Third Pod from the Sun

We’ve all heard stories about fantastical creatures that people swear they’ve seen and have evidence of but can never be confirmed. Think Bigfoot or the Loch Ness monster. Mermaids or the Kraken. While there’s no evidence backing the existence of these creatures, either in present day or at any point in the past, there must be a reason why such legends were created in the first place. In most cases, the legend in grounded in fact.

During this Halloween season, we’re bringing you four stories from scientists who know a little something about the real-life animals that inspired these legendary creatures. In this episode, the second in a two-part series, we chatted with Rodrigo Salvador, Curator of Invertebrates at the Museum of New Zealand, about the connections between giant squids and the Kraken, and Danielle J. Serratos, Director/Curator of the Fundy Geological Museum, about the links between prehistoric aquatic reptiles and the Loch Ness monster, respectively.

This episode was produced and mixed by Shane M Hanlon.

We’ve all heard stories about fantastical creatures that people swear they’ve seen and have evidence of but can never be confirmed. Think Bigfoot or the Loch Ness monster. Mermaids or the Kraken. While there’s no evidence backing the existence of these creatures, either in present day or at any point in the past, there must be a reason why such legends were created in the first place. In most cases, the legend in grounded in fact.

During this Halloween season, we’re bringing you four stories from scientists who know a little something about the real-life animals that inspired these legendary creatures. In this first episode, we chatted with Cristina Brito, Director of the Centre for Overseas History at University of Lisbon, about the connections between mermaids and manatees, as well as Ryan Haupt, Ph.D candidate, Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Wyoming and co-host of the podcast Science…sort of, about the connections between Bigfoot and prehistoric giant sloths.

This episode was produced and mixed by Shane M Hanlon.

The latest episode of Third Pod from the Sun features an interview with planetary scientist Fran Bagenal, who has had a fascinating career working on NASA missions from Voyager to Juno and New Horizons. Currently working at the University of Colorado Boulder, Bagenal provides an overarching view of the different planetary missions going back a few decades and describes how the research and findings have built upon the innovations and discoveries that came before. Now, she is looking ahead to what we may learn about Saturn’s moon Titan during the upcoming Dragonfly mission.

In this episode, Bagenal also discusses the importance of education that engages students and the need to support the different pathways people take to pursue science. Her message aims to inspire scientists and challenge them to think beyond current constraints. She encourages scientists to innovate to achieve something that is currently considered difficult to do, including the search for life on Jupiter’s moon Europa. She hopes that one day, scientists will be able to take on something they know is tough, such as exploring objects farther out in the solar system, or even something closer to home, like the surface and possible seismology of Earth’s sister planet Venus. Important missions like these will help continue driving the Earth and space sciences into the future.

This episode was produced by Katie Broendel and mixed by Kayla Surrey.

Well-documented torrential rains and unusually cold temperatures affected the outcomes of many major battles during World War I from 1914 to 1918. Poet Mary Borden described the cold, muddy landscape of the Western Front as “the liquid grave of our armies” in her poem “The Song of the Mud” about 1916’s Battle of the Somme, during which more than one million soldiers were killed or wounded.

The bad weather also affected migratory patterns of mallard ducks, the main animal host for the H1N1 influenza virus strain responsible for the “Spanish Flu” pandemic that claimed more than 50 million lives from 1917 to 1919.

Scientists recently discovered a once-in-a-century climate anomaly brought the incessant rain and cold to Europe during the war years, increasing mortality during the war and during the flu pandemic in the years that followed.

The findings show how changes in Earth’s climate can exacerbate human conflicts and pandemics. But other research shows the reverse effect: how human pandemics can alter the environment.

A 2017 study found levels of lead pollution in the atmosphere dropped to basically zero during the infamous Black Death pandemic of 1349 to 1353. The findings showed human activity has polluted European air almost uninterruptedly for the last 2,000 years and only a devastating collapse in population and the economy reduced atmospheric pollution to natural levels.

In this episode, climate scientist and historian Alexander More describes the relationship between climate and pandemics in the context of these two seemingly unconnected pieces of research and discusses what humans can learn from pandemics of the past.

This episode was produced by and mixed by Lauren Lipuma.

What happens when you cross medical science with geophysics?In one study published last year, the result was one-part interdisciplinary and one-part science fiction.

Scientists have studied the presence of a magnetic mineral, magnetite, in organisms, but work on the human brain has been far and few between. Tiny chains of magnetite crystals in the cells of magnetotactic bacteria, for example, help the bacteria swim in the right direction. Could pigeons, turtles, or even, humans, have built-in compasses too?

Stu Gilder, a geophysicist from Ludwig-Maximilian's University in Munich, wanted to find out. He and his coauthors, many of them medical professionals, published the first systematic look at magnetite in human brains. The results reveal that humans have concentrated areas of magnetite in the more “ancient” parts of the brain.

This episode was produced by Jenessa Duncombe and mixed by Kayla Surrey.

About 3,600 years ago, a colossal volcanic eruption blew apart the Greek island Thera, now the popular tourist destination known as Santorini. Falling volcanic rock and dust buried the Bronze Age settlement Akrotiri, on the south side of the island, preserving multi-story buildings, frescoes, tools, furniture and food, until archaeological excavations uncovered them in the last century, much like the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE famously buried Pompeii and Herculaneum. But unlike the Roman cities, Akrotiri has a notable lack of bodies.

Unlike Vesuvius, Thera’s volcano gave its inhabitants substantial warning. Minor eruptions sent a column of ash 40 kilometers into the sky and rained hot pumice on the island. University of Hawaii volcanologist Krista Evans says evidence of those precursory volcanic burps can be found within the archaeological site and in geological deposits around the island. The empty settlement implies the people left, but traces of their distinctive pottery and arts do not subsequently appear in the archaeological record on Crete or other nearby islands in their trading network. It’s as if they people just disappeared.

Evans explains how the people of Akrotiri likely fled south by boat toward Crete, 120 kilometers (75 miles) across the Mediterranean and what eruption models suggest may have been their fate.

This episode was produced by Liza Lester and mixed by Kayla Surrey.

Volcanic craters could be the largest musical instrument on Earth, producing unique sounds that tell scientists what is going on deep in a volcano’s belly.

Chile’s Villarica volcano acted much like a gigantic horn when it erupted in 2015, created reverberating sounds that changed pitch as its lava lake rose to the crater rim. On the other hand, Ecuador’s Cotopaxi volcano has a deep, cylindrical crater that acts much like a massive organ pipe. The crater produced strange sounds scientists dubbed tornillos, the Spanish word for screw, when Cotopaxi began rumbling in 2015.

Jeffrey Johnson, a geophysicist at Boise State University, studies the unusual low-frequency sounds made by volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and avalanches. Understanding each volcano’s unique voiceprint could alert scientists to changes going on inside the crater that may signal an impending eruption, according to Jeff.

In this episode, Jeff describes how volcanoes and earthquakes produce infrasound – sound waves below the frequency of human hearing – and how the size and shape of a volcano’s crater defines the range of vibrations it can produce. Listen to Jeff recount the strange sounds geophysicists noticed during the eruption of Mt. St. Helens in 1980 and hear how earthquakes can make mountains ring like giant bells.

This episode was produced and mixed by Lauren Lipuma.

What’s it like to be one of the most well-known climate scientists around? People (e.g. your dad) should just trust what you say, right? Well…it doesn’t always work out like that.

Kate Marvel, Associate Research Scientist at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia Engineering's Department of Applied Physics and Mathematics, started as a theoretical physicist before shifting to studying climate change. In addition to her research, she writes a regular column, “Hot Planet”, for Scientific American. She’s also an AGU Voices for Science Advocate

This episode was produced and mixed by Shane M Hanlon.

On May 18, 1980, Mt. St. Helens erupted in Washington state, capping off a series of volcanic events that began on March 27th of that year. The May 18th explosions is credited with causing 57 deaths, >$1 billion in property damage, and forever changed the surrounding landscape.

The eruption created a column of ash that shot into the atmosphere and was deposited in 11 U.S. states,, landing as far away as Massachusetts, where 13 year old Seth Moran found his parent’s cars covered it in. That moment was a catalyst that inspired him into the field of volcanology, specifically volcano seismology, and to a career with the USGS. Moran is current the lead scientist at the Cascades Volcano Observatory in Washington state he studies and monitors Cascade volcanoes in Washington and Oregon.

In this episode, Moran chats about his path to becoming a volcanic seismologist, the 1980 Mt. St. Helens eruption, and the monitoring and measures that were put in place following the event.

This episode was produced and mixed by Shane M Hanlon.

Asmeret Asefaw Berhe is a Professor of Soil Biogeochemistry at the Life and Environmental Sciences unit, University of California, Merced. She received her PhD in Biogeochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley; M. Sc. in Political Ecology from Michigan State University, and BS in Soil and Water Conservation from University of Asmara, Eritrea. She is a recipient of numerous awards including the National Science Foundation’s CAREER award, the Young Investigator Award from Sigma Xi, and the Hellman Family Foundations award for early career faculty.

Basically, she rocks.

Her research focuses on biogeochemical cycling of essential elements (esp. carbon and nitrogen), in particular in systems that experience physical perturbations (ex. erosion, fire, changes in climate). At the AAAS 2019 annual meeting in Seattle, we had a chance to sit down with her for a live interview where we talked about soil (not dirt), bribing lab mates to help with experiments, looking to the ground to mitigate climate change, and more!

This episode was produced by and mixed by Shane M Hanlon.