Blue Streak Science Podcast

On This Week's Show

• Cosmonauts make emergency landing after Soyuz rocket malfunctions
• Big Bird Misbehaves and eats a Neanderthal Child
• Stephen Hawking's final science study is released
• Increase In Cases of Rare 'Polio-Like' Illness in the US
• We have a big election coming up, so Blue Streak Science is giving endorsements to our favorite science-friendly candidates
• The Climate Lounge

Science News with Nevena Hristozova and Dr. Amrita Sule Cosmonauts make emergency landing after Soyuz rocket malfunctions Nevena Hristozova

Two scientists sitting in a rocket. What can go wrong? Pretty much everything when you are sitting on several hundred litres of highly flammable fuel.

On 11 October this is exactly what went wrong. Two astronauts were on their way to the ISS in a rocket powered by the Soyuz engines when a problem in the detachment of one of the stages caused the rocket to plunge back to earth, not only before it delivered the cosmonauts to the ISS, but in a trajectory less like the one of a space vessel, but more like a ballistic rocket. And if you are in that thing you really don't want to be falling like a bomb down to Earth.

Luckily, the Russian and American astronauts were well prepared with their training because they employed some 20-year old emergency training techniques which saved their buts. While landing they experienced forces that normally astronauts are not supposed to feel at any stage of the flight. Such forces that an average-weight person would feel like 10 times heavier.

Both of them seem to be well and kicking, but there will be an investigation on what exactly happened, why and how to avoid it in the future.

Live Science, Space.com

Neanderthal Child Eaten by Giant Bird Amrita Sule

Imagine getting your hand or finger chewed off by a bird of prey. Ouch!! Sounds kind of painful isn't it? About 115 thousand years ago a Neanderthal child wasn't having a very good day.

Archaeologists have found two finger bones- about an inch in size, from the hand of a Neanderthal child aged about 5-7years. In a press release Paweł Valde-Nowak from the Institute of Archeology of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków said that the bones were dotted with holes – which could be a result of passing through the digestive system of a large bird.

It is difficult to say if the bird just chewed off the child's fingers , killed the child or just happened on its body and scavenged its remains.

Theses bones were discovered at the Jaskinia Ciemna cave in Poland and are the oldest hominid remains found in that area. They were found a few years ago but only now after in depth analysis the researchers are confident of its Neanderthal origin. They were found in a deep cave a few meters below the present earth surface. However,the bones are too deteriorated for any DNA analysis.

This is of interest because Neanderthal remains are very rare in this area. Tools such as knife and scrapers, which could be used to cut and scrape dating back to about 220 thousand years have been found in Poland. Priors to this the oldest remains found in Poland were 3 Neanderthal molars dating to 55-40 thousand years ago.

These discoveries mostly come from Southern Poland suggesting that this region was more favored by the Neanderthals as opposed to the northern which was covered by glaciers during ice age. Discovery of these finger bones is so far the only evidence from the last ice age in this area.

Smithsonian.com, Live Science, The First News

Hawking's Final Science Study Released Nevena Hristozova

Professor Hawking will continue to tease the minds of us - poor simpletons still alive with his science from beyond the grave for really long time. He was SO smart, that his work will be tested, and retested, and his theories proven and revised for at least a hundred years ahead, I bet on that!

Anyway, the last paper Prof Hawking worked on and submitted before his death was recently published. It deals with nothing less, but the possibility for Black Holes to retain information on the objects once they pass the point of no return and are ripped apart to energy and a little nothingness. In his paper, Hawking built on the work of another genius whose work we are not even halfway through tackling - Einstein.

According to their theories, and contrary to the popular knowledge that NOTHING escapes black holes, they (black holes) have temperature. Which in physics means that they release energy in the form of heat. The principle that each physical system loses part of its energy in the form of heat is thought even in school and is known as entropy - the strive of everything in the universe to eventually dissolve into chaos.

This would mean that eventually a black hole should run out of energy to release and thus seize to exist. This, if valid for black holes too imply that every piece of information (which is in essence energy, as property of an object) will eventually get destroyed in the process of evaporation of the black hole.

Hawking's article, or rather the math in it, shows that the event horizon's bright edges might be actually accounting for that entropy.

BBC News Science and Environment, Science

Increase In Cases of Rare 'Polio-Like' Illness in the US Amrita Sule

This year, more than half of the states in United States have reported cases of  a polio like rare disease called acute flaccid myelitis or AFM. It mainly affects children.

AFM was first  identified in 2014 – which saw 120 cases. According to CNN in this year as of Oct 16th there have been 47 confirmed cases and 49 more that were suspected or being investigated, for a total of 96.

According to Centers for Disease control and prevention (CDC),AFM is very rare – affects less than 1 in a million. AFM affects a person's nervous system, specifically the spinal cord. Like some neurological conditions, AFM can have a variety of causes such as viruses, environmental toxins, and genetic predisposition.

The symptoms are usually sudden weakness in arms and legs, facial drooping, difficulty swallowing, sudden inability to speak - similar to complications of infection with certain viruses, including poliovirus, non-polio enteroviruses, adenoviruses, and West Nile virus.

According to NIH, AFM- related viral infections can be prevented by staying upto date with Polio-vaccines.  Treatments like, Immunoglobulin, corticosteroids, plasma exchange and antiviral therapy have been tried.

There is no cure as far we now. Some patients recover quickly, while others may need long-term care. Physical and occupational therapy are important for recovery.

Live Science , CNN, NIH

The Blue Streak Science Endorsements for Congress

Since the early 1990's there's been a rising tide of anti-science growing in the United States. Religious groups, predominantly evangelical Christian, have fought to remove science from public classrooms. Thankfully, their efforts have mostly failed judicial review. Still, they keep coming. Their strategies change, but the goal is the same: the complete removal of any science that doesn't comport with their particular brand of theism.

In recent years this anti-science evangelical movement has piggy-backed on, and reaped the benefits on the alarming upsurge in white nationalism and racism in the United States.

They were rewarded in 2016 with an amazing trifecta, the election of a Republican House, a Republican Senate, and the grand prize, the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States.

Unsurprisingly, in this new government's view making America great again meant doubling down on the removal of any inconvenient and offensive science from their decision making process.

The have repeatedly called climate change a hoax; hoax that is being perpetuated by China. They've appointed numerous science deniers to key positions in the government. They've slashed scientific research budgets and attacked everything from the Clean Air Act to the Endangered Species Act. Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord, and completely relinquished our leadership role in reversing climate change as well as squandering our opportunities in the green energy marketplace.

This shock to the system has motivated scientists all over the world to stand up and mobilize to not only save science, but to save democracies.

This is a pivotal moment in our history. As a result, women and scientists have run for Congress in 2018 in numbers never seen before.

And we at Blue Streak Science want to make sure that you're aware of some of the outstanding scientists, and science-friendly candidates we have running for Congress.

This isn't even close to being a comprehensive list, but here we are featuring some of the more stand-out candidates...candidates we are proud to endorse. Candidates that we urge you to vote for.

Sean Casten

Support Sean Casten

First on the list is Sean Casten who is running to represent the 6th district of Illinois.

He has undergraduate degrees in biochemistry and molecular biology and biochemistry. He also has Master's degrees in engineering management and biochemical engineering from Dartmouth College.

In an email announcing his candidacy he stated, regarding the Trump Administration, "They are increasing the risk of global warming... but the truth is ignoring reality hurts so much more. They are putting millions of people's lives and health at risk with their assault on the health-care system. They are putting women's health at risk. They are putting seniors at risk with their assaults on Social Security and Medicare; the list goes on and on and on."

Among his accomplishments in the clean energy field Sean Casten co-founded Recycle Energy Development LLC whose mission is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through the recovery of waste energy...and to do so profitably.

We enthusiastically endorse Sean Casten for 6th district of Illinois.  

Chrissy Houlahan

Support Chrissy Houlahan

Our next endorsement goes to Chrissy Houlahan who is running to represent Pennsylvania's 6th district in Washington.

• She earned her engineering degree from Stanford and received her Master's in Science in Technology and Policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
• She was a science teacher in North Philadelphia

And the following comes from her website:

Climate change is real.  So also is its threat to our home on this planet if we don't manage to arrest and eventually reverse the processes that are heating our world, changing its weather, raising sea levels, accelerating desertification, and threatening traditional agriculture.

In Congress, I will be a champion for our environment and will work to combat the threat of climate change and the assault on truth and data.

Blue Streak Science is proud to support Chrissy Houlahan for Congress. If you live in or around Philadelphia then, by all means possible, get out and vote for her! We need her in Congress.

Joseph Kopser

Support Joseph Kopser

Our next endorsement goes to Joseph Kopser who is seeking to represent the 21st Congressional District of Texas.

Kopser founded a tech company in Austin that helped to cut carbon emissions for commuters.

He was also the co-founder of the National Security Technology Accelerator which works to improve US Energy Security policy.

From his website:

Climate change is real and scientists globally accept that emission of carbon dioxide through human consumption of fossil fuels is its principal contributing cause.

I support a gradually increasing fee on carbon dioxide emissions, along the lines proposed by the Brookings Institute. Consistently, studies have shown that a carbon tax is the most efficient and effective way to reduce carbon emissions.

This is a huge race. This district was held by Republican Lamar Smith since 1987. But when Smith saw what he was facing in his changing district with Joseph Kopser he decided to not seek reelection.

Lamar Smith is the head of the Republican-controlled House Science Committee. Smith is one of those anti-science types I described earlier, and and considers climate change to be a hoax.

So let's put the science back in the House Science Committee and vote for Joseph Kopser. That's right, you guessed it. The Blue Streak Science Podcast is delighted to endorse Joseph Kopser for the 21st district of Texas.

Mary Barzee Flores

Support Mary Barzee Flores

Our final candidate is Mary Barzee Flores, who is running for Florida's 25th district.

This district includes much of southwest Florida, from Lake Okeechobee, Collier County and across to southwestern Miami-Dade County.

Mary majored in Music at the University of Miami, and then went on to the University of Miami Law School.

After graduating law school Mary became a federal public defender, and in 2002 was elected to be a Florida Circuit Court Judge, where she served for 8 years.

A few years after she was nominated by President Barack Obama for a judgeship on the U.S. District Court.

Unfortunately, this was blocked by Republican Senator Marco Rubio and Mary was never even given a hearing in the Senate judiciary committee, much less an up or down vote on her nomination.

Now you may be asking, okay, she sounds like an awesome person but I don't hear a word about science in there. What's that all about?

Well, Mary and I have been friends since 1977. We met at Coral Gables High School. She is without a doubt one of the most intelligent and honest people I have had the honor to call my friend.

I remember a conversation we had about how we loved science in elementary school, about how we'd come home from school excited to tell our parents this new and awesome thing we learned that day. And later when I was working at the University of Miami School of Medicine in vascular cell biology I recall her keen interest in the scientific details of what my research was all about.

Mary may not be a scientist, but she understands the importance of science in making critical decisions, and in good government.

This is from her website:

South Florida is ground zero for climate change, and we must lead the way in combating it. We are already seeing the effects of stronger storms and increased flooding. By 2100, South Florida will be underwater–we cannot wait for action. As of January 2018, the Trump Administration has already overturned 33 environmental protections implemented under the Obama Administration. We must start divesting from fossil fuels and invest in green energy. America needs to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord and show global leadership in innovating for a sustainable future that incentivizes jobs in renewable energy.

So, our final endorsement goes to Mary Barzee Flores of Florida's 25th District.

Conclusion

You may not live in the districts of these science candidates, but that doesn't mean you can't help them get elected.

All candidates need funding to get elected, especially when trying to replace well-entrenched and well-financed incumbents.

I kindly ask that donate and support these worthy candidates so that you can do your part in putting science and scientific thinking in our government.

The Climate Lounge Deeper Dive Into The 1.5˚C Report Tom Di Liberto

Last time, I rage screamed into your ears for an interminable amount of time about a special report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on the topic of the impacts of 1.5C of global warming. Well, I thought that was so nice, I'm going to talk about it twice! So break out those brown bags, because this time let's rage scream together.

But this time, the rage screaming is going to be on a more niche and pedantic topic within this voluminous new report. Yes, that's right folks. Strap yourselves in because I'm taking you on a pathways to 1.5C˚ ride. Full of some ups, and a lot of optimistic downs. WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. And just like a real rollercoaster, you might throw up in the end.

Pathways basically describe ways forward that society can take to keep warming to 1.5˚C by 2100. Importantly, this doesn't mean we can't exceed 1.5˚C for a period of time during the next century. But for these overshooters, something must be done to remove GHG from the air to bring warming back down to 1.5˚C by the end of the century.

I'll talk about four today that sort of give us a good idea of what it means to keep warming at 1.5˚C levels.

And one thing to note, is that all of these require some sort of carbon dioxide removal removal technique. IE. Some technology natural or not that gets CO2 outta my air. (and into my car...for all those 80s children and Billy Ocean fans). But seriously, this is needed because not all sources of emissions will be easy to just shut off completely. And the amount of negative emission technology is incredibly important as they come with repercussions to society and wildlife themselves.

Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage for instance requires lots of land to grow crops, burning them to produce energy and then capturing their co2. There are ethical AND land use questions there. Afforestation requires turning barren land into forest. If produced at scale, this increase in land use would encroach on food production and natural habitat.

First, let's start with P1. Here the world rapidly reduces fossil fuel emissions by 2020 by decreasing demand for energy by switching to more energy efficient techs and behaviors. The only negative emissions would be achieved by afforestation by turning an area roughly twice the size of Argentina into forest.

P2! This one also sees a switch to better consumption patterns, better tech and managed land systems but with the addition of bioenergy and carbon capture negative emissions.  This one also includes a huge amount of land turned to forest.

P3 is more of a middle of the road scenario where things relating to social, economic and tech trends continue. Progress to national sustainable goals moves forward but slowly. Reduction in emissions come from changing energy production and to reductions in demand. This scenario requires a large amount of bioenergy, exceeding afforestation which means a decrease in pasture land for food production.

And P4, known as a resource and energy intensive scenario where there is in increase in demand for things like air travel and meat, which require higher amounts of energy. Unlike the previous three, this scenario overshoots 1.5˚C and only returns back during a large amount of negative emissions achieved mainly through bioenergy and carbon capture.

The one major downside to all this bioenergy carbon capture reliance is that at current, carbon capture and storage has only been shown at small scale at a few sites. And it has never been combined with bioenergy at scale. There is a major reliance here for technological advancement and development in the future, which, is entirely possible. But doesn't give me the warm fuzziness.

It's a daunting task no doubt. But even if we try our hardest and don't get to 1.5˚C. It'll still be a lot better than the alternative. So ends this week's class on Climate Change and our future. And this class never ends.

Carbon Brief

In Closing

That concludes this episode of the Blue Streak Science Podcast.

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

You can subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, 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, Amrita Sule, and Tom Di Liberto.

I'm JD Goodwin.  

Thank you for joining us.

And remember...follow the science!

There were many interesting science stories this week, but none more important than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 1.5˚C Report. This may be one of the most important news stories of our lifetimes. Our government's failure to recognize its importance, and their continued contempt for inconvenient truths warranted a collective rage-scream by the Blue Streak Science Team.

On This Week's Show

• More Nobel Prizes
• A new immune system strategy for treating cancer
• A Geyser in Yellowstone spews rubbish
• Good news for any of our listeners who happen to be bitten by a black mamba
• The Climate Lounge
• Pub Quiz

Science News Chris MacAlister Caltech Scientist Among Three Awarded Nobel Prize In Chemistry

If you tuned in last week then you would have heard about some of this year's Nobel Prizes, and we're not finished with you yet! The final science award to be announced this year is the Chemistry prize; and it's a chemistry prize with a very biological feel to it.

Our good friends the Creationists often like to point out that Darwin never won a Nobel prize (largely on account of there being no Nobel prize for biology and him dying over 20 years before the first Nobels were awarded). But now, 3 people have been awarded a Nobel Prize for applied evolution.

Whilst humanity have been sculpting species through artificial selection for millennia, this award for two separate projects marks a significant shift in our utilisation of it.

The first was for Frances Arnold of Caltech and her efforts to create an enzyme that could break down the milk protein casein in an organic liquid. The current enzyme works in water and rather than do it herself, she decided to outsource the R&D; to bacteria.

She engineered bacteria that would produce the existing enzyme for breaking down casein, but replicated this with various mutations. Once set up, she let nature take it course; selected the best performing strains and at the end of the line collected her newly forged enzyme. Clever huh?

The other project is less easy to get your head around and involves phages. They went to Gregory Winter and George Smith of the universities of Cambridge and Missouri respectively.

Bacteriophages are viruses that infect bacteria and Smith has used them to develop a method called phage display, where the these viruses allow you work out what genes are responsible for creating specific proteins.

And this is where Winter came in. The backbone of our immune system are antibodies. These are the things that recognise infections in our bodies and kickstart the immune response. Winter used the phage expression technique, not to produce produce proteins that can be correlated to genes, but to produce antibodies.

Using a similar selection techniques to Arnold he fine tuned an antibody that could bind to a target molecule. What this does it that it paves the way for the production of off-the-shelf antibodies. Miss that vaccination and caught the infection? No worries, we'll just administer a dose immune response.

LA Times, Science News

Immune System Reveals Potential Treatment for Cancer Sophie McManus

First story covers research that concerns potential blocking of some of the complex signalling pathways present in cancer.

A hallmark of cancer is overproduction of growth factors, which–you guessed it– leads to abnormal degrees of cell division. One such growth factor is epidermal growth factor, or EGF.

We have current therapy options such as Erlotinib, that block EGF signalling (in some lung and pancreatic cancers), but an issue with these is that the patient can develop drug-resistant mutations.

A possible new option is presented by Salvador Guardiola and colleagues - camelid‐derived single‐domain antibodies developed. Camelid is the family of animals that includes the camel (!) llama and alpaca. Who's your favourite, Chris, JD, Tom?

Anyway. This is a nice example of lateral thinking in research...it links quite nicely to my next story as well.

Wiley Online Library,

A Geyser Erupted in Yellowstone and 80 Years of Human Trash Poured Out Chris MacAlister

We've all had those experiences, where you have a bit of a spring clean; clear out that Monica cupboard and think; huh, so that's where that went!

Well it looks like the Yellowstone National Park has been having a little spring clean of its own; specifically the Ear Spring geyser.

[caption id="attachment_1518" align="alignright" width="450"] Ear Spring - Yellowstone National Park - Wyoming, USA[/caption]

This geyser has just delivered its most powerful eruption in 60 years and when this happens you get more than just geothermally heated water gushing out. The most common thing to accompany it is rock, but on this occasion there has been something a little more interesting. So interesting, in fact, that curators are taking an inventory of all the things that were jettisoned.

Probably the least surprising things found in this hawl are coins. Lots and lots of coins, many rusts scorched and crumbled. But there's more.

Whilst many see the Yellowstone geysers as one of nature's marvels it appears that others see them as one of nature's dustbins as the contents include; a large chunk of cinderblock, a broken bottle, some old aluminum cans, plastic cups and cigarette butts.

Then we get to the less common waste. A rubber heel insert, which begs the question; where is the other one? Some metal warning signs, which presumably said something "Warning: geysers", A vintage pacifier from the 1930s; now this one really fascinates me since the last big eruption was in the 1950s! Who even takes a 20 year old dummy to a national park; let alone dump it into a geyser! The final item of note was a 20 cm long drinking straw. I'm hoping that this was just another result of lazy littering and not some kind of drinking challenge gone wrong.

Lighthearted approaches aside; before you go getting ideas about what could possibly go down a geyser that could give people a laugh in 60 years time, remember that there is a reason that water gets so forcibly ejaculated from these geysers; and if they become so blocked that they water can't come straight out then that pressure will find another way to escape; in something called a hydrothermal explosion! And that's a term that doesn't sit comfortably in any sentence. ]

Live Science

Breakthrough in Treating Snake Envenomation Sophie McManus

Snakes are brilliant! They can also be deadly.

Two million people are bitten by snakes each year, and 100,000 of these people die, while 400,000 require amputations. Snake bites and their repercussions are mainly a problem for poorer countries. There might be some positive news, however. A paper released in the journal Nature Communications describes a promising step forward in developing human antibodies that neutralise black mamba venom.

This is particularly promising given that the black mamba is a very venomous snake, highly feared in many African countries. While shy, like most snakes, if it feels threatens it will strike multiple times and inject potent neuro- and cardio-toxins. Before the development of antivenin, anyone bitten by a black mamba would die within 20 minutes. Antivenins are comprised of antibodies (proteins) that bind to the venom and neutralise further damage in the body - they do NOT reverse the effects already suffered via a bite.

So today we do have antivenin, but this is derived from large domestic mammals, which are injected with small amounts of the venom in question. The domestic host then produces antibodies against the venom which are harvested from the blood and purified for use in clinic. This is not ideal for a number of reasons. People receiving antivenin can suffer from side-effects (such as serum sickness). However, when bitten by a highly venomous snake, you don't get a lot of options.

The "proof of concept" research described in Nature Communications identified key components, including dendrotoxins, in the black mamba's venom which contribute to venom toxicity. Human antibodies were generated to these dendrotoxins using IONTAS Phage Display Technology and cocktails of IgG-formatted human antibodies were then shown to protect mice from dendrotoxin-mediated neurotoxicity in vivo.

Technology Networks, Nature Communication

The Climate Lounge IPCC 1.5˚C report Tom Di Liberto

The Lounge was buzzing over the last couple of days. A large swarm of bees got in somehow. But once that was taken care of, all of us Climate Loungers dove head first into the latest report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or IPCC on the feasibility of keeping temperature rise to only 1.5˚C and the impacts that would global temperature rise would on the planet.

You know how I've been doing some fun, less depressing climate stories in the lounge recently. This is not that. First, the stats, this report was edited by 91 scientists from 40 countries who looked at more than 6000 scientific studies, white papers and policy studies. Note I didn't say blog posts, or media diatribes, or rantings of the unqualified. I said scientific studies.

Specifically, 1.5˚C (2.7˚F) was looked at as a threshold over the more generally considered 2C due to requests from the heads of small island nations over fears of sea level rise wiping out their countries.

If you've heard of the 2C threshold, or anything threshold, it's important to know that threshold is in quotations, bunny ears. There is no on switch that goes off once you pass that number. Climate change impacts are a spectrum and don't magically get turned on all at once but grow gradually. And recent research has suggested that they are getting worse faster.

We are expected to reach 1.5˚C by 2030 to 2052, And at that global temperature rise many island nations will become uninhabitable due to sea level rise, 70-90% of the worlds coral are dead, Wildfires will increase, poverty will increase. It just sucks. Thats my scientific bottom line. 1.5˚C sucks. Especially for the, you guessed it. The Poor.

What will it take to get there? A reduction in GHG by 45% from 2010 levels (that's 58% by 2015 levels) by 2030 and100% by 2050. By 2050, coal has to go from almost 40% to 1-7%. Renewable energy will need to increase from 20% to two thirds during the same time. In response, the world coal association said..wait, who gives a shit what they said. Moving on. In sum, let me quote Gain Schmidt of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies about this report, "The key thing to remember is that it's clear that the best time to reduce emissions was 25 years ago. But the second best to reduce emissions is right now."

This transition would involve an investment of $2.4 trillion annually from 2016-2035. Which is a ton more than we currently are spending. But, on the flip side, this report attempted to put a price tag on the effects of climate change, which were $54 trillion from 1.5˚C to $69 trillion from 2˚C and increasing ever after.

But even with that said 1.5˚C is still better than 2˚C. It could reduce the number of people exposed to climate related risk and susceptible to poverty by up to several hundred million by 2050, which is better than 3˚C which is better than 4˚C, which is better than [cue clock music], which is better than… you get the point. But in case you don't, there will ALWAYS be a need to fight climate change and stop our emissions of greenhouse gases, regardless of how much warming happens. So let's have none of this, it's too late business. That's nonsense. It'd be like taking a test and not knowing the first question, so instead of taking the rest of the test, you just give up and hand it in. A 90% is a lot better than a zero folks.

In conclusion, We are already halfway to 1.5˚C. And we only have roughly 20 years to when we might reach 1.5˚C. That may seem like a lot of time. But it's not. 20 years ago Saving Private Ryan was released. If that doesn't seem like a long time, than 2040 isn't a long time away either.

I'm angry. I'm p*ssed. And you should be too. I'm angry at our political leaders. I'm angry at the general populace for not caring. I'm angry that I've been hearing the same damn thing, roughly, from scientists for decades and yet here we are. But anger isn't going to do anything. If you're angry, Vote! Vote for people who don't have their heads in the sand and actually care about our future. If you're angry, volunteer! Spend your time with any number of organizations helping those who can't prepare, adapt. If you're angry, GREAT! Turn that anger into the courage to speak up to anyone who will listen.

And now I will go rage-scream into a paper bag. Be back in a few.

BBC  NYTimes  Earther

 

Pub Quiz

1. This past weekend the Hubble Space Telescope was put into "safe mode". Why?
2. On 8 October in Nature Geosciences researchers report that a type of structure called penitentes may be present on the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa. Describe these structures.
3. On 3 October astronomers reported in Science Advances that the Hubble Space Telescope may have spotted a type of object for the first time ever. Hint: it orbits around a planet...but not a planet in our solar system. What is it?
4. A spike in the occurrence of the bacterial disease typhus has been reported in the Los Angeles area this year. What animal is the vector?
5. Swallowing a vibrating capsule could help relieve what common ailment?

That's it for the Pub Quiz.

And today's winner is: Chris!

How did YOU do?

In Next Week's Episode

In next week's episode the Blue Streak Science Podcast will be giving endorsements to candidates who will put science into their decision-making.

We'll tell you who these candidates are and why you should cast your ballot to put them into Congress.

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, Sophie McManus, and Tom Di Liberto.

I'm JD Goodwin.  

Thank you for joining us.

And remember...follow the science!

Last week it was the fun stuff, but this week it's that most serious of awards ceremonies, The Nobel Prize Awards. Sophie gives us the low-down on this year's winner in the category of Medicine and Physiology. JD breaks in with a newsflash, as one does, with Nobel Prize in Physics.

On This Week's Show

• Nobel Prize Week
• Scientists De-Code How the Brain Processes Speech
• Hayabusa Rovers Send New Pics of Comet
• CDC: 80,000 Died From Flu In 2017
• The Climate Lounge
• Pub Quiz

Science News with Sophie McManus and Chris MacAlister Cancer Immunologists Win Nobel Prize in Medicine Sophie McManus

The Ig Nobels took place recently, but now it's time for the Nobels. The winners for the Nobel Prize in medicine are two scientists who have pioneered immunotherapy for cancer.

Their names are James Allison and Tasuku Honjo. They separately discovered proteins that act as a brake on the immune system. They later found that releasing these brakes would allow the immune system to attack cancer cells. Drugs called checkpoint inhibitors have resulted from this discovery and immunotherapy is considered a hugely promising way to treat cancer.

Honjo was inspired to cure cancer back in the 1960s after a classmate died from gastric cancer. By the 90s, he had discovered a protein with the name PD1. This protein is a checkpoint in the immune system, or a 'brake' - when PD1 is disabled then the immune system goes into overdrive. It was discovered also that some cancers can produce PD1 interactors which enable them to dodge the immune system. Hence BLOCKING PD1 can give the immune system a boost - to tackle abherrant  cancer cells. Today, PD-1 inhibitors such as nivolumab and pembrolizumab have been found to shrink tumours far more effectively than chemo- and radiotherapy and crucially also have much milder side effects.

Working independently of Honjo, James Allison, then at the University of California, Berkeley, was one of several scientists who studied a 'checkpoint' protein, CTLA-4, that acts as a brake on immune cells called T cells. In 1997, Allison and his colleagues engineered an antibody that could bind to CTLA-4, removing the brakes on T-cell activity and unleashing them to attack cancer cells in mice. A clinical study in 2010 found that the antibody had a striking effect on people with advanced melanoma, a form of skin cancer.

Allison was woken at 5.30 by his son delivering the good news and by 6.30 his group had turned up with champagne for an impromptu party - before the Committee had even got through to him!

Thanks to Honjo and Allison immunotherapy is regarded as a strong pillar in the work to treat cancer.

Newsflash!

The Nobel Prize in Physics was just awarded this morning at the time of this podcast recording on Tuesday. It was awarded to three scientists for their work in using super intense lasers to capture incredibly fast processes, and to accurately manipulate objects as small as cells and viruses .

The scientists are Donna Strickland of the University of Waterloo in Ontario; Gerard Mourou, a former colleague of Strickland who is currently at Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, and Arthur Ashkin of Bell Laboratories in New Jersey.

Together Strickland and Mourou developed techniques to create the highest frequency, and most intense light pulses ever. These light pulses are now being used in many fields of science to probe physical processes once considered to be instantaneous.

In separate research Arthur Ashkin developed "optical tweezers" using lasers. These beams of light are used to manipulate and move objects as small as viruses.

One more thing; Donna Strickland is the first woman recipient of the Physics Prize in 55 years. I look forward to the day when I don't have to make mention of such facts...the day when there's gender equality across all the sciences.

European Scientist, Nature

New Scientist, Nature

Scientists De-Code How the Brain Processes Speech Chris MacAlister

It feels like we have stories every week that just leave you bewildered about what humanity can achieve and for me, this is another one of those stories.

Whilst the human brain remains one of the great enigmas of nature, we have moved yet another step closer to getting a handle on what is going on in there.

Brain scanning technologies have allowed us to map our brains and link certain functions, such as movements, senses and emotions to particular parts of the brain and over time the precision of these scans has improved. One of the most impressive applications of this understanding has been the production of prosthetics that respond directly to brain signals. So it is now possible for people who have lost limbs to control their prosthetic with the power of their mind alone, not entirely unlike how they would have controlled their original limb.

This most recent study by Northwestern Medicine and the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences has looked at language and how the brain encodes that information. This study has precisely mapped how the brain works when we speak. Not only has it mapped the physical motions made by our mouths and tongues; they've be been able to correlate this with another part of the brain that generates the cues for the movements. So just to be clear, they have directly witnessed the brain speaking; the very intent of language, clear and unflustered by tongue-ties or twisters.

So to feed back to what I said earlier. The plan now is generate an algorithm that can translate these brain signals directly into speech. If they can manage this then they will have created a neurally controlled prosthetic voice box. A machine like this could literally speak your mind for you. And whilst this may sound like a pretty cool party trick, imagine how much more important it would have been for someone like Stephen Hawking. Few people appreciate just how long it took for Hawking to form a sentence using the technology that was available to him. Imagine the difference it would have made for him to just think those words for them to be sent to his computer.

And this is what really inspires me about stories like these. The time, effort and money that is put into helping other people; not just ourselves. No sooner have we discovered something remarkable and new about the brain and the first question that the people involved ask themselves is "how do we use this to help people?"

Northwestern University, Xinhuanet, Journal of Neuroscience (abstract)

Hayabusa 2 Rovers Send New Images Ryugu Surface Sophie McManus

I am going to jump to talking about hopping robots on a space rock! (agh, worst attempt at a pun ever).

So, the Japanese space agency (JAXA) sent spacecraft (Hayabusa II) over to an asteroid called Ryugu. The journey - all 319 million km of it - took three and a half years and the spacecraft finally arrived in June. For a couple of months, Hayabusa took images from above Ryugu, before descending 60 metres above it to deploy two rovers on the 21st September. Their mission was to explore Ryugu's rocky surface.

This is the first time rovers have successfully landed and sent back videos of an asteroid's surface. What's extra special about these rovers is that they hop, rather than travel on wheels. There is low gravity on the asteroid surfaces, so hopping takes them pretty far. (As a side note, it's known that our most famous Earth-bound hoppers, kangaroos, are amongst the most efficient travellers on Earth - I don't know if Hayabusa engineers were inspired by marsupials in their rover design though).

There were concerns that the rocky surface of Ryugu might hamper the rovers' transport, but it seems they are working well despite the challenge - they can hop up to 15 metres, staying airbourne for up to 15 minutes at a time!

It is hoped that studying the surface of Ryugu might teach us more about the formation of our own planet. Asteroids such as Ryugu are made from the cloud of gas and dust debris (solar nebula) that arose from the formation of the Sun. A quote from Helena Bates, a PhD student at London's Natural History Museum who studies asteroid formation '[Asteroids] are little snapshots of what the solar nebula looked like before there were planets'.

The two rovers will be joined at the beginning of October by a third lander called MASCOT to measure the structure of the minerals, thermal behaviour and magnetic properties of the asteroid. Towards the end of the month, Hayabusa2 itself will descend and touch Ryugu to pick up its first sample.

"The image taken by MINERVA-II1 during a hop allowed me to relax as a dream of many years came true," said Hayabusa 2 spokesperson Takashi Kubota.

Very cool...

New Scientist, BBC Science and Environment

CDC: 80,000 People Died From Influenza In 2017 Chris MacAlister

I've actually got 2 stories in 1 here.

The first one is somewhat sombre as last year has officially been a stinker for influenza infections with an estimated 80,000 deaths in the US. As if that wasn't shocking enough, there were also some 900,000 hospitalisations due to flu. It has been the worst season for flu in 11 years.

The big problem with flu is it's compulsion to change and this makes the flu a bit of a lottery every year, the lottery being how severe the symptoms of your flu will be. Which brings us on to the second story which is the discovery of what makes some flus so dangerous.

Really, it makes no sense for viruses to be fatal. Unlike bacteria they are 100% reliant on their host for survival, so killing your host makes bad news for you. Now, this new study, looking at the great flu pandemic of 1918, points to these strains of flu as being bad viruses.

Much viral variation comes from mutation and most mutations are not beneficial. What this means that you end up with some strains of flu that struggle to reproduce themselves. This struggle creates a by-product which is a mini-RNA molecule. Whilst viruses go around trying not to be spotted, this RNA byproduct is actually very conspicuous and your immune system goes to town on it. Since flu infects the respiratory tract, this can lead to people drowning in their own immune response.

The thing that makes this the good news story of the two is that now we understanding this mechanism we can now start looking for treatments that could save lives.]

Science News

The Climate Lounge Game Night Tom Di Liberto

It may be stormy outside (and I mean that in any literal or figurative sense you'd like. Good lord the news has been horrid. I believe Dr. Ford.), but in the climate lounge, it's time for GAME NIGHT! With a twist.

So leave your settlers at home. Don't even bother opening Carcassonne. And you'll have to prove how "funny" you are at Cards against Humanity at a later date because today, we are talking Climate games.

First, let's talk about a game for all of us! Regardless of age. The only requirement is a desire to be incredibly nerdy. Scientists with the nonprofit Climate Interactive have developed a role playing game based upon World Climate Negotiations. Players have to save the world from climate change as participants to a United Nations conference. Every single decision made by the players is then fed into a climate policy model called CROADS. It takes the policy decisions and uses current climate science to shows the impact on the global climate system. That includes economic prosperity, health, safety from natural disasters. You win if you save the world. That's a pretty good thing to try and win at.

This game is supposed to be run with 8 to 50 people but has been scaled for up to 500 people. And has a game time of 2-3 hours (although a truncated version lasts 45 minutes.)

The scientists survey over 2000 players before and after the game and found that the knowledge of climate change causes and impacts increased, as even more importantly the players sense of urgency increased.81% said their desire to learn and do more about climate change had increased.

Now if you follow the social science research on climate change, you'd know that one of the hardest things to do is get people who otherwise understand and accept climate change to get up and actually do something about it. To have that sense of urgency. With all that goes on in the short term in a person's life, it's hard for a long-term problem like climate change to crack that top 10. But this game seemed to do that. Which is good, cause, um guys, climate change is like an urgent problem.

Ok, one more quick climate game to round out a fun evening of playing in the lounge. And this one is particularly good because it made me feel like ancient. Climate FORTNITE! You may know the online playing battle royale game climate fortnite. Perhaps, you have kids who play it. Perhaps you play it. Either way, you've heard of it. For those who haven't, it's sorta the current hotness when it comes to the pop culture zeitgeist. People by the 10s of thousands watch other people play this game at places like Twitch (for livestreaming video games) and on youtube. Basically, numbers that you'd wish would exist for climate science based youtube videos but instead go to vids of people doing epic kills. (God I'm old). Anyways, some climate scientist thought, Hey, let's take advantage of that and do live-streams and videos of us playing fortnite but also talking climate change. And that's what they've done.

It started with a MIT graduate student named Henri Drake and has included a bevy of climate scientists including folks like Andrew Dessler who plays with his kids (his kids are much much much better than he is). So while their squad works to kill 'em all, the scientists end up talking about how climate models work, the latest arctic research or how ice ages came about. It's an incredibly creative way to do climate communication so check them out. They play every Tuesday 830-1030pm Eastern and you can check out more updates from them at the twitter and Twitch handle ClimateFortnite.

Climate game, fortnite

Pub Quiz

1. A very rare animal was photographed for the first time ever in Semuliki National Park in Uganda. What animal?
2. Bird watchers in the UK are being urged to give up 20 minutes every week to listen out for the "twit-twoo" call of what species?
3. A study in 27 September issue of Frontiers in Environment and Ecology suggests that what method of rat control in New York City simply does not work?
4. Speaking of rats, A man in Hong Kong recently became the first human to be infected with a type of infection that's only been seen in rats. What infection?
5. The European particle-physics laboratory, CERN, home of the Large Hadron Collider, has suspended recently suspended a theoretical physicist. Why?

That's it for the Pub Quiz.

How did YOU do?

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!

Science marches forward, but sometimes nations march backward. This is certainly true in recent years with my own country, and we're not alone in our reversion to a lesser form of ourselves. The government of Japan is throwing an international temper tantrum because most of the rest of the world don't want to go back to the awful days of wanton and senseless slaughter of whales for commercial purposes. Yes, we're judging. And the verdict speaks poorly of this great nation. Japan can, and must do better.

On This Week's Show

• Science News of the Week
• The Climate Lounge
• A****** of the Month
• Pub Quiz

Science News with Dr. Amrita Sule and Chris MacAlister Skeletal Stem Cells Found In Humans Amrita Sule

Today's stem cell story is super exciting because it is the very first time researchers have identified these very specific stem cells in humans, which differentiate into the skeletal cells.

Stem cells have been studied rigorously for their ability to self renew and differentiate into more specialized cells. Stem cells, however, differ in their ability as to what they can do and what they cannot. There are different kinds of stem cells in our body, formed at different times present in different places of the body. It has not been an easy journey to pin down a stem cell type that forms the skeletal tissue like bone and cartilage.

Skeletal stem cells were first identified in a mouse model called the rainbow mice. Well, what is a rainbow mouse? In these mice each type of stem cell was color-coded and its differentiation into different organs or tissues was tracked. How cool is that! However, it is not possible to do this in humans (no rainbow humans).

So instead, the researchers looked at cells which had gene signatures similar to that found in the mice skeletal cells. They worked with fetal bones from the fetuses that were aborted or did not survive. They isolated stem cells from the growth plate which is a region in the bone where new cells are made.

These cells when grown in lab dishes formed new bone and cartilage. Voila!!! We have a bone in a dish! But can these cells form bones or cartilage if we inject them in body?

To test that these stem cells were transplanted under the outer kidney layer.  And yes, they grew into bones and cartilage.

This discovery carried out by Longekar group in Stanford and was published in the journal Cell this past week. These scientists were able to create a family tree for the skeletal stem cells. With skeletal stem cells being at the apex followed by pre BCSP (bone, cartilage stromal progenitor) followed by the BCSP, which then gives rise to the bone, cartilage, and stromal cells, respectively.

This discovery has great implications in diseases like osteoporosis as well as any kind of bone injury and change the field of orthopedics.

Science

Dickinsonia, The Animal Kingdom's Oldest Member Chris MacAlister 

Whack on your lipstick, pucker up and lay a wet one on your fridge, a window, a family heirloom or even a total stranger. It doesn't really matter, provided that you leave a mark. Because if you think about what that distinctive lip mark looks like then you're also thinking what the fossil remains of a creature called Dickinsonia looked like. Although, at up to a meter long, not even Mick Jagger would be able to make an accurate recreation of one this way.

We have a rich a varied fossil record available to us today but it's a simple fact is that, the further back in time you go the hazier things get, and this is where Dickinsonia may be of some assistance.

Even though they they lived around 550 million years ago they are now providing some ammunition for a really bad low budget horror flick as in 2016 a naturally mummified Dickinsonia was discovered.

Paleontologists are known to get very excited about fossils, but there's a whole other level of excitement reserved for mummies. Because whilst bones and hard bits of creatures can tell you a lot, soft, squishy, gooey stuff can tell you so much more and in within mummification, this stuff fossilizes too. For example; within the gooey stuff of this Dickinsonia was a fossil of colesterol.

This may not sound to exciting on the face of things but let me paint the scene because, to be perfectly honest, our knowledge of life at this point of history is pretty lousy. This fossil is from a time before the period known as the Cambrian explosion, where practically every arrangement of life that is familiar to us today first developed. This means that we have virtually no frame of reference for everything existing before and our knowledge is so scant we are struggling to classify things at the kingdom level. The kingdom level! That means that we don't know whether Dickinsonia was an animal, a fungus or something completely different. But colesterol? Colesterol has only ever been seen within animals, which is the best clue the we have yet as to what is creature actually was.]

Scientific American, Science

This Research Group Seeks To Expose Weaknesses In Science Amrita Sule

I think we all can agree when I say that one way forward to scientific progress is "transparency". However, there is an emergent trend where we see falsified data or even poor-quality data which has led to numerable retractions. Several of these retractions were based on the results not being reproducible.

This reproducibility crisis is prevalent in many fields including basic and clinical biology and often the result of poorly designed experiments if studies just attain highest statistical significance. Academicians live by the three words, "publish or perish", and this is definitely one of the reasons why poor quality studies get published.

The problem being identified, the question is how can we circumvent this? Two psychology researchers Marcel van Assen, Tilburg University and Jelte Wicherts assistant professor at the University of Amsterdam identified this issue in their field when a prominent psychologist Diederik Stapel from Tilburg University confessed of fabricating and faking data for over 15 years.

This was big. But the bigger question was how did everyone miss this? And this is just one person.  More importantly how do we fix this?

These two psychologists pioneered the formation of a group of meta researchers which basically will study how scientists operate. With a grant from the European Research Council they are trying to build software which will allow researchers to analyze their data and reduce the risk of bias at the same time. There exists counterparts of such groups, e.g., the Center For Open Science in Charlottesville, Virginia, as well as the Society For The Improvement Of Psychological Sciences.

One of their projects is call Statcheck. Statcheck can scan papers for statistical significance. Think of it like a mathematical spell check. This algorithm identified that 1 in 8 papers out of around 30,000 it scanned (1985-2013) have errors with regards to statistical significance. And there is a chance that many of these are accidental errors, but they still get published unchecked.

The group wants to study the data published in 200 psychology studies and analyze it in different ways to check if there were any biases when the study was conducted. But the hindrance here is that not all researchers are OK with sharing data. And that will make such a study difficult.  

Many journals now across the different fields are making it mandatory to share data and the number of open-data publications is going higher every day. This brings me back to the point of transparency I started with.   

Science

TESS Spacecraft Has Discovered Its First Alien Worlds Chris MacAlister 

This story is making me a little nostalgic. I've been appearing on this podcast for about about six months now and one of the stories from one of my very early episodes was about the launch of TESS. NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite was sent to replace the Kepler space telescope as our number one exoplanet spotter and it's already logged its first find.

The new exoplanet is about 60 light years away, orbiting a star called Pi Mensae.

People often wonder how planets can even be detected around stars many light years away, and there are several methods which can be employed to work this out such as wobbles in the star's position as the gravity of its planets pull back or dips in the star's luminosity as a planet passes in front of it. But what gets me is level of detail that can be calculated from this data.

According to the data, this new planet, Pi Mensae C is twice the size of Earth, it orbits its sun every 6.27 days (which would make it a great place to visit if you love New Year) and is probably gaseous, like a mini Neptune. I don't know about you but that seem ridiculously specific, especially when you consider that these deductions had to take into account the effects of Pi Mensae B. This is the other planet already discovered around this star and one of the biggest planets ever discovered anywhere, 10 times bigger than Jupiter!

The team at NASA thought that it was too good to be true, to find this at pretty much the first thing that the new telescope looked at. But whilst we're at it; they've actually found another one as well!

Forty-nine light years away we now have LHS 3488b, which is 1.3 times the size of Earth and an even better place for fans of New Year as it's solar orbit lasts only 11 minutes. Those would be some seriously hot parties and I mean literally because surface temperatures there are over 500oC!

So to all of you LHSians out there, Happy New Year!

New Scientist

The Climate Lounge Life on an Arctic Survey Tom Di Liberto

Just right off the bat, let me say that anyone trying to pretend that Maria and the poor relief effort afterwards didn't kill thousands of people is a dumb***. Moving on.

This week in the climate lounge, I'm taking you someplace really really cool. So cool, it's cold. How cold is it? Cold enough to serve as the desolate remote outpost for research surveys into the Arctic. I'm talking about Station Nord, a itty bitty military outpost of the Danish military in northeastern Greenland 575 miles from the geographic North pole. Like imagine a map of Greenland. Imagine a place really far north of on that map. Great. No go farther north. That's where Station Nord is. And that's where science happens, so lets learn how.

Now Global warming has so many canaries in a coal mine that that damn coal mine is basically a bird exhibit at a zoo. But a number of those canaries are wearing their best down jackets high in the Arctic. #1 among them is the state of Arctic sea ice. Arctic sea ice extent is rapidly dwindling over the last 30 years (13% by decade), no doubt due to the fast rising global temperatures which are amplified in the Arctic. But another thing that is incredibly important is sea ice volume or how thick the ice is. Thinner ice breaks up easier. And knowing the location of the thicker ice can let scientists know if the winds are blowing old thick ice out into the open ocean to melt or not. But measuring thickness from satellites has its flaws, especially in the summer months when ice is melting. There is a need for on location monitoring. And that's where Station Nord fits in.

Since 2011, scientists from the Alfred Wegener institute have been using Station Nord and placing sensors on a souped-up DC3 airplane and flying over the arctic measuring ice thickness

Station Nord is staffed by six soldiers on two year tours. From October through March they are alone except for the companionship of two dogs who help alert everyone to the presence of polar bears. Scientists begin to show up in late Winter into early Spring. The Wegener institute scientists (a total of nine people) showed up in late July and August. But a lot of their time was spent waiting for the right weather window to fly their planes. In total they made only nine flights which was pretty good actually. But means there is a lot of down times. So what do you do in the middle of nowhere? What happens in station Nord does not stay there because that's a horrible way of thinking about anything and no location, however remote should allow for things to occur that never get out.

There are weird rituals. Every Saturday for instance, everyone has to wear a tie when going to dinner. They also host an Arctic/Greenland style medieval games complete with jousting while riding in the bucket of  carrier bike while people scream and blow horns in their ears. Oh and somehow they have a pig roast once a year. They actually transport a whole hog to the far north. In between doing science of course.

So I guess it could be worse but still this is a harsh harsh environment that scientists put themselves in for weeks or months at a time to tell us the latest news from the arctic. Away from their families, away from their friends, away from civilization. But sometimes, things are worth that struggle. At least they aren't the military folks stuck there for 2 years!

NY Times

A****** of the Month

Dateline - FLORIANOPOLIS, BRAZIL – Japan's attempt to resume unabated commercial whale hunting was rejected earlier this month by the International Whaling Commission (IWC).

Masaaki Taniai, vice minister for fisheries in Japan, said he "regretted" the vote's outcome Friday and threatened Japan's withdrawal from the IWC.

Anti-whaling nations led by Australia, the European Union and the United States defeated Japan's "Way Forward" proposal in a 41-27 vote.

The IWC was set up in 1946 to conserve and manage the world's whale and dolphin populations. They began a moratorium on commercial whale killing in 1986 after some species, such as humpbacked whales had been slaughtered to near extinction.

Currently Japan ostensibly observes the moratorium but takes advantage of a loophole to kill hundreds of whales every year for "scientific purposes", and then that whale meat ends up on dinner plates.

So, the IWC adopted Brazil's "Florianopolis Declaration," which envisions whale protection in perpetuity...which I'm sure pisses off those who want to return to commercial whale slaughter.

The "Florianopolis Declaration," is currently non-binding, but anti-whaling nations herald it as an important indicator of the IWC's future direction.

Kitty Block, head of Humane Society International, said "the IWC's moral compass" had led it to reject Japan's proposal. "It's clear from exchanges this week that those countries here fighting for the protection of whales are not prepared to have the IWC's progressive conservation agenda held hostage to Japan's unreasonable whaling demands."

So, the government of Japan, for your petulant response, and threatening to leave the IWC and to resume the slaughter of whales...you are the Blue Streak Science A****** of the Month.

Pub Quiz

1. How long can a sperm whale stay underwater on one breath?
2. Give me one good reason that scientists believe whales were once land-based animals?
3. What is the name given to a method employed by many whales to find prey and locate obstacles in the water using sound waves?
4. How are whales able to eat while submerged without drowning?
5. When a person observes a whale spout, what can they tell about the whale that created it?
6. What is a baleen?
7. What species of whale has the nickname "sulfur bottom"?

In Next Week's Episode

In next week's episode we'll be talking about the one year anniversary of the wildfires in northern California. It was in the early hours of 9 October in 2017 that the single most devastating wildfire in the history of California changed the lives of so many people, including yours truly.

So be sure to tune in to next week's episode, number 88.

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 Amrita Sule, Chris MacAlister, and Tom Di Liberto.

I'm JD Goodwin.  

Thank you for joining us.

And remember...follow the science!

A slight diversion from the usual format today. But hey, do we know how to turn out a science podcast or what? Chris and JD talked about everything from cigarette smoking kids to self-administered colonoscopies. And of course, this episode was custom-made for all the Whovians out there. You know WHO you are.

On This Week's Show

• More kids in Europe are starting to smoke tobacco
• We have a heaping helping of Nuclear Pasta
• California Announces that it's gonna launch its own damn satellite
• The Ig Nobel Prize winners for 2018
• Doctor Who!
• The Pub Quiz

Science News with Chris MacAlister and JD Goodwin More Children In Europe Have Started Smoking Chris MacAlister

Has anyone got a light?

The question's rhetorical since I am a part of a statistical majority of European non-smokers. This is largely a good news story as the number of people who are taking up smoking in Europe has been greatly declining since 1980 onwards but, you know, there are some people out there who can't just let good news be good news. People who think every silver lining has a cloud; and on this occasion these people have found that smoking levels have actually gone up in one age group: 11 to 15 year olds.

The idea of 11 to 15 years olds smoking makes my head spin even before we start talking about an increase and any signal like this in the youngest bracket of our population should set alarm bells ringing. Is this indicative of an emerging cultural shift?

I wouldn't be getting too concerned just yet. The number of cases that we are looking at small and there are some massive unknowns associated with this data. For example, the study does not look at how frequently people smoke, it does not take into account whether these kids regular smokers or are just experimenting, hell, it doesn't even know whether these kids are smoking conventional or e-cigarettes!

However, this did make me think of one cultural risk that could surround this issue. Such great efforts have been made to stop glamorisation of smoking and this, along with other strategies have clearly been effective at reducing smoking levels. But most smokers do not provide glamour. Your stereotypical image of a smoker is probably not a suave sophisticated figure in lounge jacket, it's probably something a bit less healthy and possibly more sleazy and definitely more smelly. With these images fading too we are losing both the carrot and the stick of influence.

This potentially leaves you with what I like to call the Google+ school of promotion, which says that if no old people are doing it then just maybe young people will think it is cool. It hasn't worked for Google and hopefully it won't work for smoking either. But the older generation is not going out of its way to stop you from using Google; and there is nothing more tempting to a teenager than forbidden fruits; so the story may well not be over yet on this one...

ScienceNordic

Nuclear Pasta In Neutron Stars JD Goodwin

This is from an article in New Scientist, and it's about pasta! But this is nuclear pasta, and it's my guess that it would fully absorb any sauce you throw at it

In report in Physical Review Letters this nuclear pasta is said to be really strong stuff. Breaking it would require 10 billion times the force needed to break steel.

This pasta is found in neutron stars. Neutron stars form when a dying star explodes, leaving behind a neutron-rich remnant that is squished to extreme pressures by powerful gravitational forces, resulting in materials with strange properties.

A kilometer or so below the surface of one of these stars atomic nuclei are packed together so close that they merge into clumps of nuclear matter, a dense mixture of neutrons and protons. These theoretical clumps are thought to be shaped like blobs, tubes or sheets, and are named after types of pasta such as gnocchi, spaghetti and lasagna.

Even deeper in the neutron star, the nuclear matter fully takes over. The burnt-out star's entire core is nuclear matter, like one giant atomic nucleus. This nuclear pasta is incredibly dense, about 100 trillion times the density of water.

Researchers used computer simulations to stretch nuclear lasagna sheets and explore how the material responded.

Neutron stars tend to spin very rapidly, and, as a result, might emit ripples in spacetime called gravitational waves, which scientists could detect at facilities like the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, or LIGO. But the spacetime ripples will occur only if a neutron star's crust is lumpy — meaning that it has "mountains," or mounds of dense material either on the surface or within the crust. A stiffer, stronger crust would support larger mountains, which could produce more powerful gravitational waves. Due to the intense gravity of neutron stars, their mountains would be a far cry from Mount Everest, rising centimeters tall, not kilometers. Previously, scientists didn't know how large a mountain nuclear pasta could support.

The results of the simulations suggest that nuclear pasta could support mountains tens of centimeters tall — big enough that LIGO could spot neutron stars' gravitational waves. If LIGO caught such signals, scientists could estimate the mountains' size, and confirm that neutron stars have amazingly strong materials in their crusts.

New Scientist

California To Launch Its Own Damn Satellite Chris MacAlister

We go from looking to space for some super strong stuff to looking to space for something much less fragile, our climate. Yes, in the sad absence of Tom Di Liberto this week it falls to me to delivery your regular climate update.

We've discussed the feasibility of California being its own nation a few times on this show, albeit from a purely theoretical position; but it seems that Jerry Brown may be taking things a step further.

The Governor of California has announced something not entirely unlike a Californian space programme. Whilst there are only about 13 space agencies in the world (Europe has even had to club together to make theirs). This wouldn't be too much of a stretch for the state whose economy would be the 5th largest in the world if it were a sovereign nation.

The mission that Gov. Brown has announced is a satellite to monitor carbon levels in the atmosphere. Whilst NASA is already doing this, it may come as no surprise that the Trump administration are doing their best to demobilise this operation.

Whist this news is quite remarkable itself, the thing that I love the most about it is how it came to be. In the wake of the withdrawal from Paris climate accord and the bloody disregard that Trump and his lackeys clearly have for this one sanctuary for life in an otherwise infinite universe of death; thousands of mayors, regional leaders and corporate executives have come together in San Francisco for a Global Climate Action Summit. This was basically a forum for every American with a position of influence and a shred of moral integrity to come together and say: Balls to you Donald; not on my flaming watch!

I should just clarify that this really isn't a Californian space programme. The satellites will be purchased from a company called Planet Labs. This firm was started by 3 ex-NASA employees who have developed a fleet of micro-satellites. But the important point here is that by going private, California can sidestep the influence that the state has; a luxury that is not afforded to state funded organisations such as NASA.]

San Francisco Chronicle

2018 Ig Nobel Prizes JD Goodwin

Every year, this time of year, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts a special ceremony is held. And last week it was once again time for the Ig Nobel Prizes, put on by the esteemed journal The Annals of Improbable Research.

So let's get right to it: The Ig Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to researchers who discovered that riding roller coasters may be an effective method for dislodging kidney stones.

The inspiration behind the roller-coaster research began several years ago when one of Prof David Wartinger's patients at Michigan State University's College of Osteopathic Medicine returned from a holiday trip to Walt Disney World in Florida.

The patient reported that one of his kidney stones became dislodged after a ride on the Big Thunder Mountain ride. Wondering whether it was caused by the ride or a coincidence, the patient went on the ride several more times and each time a stone popped out.

Intrigued by the story, Dr. Wartinger built a silicone model of his patient's renal system, including artificial kidney stones, and took it with him on numerous rides. He discovered that Big Thunder Mountain was indeed effective - more so than other rides such as Space Mountain

Dr. Wartinger concluded that this was because Big Thunder Mountain involves more up and down and side to side movements that "rattle" the rider.

Japanese gastroenterologist Akira Horiuchi won the medical education prize for an experiment in which he reviewed the comfort and efficiency of self-colonoscopy in the sitting position by performing a colonoscopy on himself while seated. He reported only "mild discomfort." There are pictures of him performing this procedure. Of course there are.

Other winners included a team that demonstrated that most people who use complicated products do not read the instruction manual (Literature Prize).

For the Ig Nobel Peace Prize researchers surveyed Spanish drivers to determine the frequency, motivation, and effects of shouting and cursing while in a car.

The Economics prize went to a group that investigated whether using Voodoo dolls to retaliate against abusive bosses makes employees feel better.

Finally, the Chemistry prize was awarded to a team that tested the effectiveness of a "spit shine" by cleaning 18th century sculptures with saliva and and compared the results to several alcohol-based cleaners. Spit won.

Science, BBC Science and Environment

Doctor Who Returns! JD Goodwin

Normally we don't cover entertainment news on this podcast...unless of course, it has to do with Star Wars, Star Trek, or other significant sci-fi stuff. Among that venerable stuff is Doctor Who.

I tip my hat to the producers of this incredibly long running television program because this next series we will be welcoming a new Doctor among that pantheon of Time Lords. What's special about this is that the new doctor is a woman.

Honestly, I'm surprised it took this long. But this is one among many glass ceilings I'm happy to see broken.

Broken? I mean shattered. I just read that the woman playing the new Doctor, Jodie Whittaker, is getting paid the same as what the boys did.

This is significant because there's been quite a row recently about pay disparity among female and male BBC employees. Thankfully, such is not the case with Doctor Who.

When asked about this by Metro News, Jodie Whittaker replied, "I absolutely know that I'm not being paid less than any other Doctor".

I'm talking about Doctor Who's who go all the way back to William Hartnell, to Tom Baker, to Paul McGann, to David Tennant and all those in between.

Quite a Whose Who of Who's, isn't it?

I'm really looking forward to beginning this next journey with the new Doctor, and that begins on 7 October with the episode titled The Woman Who Fell To Earth.

Don't miss it. Doctor Who on 7 October!

Science, BBC Science and Environment

Pub Quiz

1. On what date did the very first Doctor Who premiere?
2. Why was this a particularly unfortunate date to debut a television show?
3. Who played the very first Doctor?
4. The fourth Doctor, played by the inimitable Tom Baker, is known for a particularly extreme version of what item of clothing?
5. What did the fifth Doctor, played by Peter Davison, wear on the lapel of his jacket?
6. Peter Davison has a famous son-in-law. Who, and I repeat, Who is it?
7. The 11th Doctor, played by Matt Smith, had a favorite food. What was that?
8. What does TARDIS stand for?
9. Alex Kingston was among four actors who played the character River Song. Who are the parents of River Song?
10. What is the planet of the Time Lords?
11. Why does the TARDIS make that awful screeching sound?

And today's winner is: Chris MacAlister!

How did YOU do?

In Next Week's Episode

Be sure to mark your calendars, because next week we present our own award episode. You didn't know we had an awards show? We have one every month. It's the Blue Streak Science A****** of the Month!

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.

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

Thanks to Chris MacAlister

I'm JD Goodwin.  

Thank you for joining us.

And remember...follow the science!

Seriously, an empathy expert under fire for bullying? | Mama is a Neanderthal and Daddy is a Denisovan | Earth's Quick Flippin' Magnetic Field | Ancient Turtle Had No Shell | A****** of the Month: Tokyo Medical University | Pub Quiz Science News with Amrita Sule and Sophie McManus Empathy Researcher Accused of Bullying

I think this story deals with a very important issue in academia which is often not reported: bullying. Tania Singer, a 48 year old neuroscientist, director at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany has been accused of bullying and intimidation by her former colleagues.

She is one of the world's leading experts on empathy research and has spent her entire career studying and understanding human nature.

Max Planck institute was brought to notice about this bullying behavior last year. They started investigating the allegations last year and allowed her a year long sabbatical. However, they plan to bring her back to the lab and this is when the current and former lab members spoke to Science.

In an interview with science magazine, 8 former and current researchers from Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences have accused Singer for manipulative and abusive behavior. The allegations include but are not limited to emotional abuse. Many one on one meetings have ended in tears for the lab members. Also, singer frowned up any female members getting pregnant and made no allowances for any medical appointments among others.

This is also ironical because one of Singer's goals emphasized in a book she wrote in 2013) is to bring more attention to compassion in our society.  

More and more bullying cases are surfacing every now and then. A leading cancer geneticist Nazneen Rahman from Institute of Cancer research UK faced harassment and bullying allegations which dated around 12 years back. She is quitting her job next month.

But let's not forget that the onus is is on the institutions to take these matters more seriously and also create a work environment where employees can fearlessly report such instances.

Washington Post

Mama is a Neanderthal and Daddy is a Denisovan

Researchers have analysed DNA from the fragment of an ancient child's bone. This bond represents the first example of a first-generation hybrid human - Dad was a Denisovan, Mum was a Neanderthal. The girl, named Denisovan 11, affectionately nicknamed Denny, died 90,000 years ago. The study is published in the journal Nature.

The team, led by palaeogeneticists from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, conducted the genome analysis on a single bone fragment recovered from Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains of Russia. This cave gives its name to 'Denisovans', a group of extinct humans first identified on the basis of DNA sequences from the tip of a finger bone discovered there in 2008.

Scientists already knew that Neanderthals, Denisovans, and homo sapiens interbred in the past - but this discovery is the first example of genetic material from the first generation of these couplings. In fact, Svante Paabo, one of the leaders of the study, thought his colleagues must have 'screwed up' when they first told him what they had found.

The group knew the bone fragment came from a girl because they checked the bone fragment's sex chromosomes. The density led them to estimate Denny was at least 13 years old when she died. The scientists even know which parental side was Neanderthal, and which was Denisovan, by looking at the bone's mitochondria - the 'powerhouses' of cells. The genetic material in the mitochondria was recognised as Neanderthal. This shows the girl's mother was Neanderthal because we only inherit mitochondrial DNA from our mothers. This finding corresponded with the fact that half her genomic DNA was matched to a Neanderthal. The Denisovan dad was confirmed by comparing the remaining genetic material to samples of Denisovans, homo sapiens and Neanderthal. Sort of like an ancient and elaborate dot-to-dot.

"To find a first-generation person of mixed ancestry from these groups is absolutely extraordinary," - quote from population geneticist Pontus Skoglund at the Francis Crick Institute in London. "It's really great science coupled with a little bit of luck." As ever, scientists need that little bit of luck!

Science News, Nature

Ancient Fossil Turtle Had No Shell

A 228 million year old fossil of a turtle has been discovered in Guizhou province of south west China. The almost complete fossil is around 2 meters long and has been named Eorhynchochelys sinensis which means "dawn-beaked turtle from China".

What is so special about this discovery? This turtle fossil lacks the iconic turtle shell but has a toothless beak (which is seen in modern day turtle as well). This fossil had a long tail and probably lived near shorelines.It is possible that its broad ribs, flattened shape and strong limbs were adapted for digging the mud to hide itself , bury eggs or find food.

This is the earliest turtle ever found with a sign of turtle -like beak. It joins the list of other fossils discovered previously.  A fossil aged 220 million years old Odontochelys semitestacea had a partial shell but no beak. Until now there have been many gaps in the evolution of turtles.

But, this discovery will help scientists in filling the gaps in the evolutionary puzzle.  The fact that Eorhynchochelys developed beak before odoctochelys but not the shell indicates that some traits can evolve independent of each other.

Modern day turtles have both beaks and shells, but the evolution did not take place in straight line. Some predecessors only had the beak while some had shells. This fossil discovery is going to prove helpful for scientists to understand how present-day turtles have evolved.  

Even though this discovery offer new insights into turtle evolution, scientists are still not sure where they will fit in the evolutionary tree. Past genetic studies have placed crocodiles, dinosaurs and modern birds as the close relatives of turtle.

Studying this fossil will shed more light on the evolution of the turtle body plan  and how turtles relate to other reptiles.

BBC Science and Environment

Earth's Magnetic Field Can Reverse Poles Ridiculously Quickly

Our planet is shielded by a magnetic field, which protects us from the hottest radiation thrown out by the Sun, thereby preventing Earth from deteriorating into a barren wasteland (although stay tuned for the next Climate Lounge to hear how we are achieving that goal all by ourselves!)

The magnetic field is thanks to the molten iron core of the Earth. So far, so good!

However, a few times every million years or so, Earth's magnetic field reverses polarity. Imagine an enormous magnet inside our planet gets flipped upside down - the magnetic North Pole would become the magnetic South Pole, and the energy field that typically makes up our planet's magnetic armour would weaken and break. Studies modelling this suggest that such an event would reduce the shield's protective strength by up to 90 percent. Hmm, do visions of an electrified wasteland beckon.

The last full reversal of the field was around 800,000 years ago and took hundreds of years to unfold. But wait - maybe we should worry! A new study is out in PNAS, suggesting such reversals may occur more rapidly than previously thought. Uh oh.

The team of scientists analyzed millenia of geomagnetic history coded into the atoms of an ancient stalagmite in China. This story written in stone told them that once, about 98,000 years ago, the planet's magnetic field suddenly flipped polarity in as little as 100 years — roughly 30 times faster than the generally expected rate, and 10 times faster than what was thought to be the fastest rate possible.

For now, we don't have to worry - but if such a magnetic field reversal occurred in tandem with a solar storm, the likely result of this solar tantrum would be power outages on a scale never seen before.

Live Science, Space.com

A****** of the Month Tokyo Medical University

In Japan the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been boasting about its program of "womenomics" (women economics?). This has been more of a goal than a reality certainly as, according to the World Economic Forum's rankings of gender equality, Japan remains mired down at number 114 out of 144 countries.

So it came as a shock to some, and not shocking at all for others, when it was announced that Tokyo Medical University has been subtracting scores for women's exams to get into this prestigious medical school. This has been going on for more than a decade.

An investigation showed they were subtracting scores for women applicants in a deliberate effort to keep their numbers down, and also falsifying exam scores to help specific men get into the school, like the sons of politicians.  

The managing director of the university, Tetsuo Yukioka said, "We have caused a great amount of trouble to everyone and betrayed the trust of society. I apologize from my heart."

Here's how the manipulation worked: in the essay section of the entrance exam, which was scored out of 100, they first subtracted 20 percent from all marks. Then it gave 20 bonus marks to men who had taken the exam three times or less. So if a woman and a man had both taken the exam and scored 70 out of 100, the woman was given a score of 56 while the man was given a score of 76.

The proportion of women admitted to Japanese medical schools has risen steadily when it peaked at 34 percent in 2003, but hasn't moved since then.

Interesting fact: Japanese women have a higher pass rate on entrance exams for almost every other university subject.

However, in medicine the pass rate is 6.85 percent for men and 5.91 percent for women.

Even with these incredible obstacles women pass the the test at less than one percentage point less than men.

Why the hell would they want to keep their best and brightest out of medicine?

Sources at the university have stated:

• This was done because women are more likely to leave medicine when they have children which puts pressure on already overworked doctors.
• The University has the legal right to accept whoever they want.

I'm ignorant of Japan's maternity leave structure, but one good step towards making the above point moot is to provide both mothers and fathers equal time of paid leave when a new child comes into their homes.

In any case, this policy of institutional suppression is complete bull**** and must be ended immediately, and there better be some jail time as a result of this.

Tokyo Medical University, you've been crowned the month of August's Blue Streak Science A****** of the Month.

Pub Quiz

1. A mind-bending problem in pasta physics was finally solved last week, but the solution comes with a twist. What am I talking about?
2. Scientists have discovered that female narwhals and beluga whales have something in common with human women. What is it?
3. Scientists found a strange new type of neuron in human brains: what are they calling it?
4. A beach in France was closed recently due to the amorous behavior of what animal?
5. Secret tunnels were discovered! In the human body! Where?

In Closing

That concludes this episode of the Blue Streak Science Podcast.

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

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

And our hosts today were Amrita Sule, and Sophie McManus.

I'm JD Goodwin.  

Thank you for joining us.

And remember...follow the science!

• We talk with crow researcher Kaeli Swift about a really interesting aspect of crow behavior
• Science News
• The Climate Lounge with Tom Di Liberto
• The Pub Quiz

Science News with Sophie McManus and Chris MacAlister Cancer drugs may help the liver recover from common painkiller overdoses

Painkiller overdoses can be lethal. In America, these overdoses occur around 100,000 times a year, both accidentally and in suicide attempts. Consequently, such overdoses are the leading cause of acute liver failure.

A study published in Science Translational Medicine raises hope that experimental cancer drugs may alleviate the damage caused by painkiller overdose - and do so better than the current antidote, N-acetylcysteine, which must be administered within four hours to avert death or avoid the need for transplant. The new drugs were still effective 12 hours after overdose had occurred.

The cancer drugs tested appear to work by blocking action of a common molecule, TGFbeta, which in this case is activated by inflammation and can cause liver cells to enter senescence - a pre-death state.  

It's hoped this strategy might be effective in clinical trials, thereby buying doctors in A&E some extra time with which to deal with OD.

Science News

Earliest galaxies found 'on our cosmic doorstep'

When you think about the oldest known galaxies in the Universe then your thoughts may be drawn to MACS1149-JD. I know that mine is!

This is the most distant galaxy ever observed. Over 13 billion light years away and thanks to the speed of light we know that it's over 13 billion years old.

So how bizarre would it be to learn that there are galaxies just as old, if not older, right here neighbouring the milky way? This bizarre because that is exactly what is happening! They've been discovered by a team at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics at Cambridge.

Now if you are like me then you will be thinking, how can they tell that these galaxies are so old? Well I'm glad that you asked; it comes down to their luminosity function, which is a measure of the radiation that they generate.

The luminosity of these galaxies has a distinct signature consistent with that theorised to be produced in the cosmic dark ages. This was a unique period of the universe's history when atoms first formed and the cosmic microwave background, along with all other electromagnetic radiation started to form.

BBC News Science and Environment

Crows Tidy Up Amusement Park in France

Crows have been taught how to tidy! It's a shame more people haven't. Rooks will be deployed this week at Puy du Fou, a French park that hosts events and re-enactments. The birds were bred in captivity and then trained by Christophe Gaborit, a falconer and project manager with the park's Academy of Falconry.

These birds are highly intelligent and you might see them around sifting through bins to try and find something to eat. Because of this intelligence and ability to sort items, Christophe decided to turn this behaviour to good use. He raised and trained his first pair of trash-collecting rooks in 2000, with a little help from a special cabinet — when the birds deposited rubbish in the drawer, a second compartment would be opened to reward them with a tasty treat. Repeating this action led the rooks to associate rubbish removal with food.

Sometimes they'd try to trick the system by dropping bits of wood in the box instead of rubbish. Gaborit explains all this on his blog.

The logic behind employing rooks instead of humans is interesting - Gaborit hopes that the sight of crows picking up litter will prompt people to be a bit more thoughtful in how they dispose of rubbish. After all, it isn't hard to drop something in the bin...

Live Science

Interview with Dr. Kaeli Swift about Crow Thanatology

Firstly, congratulations to Dr. Kaeli Swift! Kaeli successfully defended her dissertation and was awarded her Ph.D. between the time we talked last week and the date this episode was released. How awesome is that?

So please have a listen to the podcast as we talk about crow thanatology. What's crow thanatology? Ain't tellin'! You gotta listen!

The Climate Lounge The Earth Is One Heck Of A Resilient place

Power was finally restored to everyone in Puerto Rico recently but today's voyage into the Climate Lounge is going to take a different tack on my usual Puerto Rico storyline. Today, I'm going to talk to you about re-birth.

In a beautiful article in the Huffington Post, Kaia Findlay reports on just how resilient ecosystems (both natural and human-influenced) in Puerto Rico have been in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. The story also comes with unbelievable videos of Puerto Rico in the aftermath of the storm.

El Yunque Rain Forest

[caption id="attachment_1405" align="alignright" width="400"] El Yunque Rain Forest[/caption]

Let's start with the rainforests. Forests cover 60% of Puerto Rico and are a vital part of what makes Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico. And after Maria, an estimated 23 to 31 million trees were killed or damaged. The famed El Yunque rainforest was turned a shocking brown. Just listen to this quote.

"It was a toothpick forest...like a bomb hit," said Grizelle Gonzalez, a soil scientist at the International Institute of Tropical Forestry.

As someone who adores autumn and the leaves changing color, and who loves a nice winter stroll through a barren forest, that last quote got me.

But, you can't keep El Yunque down. You can't keep nature down. Nature has a long history with the weather. And it's ecosystem is already rebounding because it's adapted to do so. Plants who love the sun quickly rose up under the brand new open canopy of the rainforest. Eventually they will grow tall enough to offer enough shade for the shade loving plants to flourish. And the rainforest begins anew.

Tabonuco Tree

Take the Tabonuco tree. One of the larger trees in the rainforest, they are found along the higher ridges, in areas more susceptible to high wind speeds during hurricanes. Yet after Maria, there they stood. Leaf-less but alive. How?They have evolved to the risk of storms by having a large interconnected root system which help to anchor them all. And once the storm passes, they can quickly grow back their leaves.

There are more resilient tree species like the Cecropia schreberiana which can rapidly grow 50 feet in the post-Maria landscape. Six months after Maria hit, all of those sun-loving plants had already begun to cover the rainforest floor with trees already poking through the undergrowth. In 10 to 15 years, a visitor won't be able to tell that anything happened. And in 100, it would take hard scientific research to even know a hurricane came through.

Farmer Prepares for Storm

That's nature though. But there are farmers in Puerto Rico who have taken this natural adaptation of Puerto Rico's land and applied it to their farms. Ian Pagán Roig woke the day after Maria to see his farm decimated, trees down, surrounding forest denuded, pools of water everywhere. Yet a month after Maria, there he was producing crops again.

How? Prior to the storm, Pagan took important steps like digging trenches for water drainage, removing the roof of his greenhouse to allow for the wind to blow through. And prior to the hint of any storm, Pagan built permanent infrastructure like ponds and a greenhouse to make returning to normalcy quicker. And most important, his farm equipment ran on grass not fuel. While fellow farmers waited hours and hours on line for gas, his two oxen where out plowing land.  Combining these choices with natural agricultural practices that enhanced his soil vitality had his farm up and running so quick after Maria.

The main thing is that the earth is resilient. And people can be too… if we put the effort in.

HuffPo

Pub Quiz

1. Using data from NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper instrument, scientists have identified three specific signatures that definitively prove there is what on the surface of the moon?
2. This week, a consortium of more than 200 scientists from 20 countries published the first fully annotated sequence of the genome for what very important species of plant?
3. What food was recently found in a 3,200 year old Egyptian tomb?
4. A 'Fireball' 40 Times Brighter Than the Moon was seen streaking across the sky of what U.S. state?
5. A purple celestial phenomenon, recently discovered by citizen scientists, has been given a name. What name?

How did YOU do?

In Next Week's Episode

Hey, you don't wanna miss next week's episode. We have science news, the Climate Lounge, Pub Quiz….and...the Blue Streak Science A****** of the Month!

In Closing

Thanks to Dr. Kaeli Swift for joining us today. And best of luck on your future work with Canada Jays. 

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

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 DiLiberto.

I'm JD Goodwin.  

Thank you for joining us.

And remember...follow the science!

• Dr. Amber Stuver of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory
• Blue Streak Science News
• The Climate Lounge
• Pub Quiz

Science News with Chris MacAlister and Nevena Hristozova New Horizons Sees Glow at Edge of Solar System

It's time for another update from my favourite little space probe; New Horizons. The explorer who brought us Pluto in all of its glory; with its heart and fart dunes, has something new to report on its way to its next rendezvous with Ultima Thule, an ultraviolet glow.

So what could be causing a glow in deep space? Well the experts are all in agreement. It's aliens. Aliens people, they've finally come! If only we had a space force to save us.

Sorry, my error. It's not aliens, it's Hydrogen. The general consensus is that this glow is emanating from the edge of the heliosphere.

The heliosphere is our solar system's bubble, created by the sun's solar winds blowing out through the solar system and it keeps interstellar matter from drifting in. So this glow is thought to be where the winds stop. Forming a hydrogen wall at the point where the wind gets weak enough for the universe to push back.

Science News, Live Science

New Drug for Relapsing Malaria

Malaria is a disease caused by a total of 170 plasmodium species. Some infect humans, other - other animals, some cause slightly different symptoms of the same disease. In the majority of cases, the malaria plasmodium is transmitted by mosquitoes, and one species is known to be transmitted to humans via small primates. An estimated 600 million people worldwide are affected by malaria and about one to three million die each year.

The good news is that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved tafenoquine for malaria prophylaxis.

Some of the malaria-causing plasmodia can remain dormant in the liver of affected patients and cause recurring infections of the patient months after the initial condition, and what is worse - they are also potentially contagious if a mosquito bites them.

This new drug was specifically developed against this recurring species.

It also has a strong negative side-effect though. For people with a X-chromosome related genetic condition causing deficiency in the glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase enzyme which protects the red blood cells from oxidative damage, taking this pill can cause hemolytic anemia - destruction of their red blood cells, so that's a pretty significant drawback.

The approval of FDA comes with the conditions for the pharma companies that make the drug to carry out further extensive pharmacovigilance tests once the drug is on the market and provide detailed reports of the results.

Pharmacy Times, PR Newswire, Science News

Debate On How People Arrived in The Americas

During the last ice age, pioneering humans crossed the Bering Strait on an ice bridge and became the first human population in the New World. Simple, eh?

Maybe not. Once on the continent there is still the small matter of making your way south and there are some conflicting ideas about how this would have happened.

One theory says that the explorers would have hugged the coast on their way down, whilst the other says that a more inland route would have been taken, passing between two ice sheets.

There is evidence to support each case, and we all know what happens when you have conflicting theories in science; fiiiiiiggggghhhhht!

Mercifully, a international team of multidisciplinary experts have come together to try and shed some light on this puzzle and stop some of the carnage and bloodshed.

Archeology, geology, anthropology and genetics have all been put to task to try and solve this question once and for all, the results are in, and the winner is…..La La Land. Sorry wrong card. The winner is…..we don't know!

[caption id="attachment_1383" align="alignright" width="300"] Amber Stuver, Ph.D.[/caption]

Interview with Amber Stuver, Ph.D. - LIGO

Dr. Amber Stuver is an assistant professor of Physics at Villanova University and is also a member of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, better known as LIGO. Dr. Stuver has been a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration since 1999. She's also a terrific science communicator having done videos with Tedx Talks and Ted-Ed.

Please have a listen to our conversation about this completely new way of discovering our universe.

The Climate Lounge

Welcome to the lounge! I see that last week we covered how the death toll for Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico was finally increased… something that should have occurred a long time ago. I was going to say that it should be a scandal. But it IS A SCANDAL. Even if most of the media has moved on and people have moved on. I'm imploring you to not move on. The island still have years, decades even left ahead in its rebuild. Is it going to be a climate resilient rebuild, or a patchwork effort that will lead to failure the next time a storm hits? I sure hope these stories reach the light of day… Ok.. onto this weeks science story. Let me set the stage…

A long long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, if by galaxy, I mean region and if by region I mean Central America, I digress, a predominant technologically advanced civilization crumbled into non-existence due to, according to a new study, a change in the climate. God, please don't let this be foreshadowing on all of us.

Ok, I'm talking about the Mayans here. An incredibly, for their time, advanced civilization when it came to math and astronomy and agriculture and lore located in the Yucatan peninsula. Built up over a thousand years, the Mayan civilization collapsed in just a few hundred potentially during the 8th and 9th centuryish. What the heck happened? (pedantic note, technically we are talking about how the Mayans abandoned they massive cities in the southern lowlands of their territory over just a couple hundred of years. They didn't vanish. And some form of mayan civilization continued for hundreds of years)

Stop me if you've heard this before, but scientists have lots of theories. Disease, Over-population, deforestation, aliens to name a couple but one theory I want to talk about today involves a change in climate. Specifically,  a stupidly bad drought.

In a new paper published in Science, scientists attempted to quantify just how bad the drought was that impacted the region during the Mayan Collapse. It was called "Quantification of drought during the collapse of the classic Maya Civilization". THREE CHEERS TO NOT PRETENTIOUS OR CONFUSING RESEARCH TITLES.

(another pedantic note: this paper didn't discover this drought, they just quantified it. Probably lots of things caused the collapse)

To do this, scientists took sediment cores from Lake Chichancanab. Basically, just like an ice core, layers of soils can hold within them clues about the precipitation and temperature.

What did the paper whose first author was Nick Evans a graduate student at Cambridge (have to give shout outs to first author grad students HUZZAH) find? There was a 50% decrease in annual precipitation for over 100 years from 800 to 1000 AD. And at worst, it was as much as 70%.

How did they figure this out? Basically as water in the soil evaporates, lighter elements go first, leaving heavier elements behind. During particularly bad droughts, gypsum crystals form keeping within them lake water. The chemical properties of this fossilized lake water is what Nick Evans and colleagues looked at to determine how bad the drought was.

A pretty amazing climate detective case. Now we still don't know what caused the drought. It could ahve been changes in the atmospheric circulation. Maybe there were more long lasting and bad El Ninos which lead to drought? Maybe something with the Medeval warm period, a time with less volcanic activity and a stronger sun. But really that is sorta besides the point.

What's interesting for us today in a world impacted daily by human-caused climate change is just how easy it potentially was for a natural climate event, drought, to upend a thousand year old civilization. And all of those people had to go somewhere.

Now think about the implications today for areas that potentially could dry out over the next century due to climate change. Add on a natural drought and you get a particularly bad scenario. And then you have millions of climate refugees. Are we are a society prepared for that? I'll leave that one hanging. But I'm sure you might have answered that for yourself already.

WaPo

Pub Quiz

Taking part in the pub quiz today are: Chris MacAlister, Nevena Hristozova, and Tom Di Liberto

1. There was an annually occurring meteor shower last week. What is it called?
2. What dangerous substance has The United States Environmental Protection Agency proposed to allow for the approval of "new uses"?
3. A study published in Nature Scientific Reports last week suggests that cremated human remains from Stonehenge most likely came from whe
4. In honor of it being the Dog Days of Summer, something I take Sirius. I have a question about dogs. A new study suggests that some dogs may be lying about something when they have a pee. What are they lying about?
5. New archaeological research from The Australian National University has found that Homo erectus, an extinct species of human, went extinct, at least in part, because they were what?

How did YOU do?

In Next Week's Episode

We'll be talking with Kaeli Swift of the University of Washington who has been studying some really interesting behavior about my favorite birds...crows! We may have to re-think what it means to be a bird brain after this. Don't miss it!

In Closing

Thanks a million to Amber Stuver!

Thanks to our audience, especially our Patreon supporters. We've only recently begun our Patreon campaign, but soon we'll be offering some incentives.  Perhaps extra content. Live streaming? Maybe the opportunity to sit in with us while we record the podcast? Or even a completely new Patreon-only live stream. We're looking at all these ideas. So, watch this space, and get in early!

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 the podcast directory of your choice. 

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

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

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

I'm JD Goodwin.  

Thank you for joining us.

And remember...follow the science!

• Hurricane Maria's death toll in Puerto Rico over 1,100
• The Trump Administration Proposes to Scrap Automobile Fuel Efficiency Standards
• Also, Donald Trump picks a White House science officer
• The US state of California Hits Its Emissions Target Years Early!
• Interview with Dr. Grant Ballard, Chief Science Officer of Point Blue Conservation Science

Science News with Nevena Hristozova and JD Goodwin Hurricane Maria's death toll in Puerto Rico over 1,100

It is a story we keep mentioning and we will keep mentioning for as long as it's necessary. Puerto Rico - the American territory which seems to be completely forsaken by the American administration, probably because they don't have fancy golf courses there right now. The government claims 64 deaths between landfall in September 2017 and December 2017, while the official average comes to about 1140 people who lost their lives. Talk about fake news the government seems to be the best in cooking these up. Next to that the, months-long power shortages, the contaminated water supplies, the extreme flooding are part of the daily struggles of the people of Puerto Rico a year after the hurricane hit. Good job, to president Trump and his cabinet for taking care of their own people...]

LA Times, New Scientist

GOP Administration Proposes to Scrap Automobile Fuel Efficiency Standards

Last Thursday, Donald Trump released a proposal to scrap federal fuel-efficiency standards for passenger vehicles. His administration has also threatened to remove California's ability to set its own emissions guidelines.

The reaction from the science community, as well as government officials in California was swift and negative. On Twitter, Governor Jerry Brown wrote, "California will fight this stupidity in every conceivable way possible."

What's the Trump administration's argument?

• Current standards drive up vehicle prices
• these standards would  increase the number of deaths from traffic accidents by encouraging consumers to keep driving older cars that aren't as safe as new ones.

According to John DeCicco, a University of Michigan engineer who studies the environmental impact of vehicles, "I don't believe the administration has any solid engineering or economic ground to stand on. It is basically political opportunism."

With Trump's new proposal the projected CO2 emissions would increase by roughly 20% compared to the projected output under the current regulations.

Trump's plan would also revoke a waiver granted to California that allows the state to set air-quality standards that are stricter than those enacted by the federal government. The waiver also lets other states to adopt California's standards.

Even car makers are advising the GOP administration to back off because this could create a legal mess that could get dragged out for years.

We're not gonna let this happen.  

Nature, New York Times

New Pick for White House Science Office is Not Bad

Our next story takes us back to you know who! Donald Trump.

Mr. Trump assumed office more than a year and half ago. Among his accomplishments is the fact that he has gone longer without a science adviser than any first-term president since 1976.

Here's the biggest surprise. His choice to be director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is not a d*%#head.

He is a meteorologist and his name is Kelvin Droegemeier. He's an expert on extreme-weather events, and has been the vice-president for research at the University of Oklahoma since 2009. Kelvin Droegemeier also served on the National Science Board, which oversees the National Science Foundation, under presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush.

This guy is a good choice.

Granted, he'll be stepping into an Office of Science and Technology Policy that has been eviscerated from a staff of 130 employed by President Obama to that of only 50 by Donald Trump.

But this one appointment is a good choice, and Donald Trump should be commended for it.

Science, Scientific American

California Hits Its Emissions Target Years Early!

JD, for a country that pulled out of the Paris agreement, showing nothing but disregard for scientific and popular opinions by the office running it, your own state is doing really well! California set a goal in 2006 to reduce its greenhouse emissions to levels equal those of 1990 by 2020. A recent study published by the Air Resources Board reviewing data from 2016 shows that California has already hit that target with few years to spare!

Emissions from the power sector mark the biggest drop - around 35%. At the same time California's economy was still growing, mind you - for those who believe that degrowth is the only way to return to healthier planet. And also, for those who believe the greener future is a poorer future - you are wrong and California just proved you wrong with very convincing numbers!

Japan Times, Green Matters

Dr. Grant Ballard, Chief Science Officer Point Blue Conservation Science

It was my privilege today to talk with Grant Ballard, the Chief Science Officer of Point Blue Conservation Science. We discussed the history, mission, and current projects being undertaken by this many-faceted conservation organization.

Point Blue is a leader in climate-smart conservation, helping to ensure that wildlife and our own communities continue to thrive in the decades to come. We believe that our collaborative climate-smart conservation actions today can lead to ecosystems that sustain healthy wildlife and human communities well into the future. As leaders and innovators in conservation science, we have the vision, scientific rigor, passion, and ability to inspire others to act to make positive conservation outcomes possible for a healthy blue planet.

• Point Blue Conservation Science website

 

Recommended by The Team

Book: Unthinkable - And Extraordinary Journey Through the World's Strangest Brains

Author: Helen Thomson

In Unthinkable Helen Thomson tells the stories of nine extraordinary people. From the man who thinks he's a tiger to the doctor who feels the pain of others just by looking at them.

This is a terrific book that helps us to understand ourselves by helping us to understand the unique brains of some extraordinary people.

In Next Week's Episode

Interview with Dr. Amber Stuver of Villanova University

We talked all about LIGO and gravitational waves.

Don't miss it!

In Closing

Thanks to Grant Ballard of Point Blue Conservation Science

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

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

And our hosts today were Nevena Hristozova, and me!

I'm JD Goodwin.  

Thank you for joining us.

And remember...follow the science!

• General Relativity passes the black hole test
• A day by the lake...on Mars
• The Climate Lounge
• And more!

Science News with Amrita Sule and JD Goodwin Animals Frozen for 42,000 Years Wriggle to Life

Not a lot of us are excited when we hear the phrase, "blast from the past". But this time we do have news that goes about 40,000 years back. A team of researchers revived 2 nematodes from samples of permafrost in Siberia.  Scientists claim that these two nematodes have been frozen since the Pleistocene, thousands of years!

Previously, nematodes that were frozen for about 39 years and also tardigrades frozen for about 30 years have been revived. However, this is the first time a complex organism like a nematode has been revived after thousands of years of frozen dormancy. For this new study Russian scientists worked in collaboration with Princeton University researchers and found two viable nematodes while analyzing about 300 soil samples collected from the melting permafrost. Both are believed to be females. One permafrost sample about 32,000 years old came from northeastern part of Yakutia in Russia and the other about 42,000 years old permafrost sample came from the Kolyma River in northeastern Siberia. As these isolated worms warmed, they started moving and eating.

A number of organisms native to Arctic and Antarctica are known to undergo cryo-protective dehydration i.e when they encounter freezing temperatures they rapidly dehydrate – remove water from their cells. This prevents damage to their tissues  which could occur otherwise when the water in their cells could freeze and form crystals. More information would be indeed vital to understand how these two nematodes survived for thousands of years in frozen state. They would also be key in understanding evolutionary divergence between ancient and present nematode populations.

Live Science, Smithsonian Mag

Einstein theory passes black hole test

The theoretical physicists come up with these elegant equations to explain everything in the universe from the very small to the very large. But it takes scientists who can design experiments to find out if the predictions of these theories line up with what's out there in the real world.

General Relativity has been experimentally confirmed many times. But one of the best things you can do with a scientific theory is to test it in the most extreme conditions to see if holds up. If it doesn't then you have to scrap it, or revise it if possible.

For the first time scientists have been able to test Relativity with an extremely massive object. How massive? Is 4 million times the mass of the Sun big enough for ya?

We're talking about the supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way. This black hole is known as Sagittarius A.

In particular, there's one star called S2. And S2 goes around Sagittarius A in an elliptical orbit every 16 years at 3% of the speed of light.

There are other stars in the area, and only a few years ago observing these would have been impossible. But these four telescopes, located in the Atacama Desert in Chile, can overcome distortions from the earth's atmosphere. By bringing the light together from all of them it creates a virtual super telescope.

What they were looking for is a gravitational redshift. That's when the light from this star gets stretched out as a result of a strong gravitational field.

Gravitational redshift is predicted by General Relativity, and has been observed before, but not from such a massive object with its intense gravitational field.

Until now.

These astronomers followed S2 before and after it streaked by Sag A on 19 May and they measured it every hour.

And they saw that the light from S2 was stretched, that is red-shifted, by the black hole exactly as predicted by the Theory of General Relativity.

They're not done looking at S2. The more we observe this unusual star whipping around Sagittarius A the more we can learn about the extreme conditions so close to a supermassive black hole.

These results are published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Science, Science News, BBC Science and Environment

Mars May Have a Lake of Liquid Water

Water is the most essential requirement for life. When planets are explored for the possibility of life, scientists first look for evidence of slightest amount of water.  

And much to their surprise the Italian scientists working on the European Space Agency's Mars Express mission announced that the Mars orbiter has found a lake of liquid water below the southern ice sheets on Mars.

In the past, there have been indications of presence of tiny amount of water on Mars. However, this is the very first evidence of a liquid lake that spans 20 km across and sits under the planet's southern polar cap.

Temperatures below the ice sheet could be as low as -68 degree C and pure water would freeze at such low temperatures. There is probably lot of salt dissolved in the water- thereby lowering its freezing point.

This lake was discovered by the The Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding instrument, or Marsis instrument developed by the Italian space agency. This instrument bounced radar beams on the ice sheets and the reflection revealed presence of a triangular region beneath the sheets – speculated to be a basin into which water had flown.

The Italian scientists matched these radar measurements to similar ice lakes in Greenland and Antarctica on earth to confirm their observations.

So, is this the evidence of life on Mars we've been looking for all along? Not yet. More confirmation is needed. If this holds true, it would be substantial in understanding if any organisms can, or have survived.

Since, no other orbiter has detected this in spite of using a similar technology, for example NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, there might be debate about this and a assessment of this martial polar region might follow.

BBC Science and Environment, Science News, The New York Times

Carrie Fisher will be Leia again in 'Star Wars: Episode IX'

Last Friday the cast for the next Star Wars film was announced. And guess who's in it?

Hint: "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope."

Not just Princess Leia Organa...but Carrie Fisher herself is playing Princess Leia. This is no little hologram or CGI generated image of her, either!

Yes, Carrie Fisher died in 2016. That really happened.

How are they going to do this?

Star Wars: Episode 9, directed by JJ Abrams, is going to use previously unused footage from the filming of Episode 7: "The Force Awakens".

According to Abrams this has the blessing of Fisher's daughter Billie.

"Episode 9," begins shooting next month, and is scheduled to be released December 2019.

Another notable casting appearing in the new film will be Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissian.

Washington Post, The New York Times

The Climate Lounge Heatwaves and wildfires: What is going on?

This week in the lounge we are just going to take a quick tour of the planet and see how things are going. I'm just going to, um, open up a browser real quick here, surely you're impressed with my preparation, alright, let me type in weather disasters into this here google search...and. Oh god. The world's on fire… let's talk about this

First, Europe. Europe has been sitting under a dome of high pressure that has basically let the continent slow cook. Temperatures reached into the 30s C or 90F as far north as the Arctic Circle...normal.. England has been baking. So has France.. So has… you get the picture it's hot. A preliminary study suggests the heat wave was made 5 times more likely in northern Europe thanks to climate change. In Greece, the recent hotness combined with unusually strong west winds caused wildfires near Athens to grow incredibly out of control. The kineta fire to the west burned through rural areas and didn't cause too much damage. But the Rafina fire 10 miles to the west was horrible. The hot dry gusty winds made the fire grow rapidly and even worse unpredictably. The fire quickly overtook the seaside resort towns near Rafina including Mati on July 23 forcing residents onto the narrow streets which quickly became clogged with cars. This led people to rush to the beaches and into the sea to protect themselves as the fires burned all the way to shore. Videos of the residents in the water while ash clouds the sky and fire burns in the distance were terrifying. Over 90 people died with dozens still missing. Making it the 5th deadliest wildfire in the past century and the deadliest in Europe. It's a horrible shocking thing. And this happened in a place that, to be honest, wasn't that dry. The winds were the unusual part. The European Commission's Joint Research Centre released in January a report specifically looking at the risk of wildfires in Europe in a future dominated by man-made climate change.  The report found that for the Mediterranean region, the fuel needed for fires will become even drier increasing the risks for weather-driven forest fires.  Making matters worse, drying conditions will extend farther north from the Mediterranean, while the large source of moisture found in the Alps will decrease as temperatures warm.

In the US, hot weather has led to dumbly (is that a word, it should be) hot temperatures in California. Redding hit 110 on July 26. And it's been hot and dry for quite awhile. A bit different than Greece. But similarly, fires broke out and rapidly grew in size. The Carr fire has burnt 110,000 acres andis only 27% contained and has burned into Redding itself. It has destroyed over 1200 buildings and killed 7 people so far including two firefighters. The freaking fire even creating this rotating fire hellscape that was like a tornado. It created its own weather. There is even a photo of a steel pipe wrapped around a tree. Meanwhile, the Ferguson fire near Yosemite killed two firefighters and caused the largest park related fire closing since 1990 burning nearly 57,000 acres. Country-wide, so far this year the burned area is 25% above-average. That's alot

Air quality in California as a result of all of the fires has been incredibly dangerous for those outside as well.

Climate change… it's making this worse but I've never felt comfortable saying "new normal" but I never was eloquent enough to say why. Thank god for smarter people. So let me quote Crystal Kolden a fire scientist at the University of Idaho. She noted that the behaviour of the Carr fire is not the behavior firefights are used to seeing in the middle of the night, instead it's more normal during the hottest parts of the day. She says" That sort of extreme, it's something we have seen a lot in the past couple years, but it's something we've been seeing more frequently with a greater magnitude ofr the last 20, 30  years. " But she pushed back on saying this is a new normal because "That implies that it's not going to get that much worse. But what our projections tell us is that it's going to get worse"

Of course she's right. SHE'S A FREAKING FIRE SCIENTIST. As temperatures warm, the fire seasons get longer, the fuel gets drier, and drier more plentiful fuel means if fires form they grow fast and large. Not surprisingly,  In recent research looking at trends in weeks where conditions are favorable for very large fires, scientists found that the potential for the development of very large fires is expected to be up to six times as likely by mid-century (2041-2070) compared to 1971-2000 in the mountain west. 2 to 4 times in California.

It hasn't been lost on me that I'm doing another story on wildfires and the host of this podcast JD has gone through the terrifying ordeal himself after his home burned down last year. Fires that grow large so fast and going to encroach on that urban wild interface. Another bit about how infrastructure is not built for the extremes we are ALREADY seeing, let alone what may happen in the future.

Wunderground Wunderground climate.gov WaPo Axios

Pub Quiz

Taking part in the pub quiz today are: Amrita Sule and Tom Di Liberto.

What are the rules? The first rule of Pub Quiz is you do not talk about Pub Quiz.

I ask a science question and our panel of dangerous intellectuals provide their brilliant answers along with some witty repartee'.

1. A pair of papers posted on the preprint server arXiv last month suggests that this cosmological Theory results in far fewer universes than previously thought. What Theory am I talking about?
2. On Friday, 27 July what notable celestial event took place?
3. A bite from this animal can make a person deathly allergic to red meat. This week researchers announced that its bite may also be linked to coronary artery disease. What animal is it?
4. In recent weeks hundreds of dead fish, seabirds and sea turtles have been washing up on the beaches of what U.S. state?
5. According to a new study published in Nature Geoscience on 23 July, the oldest evidence for life on land was found in what country?

That's it for the Pub Quiz!

How did YOU do?

What? You want the answers? Then you're just gonna have to listen to this episode!

Recommended by The Team

Are there any birders out there? Of course there are! Well, I have an awesome way for you to waste 90 minutes of your life.

On Twitter there's a thing called TrickyBirdID. It's #TrickyBirdID. It's run by Jason Ward, and you can find him at JasonWardNY.

This is a daily contest on Twitter. Jason posts pictures of birds, and you try to guess what they are! It's not always easy because the pictures may be backlit, blurry, or maybe a partial picture. It's meant to be a challenge, and it it.

He gives everyone 30 minutes to give their answers, and whoever answers correctly first wins that round. There are a total of three rounds.

I was in rare form on Monday and won two of the three rounds. That last one was a white-eyed vireo, but I answered with yellow-throated vireo.

Still, this is a great way for birds nerds to waste time, and for that reason I recommend hashtag TrickyBirdID on Twitter.

#TrickyBirdID on Twitter

In Next Week's Episode

Dr. Grant Ballard, the Chief Science Officer of Point Blue Conservation Science.

In Closing

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

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

And our hosts today were Dr. Amrita Sule, and Tom Di Liberto.

I'm JD Goodwin.  

Thank you for joining us.

And remember...follow the science!