Blue Streak Science Podcast

Spring has arrived! It's been a cold, snowy, and wet winter in North America while the rest of hemisphere seemed much warmer than normal. But hope springs eternal with the new season. Flowers are blooming, birds are singing, and young people are on strike for climate action.

There's something in the air, that's for sure.

On This Week's Show

• Switch to soft foods affected human speech
• An invasion in California
• Good news when it comes to heart attacks
• An explanation for my magnetic personality
• The Climate Lounge
• Pub Quiz

Science News with Sophie McManus and Chris MacAlister Ancient switch to soft food gave us the ability to pronounce 'f's and 'v's Sophie McManus

This is so interesting! I can blame evolution for my horrendous need for braces as a teenager. Maybe.

This story concerns a study recently published in the journal Science by an international team of researchers, with affiliations in Switzerland, the US, France, Russia, the Netherlands and Singapore.

The emergence of agriculture allowed early human diets to change, meaning they began to eat softer, more processed food (a trend that continues to this day…). This shift in lifestyle actually altered the shape and structure of the human jaw, leading to overbites becoming more common – that's the conclusion of this paper. A consequence of developing an overbite appears to be an enhanced ability to pronounce words with 'v' and 'f' sounds in them. The newly favored consonants, known as labiodentals, apparently helped spur the diversification of languages in Europe and Asia at least 4000 years ago.

Postdocs Damián Blasi and Steven Moran set out to test an idea proposed by the late American linguist Charles Hockett. Hockett noted in 1985 that the languages of hunter-gatherers lacked labiodentals, and conjectured that their diet was partly responsible: Chewing gritty, fibrous foods puts force on the growing jaw bone and wears down molars. In response, the lower jaw grows larger, and the molars erupt farther and drift forward on the protruding lower jaw, so that the upper and lower teeth align. That edge-to-edge bite makes it harder to push the upper jaw forward to touch the lower lip, which is required to pronounce labiodentals. But other linguists rejected the idea, and Blasi says he, Moran, and their colleagues "expected to prove Hockett wrong." However, their computer modelling actually supported Hockett's ideas.

Linguist Nicholas Evans of Australian National University in Canberra finds the study's "multimethod approach to the problem" convincing. Ian Maddieson, an emeritus linguist at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, had a couple of queries about their methodology, but agreed overall that the study shows external factors like diet can alter the sounds of speech.

The findings also suggest our facility with f-words comes at a cost. As we lost our ancestral edge-to-edge bite, our pronunciation may have become more sophisticated, but our jaws also got more crowded leading to more tooth problems – and a higher likelihood of needing fillings! That's an f word right there.

Science

Huge migration of painted lady butterflies in California Chris MacAlister

There are some saying that the apocalypse is here. Well that's not news, there's always someone saying that the apocalypse is here. But the new group of people being associated with this phrase (even if they aren't personally using it) are entomologists. It is becoming increasingly clear that we are experiencing an unprecedented decline in all types of insect life.

Why is this happening? For the same reasons that other species are declining. The difference with insects is that there are so many of them that you need to have a dramatic drop in them before you begin to notice the difference. Regardless of whether you like creepy-crawlies or not, this potentially has massive implications for all of us but the bigger implication right now is that this is isn't what this story is about.

Because, amid the backdrop of this entomological endgame there is a success story to be seen in a butterfly, the Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui). California has been inundated with them this month as they migrate from the Mojave & Colorado deserts up to Oregon, Washington, possibly further North.

So how are these lepidoptera bucking the trend? Well it seems that what was meant when they were called painted ladies was actually warpainted bad-asses! They are the most abundant butterfly in the world. They are resistant to a bewildering range of plant toxins, which gives them an impressively diverse pallet, they can shiver to generate their own body heat and, despite only living for some 25 days, they have been known to migrate up to 2,500 miles!

But even these superpowers don't protect them from everything. Their numbers took a real beating last year, so what's the difference this year? Rain. Desert rain has brought a plant bonanza, creating the conditions for caterpillar ladies that lunch.

New York Times, LA Times

U.S. heart attack mortality hits a two-decade low in 2014 Sophie McManus

A good news story! Heart attack acute mortality fell from 20% to 12% in the States over two decades. What's more, fewer people are HAVING heart attacks, quite apart from the fact fewer sufferers then die. Declines were seen across sex, race and age in over 4 million patients, all over 65 years of age.

Why is this? The causes for these improvements appear to be the following – more consistent application of effective treatments, as well as a greater focus on diet and exercise. What confuses me is the fact that obesity is more prevalent in the US (and the world) now than it was 20 years ago. So i would not expect there to be a big improvement in diet and exercise uptake in that time.

Science News

Human brains can detect Earth's magnetic field Chris MacAlister

The Earth has molten rock deep beneath its surface. The iron moving in this molten rock creates a magnetic field around the Earth, and this is a good thing. Mainly because this electromagnetic field deflects harmful radiation from the sun, thus preventing it from irradiating all life Earth, which is nice.

The other helpful byproduct of this magnetic field is that it can help us find our way around. Whilst many animals naturally can detect this magnetism and use it to help them navigate, humans have built tools that allow us to do the same (like a simple compass).

But now there has been a study released claiming that humans can indeed directly detect this magnetic field. This is an impressive claim considering that various people have been looking for evidence of this since the 1980s and have, rather ironically, ended up a bit lost.

The success of this study, where others have previously failed, is due to brain waves. There are various patterns of electrical activity seen in the brain, and these patterns change in response to external stimuli. For example, alpha brain waves get calmer when you detect a signal like light or sound.

This study put people into a darkened room and then messed around with the magnetic field in there, and what they found is that certain changes in the field did generate a dampening of these alpha waves.

The problem with this study is its size. There were only thirty-four people tested in this way, and out of those, only four showed this reaction.

But regardless of the reliability of the study, the overwhelmingly obvious fact is the humans are unable to use this ability, even if they do have it. People lost in the wilderness are reputed for walking in circles, which is something that you would argue people would avoid doing if they could.

So this low rate of detection in humans, coupled with our apparent inability to be able to use magnetism has lead some to suspect that it is vestigial; like the tonsils of the brain. It is possible that some of our non-human ancestors may have possessed this ability, but with no selection pressure to keep this ability working to perfection the system begins to break down. It doesn't just vanish overnight. It maybe that we have discovered this ability at it's 3am stage. There's some evidence that it was at the party but the memory is pretty vague and you wouldn't trust it to drive just yet.

Live Science, New Scientist

The Climate Lounge Climate Strike! Tom Di Liberto

I complain about a lot of things. Some of them are real complaints. Others not so much. Okay, most of them not so much. But for the most part, my complaints stop right there. I imagine I'm like a lot of you. We don't like something. We think something is wrong. We complain about it, but we don't know what to do beyond that. What's that next step?

For me all too often the next step is moving on. You can see how bad this is if the thing you are complaining about actually is really important. I say all of this because right now, kids… KIDS(!), a generation that always gets stereotyped as coddled and lazy are mobilizing en masse to deal with climate change. They complained, THEN DID SOMETHING. Revolutionary if you ask me.

On Friday, 15 March 1.4 million children from 123 countries went on a climate strike to demand stronger climate policies from their respective governments. It was likely one of the largest environmental protests in history. The strike leader was Greta Thunberg who I've talked about before. Her reason for the movement? She said, "This movement had to happen, we didn't have a choice. We knew there was a climate crisis. We knew because everything we read and watched screamed out to us that something was very wrong."

What do they want? From an op-ed in the Guardian, "they want to keep fossil fuels in the ground, phase out subsidies for dirty energy production, seriously invest in renewables and start asking difficult questions about how we structure our economies and who is set to win and who is set to lose".

The other goal is to simply get more people talking about climate change, and elevating the conversation. One good way to do that is to get 1.4 million people to march. Of course, this needs the media to join as well. And as we all know the media tends to not focus on climate change even though the problem will likely dominate the discourse over the next century.  So if the media won't talk about it the grassroots have to force the conversation. Now things seem to be changing in the US as folks advocating for reality, I mean climate action, are playing the offensive. With this strike, the Sunrise Movement, the Green New Deal, and even a major party presidential candidate Jay Inslee making climate change the focus of his run.  This doesn't mean there aren't people tut-tutting all of this. From Theresa May to whole political parties in the US, and others in Australia and elsewhere. There are still plenty of obstacles in the way of a proper response to climate change. But in order to finish an obstacle race, you need to start it.

VoX NatGEo CNN

Pub Quiz

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

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, Spotify and any number of podcast directories. 

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 Sophie McManus, Chris MacAlister, and Tom Di Liberto

I'm JD Goodwin.  

Thank you for joining us. 

And remember…follow the science!

On This Week's Show

• Hoodwinker sunfish washes up on California beach
• SpaceX launches Ripley to the ISS
• Second Adult In The World To Be Considered Cleared Of HIV
• You can't make it up on the weekend (sleep)

Science News with Chris MacAlister and JD Goodwin

Hoodwinker sunfish washes up on California beach

JD Goodwin

But first we're going to start off with a story that's a great example of what I love most about doing this podcast. That's discovering something is not as I thought it was, at having my assumptions turned over.

I had always thought there was just one kind of giant sunfish in the ocean, the ocean sunfish, or Mola mola.

They look like a giant fish head without the body, and their unlikely fins propel them in an unlikely way. They get huge, like over a metric ton huge. Some even as much as two tons!

They eat small fish, crustaceans, and jellyfish.

But I always thought it was just one species, until this story came up.

Last week, at the unfortunately named Coal Oil Point Reserve in southern California an intern happened upon a huge 2 meter long fish that had washed ashore. She alerted her colleague Jessica Nielsen, a conservation specialist at the University of California Santa Barbara.

At first they thought it was a Mola mola, the awesome, but not uncommon fish I just mentioned, the ocean sunfish.

Nielsen posted some pics of this sunfish on Facebook. Another researcher took more pics and then posted them on iNaturalist.

Then a sunfish expert from Australia called Marianne Nyegaard saw the photos and to her astonishment realized it was a hoodwinker sunfish.

Hoodwinkers are pretty much only known from the Southern Hemisphere, and in fact, were only described as a species in 2014, and here's one washing up on the beach near Santa Barbara, California.

How did it get there? A mystery. Perhaps they wander further than previously known, or maybe there's an as yet discovered population of this fish in the northern hemisphere.

BBC US & Canada

SpaceX launches Ripley to the ISS

Chris MacAlister

It's time for the latest installment from the continuing adventures of Elon Musk; the case study on what happens if you give an epic fanboy an even more epic budget. Bowie's Starman now has a real physical presence, cruising in the first ever interplanetary roadster. The millenium falcon may not be the fastest hunk of junk in this galaxy but it has inspired the names of SpaceX's Falcon rockets. The next tribute is to Alien with a dummy named Ripley.

At the time of recording, Ripley is docked at the ISS, with a live camera feed. The sole passenger on the first ever commercial crew vehicle to dock there, Crew Dragon.

Crew Dragon is a modified version of the Dragon Cargo capsule which has already been used to supply the ISS for some time. NASA are funding this work in an attempt to bring crew launching back to the United States for the first time since the space shuttle programme ended back in 2011.

Clearly, there is a slight different between transporting supplies and humans, so Ripley's mission is to test that the set-up is safe. This means that she's not just a dummy, she's a humanoid laboratory of sensors; providing all kinds of data about what real human passengers will experience.

But Ripley isn't completely alone up there. Despite all of the hi-tech equipment in the capsule, there is also the most lo-tech gravity detector available; a plush Earth toy. How does it work? If it floats, it's weightless, if it doesn't then it's not.

But if all goes well on the mission, the plan is to start using the Crew Dragon for real crew transport as soon as this summer.

New Scientist

Second Adult In The World To Be Considered Cleared Of HIV

JD Goodwin

This story is comes to us from the journal Nature, and is a true account about a man who once had HIV, but now seems to be completely free of the virus.

So about 12 years ago Timothy Brown, an American man who was treated in Germany and became known as the "Berlin Patient" became the first patient to be effectively cured of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Both of these patients underwent after a stem cell transplant for blood cancers.  

These transplants are really dangerous. They involve the complete eradication of the patients bone marrow and then replacement with new stem cells.

Stem cell transplants typically are harsh procedures which start with radiation or chemotherapy to damage the body's existing immune system and make room for a new one.

It works sometimes, but the treatments can also fail, and with dire results.

Using this solely as a treatment for HIV is impractical.

However, the apparent success with the London patient shows that Timothy Brown's case wasn't a one-off, and could be repeated.

The London patient, whose identity remains anonymous, was diagnosed with HIV in 2003.

He didn't start taking drugs to control it until 2012, but he developed Hodgkin's Lymphoma.

He underwent the stem cell transplant in 2016.

But why did this result in a possible cure for this patient?

His doctors screened potential donors, not only for compatibility in treating the lymphoma, but they also searched for a donor with a gene mutation that could confer a resistance to HIV.

They found a donor who had this gene. That was incredibly lucky because less than 1% of people of northern European have this mutation.

This mutation is rare, but it does provide resistant to most forms of HIV.

After the treatment the patient agreed to stop taking his HIV drugs to see if the virus would come back. It didn't.

Can you imagine how frightening that would be?

And after 18 months there's still no sign of HIV in the patient.

Huffington Post, New York Times

Weekend lie-ins don't compensate for week-long exhaustion

Chris MacAlister

I hope that you realise, dear listener, that science is your friend. And do you know how you can tell? Because it doesn't just tell you what you want to hear; it tells you what you need to hear. And what you need to hear now is that those lazy, sleep-in weekend mornings are doing you no good whatsoever!

Sleep is one of those things that we are all so familiar with, yet we know so little about it. But ask any parent with young kids and they'll tell you just how important it is! Isn't that right, Tom?

One reason why the direct benefit of sleep is so hard to track down is because there appears to be many of them. For example, did you know that if you aren't getting at least 7 hours of sleep then you are more likely to snack after dinner and put on extra weight?

This effect had just been used to gauge how effective a weekend lie-in is at making up the sleep that you have lost during the week, and the results don't look promising.

Whist the snack attacks can be put off at the start of the following week, once the lack of sleep kicks in again, the snacking returns with a vengeance, so much so that you would have been better off not catching up on your sleep in the first place!

But here comes the warnings. This study was only run over a cycle of a week and a half so we don't know the longer term implications. Also, we've already said that benefits of sleep are multifaceted. Whist this particular aspect may not benefit, that doesn't mean that is the same story across the board. The main reason that people sleep in when they can is because it feels good and usually things feel good for a reason; because it is doing us some good.

New Scientist, Nature

The Climate Lounge

Farewell Wally

Tom Di Liberto

Welcome to another "fun" time in the lounge. I put bunny quotes on fun because well, I often talk about crazy things like NO CLOUDS*. I put a star over that statement because of necessary scientific caveats. You get the point. I'm not fun at parties.

But today's story is not going to be about some crazy new research, or the latest dumb thing said by some climate denying celebrity or politician. Instead, I want to send my thanks to one of the greats in the world of climate science who passed away a couple of weeks ago. Dr. Wallace Broecker (pronounced Broker).

Now, I'm not one to venerate any person. We're all human and treating any of us like a god is a quick way of putting yourself in an awkward position should that human show one of the many human foibles that we damn well know exist. I, instead of deifying people better than me, like to get insanely jealous of their talents, in a positive way. And I was damn jealous of Wally Broecker's brain and creative thinking.

Who was Wally? He was world renowned geologist and climate scientist. Who spent most of his career, 67 years to be exact, at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. There he studied well the Earth and everything related to it. It's climate, it's oceans, it's ice. It's everything. Broecker had an amazing way with words coining many incredibly well known phrases still used today. Sometimes even against his wishes.

In 1975, he published a landmark study called Climatic Change: Are we on the Brink of Pronounced Global Warming", which vaulted the phrase global warming into scientific lexicon and forever cemented him as the grandfather of global warming. In that paper he predicted that global temperatures would rise due to an increase in CO2. Not bad. In 1984, he testified in the first congressional hearings on climate change led by??? Any guesses? Al Gore.  He's even had a children's song written about him called Uncle Wally's Tale by Tom Chapin a popular kids artist

But he was a throwback to a different time, he never typed or used a computer instead writing his manuscripts by hand. And he was sometimes a curmudgeon an opinionated, often arguing hard for his ideas but always let science lead the way.

He also coined the phrase global conveyor belt to describe the way that ocean water cycles from the surface to the ocean depths. I've talked about this in the past whenever I discussed the AMOC or Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. It was Dr. Broecker who led that charge. As noted in his NY Times obituary "He pioneered techniques using carbon isotopes and other tracer elements to map the world's ocean currents" These techniques made their way into many other fields including archeology.

It was this research about how radical climate swings could happen if the Gulf Stream and AMOC slows down bringing warmth to Europe that was butchered when Hollywood made the Day After Tomorrow about a sudden catastrophic cooling.

He did a lot. And importantly he wasn't afraid to talk about it all, continually ringing the bell about climate change. In his final message to scientists he actually pushed for geoengineering solutions as the price of continued inaction could be "many more surprises in the greenhouse known as earth.  He wasn't pushing for it to be done, per se, but for us to get to know more about the potential need.

Dr. Wallace Broecker died on February 18 at the age of 87. And I will leave you with one of his most famous phrases on our climate, and one of mine too.

"The climate system is an angry beast, and we are poking it with sticks"

Here's to you Dr. Broecker!

WAPO NYTIMES

Pub Quiz

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

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, Spotify and any number of podcast directories.

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 Chris MacAlister.

I'm JD Goodwin.  

Thank you for joining us.

And remember...follow the science!

On This Week's Show

• Bacteria living on insects could provide new antibiotics
• New letters to the DNA alphabet
• A story of interspecies communication
• The latest buzz on a new species rediscovered
• The Climate Lounge
• Pub Quiz

Science News with Nevena Hristozova, and Sophie McManus Bacteria living on insects could provide new antibiotics Nevena Hristozova

We've heard of the crisis with spreading antibiotic resistant pathogenic bacteria, which can be very very big problem in a very very short time. Until now, for the most part, antibiotics are discovered either by identifying new species producing them, by growing in the lab said species from soil samples and then isolating compounds they produce with antimicrobial properties. The problem with that is, that many bacteria are not easy to grow in the lab, because they only live in complex environments and in microbial communities. This means that the traditional way to stumble across new antibiotics to replace the useless ones due to antimicrobial resistance are becoming increasingly ineffective.

An interesting fact about antibiotics though is that they are so-called secondary metabolites. This means that they are synthesised by bacteria or fungi only after they pass the exponential growth phase of the colony and their synthesis depends on the availability of specific nutrients in the environment.

This and the need to find out alternative sources or ecosystems where antibiotic bacteria live, let researchers to exploring insects. Like pretty much any other imaginable place in the world, insects are a host of a plethora of bacteria and fungi normally growing in or on them. As it turns out, scientist from the Department of Bacteriology, University of Wisconsin-Madison have discovered more than 10k strains of bacteria isolated from insects and some of them proved to be synthesising novel antibiotics able to kill even the most resistant fungi and bacteria that we know today and which could pose a severe threat to human life, being resistant to pretty much every existing antibiotic. More can be read in the article published in Nature under the title The antimicrobial potential of Streptomyces from insect microbiomes.

Medical News Today

Four new letters added to the DNA alphabet Sophie McManus

Crazy story!

DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the carrier of our genetic information. DNA is made up of four 'letters' – A, C, T, G. Adenine, cytosine, thymine, guanine. Arranged in different combinations, these letters build up the 'language' of our genes – all 22,000 of them, in the case of humans.

In research published a few days ago in Science, Florida-based researchers have doubled the natural number of life's building blocks, creating for the first time a synthetic, eight-letter genetic language. This seems to store and transcribe information just like natural DNA.

According to Floyd Romesberg, a chemical biologist not involved with this work, this is a real conceptual breakthrough. It implies there's nothing inherently special about the combination of chemicals in DNA and that synthetic life could be supported with this new kinda alphabet soup.

Normally, as a pair of DNA strands twist around each other in a double helix, the chemicals on each strand pair up: A bonds to T, and C bonds with G. Apple tart, chocolate gateau.

For a long time, scientists have tried to add more pairs of these chemicals, also known as bases, to this genetic code. For example, 'unnatural' bases were actually generated back in the 1980s. In 2014 a pair of unnatural bases was inserted into a living cell.

But this is the first time it has been to demonstrated that the complementary 'unnatural' bases recognise and bind to each other, and that the double helix that they form actually maintains its structure.

Finally, the team showed that the synthetic DNA could be faithfully transcribed into RNA. "The ability to store information is not very interesting for evolution," says Steven Benner, the lead researcher of the study. "You have to be able to transfer that information into a molecule that does something."

The researchers call the resulting eight-letter language 'hachimoji' after the Japanese words for 'eight' and 'letter'. S B P Z.

Live Science, Nature

How gut bacteria controls gene expression through "interspecies communication" Nevena Hristozova

What if I told you that free will is not a thing? It seems that we have the proof for this, at least at a metabolic level.

A new study reveals for the first time that certain bacteria can secrete a compound called nitric oxide which is known to regulate gene expression. We've known that nitric oxide is involved in gene expression regulation for a while. This new study though, examined how bacteria producing NO might be using it to alter the expression of the genes of their host worm.

Researchers describe this interaction between host a worm and a bacteria as a form of "interspecies communication." In the lab they tested what would happen if a bacteria on which the worm feeds, produces excessive Nitric Oxide amounts. Turns out the genetic expression of the worm is altered since Nitric Oxide is a naturally occuring signaling molecule in gene expression and it ends up developing deformities and dying prematurely. In reality, this doesn't happen, but now that such mechanism of interspecies genetic control is known, the scientists are setting off to discover if similar mechanisms are not causing some pathologies in humans too. With the massive expansion of the field of gut microbiota and the search for the healthy microbiome and the gut microbial community imbalances which contribute to development of diseases, this new piece of the puzzle sure makes things even more interesting.

The study in question is published in the journal Cell under the title Regulation of MicroRNA Machinery and Development by Interspecies S-Nitrosylation.

New Atlas

World's largest bee rediscovered Sophie McManus

Tune out if you have a phobia of large insects…..

The world's largest bee has been found once more in Indonesia. This is after decades that we thought it was lost to science forever.

A single live female was found. The species is known as Wallace's Giant Bee, named after famed naturalist Alfred Wallace who characterised it in 1858. It's as big as an adult human thumb, if that means very much. More precisely it is over 4 cm long with a wingspan of 6cm. Something you'd hope would avoid your lemonade glass.

Lovely – "It was absolutely breathtaking to see this 'flying bulldog' of an insect that we weren't sure existed anymore, to have real proof right there in front of us in the wild," said natural history photographer, Clay Bolt, who took the first photos and video of the species alive. "To actually see how beautiful and big the species is in life, to hear the sound of its giant wings thrumming as it flew past my head, was just incredible. "

Wallace described his namesake as a large wasp like black insect with immense jaws.

There are no legal barriers to trading this bee. "By making the bee a world-famous flagship for conservation, we are confident that the species has a brighter future than if we just let it quietly be collected into oblivion," said Robin Moore, of Global Wildlife Conservation (GWC).

BBC Science and Environment, Science News,

The Climate Lounge Where'd The Clouds Go? Tom Di Liberto

There are a few things that I do when things get crazy to calm myself down. To remind myself to breathe and to put things into perspective (and I'd love to hear yours too!). Over the last several years, I've had a need to do this a lot. All I've had to do is turn on Twitter to see the latest dumpster fire to crank out a few curse words and an "Are you f***ing kidding me!".

One thing I love to do and is so entirely on brand for someone who studies the atmosphere like me, is to go outside and just look at the clouds for a bit. I'll put animals to the shapes I'll put grotesquely correct latin names to the clouds. And I'll just sit and watch then blow away as if they take with them the anger I've been bottling up.

Flash now to this week, I turn on Twitter because I'm a masochist and what do I see that pisses me off? Well, a brand new study that says that if we warm the planet 6˚C CLOUDS DISAPPEAR which then leads to an additional warming of 8˚C. WHAT?!!

Okay, technically it's just the type of clouds known as stratocumulus clouds, but those low clouds cover about 20% of the tropical oceans, and are everywhere in the subtropics too. These clouds cool the planet by shading the surface from the sun.

Now clouds have always been a sort of X-Factor when it comes to global climate change. 56 million years ago an already warmer than now earth went into overdrive warming by an additional 6˚C during a period known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum or PETM (i just made up that pronunciation, I apologize). During this time, a massive global extinction event happened oceans became jacuzzi hot in the tropics, mammals became smaller to deal with less nutrition, and violent storms wrecked the planet massive flash floods and droughts occurred. It was an awful time to be alive, but the thing was, the PETM got hotter and more extreme than our climate models have theoretically predicted. And the reason that is becoming more evident is the impact from clouds.

The process is simple enough. Warming leads to less clouds which means less sunlight reflected meaning a warming earth and boom a feedback loop. But this was all speculative. Research published in the journal Nature has taken a closer look at this. Tapio Schneider and colleagues used a high resolution climate model simulation to see how warming affecting stratocumlus clouds. They found that reduction in clouds could explain how temperatures got so warm during the PETM.

Basically what Tapio Schneider of Cal Tech and Colleen Kaul and Kyle Pressel have done is highlight a major uncertainty that exists when we keep warming the planet. But again how did they do this? It's hard to model clouds because they are much smaller than the grid cells in climate models. So Dr. Schneider and colleagues ran a roughly 25 km2 patch of stratocumulus clouds off California through their models for 2 million core-hours on supercomputers in Switzerland and California. The clouds disappeared for two main reasons, as Earth's sky and surface get hotter it makes things more turbulent in the clouds mixing the moist air up and brining dry air down in a process called entrainment. This breaks up the cloud.

Second, the greenhouse effect makes the upper atmosphere warmer and more humid, which means the cooling of the top of the clouds from above is not as efficient. This cooling is needed because it lets cold moist air sink in the cloud allowing warm moist air from the surface to rise. Less cooling thinner clouds.

And just as interesting, they found a tipping point. Once CO2 level got to 1200 ppm (we are at 400 now but could reach 1200 in a worst case scenario during the next century) stratocumulus clouds disappear and temperatures rapidly increase by 8˚C in addition to the 4˚C from CO2 induced warming. Um… that's really really really bad.

As Natalia Wolchover puts it in her article in Quanta Magazine, imagine crocodiles in the Arctic and scorched mostly lifeless tropical regions. Not good.

But before you go off worried that the clouds are disappearing please remember that if we even get close to that point there already would have been humongous and horrible climate change impacts already including rapidly rising seas and ice melt, a de-oxygenated ocean and super dooper heat waves. And as Brian Kahn says in Earther, more likely than not some group would have tried geoengineering at that point to makes things better. So while this research is important in finding out more about our climate don't worry about the clouds. It'd be a sort sh*t cherry on top of globally warmed sh*t sundae.

Quanta

Pub Quiz

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

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, Spotify and any number of podcast directories. 

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, Sophie McManus, and Tom Di Liberto.

I'm JD Goodwin.  

Thank you for joining us. 

And remember…follow the science!

During his radio show "The Saint" in 1947 actor Vincent Price delivered a message that is, unfortunately, as relevant today as it was 72 years ago.

On This Week's Show

• Ukraine's science revolution stumbles
• Opportunity lost
• InSight gained
• Life began to move 2.1 billion years ago
• The Pub Quiz
• And a special appearance by Mr. Vincent Price

Science News with Dr. Amrita Sule, and Chris MacAlister

Ukraine's science revolution stumbles five years on

Amrita Sule

Around five years ago in February 2014 a revolution took place in Ukraine known as the "Euromaidan" revolution, or the "Revolution of Dignity", which ended with change in the leadership.

The new leadership in Ukraine aligned with European Union. This raised hopes among scientists that more fruitful collaborations will form with the western world.

Initially this looked very promising. In 2015 Ukraine was able to apply for EU research programs and in 2016 a law was passed to strengthen science, technology and innovation.

However, five years later the national science spending is still low and inefficiency in funding and low salaries is steering talented students away from pursuing careers in science.

Overall there is very less amount of money which goes to the research institutes, result of which is inability to buy state of the art equipment and updating top-class infrastructure. This limits their ability to compete with other EU countries.   

This has resulted in very low funds coming their way from EU funded grants compared to other east European countries like Poland and Hungary.

The National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NASU) which employs 15000 people over 160 institutes gets most share of the funds. A review of 94 institutes of NASU between 2016-2018 deemed that 21 of them were underperforming leading to closure of around 200 research departments. The institute which attracts most of the taxpayer money in Ukraine is criticized for being outdated and over staffed.  

But things are changing and new funding mechanisms which will be in place this year will fund individual scientists and groups from universities over the country after peer review.  

The research policy wing of the Ukrainian govt. is currently focusing on mapping out plans to make reforms to become more competitive in science. Just have to wait for the implementation of the same.

 

Nature

Opportunity Lost

Chris MacAlister

Following NASA is like a non-stop emotional rollercoaster. From the excitement of launches like TESS, or the upcoming James Webb Telescope; to the sad and inevitable ends. The Saturnine Fireworks that brought the demise of Cassini or Mars Rover: Opportunity's less spectacular conclusion last week.

We reported, last summer, that "Oppy" was hunkering down for planet wide martian dust storm which would render its solar panels useless. The storm finished in October and NASA have since made over 1000 attempts to re-establish contact, all to no avail. This means that the rover either suffered critical damage during the storms or its solar panels became too dust-coated to work.

But in the same way that Cassini surpassed all expectations, Oppy has been breaking records like an on-trend boyband. The original mission was due to last just 90 martian days (or sols) and cover a distance of a kilometer. At the end of the mission, Oppy has completed that first ever extraterrestrial marathon and lasted more than 5000 sols, some 15 Earth years, a feat that could leave a certain battery promoting pink bunny somewhat fearful for his job.

So what did Opportunity achieve? Geology. Lots of geology. It's actually a little depressing that the best known geologist on the planet is an inoperative robot on another one. One it's headline achievements was collecting a extra martian meteorite, which I guess is a bit like when I went to Japan but still headed into the first Starbucks that I saw.

So Opportunity has set the standard for future rovers. Two rovers are looking to break this record; NASA's other Mars rover, Curiosity and China's Moon rover Yutu 2. And possibly Brexit.

BBC News Science and Environment, LA Times

Nasa's InSight mission: Mars 'mole' put on planet's surface

Amrita Sule

Let's talk about some more action happening on the red planet. Remember the robotic lander InSight? (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport).

Insight was launched in May 2018 and landed on Mars surface in November 2018. The main purpose of this lander is to study the Mars seismic activity and monitor marsquakes.

On the 12th of February NASA's Insight tweeted "The gang's all here: my seismometer, its cover, and now the heat flow probe! It's no easy task to set up such sensitive instruments on the surface of another world. Together we'll unlock some of Mars' deep secrets."

So, what is it talking about? The InSight lander has positioned second of its surface instruments on Mars. This is a heat flow probe also referred to as HP3. HP3 was picked off the deck of the lander with a robot arm placed next to the SEIS seismometer package, which was deployed in December.

Together with the on-board radio was experiment these sensor systems will be used to understand how the sub-surface rocks on the Mars are layered as well as understand present day surface activity.

So how does HP3 work? It incorporates a mole to drill down up to 5 meters below the surface. The SEIS system will listen for "marsquakes" and impacts of meteorites. The SEIS will also monitor HP3 while it drills and collect information about the underground materials in the surrounding local area.

I can't wait to hear about all the insight we gather from the lander!

BBC News Science and Environment

Fossils suggest life began to move 2.1 billion years ago

Chris MacAlister

The Earth is 4.5 billion years old. The oldest life on Earth could be as old as 4.2 billion years old. Microbial life is then all that we see until just 635 million years ago. This has led to the idea that life can start fairly easily, however the emergence of complex life is remarkably difficult and rare.

But what took nature some 3 billion years to achieve doesn't replicate in the laboratory. The shift to multicellular life has been recreated in yeast and multiple cases of multicellular activity in the most simple types of cells (prokaryotes) suggest that this leap may no be quite so difficult.

So are we missing a piece of the puzzle? A team of international scientists believe so after their claim to have found the first evidence of life moving itself through our world.

They have discovered fossilized pits and trails containing chemical signatures that have led them to the conclusion that a creature, like a slime mould, was travelling across the ancient seabed.

What is so remarkable about this story is the date. 2.1 billion years ago. This is older than the first accepted complex cells (eukaryotes) that all complex multicellular life is made of, including us and slime moulds.

This means that the story of live of Earth may not be about its limiting inability to develop. 2.1 billion years ago there was a period of high oxygen content in the atmosphere. Shortly after the levels dropped again until that key moment 635 million years ago. If the conclusion of this team are correct, live may have been ready to go all along, it was just the inadequate accommodation that was to blame.]

New Scientist, The Conversation

Pub Quiz

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

Let's get small!

Public Service Announcement

Vincent Price delivers a timeless message. His words are as meaningful today as they were in 1947.

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, Spotify, Overcast and any number of podcast directories.

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 Chris MacAlister.

I'm JD Goodwin.  

Thank you for joining us.

And remember...follow the science!

On This Week's Show

• Good news for those who like to sleep
• Good news for those who like to eat
• Good news for those who like to sh*t
• Good news for those who like to brush their teeth
• The Climate Lounge: Greta Thunberg Drops the Mic
• Pub Quiz

Science News with Chris MacAlister and JD Goodwin Rocking puts adults to sleep faster and makes slumber deeper JD Goodwin

This is one of those findings in research that may seem obvious, but so often what appears to be obvious just ain't so. This study seems to confirm…the obvious.

I'm talking about sleep. Sweet sleep.

This study from the 4 February issue of Current Biology confirms that being rocked to sleep, even for adults, seems to do the trick.

According to Aurore Perrault of the University of Geneva a rocking bed could provide a benefit to people suffering from sleeping disorders, as well as older people.

This wasn't a huge study, so the results should be considered preliminary. The subjects were 18 men and women with an average age of 23.

The test subjects spent three nights sawing logs in the lab.

Their rocking beds were suspended from each corner and were pushed 10 cm back and forth every 4 seconds. The subjects reported that it was a pleasant sensation.

As a result they fell asleep faster and reported sleeping better. Tests indicate they spent more time in deep sleep and didn't wake up as often during the night.

This sounds like my kind of lab test!

Okay, they did have to memorize word pairs before going off to dreamland. Not surprisingly, they did better in memory tests in the morning after their rocking slumbers.

Like I mentioned, this is an early study. Aurore Perrault said that their next step is to do these sleeping tests over a longer period of time.

Science News, New Scientist, Science,

Finally a genetic link to weight loss? Chris MacAlister

So we're waving bye-bye to January, the most depressing day of the year (Blue Monday) has already been and gone, and it probably wasn't made any better if you still haven't managed to shake those extra pounds that are still hanging around from the festive season.

If this sounds familiar then I may have a bit of reassurance for you. It's not your fault. Well, stuffing your face like an aspiring diabetic over Christmas was, but your struggle to lose that weight is not.

A large, joint study of some 14,000 people in the UK has found that there are numerous genetic factors that appear to have a high correlation to whether people are overweight or underweight (but in a healthy way, so we're not talking eating disorders).

This study adds to the growing weight of evidence that it's our genes, and not just our behaviour, that decide our weight.

This would go a long way to explain why some people can eat whatever they like without gaining any weight. It would also explain middle aged spread when you consider that different genes often get activated at different times of life.

But aside from taking some guilt away, there are more practical outcomes from this study. Once we start to understand the physical processes at play here, this then opens the possibilities for new treatments.

Science Daily

Fecal Transplants Benefit From Super Donors JD Goodwin

Over the past couple of years we've covered several stories on fecal transplants.

But…in case you missed those stories, let me give you a review on what a fecal transplant is. Don't want anyone falling behind.

In particular, persons who are infected with Clostridium difficile can be helped, sometimes dramatically by a fecal transplant. Often, people get infected with C. diff when they've been taking antibiotics. The antibiotics can do their work, but often leave a person's intestinal flora devastated. C. diff can then proliferate and the patient can wind up with some awful intestinal distress that can be maddeningly persistent.

However, for some other types of gut infections the results have been inconclusive.

In a new review published in Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Biology researchers taken a new look at this therapy and found something quite interesting.

Super-donors.

It seems that some people's poop have a high success rate in helping restore normal function for people with ailments like inflammatory bowel disease.

And as we've learned over the years our digestive systems is not only for digesting food. We're discovering more and more that our digestive system affects, and even moderate other things like our immune systems.

"The last two decades have seen a growing list of medical conditions associated with changes in the microbiome — bacteria, viruses and fungi, especially in the gut," says senior author Dr Justin O'Sullivan of the University of Auckland.

According to senior author Dr Justin O'Sullivan of the University of Auckland, "We know already that changes to the gut microbiome can contribute to disease, based on studies in germ-free mice as well as clinical improvement in human patients following restoration of the gut microbiome by transplanting stool from a healthy donor."

The typical success rate for recurrent diarrheal infections is over 90% with fecal transplants, but for things like inflammatory bowel disease the results are closer to 20%.

But that's with average donors.

Super donors have been shown to have double that success rate.

O'Sullivan and his team reviewed fecal transplantation trials for clues to the origin of super-donors, or more specifically, why they are super donors.

In particular, super donor stool tends to have high levels of  'keystone species'. These are bacteria which produce chemicals whose lack in the host gut contributes to disease.

Also, the balance of other species seems to have an effect the retention of keystone species.

Ultimately, O'Sullivan and colleagues acknowledge that super-donors may not fully account for successful fecal transplantation.

Dietary intake, viruses, and the disposition of the subject's immune system likely all play a role in the success of fecal transplants.

Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology, Science Blog

Gum disease–causing bacteria could spur Alzheimer's Chris MacAlister

I'm going to head right back to guilt again now because, for me, there is no health care professional who inspires a greater sense of guilt than the dentist. Sitting in that chair to the repeating chorus of "You should be flossing more!"

Well, now they could be about to get even worse!

Whilst poor oral health has long been associated with Alzheimer's disease, it's been hard to work out whether this cause or effect. After all, I don't have Alzheimer's and even I forget to floss every once in a while.

Now whilst I have heard of the gum disease gingivitis, it was only when researching this story that I heard about the bacteria that causes it, Porphyromonas gingivalis.

This story is that the evidence is now shifting towards poor oral health being a cause now that gingivalis has been discovered in the brains of deceased Alzheimer's sufferers. Some argue that the characteristic plaques that form in brains during Alzheimer's are signs of an immune response to an bacterial infection in the brain.

Whilst people are sceptical that this is the sole factor that contributes to Alzheimer's it is becoming increasing accepted that the disease does have a microbial element.

So just be warned that dentists will now have another thing to make you feel awful about. After all, I don't have Alzheimer's and even I forget to floss every once in a while.

Science, Science Advances

The Climate Lounge Greta Thunberg Brings the Heat! Tom Di Liberto

I love kids. I have two of 'em. And most people after meeting me say that I have the humor of one.

One of the greatest things about kids is that they don't take shit from anyone and they say what's on their mind. In the US, it's kids leading a massive movement for gun control Marching For Our Lives. Globally, it's a youth movement to force action on climate change. And in my house, it's a courageous stand against the tyranny of using the potty

I could talk about any of these burgeoning movements (and I will in the future) but for this Climate Lounge I want to talk about the bravest, and most badass woman who is crushing things recently. Sixteen year old Swede Greta Thunberg. Greta became world famous after going on strike in her native Sweden every day during school hours, standing on the steps to Parliament demanding the government take radical action to deal with climate change. And forgive me for a second for saying radical because for the youth of this world, there is nothing radical about it since it's that climate changed world they are inheriting. Radical is sensible.

Since then she's been everywhere (but not by plane as she refuses to fly). She's given TED talks, and has been to the major climate conferences. And She calls bullsh*t OUT!

She called out the common argument in Sweden that says "listen guys, everyone here agrees that climate change is a big problem which is why it's not a political issue".  

She literally explained how Sweden is no role model, "When you think about 'the future' today, you don't think beyond the year 2050. By then I will, in the best case, not even have lived half my life. What happens next?" "The year 2078 I will celebrate my 75th anniversary. If I have children and grandchildren they may want to celebrate that day with me. Maybe I will tell them about you? How do you want to be remembered?"

BOOM!

Fast forward to the meetings of the global elites, err, i mean egotistical billionaires, err I mean World Economic Forum. This is a place where 1,500 planes flew to Davos, Switzerland so a bunch of super-rich can talk about, among other things, how to deal with climate change. Sigh.

Greta was in attendance and gave, according to CNN, an impromptu speech during a lunch panel that included Bono and Will.I.AM, for some Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, former Goldman Sachs head Gary Cohn, and numerous other bankers, investors, and grossly rich people. And she brought pure FIRE.  

I quote: "Some people say that the climate crisis is something that we will have created, but that is not true, because if everyone is guilty then no one is to blame. And someone is to blame," Thunberg said "Some people, some companies, some decision-makers in particular, have known exactly what priceless values they have been sacrificing to continue making unimaginable amounts of money. And I think many of you here today belong to that group of people."

She said this TO THEIR FACES. At the same time in Brussels 35,000 students marched for climate, in no small part due to Greta's example.

The next day she participated in a formal panel on climate disruption and continued to drop truth bombs. I really have nothing to add to what she already said so let me end by simply repeating the end to her speech.

"We must change almost everything in our current societies. The bigger your carbon footprint, the bigger your moral duty. The bigger your platform, the bigger your responsibility.

"Adults keep saying 'We owe it to the young people to give them hope.' But I don't what your hope. I don't want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act."

"I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if your house in on fire. Because it is"

The Guardian  CNN  New Yorker

Pub Quiz

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

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, Spotify and any number of podcast directories. 

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 Tom Di Liberto.

I'm JD Goodwin.  

Thank you for joining us. 

And remember…follow the science!

On This Week's Show

• Anti-vaccination movement hits the big-time
• Gardening on the moon
• Silencing a type of brain cell can reduce pain
• Mitochondria kicking bacteria butts

Science News with Dr. Amrita Sule, and Nevena Hristozova Anti-Vaccine Movement Joins Ebola, Drug Resistance on List of Top Global Threats Amrita Sule

Every year the World health organization (WHO) comes up with a list of issues which threaten global health. This year they've laid out a list of 10 problems which need attention from the WHO, and their health partners.  

Some of the issues in the list were pandemic flu, dengue, climate change, and superbugs. But guess who has also made it to the list? Anti-vaxxers!

The anti-vaccine movement, which has mostly been prevalent in the United States, is now an international concern and poses a significant threat to the whole world. The WHO's list refers to it as "vaccine hesitancy."

A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that the number of unvaccinated children under 35 months age had gone up four-fold between 2001-2005.

A number of people refuse vaccination or are reluctant to get vaccinated due to complacency, lack of confidence or poor access to vaccines.  There are about 18 states in the US that allow vaccine exemptions 'conscientious objector' or 'philosophical/personal beliefs'.

A survey from mid-2018 showed that vaccination support had fallen by 10% in the US in last 10 years.

Vaccine hesitancy can pose a serious threat to herd immunity. So by choosing not to vaccinate children (and adults) for preventable diseases you are putting the entire population at risk.

Live Science, CNN, Newsweek

Growing Cotton on the Moon Nevena Hristozova

That's it! The Chinese did it again – quietly working on something and then BANG! This time the bang was more of a very little "pop" as a cotton seed sprouted on the surface of the Moon.

This is the first time plants have sprouted there. The leading scientist of this experiment, which was on board the latest Chinese lander which landed on the far side of the moon, Liu Hanlong said "Learning about these plants' growth in a low-gravity environment would allow us to lay the foundation for our future establishment of space base".

The Chinese space programme is actually planning the establishment of a lunar base with manned crew in the 30's and this is one of the biggest steps to maintain living conditions and certain level of independency from Earth of such crew.

They not only grew a plant on the Moon, they also were the first one to have a plant die on the moon. Unfortunately, the cotton sprout did not last long. The lunar lander has to power down for the duration of the lunar night (14 earth days), which means that with no oxygen, temperature or water control the seedling had no chance of survival. Bummer! Still – next up, I hope, is rice cause I ain't going anywhere if there's no sushi!

Silencing brain cells in mice can make them no longer care about pain Amrita Sule

Imagine that you accidentally burn your hand while making a pan of brownies. Ouch, that's painful. Now in such a scenario, the brain will notice two things. One that there was a burning sensation and two that it was pretty unpleasant one.

In a study conducted at Stanford University, a group led by Dr. Gregory Scherrer has identified brain cells that are responsible for the negative emotions of pain.

There are pain receptors all over our body and while nerves detect pain there is no emotional distress until it reaches the brain.  The researchers identified an ensemble of cells in the amygdala region of the brain. The amygdala is associated with emotion and fear and also acts as an on/off switch for pain aversion.

Their experimental set up to identify these specific cells in the amygdala was very neat. They engineered cells in mouse brains such that they would light up when they were active. On pain stimulus only certain cells lighted up in the amygdala.

They also used a miniscope attached to the mouse's head to monitor the activity of cells in the amygdala. This way they identified that a group of cells called the basolateral were active when mice were exposed to some kind of uncomfortable stimuli.

To further confirm if these cells were indeed associated with the emotional aspect of the pain the scientists made these cells inactive, and observed the mice. They made them walk on a track, which was warmer/ colder than normal. The mice with the inactive basolateral cells seemed undeterred by the temperatures compared to the normal mice.

This is really cool and more than that a significant discovery. Chronic pain is real problem and there is no good treatment. Patients are prescribed opioids for pain management which is a driver of the ongoing opioid epidemic. The scientists who led this study hope that this could be new avenue to treat pain. They want to study if any drugs can be developed to target these basolateral cells in the amygdala for treating pain.

New Scientist, Stanford

Mitochondria Play an Unexpected Role in Killing Bacteria Nevena Hristozova

At least once in our lives most of us had to use antibiotics to control and kill a bacterial infection. But the truth is – there is so much in our own body to fight infections, that you gotta give kudos to the bugs that actually succeed in making us ill!

Obviously I'm talking about our immunity. But did you know how many different parts of our body are involved in the immune response at a given time? Now scientists inform on yet another tool our organisms use to fight bacteria – our mitochondria.

This info just came out as a peer reviewed scientific article in the Journal Cell Host Microbe and it shows how tiny bubbles of subcellular size are released by the mitochondria when there's an infection in the body. The mitochondria normally are full of reactive oxygen species (the things that scientists think make us old, ill or messed up in a number of ways). Normally the mitochondria and the cells in general are very thoroughly cleaning up those reactive oxygen species (or ROSes) so they don't damage the components of the cell. Which is why the body produces the well-know and often-fad-pseudoscience-abused antioxydants.

Turns out though that the mitochondria are keeping a small stock or are ready to quickly produce more of those ROSes when a bacterial cell attacks the body. These ROSes get sent via these minute bubbles (think of them like little hand grenades) to the phagosome.

The phagosomes are another type of cellular compartment which are usually the first encounter of the bacterial cell after it enters the host organism cell. So the bacteria gets engulfed in these vesicles, full of nasty super destructive and corrosive chemicals and gets… Well… Destroyed.

As a result, if this is happening for example in an immune cell, the different leftovers of the "neutralised bacteria" like proteins, sugars, DNA and RNA and lipids, can be used by the host cell to signal to the immune system what exactly the invader is and help it then recognise it faster and fight it better.

Kudos to the first author Dr Basel H. Abuaita for finding out the origin of these ROSes in the phagosome – this has been a mystery for a while!

The Scientist

The Climate Lounge If You Thought 2018 Was Bad, Just Be Glad It Wasn't 536 Tom Di Liberto

Today's Lounge story has us looking on the bright side of things. Yes, it may seem like 2019 is just as much a dumpster fire as 2018. Yes, there are lots of bad things going on. BUT, there are also lots of good things going on, led by great people. So don't lose faith people. Oh also, um… just as an FYI… actualllllllllllllllllllly the year 536 was a million times worse.

Let me paint a bleak picture. According to Michael McCormick, a historian and archaeologist who chairs the Harvard University Initiative for Science of the Human Past (what an awesome title for something, btw), "536 was the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year." In 536, a mysterious fog enveloped Europe, the Middle East and parts of Asia in darkness for 18 months! I get annoyed for how long it's dark during winter! This darkness was noted by historians at the time as "For the sun gave forth its light without brightness, like the moon, during the whole year." You all obviously know who wrote those words right. I mean, who doesn't know Procopius when they hear him.

As a result temperatures in the summer of 536 fell around 2C, and it started the coldest decade in the last 2300 years. Snow fell in China, crops failed people died. In 541, the plague came to the Roman port of Pelusium in Egypt starting the Plague of Justinian which killed 1/3 to ½ of the eastern Roman Empire.

None of this was unknown of course as tree ring studies from the 90s showed that 540 was particularly cold. What WAS unknown is what caused this extremely dark period in the Dark Ages. And that brings us to the climate lounge. An analysis of ice from a Swiss glacier by an intrepid team of scientists include McCormick and glaciologist Paul Mayewski at the Climate Change Institute of the University of Maine has found the culprit in a study published in the journal Antiquity. A ridiculously huge and long lasting volcanic eruption in Iceland which threw so much ash into the northern hemisphere in early 536 to darken the sky. This eruption was followed by two more in 540 and 547 to run ashy salt in the climate impacting wound.

What type of wound given a plague, freezing temperatures and a lack of food?  Well Europe entered a period of economic stagnation that last a hundred years to 640. How can we be so specific? Scientists discovered another signal in the ice, an increase in airborne lead marking the resurgence of silver mining.

Ok, I haven't really explained how scientists used ice to determine an icelandic volcano was the culprit. When volcanoes erupt they throw sulfur, bismuth, and other junk high into the air, where they cool the planet. Scientists used these elements as tracers in the ice record from Greenland and Antarctica to know that a volcano caused this cold period. But they couldn't nail down a location. Mayewski and crew used an ice core from the Colle Gnifetti Glacier in the Swiss alps and a laser to carve out 120 micron slivers of ice that represented a few days or weeks of snowfall. In that ice Grad student Laura hartman found microscopic particles of volcanic glass. After finding the chemical fingerprint of the glass, they found they resembled glass found earlier in lakes and peat bogs in Europe and a Greenland ice core. And THOSE particles resembled volcanic rocks from Iceland. And Voila.

A big volcano, and unfortunate wind pattern lead to a 100 year freeze in europe's economy. Never underestimate mother nature.

Science

Pub Quiz

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

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, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher and any number of podcast directories. 

Check out our app in the Apple app store. It's totally free. 

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!

On This Week's Show

• First use of Bluetooth discovered
• Some new fast radio bursts discovered
• Another case of foot in mouth
• News of a proper space rocket

Science News with Chris MacAlister, and Nevena Hristozova Blue tooth reveals unknown female artist from medieval times Chris MacAlister

This story has, like the light from Rigel, travelled to us over the centuries to provide a small but noticeable illumination to our modern world.

Our story starts with a team of intrepid scientists making an heroic survey of ancient tooth plaque. A movie premise that is bound to get you popcorn munching and creating some tooth plaque all of your very own.

Studies of this tartar can provide us with a many clues as to the otherwise forgotten lives of people who WILL be direct ancestors of many of us.

This dental bacterial film has been found to contain DNA, living bacteria, textiles, pollen, food and even tiny insect wings; which I'm really hoping don't qualify under the heading of food. Although, this was a time where the drinking water was reputed for its tendency to contain "creeping things"!

Like any great story, this team made a discovery that was not expected. Blue tooth; well blueish tooth; well teeth with bits of blue on them to be precise. Blue in the form of lapis lazuli, a name that is embarrassingly sexy considering that it literally translates into english as Blue Stone! And that's exactly what it is. But lapis lazuli is so important because blue is a rare pigment to come by, so this rock was THE blue pigment and was therefore highly valuable.

The most likely explanation for the blue spangled teeth was that they belonged to an artist. Books from these days were all handwritten and were commonly decorated with beautiful and intricate illustrations. An artist moistening the tip of their brush with saliva may well have deposited pigment on their teeth. This theory is bolstered by the discovery being made on the grounds of a religious site, as monks were the people who performed most of this work.

But the big surprise was that this person was not a monk. SHE couldn't have been. She was a nun. This may not seem like a big deal today, but the jobs that women were allowed to do all of those years ago were very restrictive and working on intellectual materials like books was not previously considered to be within the remit. It may be that tartar, of all things, is helping us to rewrite history!]

Science News, New York Times

Thirteen New Fast Radio Bursts Discovered Nevena Hristozova

It's finally happening – they are speaking to us! If aliens were to radio-signal us they've found probably the friendliest nation to contact!

Enough of stereotypes – Canadian scientists have detected fast radio bursts from a galaxy 1.5 billion light years away. Thirteen of them! Coincidence? I don't think so!

This is only the second time an observation like this has been made, and the first one was done by a different telescope.

Scientists have no clue what this might be, but just to calm the spirits down – one of the most notable other times when astronomers detected frequent radio bursts in a pattern – we also thought it was aliens, and it turned out to be pulsars. Which if you ask me is even cooler!

BBC Science and Environment, Science News

Lab Boots James Watson, Citing 'Unsubstantiated and Reckless' Remarks Chris MacAlister

It's often said that you should never meet your heroes for fear of being disappointed. But sometimes people save you the trouble and broadcast their cockwombledry for the world to see.

Enter James Watson; the walking lesson on why admiring the achievement does not mean that you also have to admire the man!

To many, James Watson is the pioneering hero of Watson & Crick fame who brought us the landmark discovery of the double helix structure of DNA. But to an increasing demographic he is that unbearable bigoted dinosaur who often opens his mouth and leaves everyone else wishing that he hadn't.

Can you guess where I'm going with this yet?

People have been in no doubt about Watson's general attitudes to those he considers inferior. Rosalind Franklin's overlooked contributions to the discovery of the double helix may not have been solely down to Watson, but the disrespectful account that he gives of her in his book "The Double Helix" leaves no readers in any doubts as to his opinions.

Having already been expelled from his chancellorship of New York's Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory in 2007 for classic points of view such as being "gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours, whereas all the testing says, not really"

Watson said that while he hopes everyone is equal,  "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true".

Wow!

Watson did manage to limit the damage at the time by apologising for his statements but the same institution who took action against him in 2007 has now revoked all titles and honours that were once bestowed on him after his comments on a recent documentary.

When asked if his opinions had changed on the matter he said "Not at all. I would like for them to have changed, that there be new knowledge that says that your nurture is much more important than nature. But I haven't seen any knowledge. And there's a difference on the average between blacks and whites on IQ tests. I would say the difference is, it's genetic"

In case anyone is in doubt, I would like to clarify that it is not. According to genetics there is not even any empirical support for the idea of race. More genetic variation is seen within races rather than between them.

Yes middle aged white academic men do perform best in IQ tests but that is mainly because IQ tests were invented by middle aged white academic men. It doesn't mean that white men are more intelligent, it just means that they are better at IQ tests, which are already highly questionable as to their effectiveness at measuring what is really a very abstract collection of skills!

Rant over, now breathe. With Tom not here I don't want to be the host who takes over screaming into the void. And I'd just like to remind everyone that you have not been listening to the Ass-Hole of the Month feature. This is just the news!]

Note about the Asshole of the Month that I'll share with audience: the reason we're not doing that is because it has become redundant during these years of the Trump Presidency.

New York Times, The Guardian

Elon Musk Reveals SpaceX's New Retro Test Rocket Nevena Hristozova

Elon Musk keeps trying to bring us to Mars and this time, he's doing it in retro style.

SpaceX revealed a model of a sub-orbital flight craft for vertical take off and landing which looks like one from the 1950's film Destination Moon.

The prototype should be ready for test-flight in June, so keep your eyes open, people.

SpaceX also plans the development of an orbital ship of the same class, which will be taller and with slightly different geometry to facilitate actually going into orbit. Both are the new generation space-craft from SpaceX which inherit the work done by Falcon Heavy, and are from a production line called StarShip.

To be honest, the rocket looks a bit too smooth to look real, but who knows – we might have had the right design already in the 50s' science fiction movie.

TechCrunch, New Scientist

Pub Quiz

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

In Closing

We are delighted to have Mary McMorris as our newest supporter on Patreon.

Thank you, Mary.

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, Spotify and any number of podcast directories. 

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 Nevena Hristozova.

I'm JD Goodwin.  

Thank you for joining us. 

And remember…follow the science!

We ring in 2019 with news of lovelorn crickets, the far side of the moon, food allergies, and a new branch on a big tree. But the proverbial elephant in the room is the ongoing shutdown of the United States' government.

On This Week's Show

• The far side of the moon
• Food allergies?
• Remember those reports of sonic assaults by the Cuban government against US embassy staff? We have some surprise information about that.
• We close with some discussion about a new kingdom of life and what it really means

Science News with Sophie McManus and JD Goodwin What Does China Want To Do On The Far Side Of The Moon? JD Goodwin

On the 3rd of January China's Chang'e 4 lunar explorer landed on the far side of the moon. This is the first time we've done a soft landing on that obscure part of the moon.

Okay, so let's talk about why the far side of the moon is so interesting.

The moon is tidally locked to earth, that is, it doesn't rotate in relation to our planet. We only see the one side of the moon, whether it's illuminated or not.

The far side is also geologically very different. The crust is much thicker and older, and consequently it has been struck with more rocks and asteroids.

On our side of the moon we can see those dark areas, called mare. There are very few of those on the moon's far side.

Chang'e touched down in a 180km crater that itself is within another huge basin, the South Pole-Aitken Basin. This basin was formed when an asteroid perhaps 500km across slammed into the moon billions of years ago.  A big hole in a big hole.

Putting the lander at this location should give it access to some of the moon's oldest rocks…kind of like being at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. And the lander is gonna examine and do science on these rocks.

They also have a lunar penetrating radar which can map out and study the subsurface down to a depth of 100m.

Being on the far side of the moon will also give the researchers a chance to look into the universe without being hindered by light from the earth. So to take advantage of this the lander has a low frequency radio telescope that will allow it to look at a frequency band that we can't use on earth because of electromagnetic interference.

And the Lunar Lander Neutrons and Dosimetry experiment. This experiment was created by researchers in Germany. It's goal is to look at radiation on the moon in great detail so that humans will be able to shield themselves on future missions.

So, watch this space!

BBC Science and Environment

Many People Who Claim to Have a Food Allergy Actually Don't Sophie McManus

We probably all know people with a food allergy. Some of these allergies can be deadly, others more of an irritation or inconvenience. The most prevalent food allergens among U.S. adults are shellfish (affecting 7.2 million adults), milk (4.7 million), peanut (4.5 million), tree nut (3 million), fin fish (2.2 million), egg (2 million), wheat (2 million), soy (1.5 million), and sesame (.5 million).

There's some surprising news out this week that in fact many people who believe they have an allergy…don't.

A study was carried out in the US on 40,000 adults. 19% of these people stated they had an allergy to a type of food, whereas the researchers found that only 10% of them actually had an allergy. Bizarre!

Lead study author Dr Ruchi Gupta is a paediatrics professor at the Northwestern University Freiburg school of medicine. Dr Gupta stated that symptoms may reflect food intolerances rather than true allergies.

Genuine food allergies can of course be dangerous and should always be considered. But it seems as though a lot of us are simply intolerant, or deciding that we are, rather than really allergic.

Live Science

The Sounds That Haunted U.S. Diplomats in Cuba? Lovelorn Crickets, Scientists Say JD Goodwin

There were a lot of things happening back in late 2016. Lost in all that noise was the story of American diplomats who suddenly became ill in Havana, Cuba. 

They reported hearing various types of unpleasant sounds. This happened in housing maintained by the Cuban government as well as in hotel rooms. 

The personnel actually showed symptoms consistent with brain injury, although no head trauma of any kind was shown. 

U.S. officials immediately suspected that the Cuban government was behind this. 

Well…new research suggests there many be another reason. 

Crickets. Really loud ones. 

Recordings were made of these so-called attacks, and were released by the Associated Press. 

So some researchers took that recording and discovered that its parameters lined up perfectly with the Indies short-tailed cricket.

And according to the researchers their findings, which have not yet been peer-reviewed, do provide strong evidence that crickets were indeed making the sound on the recording. 

Now that doesn't rule out any nefarious activity by the Cuban government or others. But blaming the Cubans is not looking good at this moment. 

This was no small incident. The U.S. government expelled 15 Cuban diplomats from Washington as a result of this. 

All the while the Cuban government insisted that it had nothing to do with any of this. In fact, they even worked with U.S. investigators to determine the cause of the health issues.

New York Times

What a Newfound Kingdom Means for the Tree of Life Sophie McManus

Recently, researchers found a rare microbe called a hemimastigote in a remote area of Canada. Analysis of its DNA led to the startling finding that this organism represents a different class of life altogether – its genetic material was distinct from any animal, microbial, plant, fungal or protozoan. This discovery therefore represents a new and startling branch in the tree of life.

The PhD student who made this finding is Yana Eglit. When she was hiking in Novia Scotia back in 2016 she stopped to take a sample of the soil (she terms this behaviour a 'professional hazard'). Back in the lab she soaked it in water and kept an eye on it through the microscope for a few weeks. Eventually she noticed movement, from a single elongated cell in the sample, covered with flagella. She thought it might be a hemimastigote and the lab all got involved to investigate further. The subsequent work showed that this organism represented its own pocket of life as we know it.

The reason the researchers can be sure this represents a distinct branch lies in technology. Single-cell transcriptomics has revolutionized such studies – this approach enables researchers to sequence large numbers of genes from just one cell. For for hard-to-study organisms like hemimastigotes, single-cell transcriptomics can produce genetic data of a quality previously reserved for more abundant cells, making deeper genomic comparisons finally possible.

The team sequenced more than 300 genes, and Laura Eme, a postdoc at Uppsala University in Sweden, modelled how those genes evolved to infer a classification for hemimastigotes. "We were fully expecting them to fall within one of the existing supergroups," she explained. Lab members were instead stunned to find that hemimastigotes fit nowhere on the tree. They represented their own distinct lineage.

It  has been termed 'the sort of result you hope to see once in a career' by lead scientist Alistair Simpson, of Dalhousie University.  

The tree of life has changed an awful lot in the last couple of decades, and it seems likely this change will continue. Darwin would be fascinated!

Quanta Magazine

The Climate Lounge The Lounge is SHUT DOWN! Tom Di Liberto

Podcast listeners, the Climate Lounge piece you are trying to access is not available at this time due to a lapse in appropriation…and judgment…and decency.

[silence]

Ok, just kidding. That only applies to small things like the place I work and 800,000 federal employees of the United States. Yay. You all might be thinking, "This seems dumb, why are they doing this? Or perhaps "What does this mean for science". (more likely the first one but I'll talk about both.

For listeners outside the United states who might not be aware of what's going on in the US right now, in late December, funding ran out for parts of the federal government. How could this happen? Well, the US government was on the verge of funding everything including a unanimous vote in the US Senate. Then Fox and Friends and other far right media folks got pissy and the president decided he wasn't going sign the bill without funding for an idiotic (and environmentally disastrous) border wall. And shut the government down. This meant that hundreds of thousands of workers either were forced to stay at home and not work, or forced to work, all without pay. The problem being of course, that while most folks will get paid for the time they missed, bills are still due when they are due.

But this is a science podcast so let's briefly touch on the science and environmental impacts. For one, the national parks have been kept open, but with a hugely reduced or non-existent staff. This means that folks can come in and do whatever they want. And they are. Trash is overflowing, toilets clogged, human waste left…anywhere and trespassing aplenty. This will have long-lasting impacts on the natural environments that draws people to the parks in the first place.  

Science-wise, for folks like me, the largest conference of meteorologists in the country, the meeting of the American Meteorological Society is taking place sans 700 federal employees, meaning the schedule took a huge hit as tons of talks were scrapped, meetings impacted, and conversations silenced.

But some folks (dumb folks) would say oh that just's a trip BOONDOGGLE! Not folks who listen to this podcast of course, but some folks. To those people I also will note that scientists are not allowed to check experiments that are currently ongoing, potentially ruining them. They are not allowed to perform observations, collect data, conduct tests, or share their results. That fieldwork trip? Unless it was forward funded, CANCELED. We are legally not allowed to science. Heck, we can't READ science in some cases too with proposals left unread.

For me, I'm lucky for now. My contract is forward funded so I can work, from home, as long as I have tasks to do. But geez is it hard. I'm still making forecasts for major climate patterns with global implications knowing that if something breaks, a model doesn't run, a product can get the right data, that there will be no one to fix it because they are furloughed. I know that even with a good forecast, our ability to do outreach on what it means will be hampered.

It's all so very very very stupid. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to continue my 2018 tradition into 2019, by screaming into the void.

Pub Quiz

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

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, Spotify and any number of podcast directories. 

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 Sophie McManus, and Tom Di Liberto.

I'm JD Goodwin.  

Thank you for joining us. 

And remember…follow the science!

The best in science communication tells a compelling story, and this week we have a great one! Gabriel Montejo-Kovacevich joins us to talk about her research in Central and South America studying butterflies of the genus Heliconius, also known as longwings. She shares her story of the hard work and the gratifying rewards of field research in challenging conditions. Gabriela is at the front line of science, and we are grateful to her for sharing her adventure and her research with us.

On This Week's Show

• Science News of the Week
• The Pub Quiz
• Interview: Gabriela Montejo-Kovacevich of the University of Cambridge

Science News with Nevena Hristozova and Sophie McManus

NASA's Voyager 2 Probe Leave the Solar System

Nevena Hristozova

"Houston, I'm out of here" is probably what Voyager 2 said when it officially left the Solar System and is now roaming in the deep space between stars.

The craft was launched before Voyager 1. It may seem counter-intuitive, but it was set on a different trajectory that Voyager 1, so it left our star space 6 years after Voyager 1 did, hence it was already originally planned as Voyager 2.

Why is this a big deal? For many reasons:

• The twin crafts are the furthest existing man-made objects in the universe. They are (at the time of the recording) at more than 21 billion kilometres away.
• They are the first man-made objects to leave the solar system.
• They keep working - this is how we knew they have left the solar system - the instruments on board are measuring the density of solar particles and when a drop in this density was observed, scientists knew they are out! It was a bit of a strange experiment, since the astronomers were expecting them to stop detecting stuff, which is a hard thing to anticipate since at the edges of the system stuff is very far from each other to begin with.
• The Voyagers upped the bets of everyone - their original mission was to explore the outer planets of the solar system, but they just kept going and going and their instruments kept working so the project scientists were just not going to quit until the Voyagers did so they kept collecting data and analysing it.

Next up for the twins is a minefield of comets loosely gravitationally bound to our Sun. Hopefully they won't meet their demise there, but even if they do - they've done so much more than anyone expected from them that it'd be a well deserved rest.

If they survive that hurdle, they will be orbiting the center of our galaxy for billions of years and it will take Voyager 1 another 40,000 years to reach another star system despite its looming speed of 61,000 kilometres per hour. 

BBC Science and Environment, LA Times

The Great Barrier Reef is Fighting Back

Sophie McManus

We've spoken at length about the horrific bleaching happening on the GBR, the world's largest coral reef. Coral reefs are vast colonies of hard coral, an organism which extracts calcium carbonate from seawater to construct a limestone structure for protection. The tiny animals in coral are clear. They get their bright reds and vivid purples from colourful algae called zooxanthellae that live in their cells, providing the oxygen that the corals need to grow — albeit slowly. Coral reefs, which by some estimates support a quarter of all ocean life, are harmed by warming oceans. Bleaching occurs when the ocean temperature rises. If prolonged, bleaching causes coral to die. And this was the case last year and the year before last. The 2,300 kilometre long reef was severely bleached by back-to-back heatwaves in early 2016 and early 2017, causing half the coral to die.

Aerial surveys led by researcher Terry Hughes at James Cook University show that the Great Barrier Reef survived last year's extreme summer better than the previous year's, hinting that it is becoming more resilient. However, some coral species are faring better than others, meaning the reef is likely to look very different in years to come.

"Despite the fact that 2017 was hotter, we saw less bleaching over all across the whole reef," Dr. Hughes said. The reason, he said, was a novel concept scientists call ecological memory: the idea that the past experience of a biological community can influence its ecological response today or in the future.

This sounds good news for the Reef, but doesn't change the fact that in order to recover as much as possible from a bleaching event a reef needs 10 years. With rising ocean temperatures becoming more common, the world's coral is set for more bleaching and death in years to come, which doesn't only represent an avoidable human tragedy, but an ecological disaster.

This research is published in Nature Climate Change.

New Scientist, New York Times

Seals Keep Getting Eels Stuck Up Their Noses

Nevena Hristozova

I've been congested for three weeks now and I can tell you it's super annoying! So I truly commiserate with the poor seals who keep getting something far worse stuck up their noses - eels! That's right they are figuratively snorting unagi-sushi!

The Hawaiian Monk Seal Research Program informs via the website Live Science that a live eel getting stuck up a seal nose is not a unique case.

The monk seals feed on or near the bottom of the ocean. So, they go for the food, for example eels, whose strategy is to hide at the bottom of the ocean.

Scientists don't know how the eel got up its nose - it could have, rammed itself into the nostril and maybe got stuck in the heat of an attempt to escape. Or may be the seal brought the eel out to the surface to eat the prey, and the eel could have whipped around and got into the nose…

It can be also a case of "not knowing better" since this phenomenon has been observed only in young seals, who might just be inexperienced at hunting.

Or the seal might have sneezed or regurgitated the eel through the wrong pipe.

Not to worry though - the seal's day turned for the better as researchers managed to remove it from its nose. The eel however did not have the same luck as it died. Maybe it got a fatal scare of how dark the nose of the seal was?

Live Science

River Bounces Back After World's Largest Ever Dam Removal

Sophie McManus

After my hideously pessimistic take on the last story it is time for some optimism.

Freed from two large dams, a small river in Washington state USA has efficiently flushed vast amounts of mud, sand and gravel towards the sea.

This is the world's largest dam-removal project so far. Two barriers on the Elwha River (32 and 64 metres high respectively) were dismantled between 2011 and 2014 to restore the river's flow. Amy East at the US Geological Survey in Santa Cruz, California, and her team monitored river flow and topography before, during and after the dams' removal.

The release of 20 million tonnes of sediment that had been trapped in the reservoirs behind the dams substantially altered the shape of the river, filling pools and creating new sandbanks. But five months later most of the change had settled down and the 20 million tons of debris had in the main reached the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Rivers of sufficient stream power seem to be able to cope with large dam removals without serious harm, the authors conclude. I assume this is good news for recovery of various ecosystems and species supported by the river. I looked into how dams affect rivers.

Notes from https://www.internationalrivers.org/environmental-impacts-of-dams

The dam wall itself blocks fish migrations, which in some cases and with some species completely separate spawning habitats from rearing habitats.  The dam also traps sediments, which are critical for maintaining physical processes and habitats downstream of the dam (include the maintenance of productive deltas, barrier islands, fertile floodplains and coastal wetlands).

Another significant and obvious impact is the transformation upstream of the dam from a free-flowing river ecosystem to an artificial slack-water reservoir habitat. Changes in temperature, chemical composition, dissolved oxygen levels and the physical properties of a reservoir are often not suitable to the aquatic plants and animals that evolved with a given river system. Indeed, reservoirs often host non-native and invasive species (e.g. snails, algae, predatory fish) that further undermine the river's natural communities of plants and animals.

The alteration of a river's flow and sediment transport downstream of a dam often causes the greatest sustained environmental impacts. Life in and around a river evolves and is conditioned on the timing and quantities of river flow.  Disrupted and altered water flows can be as severe as completely de-watering river reaches and the life they contain. Yet even subtle changes in the quantity and timing of water flows impact aquatic and riparian life, which can unravel the ecological web of a river system.

A dam also holds back sediments that would naturally replenish downstream ecosystems. When a river is deprived of its sediment load, it seeks to recapture it by eroding the downstream river bed and banks (which can undermine bridges and other riverbank structures, as well as riverside woodlands). Riverbeds downstream of dams are typically eroded by several meters within the decade of first closing a dam; the damage can extend for tens or even hundreds of kilometers below a dam.

IN SUMMARY  Large dams have led to the extinction of many fish and other aquatic species, the disappearance of birds in floodplains, huge losses of forest, wetland and farmland, erosion of coastal deltas, and many other unmitigable impacts.

I realise we use dams to prevent floods, hence reduce the occurrence of natural disasters affecting human life. (Although the 3 Gorges Dam on the Yangtze river led to the displacement 1.3 million people and led to the loss of many cultural sites.) Another great benefit of dams is the hydroelectric power they can generate, providing cleaner energy than fossil fuels.

Nature Geophysics

Interview: Gabriela Montejo-Kovacevich of the University of Cambridge

Gabriela Montejo-Kovacevich

A PhD candidate in Zoology at the University of Cambridge. Gabriela's work is on the ecology, physiology and genomics of thermal adaptation to altitude in Heliconius butterflies. More information on her study system can be found at http://www.heliconius

Pub Quiz

Listen to today's episode to see you can do better than our panel!

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, Spotify and any number of podcast directories.

You can also 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 Sophie McManus.

I'm JD Goodwin.  

Thank you for joining us.

And remember...follow the science!

A year ago we were in shock and disbelief in the days after the Tubbs Fire in Northern California incinerated our neighborhood, and our home. One year later and that scene of apocalyptic devastation has been replaced by a community coming together and rising from the ashes. 

I'm overjoyed to announce that we can put that awful year behind us. My family and I have moved back into our wonderful neighborhood, and we're looking forward to more and more of our neighbors' return.

A million thanks to the Blue Streak Science team. You are simply the best. I'm indebted to you, and it's my honor to work on this project with you. 

Thanks to our incredible audience for sticking with us during the past year. For you, we pledge to take the Blue Streak Science Podcast to the next level. The future is gonna be awesome! 

On This Week's Show

• The science news of the week
• The Climate Lounge with Tom Di Liberto
• And the Pub Quiz

Science News with Dr. Amrita Sule and Sophie McManus Cosmic Airburst May Have Wiped Out Part of the Middle East 3,700 Years Ago

We all have seen shooting stars at night. Millions such small asteroids are thought to orbit on paths that bring them near Earth. So, once in a while as noted in history a comet or a meteorite can come very very close to the earth surface and explode - causing massive destruction events called cosmic airbursts.

A team of researchers from Jordan's Tall el-Hammam Excavation Project have found evidence that a cosmic airburst took place about 3,500 years ago. This explosion of a comet or a meteor destroyed around 500 square kilometers, wiping out all human life and a vast area of fertile land north of the Dead Sea called Middle Ghor.

This airburst left the fertile lands barren as they were deposited with anhydride salts from the Dead Sea due to a tsunami which was caused by the aftershocks from the airburst. It took almost 600 years for the area to recover before any civilization could be restored.  

How did the archeologists come across the evidence of this airburst? They found and studied 3,500 year old pieces of pottery from the Tall el-Hammam excavation site and discovered that it was vitrified, turned into glass. This would require extremely high temperatures around 4,000˚ C. Just for reference the temperature on sun is about 5,600˚ C.

This was so powerful that zircon contained in the pottery turned into glass. Radiocarbon dating at the site indicated that mud-brick walls "suddenly disappeared around 3,700 years ago, leaving only stone foundations."

A similar air burst that took place in Tunguska, Siberia in 1908 had a blast radius of 2,000 square kilometers, suggesting that the explosion which destroyed the Middle Ghor region occurred at a low altitude, possibly not more than one kilometer above the ground.

The most recent airburst took place in February 2013 when a meteor exploded over Central Russia. This event injured about 1,500 people and damaged thousands of buildings.

These cosmic airbursts continue to be an impending threat to the planet. Scientists are working on developing warning and response systems to deal with such cosmic events.

Live Science

Fox, 'Cosmos' Producers Investigate Sexual Misconduct Claims Against Host Neil deGrasse Tyson

[caption id="attachment_1591" align="alignright" width="300"] Neil deGrasse Tyson[/caption]

Neil deGrasse Tyson has been accused by three women of sexual misconduct and an investigation will take place shortly.

In one allegation, Katelyn Allers, an associate professor of astronomy and physics at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania, claimed Tyson inappropriately touched her in 2009 while admiring a space tattoo on her upper left arm. Another woman, Ashley Watson, claimed that she quit a position as Tyson's assistant due to inappropriate sexual advances. Those claims follow an earlier allegation by musician Tchiya Amet, who claimed Tyson raped her while both attended graduate school.

deGrasse Tyson has written a piece addressing the claims titled 'On Being Accused'.

"I'm the accused, so why believe anything I say? Why believe me at all?" Tyson wrote. "That brings us back to the value of an independent investigation, which FOX/NatGeo (the networks on which Cosmos and StarTalk air) announced that they will conduct. I welcome this. … Accusations can damage a reputation and a marriage. Sometimes irreversibly. I see myself as loving husband and as a public servant – a scientist and educator who serves at the will of the public.  I am grateful for the support I've received from those who continue to respect and value me and my work."

Trial, or rather manhunt, by social media is ridiculous, so it's good that Fox and NatGeo are getting on with an investigation. I read both Degrasse Tyson's account and one of the blogs detailing the assault, for this story. I have my own opinion, but given that I've just denounced trial by social media I think I'll keep it to myself…!

New York Times, Space.com

As Natural As Spider's Milk

The kingdom Animalia never ceases to surprise us. And one of the recent discoveries is about jumping spiders, Toxeus magnus. According to a study published in Science, Female Toxeus Magnus spiders secrete a milk like fluid to feed their offspring. But wait! Spiders are not mammals, and isn't breastfeeding is fundamental to being mammals?

Apparently not. Over time scientists have discovered that animals such as flamingos, cockroaches and male emperor penguins produce nutrient rich milk-like substances to feed their young.

The discovery that Toxeus magnus spiders secrete a milk-like fluid was carried out by lead author Zhanqui Chen of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Chen observed that young T. magnus spiders were slow to leave their breeding nests – suggestive of extended childcare. Chen's team noticed in the lab that the newborns and the mother remained in the next for about 20 days. A closer they revealed that during first week the mother deposited droplets of white fluid from her underside on to the nest, which the newborns would drink. After that the newborns directly drank from the underside of the mother.

The mother continued to provide milk for 20 more even when the young spiders would leave their nests to forage. These young spiderlings returned to the nest for mother's milk until finally weaning at 40 days of age.

When Chen blocked the opening (same when they lay eggs) from which the fluid was secreted, the hatchlings did not survive beyond 11 days which shows their complete dependence on this fluid. Chen and colleagues found that this milk like white fluid was extremely rich in proteins. It contained four times as much protein as cow's milk. The authors are okay with calling this fluid spider's milk even though it does not come from a mammary gland. They are more interested in how it supports the offspring.

Chen and colleagues plan to study how does T. magnus generates this fluid. This discovery challenges the dogma that lactation is uniquely a mammalian trait. They don't know yet if this is seen in any other spiders.

These rare variants in the animal kingdom will help in providing insights about evolution of lactation and parental care.

New York Times

Researcher who created CRISPR twins defends his work

Lots to think about here. Let's refresh briefly on what exactly has happened.

A few days ago, a researcher in China claimed to have CRISPR-edited human embryos to prevent them from contracting HIV. He Jiankui of the Southern University of Science and Technology in nearby Shenzhen, China, said he was "proud" of the work, which he said could lead to disease prevention "for millions of children."

While CRISPR technology has been used in a preliminary way in human material, what's truly controversial about this work is the claim that the edited embryos were allowed to develop to term. That's right - this work apparently resulted in the birth of two babies. The announcement he had done this was only made when the twin girls had been born.

Earlier this week, He announced in an Associated Press (AP) interview and a series of YouTube videos that his team had engineered the genomes of twin baby girls to cripple a key receptor, CCR5, that HIV uses to infect white blood cells—a modification they may pass onto their descendants. Mutations in the CCR5 gene confer HIV resistance, and He said previous experiments have suggested CCR5 was a promising target for editing. But He didn't explain how gene editing could help the world prevent the disease; nobody thinks it's feasible to edit the genomes of entire populations.

Several things to consider.

Did this work actually happen? Or is it a poorly judged attempt at some sort of fame/notoriety? If the researcher indeed edit human embryos which were then born, what has this work done to them other than (possibly) mediating their risk of contracting HIV? A long-winded way of saying, what other stuff has he messed with?! CRISPR is known as an incredible tool to modify genetic information, but it is also known to cause many undesirable off-target effects. Did the parents really understand what was being done? Apparently He claimed this work was part of a vaccine development project to some potential patients.

For any listeners unfamiliar with the furore surrounding the potential of CRISPR, this work represents a lot of controversy. This technique isn't considered clinically safe. Nor have we reached any consensus on whether it is morally acceptable to tamper with the genome of human embryos. Particularly otherwise HEALTHY embryos. The phrase 'playing God' is likely to be bandied about.

The water is murkier still. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the huge moral repercussions of gene editing human embryos, it appears this work was not funded or sanctioned by the scientist's research institution. They are now investigating him! Another point worth making is - who's going to publish this? Reputable journals would be likely to reject this work on ethical grounds alone. He says the work has been submitted to a peer reviewed journal, but many unanswered questions remain, for example which hospital he did the work at, why he hadn't mentioned this work earlier (for example when the woman was pregnant), what success rate he found, what adverse effects may have arisen in failed attempts.

Back to the actual aim of this work, to make the girls resistant to contracting HIV. But, I mean, were they at risk of contracting HIV in the first place?  Why alter ostensibly healthy embryos while risking off-target genetic effects? Even if they are exposed to HIV, which they have been 'edited' to avoid, you know they COULD still get it. I mean some people are naturally immune to HIV, but they STILL can get it, if it gets through an alternative route!!! There are ways to avoid HIV that don't involve gene editing! This isn't an unmet medical need. There's no way to prove that this work has benefitted the girls, as if they don't catch HIV, that isn't necessarily because of He's work!

I'll close with some comments made by Jennifer Doudna, one of the inventors of CRISPR as we know it today. Doudna is 'horrified' by this story, if it is true.

If you want to know more about the fallout, I recommend a great Atlantic article by Ed Yong titled The CRISPR Baby Scandal Gets Worse By The Day.

Science

The Climate Lounge

United States National Climate Assessment and the start of COP24

Tom Di Liberto

It's good to be back in The Lounge. A lot has happened since I last ranted….I promise I'm going to try and rant less and hope more. So instead of trying to cover every specific last thing that's happened climate-related on this planet, I'm going to talk about a broad new report that was recently released by the US Government, the Fourth National Climate Assessment.

First a disclosure, everything I say is my own opinion and does not reflect upon my employer. Also, I work at one of the agencies that helped produce the report but I did not have a hand in making it. With that said, let's get into it.

The Fourth National Climate Assessment was released on Friday, 23 November, better known as the day after Thanksgiving, which sigh…obviously was done to reduce the number of eyeballs paying attention. WHY would this have been done? Well, let me read verbatim what is under the "Communities" header in the summary findings

"The impacts of climate change are already being felt in communities across the country. More frequent and intense extreme weather and climate-related events, as well as changes in average climate conditions, are expected to continue to damage infrastructure, ecosystems, and social systems that provide essential benefits to communities. Future climate change is expected to further disrupt many areas of life, exacerbating existing challenges to prosperity posed by aging and deteriorating infrastructure, stressed ecosystems, and economic inequality. Impacts within and across regions will not be distributed equally. People who are already vulnerable, including lower-income and other marginalized communities, have lower capacity to prepare for and cope with extreme weather and climate-related events and are expected to experience greater impacts. Prioritizing adaptation actions for the most vulnerable populations would contribute to a more equitable future within and across communities. Global action to significantly cut greenhouse gas emissions can substantially reduce climate-related risks and increase opportunities for these populations in the longer term."

This report is following the science and because of that is pulling no punches. You might be thinking how in the world was this released by the current US government? Well, the National Climate Assessment is a Congressionally mandated report that comes out roughly every 4 years by law. This report has been in the process of creation starting before the current administration took office and they had no right to stop it. Now, for our international listeners, this report does NOT go into the global impacts currently and in the future of climate change. Instead, it has a specific focus on how climate change is impacting and will continue to impact the United States (and all that entails). It looks at all scenarios for the future and explains what will happen to extreme weather impacts, climate change impacts on coastal, interior, mountains…you get the picture. In fact, it breaks down the US into regions and each region gets its own section to discuss impacts. It is a thorough and massive effort done by tons of scientists, a lot of whom did this in their free time not getting paid a scent. Now the reaction to this release has been predictable. With fabrications, deflections and did I mention fabrications? A lot of lies out there trying to downplay this report's conclusions....including insisting it wasn't based on data. Uhmm, it's basically all data! Each statement has a citation after it leading to a peer reviewed journal article. It's a data nerd's dream!

Or that scientists were getting rich off of this. Which, HAHAHA, oh lord that's a good one!

Or that it was only based off a worst case scenario. It wasn't. But you get this picture.

Now they tried to bury this report so I think all Americans should do our part to keep talking about it. It also includes sections on what to do about the problem, and reducing risks which are great things to focus on. Solutions are good, people. Because climate change isn't going away and it's going to get worse.

Now before I leave, I'd be silly not to mention that the annual UN Conference on Climate Change or COP24 is taking place currently in Poland. I recommend folks google searching stories about it and following those journalists and activists in Poland for the latest news. And check back to the lounge in the future for a run down of what went down. (psst, Poland had coal companies sponsor the event including have multiple coal displays...I'm not joking…goodness). There will be a lot to talk about, including some amazing efforts globally by the world's youth to force action. Inspiring stuff, people.

Fourth National Climate Assessment

Washington Post

Pub Quiz

Today's Pub Quiz was on the human anatomy.

In Next Week's Episode

Next week we'll be talking with Gabriela Montejo-Kovacevich of the University of Cambridge. We'll get an inside look at her field work in South America studying a very interesting genus of butterflies, the Heliconians. Don't miss it!

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, Spotify and any number of podcast directories.

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

Our hosts today were Dr. Amrita Sule, Sophie McManus, and Tom Di Liberto.

I'm JD Goodwin.  

Thank you for joining us.

And remember...follow the science!