Blue Streak Science Podcast

On This Week's Show Science News

• Origins of amphibian-killing fungus uncovered
• How California becomes the first US state to mandate solar on new homes
• New discoveries about some ancient reptiles

Science News Origins of amphibian-killing fungus uncovered

This is a detective story. The chytrid fungus, also known as Bd (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis) has been decimating amphibian populations globally for a good 20 years now after it was first discovered in dying frogs in Queensland, Australia.

The fungus causes excessive skin shedding which makes the animals die of 'thick skin'. Skin is such an essential organ to amphibians with many processes such as absorbing additional oxygen and releasing toxins. It's a bit like amphibian eczema.

The impact of the disease has been so great due to the huge amount of global trade of amphibians. With animals moving before people realised that there was a problem, by the time people noticed the problem it was already everywhere. This has made tracking its origins hard. So far the origin has been narrowed down to Asia, Africa, North America or South America.

This mystery is now getting solved thanks to the combined global efforts of 10 years of field and lab work by 35 institutions. The conclusion is that the disease originated between 50 to 120 years ago in East Asia.

They figured this out by sequencing the fungal DNA from within amphibian genomes. Over 200 samples were used to draw this conclusion but sometimes less than 1% of sample material gave any usable results. Understanding the origin of this disease and how it links to other similar fungi could help plan for future risks.

Science News, BBC

 

California becomes first US state to mandate solar on homes

California first US state to mandate solar panels on new construction homes built after 1 January, 2020. That includes apartment buildings as well.

Already state law that requires that 50% of electricity to come from non carbon-emitting sources by 2030. 

Critics point out that mandate to add between $8,000 and $12,000 to the cost of a home. Average cost of home in California is about $440,000, about 2 ½ times the national average. According to Energy Commission homeowners will only see an additional $40 to monthly mortgage payments.

Californians pay some of the highest electric rates in the country already. However, residential customers' monthly average bills are about $96, among the lowest in the country.

How?

Because California ranks 49th in the nation in per capita electricity consumption. Largely driven by the state's strong commitment to energy efficiency, and the climate. Few people near coast have air conditioners. Cool summers.

Nearly 16% of California's electricity last year came from solar.

Mandate still has to get through the Building Standards Commission. Decision later this year.

Remember when I said that there already exists a state law that requires that a full 50% of all electricity to come from non carbon-emitting sources by 2030? According to the Public Utilities Commission the state will likely meet goal of 50% generation of non-carbon electricity about 10 years ahead of schedule.

Currently rebuilding our home that was destroyed in the October 2017 wildfires.

Are we putting solar on it? Hell yes.

BBC News

 

Jurassic fossil tail tells of missing link in crocodile family tree

The latest missing link that has been discovered links crocodiles with the pelagosaurus genera. Pelagosaurus were reptiles of the open seas that lived for about 8 million years before going extinct about 175 mya. Whilst they would have resembled crocodiles they were more like whales and dolphins in their overall body structure.   

The new species is called Magyarosuchus fitosi after the amateur collector who discovered it, Attila Fitos. It is estimated to have been about 5m long. The first signs that a new species was on the cards were unusual vertebrae; these turned out to be a part of its tale fin, a feature previously only found on the Pelagosaurus. But unlike a Pelagosaurus, the creature also had heavy armour, more associated with land going crocodyliforms.

Sometimes with fossils it can be challenging to work out when you genuinely have a new species on your hands, but when you have discoveries as apparent as this one there leaves very little room for debate.

Science Daily, University of Edinburgh, PeerJ

What The Hell Was That?

This is where I'd normally put the conclusion and answer to last week's WTHWT

Since we don't have a quorum we are going to delay the fun until next week!

This Week In Science History

In a slight departure from our usual TWISH format I'm gonna to talk about one of the greatest scientists in history.

100th anniversary of the birth of Richard Feynman

Was an American theoretical physicist, known for his work in quantum mechanics as well as in particle physics

For his work quantum electrodynamics, Feynman, along with Julian Schwinger and Shin'ichirō Tomonaga were award the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965.

He developed the Feynman diagrams which were used as a representation for the mathematical expressions describing the behavior of subatomic particles. Feynman was also one of the great popularizers and spokespersons for science.

So today I'm gonna to rattle off four selected quotes from an article this week in Science News celebrating Richard Feynman

1. "There is nothing that living things do that cannot be understood from the point of view that they are made of atoms acting according to the laws of physics."

An expression of the importance of atoms from the opening pages of Feynman's lectures.

2. "From my knowledge of the world that I see around me, I think that it is much more likely that the reports of flying saucers are the results of the known irrational characteristics of terrestrial intelligence than of the unknown rational efforts of extra-terrestrial intelligence."

That comes from a set of lectures compiled in book form as The Character of Physical Law,

3. "I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics."

Perhaps Feynman's sentiment might better be expressed by saying that anyone who claims to understand quantum mechanics, doesn't.

4. "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool."

The best advice to scientists and anybody else who seeks the truth about the world. The truth may not be what you'd like it to be, or what would be best for you, or what your preconceived philosophy tells you that it is. Unless you recognize how easily you can be fooled, you will be.

Bonus quote:

"Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.

Promotion

Matilda's Lab

In Closing

Until next time...follow the science!

This episode of the Blue Streak Science Podcast comes to you from San Francisco, California; and Chester, England.

 

Coming up on this week's show

The Climate Lounge with Tom Di Liberto

The return of the What the Hell Was That game!

Science News:

• Kilauea Volcano Erupts
• How birds got their beaks
• Kew Gardens Glasshouse Reopens
• Stephen Hawking's Final Theory About The Multiverse

  Science News with Sophie McManus and Nevena Hristozova Kilauea Volcano Erupts

Can you imagine living on top of an active volcano?! I am sure you are aware, but Kilauea has been kicking off lately. Nearly 2000 people have been evacuated around the south side of the island. They will probably move back soon, depending on developments, obviously. Move back to live on top of their active volcano.

So, what happened?

A series of small earthquakes was recently followed by a quake with mag 6.9 last Friday. A new fissure then opened up and started letting out hot lava. Kilauea is one of the world's most active volcanoes and has been in a state of eruption for the past 35 years.

Tropical Visions video (co. Paradise Helicopters) is amazing to watch. It is like the cartoons of volcanoes you see as a child. Spectacular bright red lava fizzing everywhere and engulfing cars. Less appealing, by the sounds of it, are the emissions of sulphur dioxide and hydrogen sulphide. Kinda toxic. That's why the people have been evacuated. Also the lava.

A nice quote by the excellently-named Mika McKinnon, volcanologist and disaster researcher, "Hawaiian volcanoes can be extremely deadly, but it's a hazard you can walk away from." This explains the footage of people strolling away from the lava flows. I mean strolling as a relative term.

In other Hawaiian news, Hawaii became the first state to ban sunscreens that contain chemicals harmful to marine life. Let's hope that Kilauea calms down a bit - and that other places follow the lead on the sunscreen front.

How Birds Got Their Beaks

This story comes from Yale University and it's telling us how scientists were able to reconstruct a missing link. Not between apes and humans, but between dinosaurs and birds. This bird-like dinosaur had wings and a breastbone which look very much like the ones of modern birds and it had a beak too, but very much like reptilian dinosaurs. It's mouth was apparently full of teeth.

This species is not new. It's been known to scientists for over 150 years, but due to the bad condition of the fossils it was hard to reconstruct its head to get more details. In 2014 though, a new fossil of the Ichthyornis dispar was found and this time it had a perfectly preserved skull. A 3D reconstruction showed that it could move its upper part of the beak independently, like birds today can and reptilian dinosaurs definitely can't. The fossils also showed these indentations on the surface of the skull, which are were a rather strong set of muscles were attaching, to allow the ancient dino-bird to grab, hold on to and chew its food with the help of its sharp teeth. Having such strong muscles operate a beak that is also capable of performing some of the tasks a hand sound have also probably played a role in freeing the front limbs to be used for flight.

Kew Gardens Glasshouse Reopens

This is great news! A few days ago, Kew gardens reopened its glasshouse (Temperate house). It houses 10,000 plants from the 'Goldilocks' zone - some of these are exceedingly rare and the glasshouse represents a final refuge. I remember going to Kew a long time ago to the glasshouses. Temperate house is the world's LARGEST glasshouse, and it is beautiful.

In an interview with the BBC, the naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough said he had first visited Kew Gardens "back when it cost a penny...When I had an office job at the BBC, when I used to be stuck in the office and get really depressed, I would come here at the weekend and take a deep breath, because there was a smell of the tropics." He reiterated the importance of such institutions in avoiding extinctions.

Stephen Hawking's Final Theory About The Multiverse

One of the last (so far) legacies of Prof Hawking is an article submitted just days before his passing. He has worked on this for almost 40 years and it's a theory which tries to explain how is it possible for the Big Bang to have created an infinite number of Universes, more or less similar to ours.

Originally, his work with James Hartle worked out how, based on principles of quantum mechanics the Big Bang could have potentially created an infinite number of universes; some very similar to our and others so different that even the laws of physics wouldn't be the same.

Later on, further developing the math to solve this problem, Hawking with the help of Professor Hertog from Belgium, used principles from String Theory to work out the math. By doing so, the two physicists came up to a solution according to which the Big Bang created a bunch of parallel universes, but they all have distinct similarities. Meaning that there might be a universe out there where I'm skinny and can sing, another one where dinosaurs still exist and yet another one where Professor Hawking never went to grad school but became a world famous tap-dancer!

One of the implications of the theory that parallel universes emerging as a result of the Big Bang exist based on the String Theory principles rather than the quantum physics ones, is that we might be able to actually detect parallel universes, since their basic physical laws will be very similar. It's still doubtful though that we'd be able to travel through them.

  The Climate Lounge with Tom Di Liberto Thwaites Thwaites Don't Tell Me!

Welcome to the Lounge! Of course, the first thing anyone gets to hear when they enter the lounge is an update on Puerto Rico. Less than 50,000 people are still without power a month before the hurricane season starts. And every week stories come out that are shocking but get completely overlooked due to the ongoing madness. For instance, did you know that the Puerto Rico Department of Public Health found that the overall suicide rate in Puerto Rico increased 29% in the first months after hurricane Maria? Or how about this quote about rebuilding Puerto Rico's power grid from a former energy executive whose has dealt with natural disasters from hurricane Sandy, to severe storms in Jamaica to earthquakes in California, "I've never seen anything like that--not in a developed nation" said Ed Muller. So yeah, still a disgrace.

Lately I've been talking about interesting research, new papers that have come out, and that has been fun. But I wanted to take you this week on a little journey to a story about getting the data needed to make cool new studies. On April 30, the largest American/British joint science expedition to Antarctica in 7 decades was launched to look at the Thwaites glacier, a terrifying "what if" glacier which if it completely melts would raise global sea levels by 10 feet. As David Holland, one of the principal researchers on this project said in an article in the Washington Post "For global sea-level change in the next century, this Thwaites glacier is almost the entire story,". Right now, basically, scientists fear only a bump in the sea floor is helping to hold the glacier in place. But it's hard to know how precariously things are because well...

The one issue with the Thwaites glacier is that, like, Antarctica, is like, super hard to get to. This expedition will fix that. So who's going? There will be 6, count'em 6 field expeditions going along with two computer modeling studies. And they are pulling out all the celebrity stops. One of the submersible research vessels will even be BOATY MCBOATFACE!

They are going to study this glacier from all directions. Holland will be drilling holes near the grounding line (where the ocean, bedrock and ice meet), and put a remotely operated vehicle in see whats going on.

Sridhar Anandakrishnan, a Penn State geoscientist will be doing seismic surveys detonating small explosive devices within the Thwaites glacier to measure the echoes of the sound waves. This will help determine what the glacier is flowing over and help figure out the glaciers rate of retreat.

There will also be ships and planes with radars, and remote sensing, ocean gliders, subs and more drilling. This research expeditions will come back with an absolute treasure trove of data which can then be fed into computer models to determine better projections for what lies ahead.

It's a daunting task, in one of the most inhospitable places on the planet. But over 100 scientists are heading out because they know just how dire things will be for humanity if the Thwaites glaciers retreats all the way back to the south pole. So you know, not a heavy research trip at all. Just another walk in the glacial park….  

  What The Hell Was That?

We rummaged through the hallway closet and found an old game. Listen next week to see who can guess what the hell that sound was.

  In Closing

In 2004 when asked about his IQ, Professor Stephen Hawking replied, "I have no idea. People who boast about their IQ are losers".

This episode of the Blue Streak Science Podcast comes to you from San Francisco, California; Cambridge, England; Washington, D.C.; and Brussels, Belgium.

Coming up on this week's show

Mysterious ice holes, INSIGHT into the interior of Mars, Early Grants are the Ticket, The Climate Lounge, and This Week in Science History 

  

Listener feedback

Regarding our story last week on plastic-eating bacteria, SC on Twitter writes:

There was a scifi play on BBC tv in the 70's which featured a bacteria that eats plastic. In the story it got loose from a lab and accelerated destroying all sorts of stuff including bringing down aircraft.

Careful what you wish for..!

Thank you, SC

He brings up a good point because when it comes to grand ideas of introducing species to counter a human-caused problems our history is not so good.

Examples: kudzu, the vine that ate the American south, and cane toads in Australia

I'm all for tackling this critical problem in our oceans, but let's do be cautious when it comes to unleashing microorganisms into our oceans.

If you have any questions or comments you can do like SC and hit us up on Twitter, or you can email us at [email protected]

 

Science News

Scientists' early grant success fuels further funding 

We are back with some super cool science stories to share.  But wait! Do you know who are some of the show-runners who make this science possible. Grad Students and post docs definitely make it to the top of the list. As a postdoc myself I can strongly attest that, to do amazing science you need funding. So today I am going to talk about a study, which compared the career trajectory of early career scientists or post docs who are funded early on in their career versus the ones who miss out on these initial grants ONLY by a small margin.

This study was led by a Dutch sociologist, Thijs Bol at the University of Amsterdam. They compiled a data set, which consisted information on funding scores as well as the grants funded from two organizations - The  European Research Council and Netherlands Organization of Scientific Research. Their analysis revealed that researchers who were funded, CONTINUED to gain more than TWICE as much research funding in the next 8 years relative to their peers who weren't funded at an early stage. And let me repeat this, the scientists who failed to secure grants - just missed it by a small margin. Similar studies have been done in the past which also had similar conclusions, but Bol claims they were not as thorough as this one. 

The group reasoned that this drift in the funding acquisition could be partly because researchers who lost out on the initial grant were less likely to apply for future funding. I would like to say here that, many post doctoral positions are funded through their labs/mentors/institution - that is they are not always required to apply for funding. HOWEVER, they should very much be encouraged to do so. Having you independent funding, can definitely set you up for subsequent funding in future. Which has also been shown by the study under discussion.

This study only looked at data from two funding agencies, more information from other funding agencies world wide is needed to see the whole picture. I believe that a much bigger problem is, rejection of funding at an early career stage can dissuade one from pursuing science, which is a bad news for the WHOLE SCIENCE community. So what can be done? Funding agencies should be made aware of this. Also, more academic mentoring wrt to grant applications should be made available to postdocs and early career researchers. So yes -- KEEP APPLYING FOR GRANTS!

Nature

 

Mysterious Ice Holes in the Arctic

Living here on the west coast of North America means that whenever I travel to Europe I get to fly over the Arctic. The land and ice up there are incredibly beautiful even from 11 kilometers up.

Glaciers on Greenland. Ice flows in Baffin Bay. Icebergs.

I imagine all the wildlife down there...

News story about some interesting phenomena up there in the ice. According to NASA, weird holes have begun to appear in the ice.

They have no idea what's causing them.

John Sonntag, a scientist with NASA's Operation Ice Bridge took some photos and found these strange holes. Some researchers have suggested these holes were created by seals. That makes a lot of sense until we find out many of the holes are quite large.

According to Sonntag the holes are several meters, even tens of meters in size, making it unlikely that seals are the cause.

Some have suggested that bowhead whales may be punching up through the thin ice to breathe.

NASA has a monthly contest on their site called Earth Observatory, and a picture of these holes appears in their April Puzzler.

Head over to the show notes for a link to this site, and perhaps you can help NASA figure out what the hell this is!

NASA April Puzzler

National Geographic, The Washington Post, Popular Mechanics

 

NASA InSight Lander To Get First Look At 'Heart' Of Mars

All this news about planet EARTH, guess who is feeling left out? Yes! You guess it right it's planet MARS. But not to worry Mars because you will be getting a new visitor in November. A spacecraft designed to study interior structure, composition as well as Mar's seismic activity is scheduled to lift off on May 5th and land on the red planet, Mars in November. This spacecraft is called INSIGHT, which is short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport.

INSIGHT will be the first spacecraft to land on Mars since Curiosity in 2012. The lander, rovers and orbiters that have visited mars before investigated MOSTLY the surface history by studying features like canyons, volcanoes, rocks and soil. INSIGHT will be digging in deeper to learn about the RED planet's formation and give us more "Insight" about what lies under it's surface.

Lets' what what exactly will be the job of this spacecraft.

The INSIGHT mission will operate for approximately two earth years and during that time it will use primarily 3 instruments. A seismometer will pick up the vibrations from marsquakes, which are Mars equivalent of earthquakes. Insight will also hammer a heat-flow probe upto 16 feet deep into Martian surface, which is deeper than any of the probes used before. This will reveal how much heat is flowing out of the deep interior of the planet. And the third instrument known as RISE will track the location of the spacecraft and monitor minor variations in its position, to determine just how much Mars' North Pole wobbles as it orbits the sun.

These experiments will tell us about things like; if Mars formed from the same stuff as Earth and the Moon, what is it's core made up of and also give a sneak peek into how the planet evolved. In the coming months we will hear more about this mission as the lift off takes place later this week from WEST coast of United States. Just a note – this is the 1st time an interplanetary mission is being launched from the WC.

Also, if you are in the area and would like to lean more about MARS INSIGHT mission, you should check out the MARS road show this week as well as next week in California where you chat with NASA scientists and engineers, and learn about INSIGHTS MARS mission in detail.

Mars Roadshow

ScienceBlog, NASA.gov, LA Times

 

The Climate Lounge

Puerto Rico still suffers from occasional island wide black outs. The hurricane season officially begins in a month. Hurricane Maria hit the island on September 20… This continues to be awful.

Sometimes we all just have one of those days, you know. Just BAD days. Where nothing seems to be going in your favor. Then you turn on the news and you realize that things are going in ALOT of people's favor. Ugh, just bad days. Maybe you're like me when those days happen, and you close your eyes tight and try of think of anything else.  Like what would time period would I go to if I could time travel. Or What would the world be like if we still were just one big super continent? Or better yet, what would life be like if I was 6 feet tall? THESE ARE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS.

Well, some scientists from the Max Planck Institute just lived my dreams. They presented their findings recently at the annual meeting of the European Geosciences Union on what earth would look like if it spun the other way. I sincerely hope my excitement is coming across to everyone listening right. THIS IS SUCH A COOL THING.

We often talk about our climate as latitudinally dependent because that's sort of an easy way to look at things. It's warmer near the equator and colder near the poles. Or we talk about it with regards to elevation The higher you are, the colder it is. But we don't talk about just how important the earth's rotation is in causing the regional climates all across the world. But these scientists did just that.

Florian Ziemen of the Max Planck Institute of Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany was the lead scientist on the work and he and colleagues tweaked some parameters in a climate model that effectively turned the planet around. They then watched to see what climates developed as the model ran for 7,000 years.

This meant that they stopped the movement of air and water then reversed the direction of the Coriolis force which essentially reflects the impact a spinning earth would have one the movement of liquids and gases on our planet. They even reversed the direction of the sun so that, for instance, NY is 5 hours ahead of London in this bizarro world.  The result, things got crazy!

The world's deserts completely shifted. The Sahara desert was gone. It was now much wetter along with the Middle East. Instead, deserts reigned over the southeast United States and Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina. Australia also became much wetter as a reversal of the winds brought more moist air onshore. In total, a backwards earth had 11 million square km's LESS desert than our current earth.

For me on the Atlantic coast of the US, our climate became more mild and wet. While severe winters slammed western Europe. But it wasn't all great. Huge blooms of cyanobacteria took over northern Indian ocean.

It's a whole new world. But this doesn't explain why scientists do this. Well, looking at a retrograde planet earth allows scientists to see if our understanding of the earth is actually correct. For instance, scientists use these experiments to look at this like the huge ocean circulations on the planet. There is ongoing research looking into just how deep water forms that is waters that sinks to the bottom of the ocean which currently occurs in the north Atlantic. In prior backwards moving planet experiments, this formation of deep water either broke down or continued, leaving scientists perplexed. If this formation didn't stop, then the shape of the ocean basin might be playing a role. If it did collapse so does that argument. This most recent research did in fact have deep water formation collapse, similar to work done in 2008.

So would the earth be better if things turned backwards? Well, it would be greener, less desert-y but it all sort of depends on where you live. And truth be told, it'd still be full of humans and for all of the amazing things humanity has accomplished, we still have a knack for screwing things up.

EOS

 

This Week In Science History

This week in science history on 26 April in 1986, in Pripyat, in the northern Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, now thankfully called just Ukraine, one of the four reactors at the Chernobyl nuclear plant exploded during a safety test, launching a cloud of radioactive dust over Europe. The Soviet Union, always concerned with public health and transparency, announced the explosion two days after it happened.

Did you know I've been to Chernobyl? Yep, I can count on the fingers of my left hand how many times I've been there. Seven times.

This week in science history on 26 April in 1884, the New York Times reported that "sending mails by electricity" was to be investigated by the Post Office Committee of the United State House of Representatives. The article suggested it could lead to ten cent telegrams, million dollar offers from Nigerian princes, and pills to enhance your manhood.

This week in science history on 27 April In 1887, surgeon George Morton performed the first appendectomy in the United States, saving the life of a 26-year-old man suffering from a toothache.

This week in science history on 30 April in 1878, Louis Pasteur lectured at the French Academy of Science to promote his germ theory of disease. Predictably, he still met with opposition from some scientists, and he replied that their skepticism was "fatal to medical progress", thus proving that old microbiologists never die, they're just put out to Pasteur.

 

Shout out!

I'd like to thank Thomas at SecondLine Themes for helping us with our website.

I was having trouble centering the podcast player on our theme…

A theme is kind of like the structure, the bones, the template, of a website. And we purchased the Gumbo theme from SecondLine themes.

More often than not I need assistance with the techy stuff, and Thomas came through and helped me straighten things out.

So, if you're building a website, especially one for a podcast, I highly recommend SecondLine Themes.

Secondline Themes

 

Closing

We leave you with these words from American anthropologist Margaret Mead who said, "Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else."

Goodbye everyone, and until next time...follow the science!

 

Plastic-eating Bacteria to the Rescue?

Chris: [Ladies and gentlemen, we are at war! I'm not talking about a war on terror, a rogue state or even drugs, I'm talking about something much closer to home. I'm talking about plastic. Plasti-phobia is very popular at the moment; in the last week alone the UK government have announced a policy to ban the use of plastic straws in pubs, clubs and restaurants as the national still reels from the images shown in the stunning Blue Planet 2 series. And right here on Blue Streak Science we spoke a couple of weeks about a giant island of plastic adrift on the ocean, spreading micro-plastics far and wide and into the food chain.

The reason that this war on plastic is so hard to win is that, despite these increasingly apparent environmental impacts, we just can't quit it. It's a bit like a guilty affair; we know that it's reckless, irresponsible and hurts others but it's just so convenient and easy. Especially for us in the world of science and laboratories; with our disposable pipettes tips, Petri dishes, deep well plates and culture loops. We've been as much a part of the problem as we have the solution.

Up until now that is. The biggest problem that plastic presents is also its greatest asset; its resistance to biodegradation. But this resistance is starting to be ground down. In 2011 a single-celled fungus called pest-alo-tiopsis microspora was discovered which can digest polyurethane and in 2016 a strain of Ideonella Sakaiensis bacteria was identified that eats PET.

This bacteria was found outside a plastic recycling plant in Japan. What amazes me about this is just how quickly these organisms have evolved to exploit this new food source. We talk about antibiotic resistance as being a fast process but antibiotics are, for the most part, still going strong 100 years after their discovery. Plastics have been with us for half of that time and we're already seeing this shift in our microflora.

So how are scientists helping with this? Well, if you give scientists the novel enzyme that is responsible for the breakdown of PET (rather imaginatively called. PETase, we don't mess around with naming here. We call a spade a digging tool and a rose by any other name would be Rosa kordesii and it would not smell so sweet as the cross breed known as Louise Odier because science is complicated enough without adding a bunch of artsy-fartsy names to the mix that don't mean anything).

But I digress; if you give scientists a novel enzyme (like PETase) then they will do what scientists do and dick around with it. Prof. John McGeeham and Dr. Gregg Beckham of the university of Portsmouth and NREL, respectively, have managed to not only make PETase more efficient but have also widened the range of plastics that it works on.

They didn't initially set out to tweak the enzyme in this way; they were merely attempting to look at its crystal structure. Knowing this would allow the enzyme to be synthesised in the same way as ones that are already being used in your laundry detergent. It was during this synthesis that the error was made, resulting in a more efficient enzyme that can now be produced to aid the plastic recycling process.

Where will this take us in future years? With the microbial world churning on, who knows, maybe one day plastic will end up being no more durable than cardboard. We've certainly left enough of it around for the bugs to practice on!]

The Guardian, Science News, PNAS

 

"Warm Transplants" Save Livers and Lives

Nevena: [Few months ago we spoke of artificial womb and how the first lamb which was carried to term in one was the proof of concept that we might be well on the way to assisted pregnancies, when for health reasons the mother might not be able to carry the fetus to the end of the necessary period.

This story, published in Nature, is about slightly different type of womb-like device. One that can help transplantation organs to reach the patient in better condition and increase the chance of the transplantation procedure being successful.

There are many hurdles to a successful transplantation of organs - often times the storage of the organ between the donor and the recipient ends up damaging the organ to an extend which increases the risk of it failing and being rejected by the patient.

Now a new device which has been tested in the randomized clinical trial described in the nature paper authored by Dr David Nasralla and his colleagues, was shown to increase the success rate of liver transplantations.

One of the main differences with previous storage devices is that in keeps the organ at 37 degrees C (the body temperature of a healthy human). So far, transplant organs are always kept on ice (4 degrees C). While there are many rational reasons keeping on ice organs taken out of the body of donors makes sense, it might actually not be the most optimal way to do it.

Putting tissues and organ on ice for example can reduce the development of bacterial contaminations, it also is thought to induce the cellular chaperones - types of proteins which have the sole purpose of protecting the cells against stress (and if removing organ from its place is not stress, I don't know what is). But it might appear that at least in the case of liver, putting it on ice it might damage the organ more than protect it.

The machine that was developed to try and remedy this actually supplies the liver with blood saturated with oxygen - lack of oxygen is one of the main reasons that tissues and cells fail. It also filters out immunogenic cells so as little as possible risk there is for immune response in the receiver of the organ and rejection. Additionally, the machine is equipped with a bunch of sensors which measure the performance of the organ and if by any chance, for whatever reason, it starts under performing before the procedure has taken place, the doctors can decide based on this information whether or not they should discard the liver or if it is safe to proceed with the transplantation.

At this point the downside of the machine is its price - soaring to as much as 8000 euros, this is virtually unachievable tag for most patients and it can hardly be covered by national health insurance programs.

But like all other tech, the hope is that the price tag will quickly start showing lower numbers as ways are established to use more sustainable and cheaper materials without sacrificing the performance of the machine. ]

Nature, Nature (original abstract)

 

Ibuprofen and acetaminophen (paracetamol) reduce dental pain more effectively than opioids

Chris: [Elvis Presley, Prince, Hank Williams, Heath Ledger, Sigmund Freud; these are just a few examples of high profile people who we have lost as a result of opioid abuse. These tragedies occur because these highly addictive substances are available, legally, as they are such effective painkillers; but a new study has concluded that they are not as effective as their less dangerous alternatives, ibruprofen and paracetamol. Could it be that these celebrities' lives could have been saved if we had known this earlier? Well, only if they had been suffering from toothache.

This unexpected discovery comes after a wide literature review. Anita Aminoshariae is one of the study's authors and explained that the aim was to create a compendium detailing both the benefits and harms of these medications as a resource for dentists to use in their clinical decision-making, and this resources says, don't get your patients high!

Considering the consequences that opioid use can have, it is somewhat less surprising to find that the use of ibruprofen (either with or without paracetamol to assist) produces less adverse side effects as well as being more effective at managing the pain.

The reason why opioids are such a big problem is that they a part of the same family of chemicals as endorphins and dopamine that our bodies naturally create anyway. Medicinally, this is great because they can act on the brainstem and spinal cord like an endorphin (but much more powerfully) where they can suppress pain. The downside of this that it also affects the limbic system. If you have heard of endorphins or dopamine before then you've probably heard that they are the thing that makes us feel good; like chemical happiness. On the face of it, this may not seem like a bad side effect, to feel happy and relaxed about everything but the consequences are all too real.

It has been said that humanity only ever suffers from one addiction, opioids. Everything that we get addicted to, be it gambling, alcohol, sex, chocolate or building spreadsheets (maybe that's just me) these things all prompt our body to make these chemicals. All these other addictions are just the lengths that we go to to feed our opioid habit. The problem with these medicinal opioids is that you cut out the middle man and just provide the brain with an artificial alternative much more potent than anything than your body can make. Just think about it; once you've got used to the experience of an opioid high, a genuine, natural feeling of euphoria would just feel lacklustre.

Ibruprofen, on the other hand, is an anti-inflammatory drug. Swelling is a normal response of the body to trauma but it can also be painful. Whilst the swelling is functional and can aid the healing process, it is possible to use these drugs to reduce the swelling and relieve the discomfort. Their effectiveness can be further improved by combining them with paracetamol. Also known as acetaminophen, it may come as a bit of a shock that no one actually knows exactly how it works. The leading theory is that it blocks the brain's ability to detect prostaglandins which are a bit like anti-opioids; they make us feel pain rather than elation. This is the same chemical that causes swelling, so ibruprofen inhibits its production and then the paracetamol limits the brains ability to pick up on what's left.

Maybe this is why this result has been discovered. There are no nerves within teeth themselves, but they are attached to some. Dental pain is often associated with swelling and pressure on these nerves. Whilst opioids will dull this pain and make you feel a bit better about it, ibruprofen will actually do something to ease the source of the pain. But not the pain in your soul; for that that I'm afraid that you'll just have to stick with opioids and all of the risks that they entail.]

ScienceBlog, Case Western, Sci-News

 

TESS in the search of exoplanets

Nevena: [It seems like yesterday when the SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket blasted Elon's red Tesla roadster into space, but in the meantime the Falcon 9 (it's smaller buddy) is busy with to serious space business delivering payloads into Earth's orbit and beyond for various private and public programs.

It most recently brought to space a NASA probe which will search for exoplanets. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite or for short TESS is expected to deploy its solar panels as we speak and to start performing a number of internal checks before it starts collecting data.

Unlike other satellites before it, TESS will orbit Earth on a never used before orbit with a complex geometry, making two orbits around us for each orbit the Moon does. While this might seem a very random orbit to choose, surely you don't think NASA didn't choose it very carefully! The trick with this orbit is that it's very stable - if for some reason the satellite goes slightly out of its way, the moon's gravity will pull it back in place and allow it to keep doing it's thing without having to do much maneuvering itself - talk about being sustainable in space. Also, in this orbit there's much less space junk - something we unfortunately we have plenty of (and the cleaning of which Sophie talked about in our previous episode - go have a listen if you haven't yet!).

Once in its place, the expectation for TESS are soaring - its equipment is building up on the Kepler telescope's sensors and the hope is that it will discover even more exoplanets than Kepler ever could. Whatever TESS discovers, it will feed into the science that the James Webb telescope is expected to perform once it's launched in 2020 and it reaches its sweet spot in space - the Lagrange point where the gravity of Earth and the Sun balance out so it can stay there and observe the deep space with the most powerful sensors we have ever made for space exploration. ]

Space.com, LA Times, Science News

 

A**hole of the Month

JD: The Blue Streak Science A**hole of the Month is governor Rick Snyder of the state of Michigan.

Let's go back a few years to 2014 to Flint, Michigan.

That's when officials, in order to save money, switched the city's water source from Lake Huron to the Flint River.

Unfortunately, water from the river is 19 times more corrosive than that from the lake, according to researchers at Virginia Tech University.

That sounds bad, but in and of itself it really isn't, unless you're piping that water through antiquated pipes.

And it didn't take long for the water started to look, smell and taste bad.

The more corrosive Flint River water caused lead to leach from pipes into the city's drinking water.

The immediate result was people getting rashes and hair loss from the lead in their water.

The long-term effects are well-known and far more dire, especially for children.

So the federal Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA, had to intervene.

Also, a class-action lawsuit followed against the state's Department of Environmental Quality alleging that they failed to properly treat the water before it was pumped through the city's old pipes.

Since that time it has been a mess in Flint.

Children with astronomically high levels of lead in their blood.

Residents forced to use bottled water for virtually everything.

Stop for a moment, and imagine what it would be like for you to shut off your taps, all of them, and rely on water that you have to drive somewhere and physically pick up.

Your drinking, cooking, bathing and showering, brushing your teeth, and even watering your garden.

All of it. Water you had to schlep from a distribution center to your home.

But thankfully that water was being paid for by the state of Michigan.

Until now.

Last week the Michigan government announced it would no longer provide free bottled water to residents of Flint four years into this public health debacle.

The closure of the state-funded water distribution centers, or free PODs, happened abruptly and surprised Flint Mayor Karen Weaver.

At a press conference this week she recalled her conversation with the governor, "When we talked about the PODs, the governor said we need to get over it. He said the water is testing well and we need to move on,"

Incidentally, is it any surprise that Flint, Michigan is majority African American and has a median household income of about $28,000?

Do you think this would be allowed to happen in West Palm Beach or Aspen, Colorado?

Flint still has about 12,000 homes with tainted lead service lines that need replacing.

Mayor Weaver stated, "They gave us their word that they would see us through this lead and galvanized service line replacement and that we would have PODs stay open until then, and they backed out on what they said,"

According to ReWire News, locals are taking matters into their own hands as the Snyder administration once again turns its back to the plight of Flint.

Local celebrities and organizations like Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation are fighting for water rights and advocating change; a young activist called Mari Copeny, started an online campaign that has raised more than $22,500 in seven days.

Flint officials are threatening to sue the state, and so are residents looking for continued bottled water distribution.

I don't blame them.

And for turning your back on the good citizens of Flint, Michigan...governor Rick Snyder, you are the Blue Streak Science A**shole of the Month!

 

JD: Until next time...follow the science!

 

Science News

 

Conservationists use astronomy software to save species

An astrophysicist and a conservation biologist walk into a bar… No, this is not that kind of story, but a real one on how collaboration is the second name of Lady Science.

A work showing how space science can be used in conservation efforts for endangered species was presented at the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science in the UnKi last week.

In it, Dr Serge Wich of the Liverpool John Moores University, described how, through the power of words (!!!) he was able to land a collaboration which as a conservation biologist he never thought he would - with an astrophysicist, namely Dr Claire Burke.

What happened is that, the biologist was talking to his neighbour, explaining the troubles of this research - as you do. His main issue was that protecting animals who are active at night is even harder than the ones active when there's light. They had to rely only on secondary clues - abandoned nests, feces, leftover food etc. But this is extremely inefficient and imprecise way to estimate the number of animals from a species for many reasons. Sometimes animals migrate to new habitats (may be due to climate change) and that's why they leave behind nest, burrows and hideaways, meaning that they are simply not there, not necessarily that they are dead. Also, it's not always super obvious which heap of smelly poop was left by which exactly species of giant mammal for example. And counting animals with infrared cameras is often hindered by the vegetation around, which - newsflash - also emits light in the spectrum, and you also have to be rather close to be able to detect them like that, which kind of defeats the purpose. And even if you did detect something, half of the time you can't even tell if that warm blob you see with the infrared cam is a rhino or a hippo.

What happened next is called serendipity - the moment when scientists smell the word "Eureka" in the air, but know there's a ton of work to be done before they get there! The neighbour, who unlike most neighbours in this case was actually listening to the story, had an idea. He knew that his colleagues use these types of softwares which actually could identify the size and age of far away stars from their heat signatures!

So they got to work, they mounted a special infrared cam on a drone and started flying it through zoos and nature reserves and teaching the software behind it to identify one animal from the other, injured animals from healthy and recently deceased from for example asleep ones. And it worked! And it can be now used for that purpose in the wild. And this is why science is awesome! ]

BBC Science and Environment, National Geographic

 

 

Scientists find signs of new brain cells in older adults

We spoke about neurogenesis a few episodes ago when we discussed a paper that suggested we lose the ability to make new brain cells as we age. Today, the tables have turned...a new paper is hot off the press that contradicts that March publication in Nature, saying that, indeed, we can make new neurons throughout the ageing process! The new paper is published in Cell Stem Cell.SO what's going on here? Research papers often contradict each other and our understanding of natural phenomena is a result of appraising all this different evidence. At the moment, the consensus seems to be that there is some capacity for the hippocampus to produce new neurons throughout life.

Both papers involved use of post-mortem brain samples. Yet the results differ. Maura Boldrini, the lead author, suggested this may be due to different preservation techniques, as well as the fact the brains in the Nature study came from a wider variety of patients, some of whom had had conditions such as epilepsy.

To look for signs of neurogenesis, the researchers hunted for specific proteins produced by neurons at particular stages of development. Proteins such as GFAP and SOX2, for example, are made in abundance by stem cells that eventually turn into neurons, while newborn neurons make more of proteins such as Ki-67. In all of the brains, the researchers found evidence of newborn neurons in the dentate gyrus, the part of the hippocampus where neurons are born.  

There were some differences between young and old brains, notwithstanding the abundance of new neurons in each sample - old brains had fewer new blood vessels and apparently there was less evidence of new connections between neurons (synapses).

LA Times, Science News, Live Science

 

Hybrid swarm in global mega-pest

So this is a story from the journal PNAS (which for some reason Americans pronounce totally weird) and got covered in Science Daily. It's about genetic mutants! OW YEAH! But not really… Well yeah, but not like the teenage ninja turtles, more like the hulk and not in a good way!

Do you know which is one of the main pests against which genetically engineered crops were created? It's the cotton bollworm, which is a b*tch of pest because it feeds on more than 100 species of plants, many of which agriculturally important and is the sole reason why some years cotton farmers in India for example loose up to 80% of their harvest and in consequence - their income. It is resistant to every pesticide in the world which is why the darned GMOs are so needed in the developing world and why some denim companies (which I will not name) are total tools for refusing to buy from Indian farmers growing GMO cotton because their western clients don't want GMO jeans on their sorry asses! ANYHOW, the damage control only for this pest costs billions of dollars every year.

The other pest in this story is the corn earworm, which is not as bad, but is still a major agri-pest. The damage it does is estimated to be only about 100 mln dollars per year, which is peanuts to what the cotton bollworm does.

Here's the horror of this story though - recently, scientists from Australia had realised that the two species of pests had met, hybridised and gave birth (figuratively speaking) to a mega-pest, which unlike the two original species who have generally different areas of spread, is both super-mean to our crops and potentially able to live just about anywhere in the world where there's arable land! They've found the mega-pest hybrid in Brazil (which by the way is one of the worst places for us for this to happen as Brazil is one of the world's biggest producers and exporters of Coffee, Soybean, Soybean, Wheat, Rice, Corn, and Sugarcane).

And if this wasn't horrible enough, it turned out that from the hybrids they studied, there were not just one new hybrid, but rather many many different hybrids between the two species. In some cases, the new hybrid had gotten almost entirely the pesticide resistant genes from the bollworm and other than that was genetically mostly earworm. Which, if we draw the short straw from this, might mean that on hybrid will be susceptible to our pesticides, but 2 will not be, and that math even I can do - it does not look good for our agricultural produce.  

And if Brazil does not sound concerning enough, I'm just going to say that 65% of the major crops in the USA are potential dinner for the pests and having such plethora of super-pest hybrids coming your way can be really, really bad! ]

PNAS, ABC, Science Daily

 

This Space Junk Removal Experiment Will Harpoon & Net Debris in Orbit

We have a rubbish problem in space. Literally - the atmosphere is full of space junk. Now there's a new project to try and reduce this - time for a bit of spring cleaning of space.

A Japanese experiment in space trash removal, called KITE, had to be scrapped last year due to a technical failure. The new project, RemoveDEBRIS satellite was funded half by the European Commission, and half by a consortium of 10 companies. Lots of interest in clearing the junk! But how? Fishing, basically - the project will trial nets and harpoons.

"The idea is that the net, as a way to capture debris, is a very flexible option because even if the debris is spinning, or has got an irregular shape, to capture it with a net is relatively low-risk compared to, for example, going with a robotic arm," said Guglielmo Aglietti, RemoveDEBRIS principal investigator, and director of the Surrey Space Center. He adds "The harpoon is maybe simpler...but then one might think that maybe it's a bit more risky because you have to hit your debris in a place that is suitable to be captured by the harpoon. Clearly, you have to avoid any fuel tanks." Clearly.

The trial involves cleaning up junk the team introduced to space themselves, rather than touching existing stuff up there, for legal reasons. Tests should be complete by the end of the year. If promising, RemoveDEBRIS will be incorporated into a big cleaning mission scheduled for 2024. We have 7500 tons of space junk (40,000 fragments, estimated) circling the Earth at the moment and this seems likely to increase without concerted clean-up efforts. There have been collisions in the past and these do pose major risk to spacecraft.

Funny, we humans really are messy - not just on our planet, but beyond. Not something you tend to think about.

Space.com, Next Big Future, Air and Space

 

 

The Climate Lounge

 

The Sahara is getting bigger… boo.

Welcome to the climate lounge, where, just like our planet, I've programmed the thermostat to get increasingly hotter and told the servers to randomly douse some people with a bucket of water, while removing all drinks from others. You thinking that doesn't sound like a fun place to hang out…. That's the point.

But first, PUERTO RICO. Not much more to add besides what I've said in the past. It's a travesty that some people in Puerto Rico are STILL without power. Making matters more infuriating recently, was an article in Politico which went through the double standards in relief efforts between those in Texas impacted by Hurricane Harvey and those in Puerto Rico impacted by Hurricane Maria. I'm sure you can guess how. But here are some numbers from the article. Nine days after Harvey, FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) approved almost 142 million in individual assistance to Harvey's victims. That number was 6.2 million for Marias victims. It took 10 days for FEMA to approve permanent disaster work for Texas. It took 43 days for Puerto Rico. Grrrrrrrrrr. So don't forget!

Moving onto this episodes climate story, we are staying the tropics...somewhat and talking about that big giant desert in Africa called the Sahara.

In a recent article in the Journal of Climate, scientist Natalie Thomas and Sumant Nigam looked at how climate changed over Africa during the 20th century with a focus on seasonal trends over Africa.  That's the boring way of saying it. Said another way. They looked to see what's the deal with the Sahara desert and how it's changing. And they found some things *cue ominous music*

They found that the Sahara has been getting bigger. Not only was it creeping farther NORTH but it has also been creeping southward! Even worse, the farthest creep south has been occuring during the summer season, when the bulk of the rains come to areas just south of the Sahara in a region known as the Sahel.

Why is this interesting? Time to talk how deserts form. First, an important and obvious fact. Different places get different amounts of the suns energy. The equator gets the most, the poles get the least. I've just described for you in the simplest way possible why air moves across the planet. The earth likes to keep things in balance so it is in a everlasting battle of moving warm air to the poles. But physics makes things a bit more complicated. And we get deserts as a result.In general, alot of the world's deserts are located at the latitude of the downward branch of a huge atmospheric circulation known as the Hadley Cell. The Hadley cell as has a couple of components. The first is rising air in the tropics along the equator, think lots of rin. The second is sinking air farther north and south of the equator around 30 degrees in latitude. As the air rises in the tropics, it hits an atmospheric wall and spreads north and south where it eventually sinks by 30 degreeds latitude. As it sinks, it heats and drys. And thus you find alot of the worlds deserts.

As we warm the planet, we are expanding the Hadley Cell, meaning that the downward branch of the Hadley cell is moving north. So the northward expansion of the Sahara makes perfect sense… but it doesn't explain the southward creeping.

That goes into another oscillation known as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation called Billy for short….Just kidding, making sure you are paying attention. It's called the AMO and refers to ocean temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean. They can change from warm to cold in the north atlantic ocean during phases. The warm phase (one of which lasted from 30s to 60s) brings wet conditions to sub-Saharan Africa including the Sahel and West Africa. And the cold phase which means drier conditions (one of which last from the 70s through 2000s and included an horrible West African drought in the 1980s. This cold phase AND ties to increasing greenhouse gases likely both played a part in the drought. The signals are intertwined . If this is true, it would account for the southward creep of the Sahara into West Africa.

Why is this bad? In a previous life, I used to provide weather and climate forecasts for the Famine Early Warning Network or FEWS-NET for Africa, so I am a bit familiar with this area of the world's climate. In the summer months, West Africa sees its rainy season as the rains progress increasing northward through the summer until peaking in latitude at about 19 N in August. This peak position is located in the Sahel, an area that is "on the edge" when it comes to rainfall as it. Sometimes seasons are good, but if they are just a bit late or lower than normal, disaster can strike for farmers. It's very very vulnerable. This research suggests that rains just aren't making it as far north as normal during the summer, which if it continues could be devastating to those countries in the Sahel.

Now here is a BIG scientific caveat with this article. And serves as a useful example of how just because a paper passed peer review doesn't mean it's right. Other scientists have pushed back on these results, noting how sparse and inconsistent datasets are in Africa and critiquing just how the authors calculated the AMO.  This is how science works. Nothing is taken as gospel. And regardless of whether these results stand the test of time. Northern and subsaharan Africa remains incredibly vulnerable to changes in precipitation and climate change.

And Africa as a continent is the least responsible for all this climate change. It's not fair. It never will be fair. And we should help out considerably. Any other choice would be a major dick move.

Links:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/03/29/the-sahara-is-growing-thanks-in-part-to-climate-change/?utm_term=.3ea9bb3e57b4

https://earther.com/so-uh-whats-going-on-with-the-sahara-desert-1824220231

https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/JCLI-D-17-0187.1

 

 

Pub Quiz

 

Today's topic: antelopes

 

 

Thank you, and follow the science!

[caption id="attachment_2519" align="alignright" width="350"] Cheddar Man Image courtesy of Paul Townsend[/caption] Seriously, Cheddar Man?  What's next, Homo hummus? How about Jazz Man? We had a lovely science session today and talked about the aforementioned Fromage Fellow as well as how tree rings can be studied to determine future wildfire risk. In the Climate Tom Di Liberto tells us about what may be lurking in the melting permafrost. You ain't gonna like it!

Science News Roundup with Nevena Hristozova and JD Goodwin

These are summaries of our discussions on the podcast. For the full conversation please listen to this episode of the Blue Streak Science Podcast Tree Rings Reveal Increased Wildfire Risk for Southwestern US Cheddar Man: DNA shows early Briton had dark skin  Wikipedia Has Become a Science Reference Source

The Climate Lounge with Tom Di Liberto

Wait, there is WHAT in permafrost?

In Closing

Follow the science!

The Blue Streak Science Podcast comes to you from San Francisco; Cambridge; Washington; and Brussels.  

Enjoy that glass or two of Cabernet. More evidence keeps coming in that wine, in moderation, is beneficial to human health. Besides, is there anything more sublime with that tarragon trout than a nice flinty Sancerre. No. The correct answer is no!

Science News Roundup with Nevena Hristozova, Sophie McManus and JD Goodwin

These are summaries of our discussions on the podcast. For the full conversation please listen to this episode of the Blue Streak Science Podcast

Grapevines Are More Drought-resistant Than We Thought

Can You Get the Flu Twice In One Season?

Why Don't Woodpeckers Get Concussions?

A Blood Test Could Predict the Risk of Alzheimer's Disease

In Wine, There's Health

In Closing

Better to have a bottle in front o' me than a frontal lobotomy!

The Blue Streak Science Podcast comes to you from San Francisco; Cambridge; Washington; and Brussels.

Slowly getting back in the podcasting groove. Sophie and JD rant and rave about the latest science news, as Tom is calm, cool, and collected while discussing the natural disasters of 2017. How does he do it?

Science News Roundup with Sophie McManus and JD Goodwin

These are summaries of our discussions on the podcast. For the full conversation please listen to this episode of the Blue Streak Science Podcast

Cancer Blood Test "Enormously Exciting"

Maths Strikes a Blow for Democracy

Sea Snake Found Off California - How'd It Get There?

Science After a Year of President Trump

The Climate Lounge with Tom Di Liberto

2017 Was One Hell of an Expensive Year for Weather and Climate Disasters in the USA

In Closing

Follow the science!

The Blue Streak Science Podcast comes to you from San Francisco; Cambridge; Washington; and Brussels.

In the very early hours of 9 October, 2017 the Tubbs Fire raced down from the Mayacamas Mountains and destroyed my neighborhood, including our home of 21 years in beautiful Santa Rosa, California. My wife and I escaped with our dog Amy, and not much more. When we were finally able to return a few weeks later there was nothing to salvage. Our home, and everything in it was incinerated.

Our little podcast has been off the air since then. There was never a doubt in my mind that Blue Streak would return. Seriously, it'll take a lot more than a firestorm to keep us from bringing you the science!

So here we are. Yes, it took some time and a lot of effort to get to this point, but this is only the beginning...a new beginning.

Thank you for all your support and kind words during this ordeal.

Now...let's science!

Science News Roundup with Sophie McManus and Nevena Hristozova

Ancient DNA Rewrites Settlement Story of the First Americans

A popular sugar additive may have fueled the spread two superbugs

The Climate Lounge with Tom Di Liberto

It's Cold...Global Warming is Fake!

In Closing

No time for messing about! There's work to be done.

Oh, and remember...follow the science!

The Blue Streak Science Podcast comes to you from Santa Rosa; Cambridge; Washington; and Brussels.

Today we welcome Dr. Milan Chheda of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Dr. Chheda is a senior co-author of a paper published earlier this month in the Journal of Experimental Medicine titled "Zika virus has oncolytic activity against glioblastoma stem cells". 

Not only is the research truly exciting, but it also illustrates some of the greatest characteristics of science and scientists. For example, thinking differently and quite unconventionally; in this case to attack such a complex and deadly form of cancer with a dangerous virus.

In the news this week we talk about an antibody that kills 99% of HIV strains, a new subspecies of sea snake that is like a venomous seafaring banana, and why owls don't wear hearing aids.

In the Climate Lounge host Tom Di Liberto explains that we may be entering a new era of rapid hurricane intensification because of climate change.

Mail Bag

We received an email from Chris Ryu of the Atom Club, part of the Dorset Science and Technology Centre. Chris wrote, "Well done on a great first episode back. Haven't got a clue on pub names, but I guess:"

• Atomic 49 (as in Indium / In)
• The Particle and Wave
• Science on Tap
• CH3CH2OH

A note about the Atom Club: When it comes to science their mission is critically important, and that's to inspire the next generation of scientists and coders.

Essentially, they aim to make both science and coding fun and enjoyable.

We encourage you to visit the Atom Club website at Atom Club.

MauiWowie2010, also know as Bob, writes"Episode 58 was great. Really liked the eulogy to Cassini. Keep on fighting for science guys". 

Got somethin' to say? Want us to share it on the podcast? Then please email us at [email protected]

Science News

For more than just these little summaries go listen to the podcast!

Title New Antibody Attacks 99% of HIV strains New research has developed an antibody that kills 99% of HIV strains. It is composed of a triplet of three antibodies and may be more effective at knocking off HIV than any naturally occurring antibody. 

New Subspecies of Yellow-bellied Sea Snake is a Venomous Banana! A new and very yellow subspecies of Hydrophis platura was described from the Golfo Dulce. This unique serpent also employs a hunting strategy very different from the nominate subspecies.

[caption id="attachment_2498" align="aligncenter" width="1000"] Credit: Brooke L. Bessesen; CC-BY 4.0[/caption]

The Ageless Ears of Barn Owls One of the most predictable hallmarks of growing older is a gradual loss of hearing, especially at higher frequencies.  However, new research finds that barn owls have self-repairing ears, which retain their acute ability over time.

The Climate Lounge with Tom Di Liberto

Global Warming and the Rapid Intensification of Hurricanes

Today we get into the nuts and bolts of how global warming can put the pedal to the metal when it comes to hurricanes. Recent hurricanes have intensified incredibly rapidly. Is this the new normal?

Interview: Dr. Milan Chheda

Zika Virus as a Treatment for Brain Cancer

We welcome Dr. Milan Chheda of Washington University. Dr. Chheda explains his exciting and fascinating work using the Zika virus to kill brain cancer cells.

In Closing

Thanks to Dr. Milan Chheda for sharing his exciting research with our audience. Finding treatments and therapies for cancer is always a great thing, but to use such a novel weapon puts this in the category of "badass"!

Thanks to the Blue Streak Science team of dangerous intellectuals without whom this would be dead air and quite pointless.

Most of all, thank you for listening to our little ol' podcast! It's not that we couldn't do it without you. We could. But we wouldn't do it without you. You rock!

This episode of the Blue Streak Science Podcast comes to you from San Francisco; Cambridge; Washington; and St. Louis.