that a species of mole rat, the highveld mole rat, a native of South Africa were completely insensitive to AITC.
• Numerous species have evolved from the naked mole rat species in various parts of Africa. The environment around them could possibly have given them theses qualities
• With a goal of finding out the differences in sensitivity to pain among the species, the research team used 8 kinds of mole rats and two other rodent species to assess their sensitivity towards acid, capsaicin and AITC.
• When the substance was injected in the animals paw, the animal sensitive to the substance would flinch or lick the paw. The naked mole rats including most of the others in the group did not react well to AITC.
• However, the Highveld mole rat did not even flinch. Even after being administered a range of dose from 0.75% to 100%, these rats were just simply impervious to AITC.
• Dr. Lewin and colleagues found that the neurons in Highveld rats had anl ion channel NALCN, whose activity was 6 times higher compared to other species.This ion channel acts like a short circuit that leaks currents and prevents neurons from firing even when they receive a pain signal.When you block this ion a channel or the short circuit with drugs, the Highveld rats DID respond to AITC.

New Scientist,  New York Times, Scientific American

GM fungus rapidly kills 99% of malaria mosquitoes, study suggests Nevena Hristozova

• We've been fighting malaria for really long time and with only moderate success.
• One of the most efficient barriers to infection yet is an insecticide covered bed nets deployed first in Burkina Faso in the 80s.
• Problem is, as with every type of chemical for disease prevention, the pests develop resistance sooner or later and in most cases – sooner rather than later.
• Now scientists have returned to Burkina Faso to conduct another controlled trial to eradicate the origin of the disease by using GMO fungi.
• The work of collaborators from the USA and Burkina Faso is published in the journal Science
• Many attempts have been made before to breed a fungal species which would be specifically active against malaria carrying mosquitoes, but none proved good enough.
• So scientists decided to engineer one by giving it a gene from a venomous spider which gets activated only when the fungus gets in contact with the mosquito equivalent of blood – it's hemolymph.
• The lab experiments with those showed the new super-fungus to be very efficient in killing malaria mosquitoes
• Researchers together with the local authorities have created a testing ground in Burkina Faso for antimalarial products called the MosquitoSphere – it's a huge area of the countryside, covered with mosquito nets so population-wide experiments on the mosquitoes can be done without releasing anything that hasn't been shown safe to the outside environment.
• In the experiment described in the paper by Brian Lovett and collaborators, the super-fungus eradicated 99% of all mosquitoes compared to the control insecticide groups.
• Burkina Faso has adopted "approval on proof of safety" legislation for genetically modified organisms.

BBC Health, Science News, Science

An experimental cure may also protect against Nipah virus Amrita Sule

• Nipah virus emerged in around 1999 and is primarily found in Bangladesh and India. The virus can cause severe respiratory distress as wells neurological diseases leading to pneumonia and encephalitis.
• It is lethal in about 70% of cases. The World Health Organization has listed Nipah as an emerging pathogen, which has a potential to cause major epidemics or even Pandemics.
• It is transmitted to humans via bats. Fruit bats are natural hosts of the virus and pigs are intermediate host. The virus can also be transmitted from person to person.
• The recent Nipah outbreak in Kerala, India resulted in 23 cases and 21 deaths. Resurfaced this week – 1 case reported so far.
• An experimental monoclonal antibody is the only current treatment, which was tested during the outbreak in India last year.
• In a new study an experimental drug, which was mainly studied to treat Ebola, might be effective against Nipah virus too.
• This antiviral drug- Remdesivir is currently underway to the Democratic Republic of Congo to treat Ebola.
• This drug has completely protected African green monkeys against infection with a lethal dose of Nipah virus as reported by a collaborative study published by CDC and NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
• For this trial, eight green African monkeys were infected with Lethal dose of Nipah Virus. Half of them received intravenous Remdesivir 24 hour post infection and then a daily intravenous dose for a total of 12 consecutive days. The four that did not, died within eight days.
• The NIAD team observed the animal for 92 days and studies clinical samples intermittently during this time. Two monkeys developed respiratory illness- which was resolved in 2 week but the other two showed no signs of the illness
• The drug has shown effectiveness against two other diseases with potential pandemic threat- Lassa Fever and MERS. These are preliminary studies in cells and mice.
• Also, the viruses which cause  these have a very different outer shell, however, the DNA or gene copying enzyme known as polymerase share similar characteristics. Remdesivir targets this enzyme making effective against a more than once infectious disease.

New York Times, The Wire, Science

Eastern European universities score highly in university gender ranking Nevena Hristozova

• Nowadays, when everything is metrics (whether that's good or bad is a whole different story), universities set their development goals also by following internationally accredited rankings based on specific metrics.
• Until recently, such metrics were overall or average impact factor of the published articles, number of students, number of collaborations, rate of open access publishing.
• Naturally, some of the biggest institute's names were always on top of those rankings – MIT, Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Johns Hopkins etc. So said rankings were kind of boring after the fifth time you'd see them.
• Now though, a new factor has been included which made things suddenly much more interesting, but may be for the wrong reasons – gender balance.
• The Leiden Ranking – out of the univ of Leiden in the Netherlands, created an algorithm to assess the ratios of female vs male authors of publications coming from respective universities and research institutes.
• Out of nowhere really, the big names in global research were ranking much much lower than some much less known organisations.
• The first American University ranked by this factor is the univ of San Diego on 42nd place!!!!!
• Before that, almost without exceptions, universities are from Eastern Europe, South America and Thailand.

Nature

The Climate Lounge Don't you, forget about me…the corporate polluter Tom Di Liberto

Ok folks, it's time to stop being polite and start getting REAL. For American listeners of a certain age, that reference was just KILLER! For everyone else…sorry. It was a reference to the show Real World on MTV, which ostensibly started as a show where young people from diverse backgrounds were put into a house together to see how they interacted and hopefully grew. But eventually it just became a show that put a bunch of hot people from diverse backgrounds in a house to fight drink and have sex. Basically it started reality TV.

Today in the Lounge I want to touch on a more provocative topic that riles people up. In reality it's not that provocative, but nuanced. However, in today's world nuance is dead. And that topic is well…let me read you the title of the op-ed, "You can't save the climate by going vegan. Corporate polluters must be held accountable" by Dr. Michael Mann and Jonathan Brockopp in USA Today

Yes, let's discuss individual action versus collective action on climate change. This is often treated as a battle between the two. Folks on one side asking "How can we convince people that climate change is a problem if we don't advocate changes in how ourselves live?" Folks on the other side saying, "Focusing on the individual is a distraction from the things doing the ACTUAL pollution, the fossil fuel industry and corporations". The answer of course is that BOTH ARE RIGHT. Everyone hear that before I get hate mail. BOTH ARE RIGHT. WE NEED BOTH. I'M YELLING.

The problem this op-ed is talking about, and one in which I agree, is when our efforts swing to one side too much. The op-ed starts off with a famous example of marketing in the United states, that of the crying Native American that first ran on Earth Day 1971. The advertisement was clear who was the cause of the littering problem, the major corporations that massively increased their plastic use damaging our environment, our pollution generating corporate practices… just kidding. It was us, not the corporations. A subtle difference that shifted the blame. And was it solved. No, of course not! Those corporate practices continued, and it wasn't their fault. It was OUR fault. Looking back, it's not that the whole ad campaign was a disaster. However, the Native American actor they used in that ad wasn't even Native American! He was an Italian American…sigh. And now the authors of the op-ed are afraid this is happening again.

Of course, the authors are not saying that personal actions to reduce climate impact are bad. On the contrary, they say they are worth taking. They are just saying that if folks think the only way to combat climate change is to go vegan, or stop flying or move into a cave and berate anyone who isn't doing what you're doing, well, we're screwed. If we make a purity bar for those who want to enter into the conversation on dealing with climate change, we exclude a lot of people and make us all look bad.

Not everyone CAN take personal actions that others can. If you're poor, live in a food dessert, have medical issues etc, you can't simply go vegan. So why exclude. On the flip side, and I want to re-emphasize this, if you CAN take personal actions, you should! BUT you should also be holding the fossil fuel industry, politicians and the whole damn system accountable too.  We need MASSIVE changes to fix climate change. MASSIVE changes to our energy grid, food production, transportation uses. And it's not going to get fixed by debating whether we should all go vegan. (But I mean we should eat less meat).

It's not an "either/or", people. IT'S BOTH. LET'S DO ALL OF THESE THINGS! And let's not forget who is the real problem here, not us but the fossil fuel industry, corporate practices and a political reality that makes it impossible to live as carbon-free as we like. So listen to THIS crying Italian American, and let's get to work, talk with your family and friends about climate change, call your politicians, and oh yeah, don't drive or fly if you don't have to. We can do it all and we'll need to because we're all in this together.

Op-Ed

In Closing

That concludes this episode of the Blue Streak Science Podcast.

If you have any suggestions or comments email us at [email protected]

You can subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast or any other podcast player of your choice.  

If you have an iOS device like an iPhone or an iPad you can get the Blue Streak Science app from the App Store.

This show is produced by the Blue Streak Science team, and edited by Pro Podcast Solutions.

Our hosts today were Amrita Sule, Nevena Hristozova, and Tom Di Liberto.

I'm JD Goodwin.  

Thank you for joining us.

And remember…follow the science!

Dateline: United Kingdom, Belgium, Washington, and California. Chris, Nevena, Tom, and JD bring you the latest science and discussion from around the world. Seriously, how cool is that?

On This Week's Show

• Old rocks
• Old fungi
• Tiny fish
• Internet satellites
• The Climate Lounge
• Pub Quiz

Science News with Chris MacAlister, and Nevena Hristozova Organic matter from space preserved in 3.3 billion year old rocks Chris MacAlister

• The mountains of South Africa and Swaziland contain 3.3 billion year old volcanic rock which contains carbon filled layers.
• Geologists from France & Italy have been examining these layers and were surprised to find a thin layer where the profile of the carbon was consistent with an extraterrestrial origin.
• Whilst finding extraterrestrial organic matter is not unprecedented, to detect it 3.3 billion years later means that there must have been a lot of it there in the first place.
• If this can happen on Earth then it can happen elsewhere. So if we find it, will we know if it is native to the planet or an offworld contaminant?

New Scientist

Oldest fungi fossils may tell story of how life arrived on land Nevena Hristozova

• The oldest fossils of fungi known until recently were dated to be about 400 million years old and were found in Scotland in the beginning of the 20th century
• With the help of genetic sequencing and comparative genetics between modern existing fungal species though, researchers now estimate that the oldest common ancestor of the modern fungi should be at least 600 million years older than the fungi from those Scottish fossils
• In the meantime, scientists on an expedition at the Canadian Arctic found microscopic imprints embedded in stone, which seem to be fungal fossils too
• Dr. Rainbird (the arctic scientist who collected the fossils) sent the material to Emmanuelle Javaux, a paleontologist at the University of Liège in Belgium to study them
• In another sample, which the teams studied with electron microscope and infrared imaging, they saw two properties very much telling of an ancient fungal species: 1st – a double cell wall (which could hint to fungi or plant cells) and 2nd – a chemical signature of the cell wall indicating the presence of chitin – a sugar which is found only in the cell walls of fungi and not plants
• Even cooler is the fact that these might be the first land fungi out of the ancient oceans. Why? Cause fungi feed by decomposing matter outside their cells by secreting enzymes and then internalising the nutrients. However – if those fossils are of fungi, there weren't land plants that early in prehistory to feed on, which means that it might have not been plants that first colonised land, but fungi (for the record some fungi can in fact feed on inorganic matter too, which would help if on the land there wasn't anything organic to munch on yet when those guys decided to live outside the oceans).

Nature, LiveScience, New York Times

The tiniest fish are the most important for healthy coral reefs Chris MacAlister

• Coral reefs take up 0.1% of the marine environment but house 25% of all marine species despite lacking a clear source of nutrition to support them all. But we may now have an answer.
• Cryptobenthic reef fishes: gobies, blennies,cardinalfishes the smallest of all marine vertebrates.
• These fish breed fast and plentifully, which is just as well as they appear to making up 60% of the fish food in coral reefs.
• How do you calculate the biomass of numerous small fish who like to hide? You sink nets that scare off big fish, pump in anesthetic and count the floaters!
• Cryptobenthic fish larvae don't disperse into the open ocean like most other larvae.Instead, it's been found that these larvae stay close to their parents' reefs, yielding many more survivors among their babies. These larvae then replace their rapidly ravaged elders, sustaining the growth of larger reef fishes.

Science, New Scientist, Scientific American

SpaceX launches 60 internet satellites Nevena Hristozova

• The heaviest payload yet to be delivered into earth orbit by the F9 rockets – 60 comms satellites.
• These satellites move in relation to the surface of the Earth and by creating a tight network above it, will make broadband internet coverage a thing for everyone on the surface of the planet.
• The satellites are designed so that once they are about to be decommissioned, they will deorbit.
• They are made of materials which will disintegrate once the satellite re-enters earth's atmosphere.
• This was the third time this 1st stage of the F9 rocket was recovered.
• The potential benefit of such satellites compared to the existing geo-stationary ones is that they are much lower in earth orbit so the signal to earth surface will have to travel much much shorter distance, hence the lag of the internet connection will be much decreased.
• We will need many more than the 60 satellites in low earth orbit for even a minor broadband coverage, but at least the success of this mission is already a darn good start.

Live feed of the mission, BBC Science and Environment, New York Times

The Climate Lounge Listening to experts on Sea Level Rise Tom Di Liberto

What do you do when you need an opinion on whether to buy something, or vote a certain way, or just what to believe? Who do you go to? If you said the fever swamps of social media such as Facebook/Twitter, well you might just be the crazy uncle/aunt in your family, and you just described why things have gotten all anti-intellectual across the globe recently.

No, I was looking for something along the lines of "I look for expert opinion". If I wanted advice on the best layout on a sandwich, I wouldn't go ask someone who works at an ice cream shop, I'm headed to those sandwich artists at Subway. You get the idea.

In climate science, often those expert opinions can be found summarized in one of a number of massive collaborative consensus reports. The IPCC report is an example and more recently and here in the US, the National Climate Assessment is another. But those reports can be massive and even too conservative (small c, not large C) at times when it comes to certain projections. And today in the lounge, I'm going to talk about just one of those projections, sea level rise.

Sea level rise projections are hard to make confident because of the uncertainties that lie in how fast the ice sheets will melt. Because of this broad uncertainty, the IPCC report is generally conservative with its estimates of global sea level rise.

However in a new article published in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Scientists asked 22 climate experts to predict ice sheets affect on sea level rise under two scenarios: global temp rise of 2C and 5C (which is unchecked ghg emission growth or business as usual.

Using this technique of expert opinion, the paper reported that sea level rise could plausibly exceed 2 meets (7.5 feet) by 2100 1.78 of which is from melting ice sheets, more than twice as high as the upper limit in the IPCC report. This would displace oh, 187 million people, flood cities like New York, New Orleans, Miami, Shanghai, and Mumbai, wipe island nations off the map. It's grim folks. REALLLY GRIM.  

And the most nonchalant quote on this comes from co-author of the paper Jonathan Bamber at the University of Bristol, who told NBC news that "Two meters is not a good scenario".  You don't say Jonathan…

And if ghg continued unchecked to 2200 (which let's be real, they won't if the impacts are THAT severe) sea levels would rise to 7.5 meters or 24 feet. I say this not to scare but to put into context what sea levels are like when co2 levels get so high

In the 2C scenario, ice sheets would rise 0.8 meters or 2.5 feet. Which is much better than 2 meters but also,…not good.

The key thing here is that a 2 meter sea level rise, while not likely, is plausible, which means that coastal communities have to prepare for that scenario. This paper helps decision makers by highlighting the potential high end estimates of SLR

The novel aspect of this paper is how they came to their conclusions (ok, well yeah, that's obvious). In particular, ice sheet modeling is a very difficult task which leads to highly uncertain estimates of sea level rise. Recent research has even suggested the behavior of the ice sheets in greenland and antarctic are more uncertain. So instead of relying on mathematical modeling, they looked at the thoughts of 22 climate experts.

Using a standardized interview technique called structured expert judgement, they asked the experts to predict the ice sheets affect in the two scenarios I mentioned before. The Structured expert judgment technique allowed the scientists to give their scientific rationales for their uncertainty judgements related to sea ice contribution and even helped highlight poorly understood but potentially critical processes related to ice sheet melting.

So I guess what I'm trying to tell all of you is that, asking experts for their thoughts can be a really important thing when you have to plan for the negative outcomes related to those experts lines of work. Who'd a thunk it.

Sources: NBCnews, PNAS

In Closing

That concludes this episode of the Blue Streak Science Podcast.

If you have any suggestions or comments email us at [email protected]

You can subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast or any other podcast player of your choice.  

If you have an iOS device like an iPhone or an iPad you can get the Blue Streak Science app from the App Store.

This show is produced by the Blue Streak Science team, and edited by Pro Podcast Solutions.

Our hosts today were Chris MacAlister, Nevena Hristozova, and Tom Di Liberto.

I'm JD Goodwin.  

Thank you for joining us.

And remember…follow the science!

   

"How can anybody in his right mind be against science?"

― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle

On This Week's Show

• Ice-nine?
• A case of iterative evolution
• Sea otters are bouncing back

Science News with Amrita Sule, and JD Goodwin A Bizarre New Form Of Water Is Discovered

It's been long known that ice exists in two solid forms – an amorphous one and a more ordered crystalline one. Now scientists have created a new form of water called the supersonic water/ice, which exists in a solid and liquid state.

• Water molecules consist of two hydrogen atoms attached to oxygen, which forms V shape. All these Vs can connect to form an airy structure. When squeezed the oxygen and hydrogens shuffle around to form other crystal structures.
• In order to make supersonic ice, scientists compressed water between two diamonds by subjecting it to very very high pressure. This squeezes the water into a type of ice known as ICE VII (60% denser than normal water).
• This compressed water was then zapped with a pulse of laser – heating it to thousands of degrees.

• Unlike the familiar ice found in your freezer or at the North Pole, supersonic ice is black and hot. A cube of it would weigh four times as much as a normal one.
• This kind of of water may not exist on earth, however might be present in the mantles of the ice giants of our solar system Neptune and Uranus.  

Quotes

• Lars G.M. Pettersson, a theoretical chemical physicist at Stockholm University, said in the statement. "In a nutshell: Water is not a complicated liquid, but two simple liquids with a complicated relationship."

Wired, Live Science, New York Times

Living Example of Iterative Evolution

• Sediments from the Aldabra Atoll in the Indian Ocean show that in the past it had been completely submerged by the ocean on multiple occasions.
• It happened again ~136,000 years ago the Aldabra atoll was reclaimed by the ocean, and that it virtually extirpated all the terrestrial animals that lived there
  • Including the Aldabra rail
• This research is from the University of Portsmouth and Natural History Museum and published last week in the most recent edition of Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society
• Tens of thousands of years later the Aldabra rail is back!
  • Or is it?
• What's happening is an example of "iterative evolution:
  • a rare process that involves the evolution of "similar or parallel structures" from the same ancestral lineage, but at different times.
• Hundreds of thousands of years ago white-throated rails flew from their native home in Madagascar to the Aldabra atoll, part of the Seychelle Islands.
  • This atoll lacked predators, as is often the case in remote oceanic islands.
  • With no predators around they became flightless, and evolved into a new subspecies, the Aldabra rail.
• The founding population still remained on Madagascar, these white-throated rails
  • Madagascar, having predators, required that these birds have wings
• About 36,000 years after the Aldabra rails were wiped out by the ocean an ice was happening
  • Sea levels dropped and the atoll reappeared above the surface of the waves
• Of course, the flightless Aldabra rails had been wiped out
• But then some more white-throated rails arrived from Madagascar it seems, and that founding event occurred once again.
• Because the conditions on the atoll and selective pressures were nearly the same, and the founding species was the same the white-throated rails once again lost their ability to fly.
  • Again, no predators
• This means that white-throated rails had colonizing populations that evolved flightlessness twice! Iterative evolution.
• How do they know this?
  • by comparing the bones of the ancient flightless Aldabra rails — both those that existed before and after the flood — to more recent birds. That includes the more modern bones of flying rails and the flightless Aldabra rails (Dryolimnas cuvieri aldabranus) that still live on the atoll today.

Quotes

• Leader of the research Julian Hume said in a statement: "These unique fossils provide irrefutable evidence that a member of the rail family colonized the atoll, most likely from Madagascar, and became flightless independently on each occasion."

Live Science, IFLScience, Natural History Museum, Smithsonian.com

Sea Otters Are Bouncing Back – And Into The Jaws Of Great White Sharks

Conservation efforts to increase sea otter populations in parts of the North Pacific have been successful. However, now it seems they are becoming targets of great white sharks.

• Do Sharks like to savor otters??
  • Not really! Sharks usually prefer more meaty sea lions or seals. And these bites on otters appear to be more investigative where they wind up with just fur in their mouths.
• These shark bites, even if the shark is just investigating, often result in injuries fatal to the sea otters.
• Jerry Moxely and colleagues at the Monterey Bay Aquarium started their investigation when growing numbers of dead bitten otters were washed ashore.
• On compiling the data on seasonal movements of sharks they found that sea otters were bitten more frequently in summer.
• It is around summer that the sharks venture close to the shore and being low on fat reserves after their migration mistakenly target otters and even humans.
• Moxely and colleagues observed that it was mostly the young male otters that fell victim as they are more pioneering and tend to venture in new territories.
• This could affect re-establishment of otters in such areas and the otters may start seeking refuge from sharks in more protected estuaries.
• A similar phenomenon was seen in Aleutian island in Alaska where sea otters hid in shallow bays from orcas.

Quotes:

• Moxley says "By documenting when and where otters are most at risk of shark bites," says Moxley, "we can adjust rehabilitation and release practices to support survival post-release."

New Scientist

In Closing

That concludes this episode of the Blue Streak Science Podcast.

If you have any suggestions or comments email us at [email protected]

You can subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast or any other podcast player of your choice.  

If you have an iOS device like an iPhone or an iPad you can get the Blue Streak Science app from the App Store.

This show is produced by the Blue Streak Science team, and edited by Pro Podcast Solutions.

Our hosts today were Amrita Sule, and me, JD Goodwin.

Thank you for joining us.

And remember…follow the science!

Tom and JD once again take the helm of the U.S.S. Blue Streak Science (DD-981). Our voyage takes us down to the Challenger Deep, and all the way up to the Moon. Along the way we make port calls in England and New Zealand.

Permission to come aboard? Permission granted!

On This Week's Show

• The Challenger Deep
• Moonquakes
• Killer Frog Virus
• Parrot gets its noggin patched up
• The Climate Lounge

Science News with JD Goodwin Deepest dive ever finds plastic bag at the bottom of the Mariana Trench

• Explorer and businessman Victor Vescovo descended 10,927 meters (35,853) feet into the Pacific Ocean, breaking the record for deepest dive ever
• 3.5 to 4 hours to reach the record-breaking depth
• The pressure at that depth is about 1,100 kg/square cm
• Total of five dives
• Observed many species including four possible new species of amphipods, like crustaceans without shells
• Also, a plastic bag

This journey to the Challenger deep spent hours in that extreme environment and not only was there life, there is a thriving ecosystem. Life finds a way…but so does our garbage.

Live Science

Apollo Era Moonquakes Re-interpreted 50 Years Later

• Moonquakes recorded during the Apollo missions in the late 1960's and mid-70's have been linked to specific cracks on the lunar surface
• The Apollo sensors measured 28 shallow moonquakes with some reaching magnitude 5.5
• The new research was able to pinpoint the epicenters more accurately and even associate them with observable geological structures on the surface of the Moon
• The researchers also saw disturbances in the lunar soil and boulder movements in these areas.

New Scientist

Killer Frog Virus Strikes England

• A deadly frog disease called ranavirus is spreading in England
• Warmer temperatures now and in the next 50 years could cause entire populations to disappear, according to the study published in Global Change Biology
  • Study was carried out with Queen Mary University of London, UCL and University of Plymouth.
• Already four out of 10 species are on the edge of extinction globally due to factors such as disease, habitat loss and climate change.
• The study found mass die-offs matched historic temperature changes, with outbreaks predicted to become more severe, widespread and over a greater proportion of the year within the next few decades, if carbon emissions continue unchecked.
• At present, the disease is confined largely to England, but climate change could lead to outbreaks across the UK and earlier in the year.

BBC Science and Environment

Endangered kakapo parrot gets pioneering brain surgery

• Veterinarians in New Zealand have recently performed life-saving brain surgery on a critically endangered kakapo parrot in a world-first procedure amid efforts to save the species.
• Kakapos – the world's fattest species of parrot – are flightless and nocturnal.
• The chick had a hole in its skull
• Surgeons adapted techniques used on humans and other mammals to operate on the 56-day-old chick
• There are now just 144 kakapos left, but they did have a banner searson in reproduction recently
• The surgery was a success, and the baby kakapo is making a "remarkable recovery".

BBC Asia

The Climate Lounge Global report card: the quarter-mark Tom Di Liberto

We've reached the quarter-mark of the year so it's as good as ever to have a sit-down with planet earth and have our quarterly discussion of how it's doing. It's like an employee evaluation in that Earth is responding to our directives of never-ending greenhouse gas emissions, but unlike an employee evaluation Earth's reactions to our "discussion" can lead to the boss, us, getting fired.

A lot has happened over the first four months of 2019. Honestly, in the US a week feels like several years. So four months is roughly equivalent to 42 years. Some major global climate disasters that have occurred so far: we've had two major cyclones make landfall in Mozambique in March and April bringing unbelievable destruction to that African nation. We've had recording breaking river flooding across the central United States, which is saying something. In fact, the US is experiencing its least amount of drought on record because it's been so freaking wet. Meanwhile, Australia experienced its warmest January on record. and hot temperatures extended to South America, too. Let us know what extreme weather has affected you so far in 2019. Or just your general thoughts on the year so far. Basically, what I'm saying is that I'm lonely and want to talk with you.

Now that this segment has gotten real let's dig into some specifics.  Temperatures first. From the beginning of the year through March 2019 has gotten off to the third warmest start on record, and including April is still on pace to be either the 2nd or third warmest year on record. Could things be not as warm going forward? Sure, but it would still see us only drop to 4th or 5th because, um, climate change… you've listened to this segment before right? Now you may be thinking "what makes a year more likely to break a record since not every year is expected to set new heat records year after year?" The major influence is El Nino. When waters warm abnormally in the tropical Pacific it acts to increase global temperatures, too. And with a weak El Nino favored to last through the fall, it's possible 2019 will set a new record. But more likely to place in the top 3 as we continue this march upwards into the unknown.

Enough with the air, what about the water? After all, upwards of 90% of extra heat from greenhouse gases gets absorbed by the oceans. Well, ocean heat content for the upper 700 meters and 700-2000m of the ocean are at record highs. Unlike Air temperatures, ocean heat content is likely a better measure of climate change as there is year to year variability, and most of the extra heat ends up there anyway. 2019 is likely to set a year OHC record and the long term record shows an acceleration consistent with what you'd expect. YAY

Oh, and sea levels also continue to rise with an overall rise of 8.5cm since the 1990s and 22cm since the 1880s.

Arctic sea ice has also been at or near record lows for most of 2019 and while this doesn't mean we will set a new record low later this September, it ain't good folks. A normal summer now has nearly half as much sea ice in the Arctic than it did in the 1970s and 80s.

So to end this evaluation, I'm going to mark down a grade of F. Not a grade for the Earth mind you, it's not its fault. This poor grade is on US. Because while we are taking much better action and talking about climate change more, it still isn't enough.

Carbon Brief

In Closing

That concludes this episode of the Blue Streak Science Podcast.

If you have any suggestions or comments email us at [email protected]

You can subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast or any other podcast player of your choice.  

If you have an iOS device like an iPhone or an iPad you can get the Blue Streak Science app from the App Store.

This show is produced by the Blue Streak Science team, and edited by Pro Podcast Solutions.

Our hosts today were Tom Di Liberto and me, JD Goodwin.

Thank you for joining us.

And remember…follow the science!

It's just Tom and JD today.

Can they keep the most awesome science podcast off the rocks?

Tune in and find out! Oh, the suspense!

On This Week's Show

• Blue Streak Science News
• The Climate Lounge

Humans Are Speeding Extinction at an Unprecedented Pace

On the heels of a report earlier this year that shows insect populations worldwide are crashing we have new summary report from United Nations that finds more than a million plants and animals are facing extinction as a result of human activity.

• One in four known species are at risk of extinction.
• Human suffering will increase as a consequence of our actions
• Loss in biodiversity is putting our food and water resources at risk, as well as human health
• The report was compiled by hundreds of international experts and was based on thousands of scientific studies
• Is the most comprehensive report on the decline in biodiversity on the planet
• Summary was released in Paris on Monday
• Full report to be published later this year
• Native plant and animal life has fallen by 20 percent or more over the past 100 years
• Global warming has now become a major driver of biodiversity decline
• Biodiversity loss is projected to accelerate through 2050, particularly in the tropics

A lot of horror movies begin with the premise of people ignoring the warnings of scientists. And scientists have been sounding the alarm for decades, but decision makers and governments have ignored the warnings.

Let's not be under any illusion that they'll suddenly start paying attention out of the goodness of their hearts. They won't.

Reports will keep coming, and will keep being ignored. This is going to take decisive action by the citizens of the world.

Vote. Become the change you want to see in the world. That's how we can change this trajectory.

New York Times, Forbes

New Solar Power System Activated at Blue Streak Science HQ

As many of you know I'm a big proponent of solar energy for the home. And that's more true today than ever.

• 20 panels and two Tesla PowerWall batteries
• Tesla app
• Argument against:
  • Expensive
• Arguments for:
  • Home security
    • Home security system always on
    • Lights on, even during grid power outages
    • The system automatically diverts power to charge batteries if a storm is approaching
  • National security
    • Worried about terrorism? If more people and business can function off the grid then that take away a target for terrorist and hackers
  • Long term money saver
  • At the moment you start using solar you reduce your carbon footprint

Solar power is something that many of us can do today. It's not a future technology. It's here, and it's getting more affordable by the day.

The Climate Lounge Tree rings and Drought and Climate Change – Oh My!

Tom Di Liberto

Today in The Climate Lounge I'm going to be talking rings around you. TREE RINGS. God, I'm funny. Sighhhh… silence (crickets)… moving on.

Tree rings are incredibly useful tools that scientists use to take a look back at what sort of conditions existed during that trees lifetime. You have to remember that our observing network of temperatures and precipitation was never initially set up to monitor climate. Back in the day a hundred years ago, no one was thinking about climate change. They instead were thinking about the weather. As a result, the observing locations tended to be focused near where people live and were not in general plentiful, or didn't even exist before that because well technology. Tree rings help to complete that picture by relating the size of the tree rings with the things that cause that size, namely precipitation. By correlating those two thing together, tree rings can serve as a proxy for climate conditions in the past. Yay science! Corals, ice cores, mud cores are also things that serve as proxies too as paleoclimatologists continue their climate detective work on the past to help inform our future.

That's a long set-up to say that there is new research published in Nature that shows clear evidence that human emissions of greenhouse gases had an affect on global drought conditions as early as 1900. And they did this via.. You guessed it. A arrangement of edible fruit bouquets. No Tree Rings.. I thought that was obvious.

Research done by scientists at Columbia University's Earth institute used Tree Rings to tease out a greenhouse gas signal in global drought in the early 20th century. One of the lead authors, Dr. Kate Marvel noted on twitter that "The signal of climate change is a background note against a symphony of natural variability. In the early 20th century, it's not loud, but we argue that we can hear it in the tree rings " This signal was dwarfed in the middle of the 20th century by the increase in aerosols and pollution helped to drown out that note but since then, as we cleaned up some of that pollution that note is now more of a shout.

They determined this by using tree ring data to reconstruct the Palmer drought severity index (a drought indicator that is used by scientists today. Their data spanned the past millennium but they concentrated on three distinct periods which were identifiable in climate models, obs and reconstructions of the 20th century.

THe interesting thing was that climate models had said that there should be GHG gas signal in drought during the early 20th century. And for the first time, this was shown in the tree rings.

The 1900-1949 period showed the strongest signal similar to what climate models showed. They found that parts of the world from Australia to the Mediterranean were drying while other areas were getting wetter. Things got murkey from 1950-1975 even as tree rings matched the climate models. Then 1981-2017 saw human influence appear again in drought and moisture.

And this signal is likely to get stronger as we move through the next century.

While this supremely cool that human influence on our climate can be seen in trees, what's also cool is that this was another example where climate models said there should be something but we didn't have the observations to say whether that was right or not. And then boom, once we got the observations, there was the signal.

In science, that is rare. Something working out as you'd expect. Which is a kudos to not only these scientists but to all the other scientists who've worked in this field already.

Also, climate change is real, it's happening, it's us, there's hope, let's join others and do something about it.

Nat Geo

In Closing

That concludes this episode of the Blue Streak Science Podcast.

If you have any suggestions or comments email us at [email protected]

You can subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast or any other podcast player of your choice.  

If you have an iOS device like an iPhone or an iPad you can get the Blue Streak Science app from the App Store.

This show is produced by the Blue Streak Science team, and edited by Pro Podcast Solutions.

Our hosts today were Tom Di Liberto and JD Goodwin.

Thank you for joining us. 

And remember…follow the science!

And you thought measles had been eradicated in the United States, and that it was a harmless childhood annoyance. Guess what? Not so much.

Measles kills, as does science illiteracy.

On This Week's Show

• Science news of the week
• The Pub Quiz 

More than 1,000 quarantined amid measles fears at Los Angeles universities Do you remember a few weeks ago when we spoke about flat Earthers? And we agreed that whilst they pay be as potty as a pantry, at least they aren't doing anyone any harm. We'll we can't say the same for anti-vaxxers and this as been demonstrated in LA where over 1000 people have been quarantined or sent home over measles fears in universities.

• The U.S. is experiencing a 25 year high in measles cases
• Quarantine was imposed on people who were at risk of exposure to people with confirmed measles cases based on shared study spaces. It was also legally binding.
• Quarantine also covered no travel on public transportation, including planes, trains, buses or taxis.
• 38 cases have been confirmed. Over 3x more than at the same time last year.
• Numbers of quarantined:
• • Cal State-LA reported 875 students, faculty and staff
  • UCLA, 129 students and faculty were quarantined
  • Most have been released
• Those under the quarantine are legally required to stay at home and avoid contact with others.
• • Forbidden from traveling by public transportation
  • If they had to travel for an emergency, they were told to notify public health officials first.

I would seriously like to end this story on a positive note, which I appreciate is hard. But with this worrying anti-science movement that is getting a lot of attention at the moment, maybe, just maybe, when kids really starting getting horrifically ill and inevitably dying. Hopefully that will act as a wake up call for why we should probably listen to people who know what they are talking about, so we can the deal with potentially bigger issues, like y'know, the climate?

Critics always say that scientists promise disaster but it never happens. You can't really argue against dying kids.

The Guardian, Time, The Washington Post

Scientists Think They've Finally Figured Out Why DEET Is So Effective

Summer's just around the corner, and what could be nicer than a summer evening with friends in the back garden by the grill, having a few beers. Sounds like a perfect…

I hate mosquitoes and whatever works against them I'm happy to use, irrelevant of its mechanism of work! However, a long lasting myth on how a popular bug-repellent works was recently busted!

• DEET has long been known to be the most effective mosquito repellent available, but researchers weren't sure why or how it worked.
• Question: what is DEET?
• • DEET, or diethyl-meta-toluamide, is the most common active ingredient in insect repellents
• Before, it was believed that the chemical blocks the mosquito olfactory receptors for volatile molecules in human sweat and breath, essentially making them blind for where the source of their bloody dinner was.
• According to a new study published online in the 6 May edition of Cell Current Biology, DEET works because mosquitoes can taste our body with their legs, and it makes them think our skin tastes bad.
• Earlier research showed that DEET doesn't keep mosquitoes from landing on people.

 

• This new research had six stages:

 

• First, the researchers offered mosquitoes one of three foods: sugar water, sugar water mixed with DEET or sugar water mixed with another bitter chemical. The insects preferred the plain sugar water to either chemical mixture, but didn't distinguish between DEET and the bitter substance.
• Next, they took that bitter chemical, not the DEET, and covered their arms in it at high concentrations. The mosquitoes weren't impressed, and just landed and began drinking the blood of undergraduates
• Then they served up a sample of warm blood protected by a membrane that mimicked skin. When DEET or other bitter substances were mixed in the blood the mosquitoes rejected it.
• Here's where it starts to get interesting. They then applied the chemicals to the membrane, but the blood underneath was clean, analogous to an actual person. Result: Mozzies where not disturbed by the bitter compounds, but didn't want anything to do with the DEET covered membrane.
• Fifth, they then presented a patch of membrane with DEET on it with blood underneath. But the patch of skin was too small for them to land on and drink the blood at the same time. They still drank which suggests that DEET doesn't bother their mouths.
• And finally, they then put a special adhesive on their legs to shield their leg taste buds. The mosquitoes still drank the blood. This suggest that it's DEET's effect on their legs that is repelling them.

LiveScience

Pub Quiz

The latest science news in quiz form. Can you beat the Blue Streak team? 

In Closing

If you have any suggestions or comments email us at [email protected]

You can subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast or any other podcast player of your choice.  

If you have an iOS device like an iPhone or an iPad you can get the Blue Streak Science app from the App Store.

This show is produced by the Blue Streak Science team, and edited by Pro Podcast Solutions.

Our hosts today were Nevena Hristozova, and Chris MacAlister.

I'm JD Goodwin.  

Thank you for joining us.

And remember...follow the science!

Happy Earth Day (week), everyone! It was back in 1970 that the first ever Earth Day was celebrated at over two thousand colleges and universities, even more primary and secondary schools, as well as hundreds of cities and towns across the United States. Today more than 190 countries take part in Earth Day activities.

Celebrate our beautiful Earth!

On This Week's Show

• Science News
• Pub Quiz

Science News with Chris MacAlister and Dr. Amrita Sule The Significance of Significance Chris MacAlister

So, it appears the statisticians have significant concerns over the significance of significance. So much so that they have decided that our old measures of significances are no longer significant. And I have decided that this story will work much better if I significantly increase my vocabulary for the remainder of it.

Statistics has been the bane on many a student's life. I for one studied biological sciences for 2 reasons; 1 I love it and 2 it involves much less maths than any of the others. So you can imagine my joy when I rocked up to Statistics 101 and had to contend with ANOVA, the t-test and P values. So did that mammoth slog end up being a total waste of my time? Mercifully not.

As hard as maths may be to understand, the wonderful thing about it is that it does not go out of date. Logic is logic and maths is the system of logic that we use to underpin this institution of science. It is the foundation that we build our knowledge upon. Change it and you literally have to start working from the ground up again. So the maths is going nowhere. What some 800 statisticians are proposing, in its own special edition of the American Statistician publication, is that we only bin the concept of statistical significance.

Afterall, we need statistics to make science work. In a field of academia where there are no certainties beyond maths, all this leaves us with is uncertainty and uncertainty is no use to anyone unless you can quantify it. You then, at least, know what it is that you're dealing with; and statistics allow us to do that and there are various statistical tests that can help us with this.

In particular it is the P value that is coming under the heaviest fire. And it is easy to see why. P values have become judge, juror and executioner to papers across the scientific spectrum. This single number that interprets the probability that the results of your experiment are repeatable has become the gold standard, not just for result significance, but overall experimental design and credibility.

And here's the best bit. The very point of statistics is to interpret raw data in a way that allow us to make informed judgment calls upon it, in the full knowledge that nothing in science is absolute. We then go and stick an absolute cut-off onto that interpretation. P=0.05, or 5%. We don't even provide a margin of error! Sorry Dr. Watson, you study was only P=0.051, no funding for you today but congratulations Mr. Holmes your study with a P=0.049 represents stirling work, here have bucket load of cash to continue your studies! This may sound like a ridiculous over exaggeration, but shit like this really does happen. And the worse thing about it is that the difference between a P of 0.051 and 0.049 is not even statistically significant!

So where did this mystical P=0.05 even come from? Considering its level of importance, surely some rigorous work went into establishing it. Well, its origins can be traced back to 1925 and famed statistician Ronald Fisher. In a monogram he proposed this cut-off and wrote: "it is convenient to take this point as a limit in judging whether a deviation [a difference between groups] is to be considered significant or not."

Convenient?! We use this number because it is convenient?! I'm sure that it's not all that convenient to poor Dr. Watson! But I get his point.

If I learnt anything in Statistics 101 it's that statistics is not an easy game. There are some truly fiddly sums in there so it's not practical to expect everyone to pull out the most appropriate statistical test all of the time. Standardising the system would make things much easier for everyone… in 1925.

But times have changed. We carry more computational power in our pockets these days that we had sitting our desktops only a few years ago. Power that would have look like black magic to Roland Fisher, power that can work out those statistics for you. We are not constrained by the same limitations that we were a century ago, so why do continue to apply those same limitations to our science?

Mainly because we have become institutionalised. We may well know the faults but we don't necessarily know the solution. We are talking about changing something that has become fundamental to the current scientific establishment. Whilst I hate to make the comparison, but I'm british so I can't help it, it's a bit like Brexit. We know what we don't want but we don't know what we do want as an alternative.

But when scientists like Darwin, Galileo, Boyle & Franklin managed to achieve what they did in an age before statistical significance. Surely we can find a way for science to work afterwards.

Science News

Ancient Horse Unearthed with Liquid Blood in its Veins Amrita Sule

A team of Russian researchers have found the frozen carcass of a 42,000 year old foal in the permafrost of the Verkhoyanks region in Siberia. This Lena Horse foal belonged to the Lemnyaska breed which went extinct 4000 years ago.

And that's not it. This discovery was a surprise because the foal carcass showed the presence of liquid blood and urine.

Semyon Grigoriev, the head of the Mammoth Museum at North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk remarks that prior to this only once was liquid blood found in an animal of the Pleistocene epoch. In 2013 Grigoreiv's team discovered a carcass of mammoth about 11,700 years old in which liquid blood was found.

If we just think about this for a second, blood should technically coagulate or has been seen to turn into a powdered form in several well-preserved carcasses in the past. However, in the case of the foal or the mammoth the biological fluids were preserved well due to the permafrost conditions.

Grigoriev's team has been working on cloning and resurrecting the woolly mammoth. They have been working on retrieving viable DNA from the mammoth carcass, which would then be inserted into an elephant embryo. An elephant could be then used as a surrogate to clone the Mammoth.

On similar lines, Grigoriev is working in collaboration with a South Korean team to clone the foal. They have been trying to retrieve viable DNA from the organs of the foal carcass for the past two months, with no success. If successful, modern horses can be used as a surrogate to clone the Lena horse.

It is important to make a note that the South Korean collaborator, Hwang Woo-suk was under fire and guilty of faking data on human stem-cell cloning experiments in 2004-2005. However, after laying low for several years he has cloned around 1000 dogs so far and is working on the mammoth cloning project as well.

With respect to cloning an animal from tens of thousands of year old carcasses, the biggest issue is finding good quality DNA. The degradation process starts immediately post the animal's death and in spite of excellent preservation like permafrost, in this case, one may not find good quality DNA.

Although they have not been successful yet, Grigoriev says "we in Russia say that hope dies last."

Live Science, CNN, The Moscow Times

In Closing

That concludes this episode of the Blue Streak Science Podcast.

If you have any suggestions or comments email us at [email protected]

You can subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast or any other podcast player of your choice.  

If you have an iOS device like an iPhone or an iPad you can get the Blue Streak Science app from the App Store. 

This show is produced by the Blue Streak Science team, and edited by Pro Podcast Solutions.

Our hosts today were Chris MacAlister, and Amrita Sule.

I'm JD Goodwin.  

Thank you for joining us. 

And remember…follow the science!

We welcome back our very own Amrita Sule. Hey, that's Doctor Sule to you, buddy! She was out there in the world doing all that science-y stuff like traveling, going to conferences, socializing, networking. Oh, and doing science. It's our privilege to present Amrita, Nevena Hristozova, and Tom Di Liberto for our 103rd episode.

On This Week's Show

• Walking whales
• New Yorker article carks it in fossil death pit
• Planet survives death of its sun…barely
• Public health success story in Scotland

Science News with Dr. Amrita Sule and Nevena Hristozova Fossil of ancient four-legged whale found in Peru Amrita Sule

Researchers have found well-preserved bones of an ancient whale along the coast of Peru.

This is a 42.6 million-year-old fossil of a whale, which had legs with hooves and was a land-dwelling mammal.

Olivier Lambert, from Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels and his team, had been digging around the barren coastal regions of Peru. His team found a jawbone with very large teeth. They kept digging to find bone after bone.

Although the bones were millions of years old, they were well preserved. When assembled and put together the skeleton, the hip and limb structure made the whale  look like an animal which once walked on the land.

But its long appendages and tailbones made them look like an otter and suggest swimming proficiency.

What makes the evolution of whales fascinating is that we usually think of mammals evolving out of the sea onto the land. However, for whales, this process happened backwards. And this discovery will certainly help us understand how earth's largest mammals made the transition from land to sea.

This is the first evidence of a four-legged or quadrupedal whale in all of the southern hemisphere and the Pacific.

Until now it was thought that ancient whales travelled to North America from Africa before migrating to South America. However, location of this specimen suggests that ancient whales travelled across South America before travelling up to North America.

It's kinda cool how fossils not only are the missing links in evolutionary history but also provide information when and how a certain organism traversed to different parts of the world.

The team which made this discovery have named it Peregocetus pacificus, meaning "the travelling whale that reached the Pacific".

BBC Science and Environment, Live Science

Fossil 'Death Pit' Preserves Dino Extinction Event … But Where Are the Dinosaurs? Nevena Hristozova

I honestly don't get that story but at all – for me this is nothing more about a journalistic blunder and nothing to do with science.

So the actual science behind this story is about a paleontological site in North Dakota (part of the fossil-rich Hell Creek Formation). Turns out that this place contains almost every Cretaceous fossil that we can think of – from living things which were all buried at once(creepy I know).

What's amazing about it is that it came into existence just minutes and hours following the asteroid impact that extinguished much of life on Earth around 66 million years ago.

The issue is that the New Yorker, which allegedly reported on this exact research publication by Dr DePalma and colleagues, quotes the finding of a bunch of dino fossils, while in actuality, there were very few to be found at the site, according to the peer-reviewed publication.

May be the reporters from the New Yorker dreamt the pile of dino fossils at the site, or they just really wanted them to be there, but the fact is that for some reason, appart from a hip-bone, so far no dinos have been found there… Does this mean that the dinos might have died out before the big splash of the Chicxulub impact? Or that dinos just didn't like North Dakota and hung out elsewhere? Who's to say!

LiveScience

Planet survives the death of its sun Amrita Sule

Before we travel into the intergalactic world let's take a moment and think what will happen if OUR SUN dies?

First, it will run out of all of its nuclear fuel. It will swell up to 100 times of its size to become a red giant and in that process swallow Mercury and Venus and maybe even Earth.

And finally, it will collapse, shedding it's out layers until it turns into a dense glowing sphere about the size of earth. This is what we call the white dwarf.

We can only guess how our solar system will look like after the sun dies. but, a new discovery might provide some insight.

Christopher Manser at the University of Warwick in Coventry, UK and his colleagues have discovered remains of a planet orbiting around a dead star – a white dwarf, around 410 light years away.

The team were observing a dusty ring which is formed around the star post the explosion of the dying star. They noticed a fluctuation in the wavelength of the dust and this signal was repeated every two hours suggesting that something was moving around the white dwarf very rapidly.

Manser says that this is most probably an asteroid or piece of a planet with a radius of around 400 Km. It is probably very close to the white dwarf as it completes a full orbit in just 2 hours.If you compare that to our solar system, it would be inside the sun.

This piece of the planet it probably made of a very dense metal like iron or so which is why it hasn't disintegrated yet in spite of being so close to this white dwarf.

Most of the planets in the galaxy are composed of the same elements we could share the same fate when our sun dies which is estimated to be in 5 billion years or so.  Currently, the thought is that mercury, Venus and earth will most certainly not survive the explosion, but Mars and the outer planets might. 

So, I suppose the search for life on other planets continues.

New York Times, New Scientist

Scotland's HPV vaccine linked to 'near elimination' of cervical cancer Nevena Hristozova

Those damn vaccines are causing biodiversity loss, JD! However, THAT type of biodiversity loss I'm all in for, 'cause I'm just being silly and talking about eradicating a whole type of cancer, and that's my favourite type of news!

The place – Scotland and the cancer – cervical.

According to the World Cancer Research Fund, Cervical cancer is the 4th most commonly occurring cancer in women and the 8th most commonly occurring cancer overall. There were over 500,000 new cases in 2018.

Virtually all cervical cancers are associated with the human papilloma viruses (HPV). And while being one of the very prevalent and scary types of cancer, we seem to be best equipped to fight it, as the 5-year survival rate (while varying between countries and races) is steadily above the 50%, as well as is the early detection rate.

One of the best things about this types of cancer is that we actually have a working vaccine against it.

Some very good news came out in the Journal New Scientist in relation to this vaccine. In the UK, ten years ago, a preventive vaccination programme was started where all girls from the age of 12 onwards were given the chance to be vaccinated with the HPV vaccine, now we have some very convincing statistics to support the health benefits of the vaccine. In Scotland (currently part of the UK), health authorities reported 90% reduction on pre-cervical cancer conditions detected in girls who were part of that programme, as compared to girls born earlier, who were at the vaccination age before the vaccine became available.

The original study is published in the British Medical Journal and the health officials reported that they will expand the vaccination programme to boys too in the coming months.

So yeah – vaccines work!

New Scientist

The Climate Lounge Where are the mosquitos going? Tom Di Liberto

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, smack smack,,,,bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. WILL SOMEONE SHUT THAT DAMN WINDOW! Smack. Ow!

Annnnddd scene! Thank you! This was from a reading of my one person play "Tom and the Mosquitos" soon to be playing on any number of warm humid buggy days this spring and summer in Washington DC.

I'm not alone in hating mosquitos. Besides being disease carriers, they also suck….blood out of your body. See what I did there? Honestly, how many outdoor activities were ruined because these suckers decided to go vampire on you? Plenty. Well guess what, climate change impacts just how far north these suckers can go. Because of course climate change does. Let's dig deepers.

In a new study released in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases looks at how the habitat and range of two types of mosquitoes Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus will change in a warming world. These two types of mosquitoes can carry diseases like dengue and yellow fever, as well as several emerging threats like chikungunya, Zika, West Nile, and Japanese encephalitis.

The scientists found that "within the next century, nearly a billion people could face their first exposure to viral transmission from either mosquito in the worst-case scenario, mainly in Europe and high-elevation tropical and subtropical regions"

The scientists used four climate change scenarios to see how the evolution of temperatures changes the viral transmission of diseases from the mosquitoes. Specifically, the use the temperatures in an empirically parameterized model of viral transmission to predict the cumulative monthly global transmission risk in curren climates and compares that to the projected risk in 2050 and 2080.  

Simply put, the both Aedes aegptyi and Aedes albopictus will range farther north. However, there is important nuance here as just because a mosquito can range farther north doesn't mean that the habitat is good for them. For one, this range north will be led by the albopictus (asian tiger mosquito) because they are more adapted to the cold. However, at the same time, they would die out in the tropics where temperatures become too hot.

But also, even if these mosquitos range north to Alaska they would only last a week or two before dying, a small amount of time to deliver diseases.

The greater risk are therefore not on the fringes of the new mosquito habitat but on those places where the mosquito threat becomes year round due to a rise in temperature including major cities in China, the US and Europe. Exposing a huge population to a threat it has no built-up immunity for.

As one of the authors of the paper Colin Carlson said in a piece on NPR "If you have a population that has no vaccination, no protection and one person comes in with measles, you get a huge explosive outbreak. Mosquito-borne disease works the same way."

And, he says, while "there's no guarantee that any introduction leads to an explosive outbreak," climate change makes it a whole lot more likely.

That seems like an apt metaphor, comparing this to measles, as currently we have a bunch of people totally fine with measles outbreaks so long as it doesn't affect them.

NPR

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In Closing

That concludes this episode of the Blue Streak Science Podcast.

If you have any suggestions or comments email us at [email protected]

You can subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast any other podcast player of your choice. 

If you have an iOS device like an iPhone or an iPad you can get the Blue Streak Science app from the App Store. 

This show is produced by the Blue Streak Science team, and edited by Pro Podcast Solutions.

Our hosts today were Amrita Sule, Nevena Hristozova, and Tom Di Liberto.

I'm JD Goodwin.  

Thank you for joining us. 

And remember…follow the science!