MinuteEarth

By Minute EarthScience Earth Sciences

MinuteEarth episodes

April 19, 2025 Grolar Bears
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2 min
April 18, 2025 Why Is Lyme Disease Getting Worse?
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4 min
April 17, 2025Why Can't We Get Power From Waves?
To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:
Wave energy converter - a device for turning the mechanical energy of ocean waves into mechanical energy (flow of a substance) or electrical energy
Oscillating water column - an open-bottomed chamber filled with air and water, whose wave action moves the water column up and down like a piston, forcing the air out past a turbine
Attenuator - a long multisegment floating structure oriented parallel to the direction waves travel, where differing heights of waves along the length of the device flex the connections driving hydraulic pumps that can be connected to turbines
Oscillating body - a floating buoy that oscillates with waves, generating electricity within the buoy or by pulling on a generator or by pumping water through a turbine
Overtopping device - a reservoir filled by waves to a height higher the average nearby ocean, into which reservoir water is released, spinning a turbine
Biofouling - undesirable growth of organisms like barnacles and algae on underwater surfaces
Ocean wave - energy passing through water and causing it to move in a circular motion
Turbine - a machine for producing continuous power in which a wheel with blades gets hit by a fast-moving flow of water, steam, gas, air, or other fluid, and spins (often connected to a magnet that spins)
Induction - the production of an electric current in a wire by movement of a nearby magnetic field

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4 min
April 16, 2025You Are A Fish
To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:
Phylogenetic tree: a branching diagram or "tree" showing the evolutionary relationships among various biological species
Cladogram: a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms
Monophyletic group (or clade): a group of organisms that consists of all the descendants of a common ancestor
Paraphyletic group: all of the descendants of a common ancestor minus one or more monophyletic groups
Similarity trap: people can name different species the same thing, only to find out they aren’t even closely related.

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4 min
April 15, 2025The Problem With Concrete
To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:
Portland cement - the most common type of cement used worldwide, made with limestone
Limestone - a hard sedimentary rock, composed mainly of calcium carbonate (which is also in shells & eggs)
Cement - a powder used in construction that’s made by grinding clinker with other minerals and mixing with water to form a paste that sticks to sand, gravel or crushed stone to make concrete
Concrete - a building material made by mixing cement with water to form a paste that gains body through fillers like sand and gravel
Clinker - an intermediate marble-sized product in cement production created by sintering limestone with clay and other things
Sinter - to turn a powdery solid into a single mass by heating it without liquefaction
Mortar - another building material (used to adhere bricks or stones together) made by mixing cement with water and sand
Calcination - the process of heating a substance to a high temperature, but below its melting point, so it thermally decomposes (like limestone into lime & CO2)
Process emissions - the name for the CO2 that comes from limestone when it thermally decomposes

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4 min
April 14, 2025Why Earthquakes Are So Hard To Predict
To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:
Earthquake: A violent shaking of the earth, usually due to movements of tectonic plates under the earth’s crust.
Seismometer: An instrument that detects changes in the up-down motion of the earth.
Seismic body waves: Higher frequency waves released by earthquakes that can move through solid rock.
Seismic surface waves: Lower frequency waves released by earthquakes that move along the ground and cause most damage.
Earthquake Early Warning System: A network of strategically placed seismometers that trigger emergency warning systems in particular areas when they detect large seismic body waves.
Evacuation Clearance Time: The time needed to evacuate a particular population to safety.
Earthquake Precursor: An anomalous event that gives an effective warning of an impending earthquake.
Transform Faults: Faults where two tectonic plates slide past each other.

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5 min
April 13, 2025 Black Bears
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2 min
April 12, 2025 Let’s Categorize Bears
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2 min
April 11, 2025Why Are Your Fingerprints Unique?
To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:
Fingerprint: The markings on the skin on the last joint of the thumb or finger.
Fingerprint Ridges: The raised lines on the fingerprint.
Fingerprint Pattern: The main design in the middle of the fingerprint; usually a loop, whorl, or arch.
Volar Pad: The mass of stem cells that grows under the fingers during a particular time during fetal development that is responsible for determining the pattern of the fingerprint.
Fingerprint Minutiae: The various tiny points in each fingertip where the ridgelines get blocked or split.
Compound Probability: The likelihood that independent events will occur simultaneously.

MinuteEarth is produced by Neptune Studios LLC
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4 min
April 10, 2025The Bird Poop That Changed The World
To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:
Guano: seabird (or bat) poop. From the indigenous Peruvian word “wanu”, meaning “manure that’s good for fertilizer"
Manure: animal poop used as fertilizer (typically cow or pig poop)
Fertilizer: a chemical-containing substance added to soil to provide nutrients to plants
Nitrate mining: digging up the naturally occurring solid form of the element nitrogen (sodium nitrate)
Phosphate mining: digging up the naturally occurring solid form of the element phosphorus
Haber-Bosch process: the major industrial method to take nitrogen gas out of the air and convert it to ammonia

MinuteEarth is produced by Neptune Studios LLC
https://neptunestudios.info
If you like what we do, you can help us!
- Become our patron: https://patreon.com/MinuteEarth
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5 min

About MinuteEarth

From the publisher's feed

From the creators of the popular science show with millions of YouTube subscribers comes the MinuteEarth podcast. Every episode of the show dives deep into a science question you might not even know…