Third Pod from the Sun

James Garvin is the Chief Scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Dr. Garvin has been at NASA for 35 years in a variety of roles and missions, and is well known for his incredible work in NASA's Mars explorational programs. Listen to James talk about his beginnings in science, the legacy he wishes to leave behind, and what he hopes NASA will accomplish in the future.

This episode was produced and mixed by Shane M Hanlon.

This year is the 50th anniversary. To celebrate, we chatted with over a dozen NASA scientists about what Earth Day means to them in this special compilation episode!

This episode was produced and mixed by Shane M Hanlon.

On 24 December 1968, humans witnessed our home planet rise over the horizon of another world for the first time. The crew of Apollo 8 looked up from the Moon to see the blue and white swirls of Earth poised above the stark grey lunar surface—a single oasis in a big, dark universe. The moment, captured on 70mm color film, captivated audiences back on Earth. It fueled the environmental movement and the first Earth Day, which convened a little over a year later, on 22 April 1970.

For the 50th Earth Day, we talk with Ernie Wright, a programmer and producer for the Scientific Visualization Studio at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. Wright recreated that iconic Earthrise photo and animated it with the kind of 3D animation software Hollywood uses to bring CGI landscapes to life, using detailed surface images and altimetry from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. He talks about recreating the moment with Apollo 8 astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders, and how he used math to solve a puzzle about who took the famous photo.

This episode was produced by Liza Lester and mixed by Lauren Lipuma.

From 1946 to 1958, the United States military conducted more than 20 nuclear bomb tests at Bikini Atoll, an idyllic tropical island in the South Pacific Ocean. During the first of these tests, conducted in July 1946, the military anchored nearly 100 warships and submarines within Bikini’s large lagoon to see how a nuclear blast would affect a naval fleet.

The first bomb, in test Able, was detonated in the air and caused a less than expected amount of damage to the fleet. But the second bomb, in test Baker, was suspended below a barge and detonated underwater.

The Baker test was far more destructive than the military had planned. The detonation left a crater on the seafloor roughly 800 meters (half a mile) wide and 10 meters (33 feet) deep. A colossal column of boiling, radioactive water poured over the target ships, tossing them about like toys in a bathtub.

Three major ships and several small aircraft were sunk within the first few days. The remainder of the fleet was so contaminated with radiation that only 9 of Baker’s original 84 ships were able to be scrapped – the rest were deliberately sunk.

University of Delaware professor Art Trembanis spent the summer of 2019 mapping the seafloor around Bikini to see if he could find evidence of these tests all these decades later. Art and his colleagues have so far discovered the craters from Baker and other tests have left permanent scars on the seafloor around the atoll.

In this episode, Art recounts the mesmerizing sequence of events triggered by the Baker detonation and explains how a tropical paradise became a battleship graveyard.

This episode was produced and mixed by Lauren Lipuma.

Kim Cobb loves being out in the field. She talks about the euphoria and passion she has for it, saying “It's like nothing I've ever experienced literally, and I've given birth to four children.” In this interview, she talks about the connection she feels to the planet and to the people she works with in the field as well as the importance of supporting and promoting women in science. She also discusses the state of science and how it’s in a moment of evolution with room at the table for all kinds of scientists to weigh in.

This episode was produced and mixed by Shane M Hanlon. Special thanks to Jordana Schmierer for production assistance.

In 44 BCE, a momentous event occurred. Somewhere on Earth, a volcano erupted—one of the largest of last 2,500 years terms of climate impact. Traces of the eruption can be found in ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica, in signs of cold weather in the growth rings of trees around the world, and records of famine and agricultural disaster from Egypt to China. The eruption caused global climate effects lasting several years.

Also, in Rome, a conspiracy of senators murdered Julius Caesar and the republic tumbled into civil war.

A group of young researchers say these events may be more closely intertwined than previously appreciated by classical historians focused on the internecine political machinations of the time period. They make the bold claim that the mysterious eruption in question is consistent with what seemed to be an unremarkable event at Mt Etna, a famous volcano in the center of the Roman provinces, in February of 44 BCE.

Guests:

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

Why do people feel they way they do about issues? Why do lawmakers and policy leaders seemingly act against their better interests? And how can information be developed in a way that leads not just to greater understanding, but to better decision making? Two veterans of the climate and risk management field, Dr. Roger Pulwarty and Dr. Michael Hayes, discuss how important it is to line up the sciences, policy, and society in the way that assures the consequences of the decisions are understood by all involved. Their work includes a collaboration on the bipartisan creation, National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS).

This episode was produced and mixed by Shane M Hanlon. Special thanks to Jordana Schmierer for production assistance.

In 1991, the United States government unearthed a staggering archaeological find during construction of a federal office building in lower Manhattan. While digging the building’s foundations, construction crews stumbled upon skeletal remains from the “Negroes Burial Ground,” a 6.6-acre cemetery of more than 15,000 free and enslaved Africans who lived in New York during the 17th and 18th centuries.

Rediscovery of the burial ground changed anthropologists’ understanding of slavery in colonial New York City. Skeletal remains of more than 400 individuals were exhumed upon discovery of the site, which was renamed the New York African Burial Ground. Bones and teeth showed evidence that the enslaved Africans often performed hard manual labor, suffered from malnutrition, and had short lifespans.

The remains were reburied in 2003, but samples of grave soil from the burial ground remained available for research. In 2015, Carter Clinton, then a graduate student at Howard University, began analyzing the soil samples to see if they could tell him more about the lives and deaths of the individuals interred in the burial ground.

In this podcast episode, Carter recounts the history of the New York African Burial Ground and describes what he has learned about the lives of Africans in colonial New York from the grave soil samples, including what they ate and what infectious diseases they suffered from. Carter discusses how his work helps shape the narrative of slavery in New York and how it fills in a piece of American history long forgotten.

This episode was produced by Lauren Lipuma and mixed by Collin Warren.

An analysis of timber used to construct buildings in Europe hundreds of years ago is giving scientists and historians new insights into the region’s history from the 13th to 17th centuries. Using samples of wood taken from old buildings in Europe, Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist, a historian and paleoclimatologist at Stockholm University, and Andrea Seim, a dendrochronologist at the University of Freiburg, figured out when the trees used in the buildings were cut down. They then created a huge database of building activity over hundreds of years. The researchers used this information to uncover societal trends. Changes in construction activity often reflect changes in society, making them good indicators of what was happening at a certain time period.

In this episode of Third Pod from the Sun, Ljungqvist and Seim explain how they were able to date construction timbers in buildings in Europe to reconstruct building activity from 1250 to 1699 and used this information to uncover information about society at the time. The researchers explain how they get their samples, the expected and surprising results they uncovered about the Black Death, the Great Famine, the Thirty Years’ War and the Late Medieval Crisis, and how their large collection of tree felling dates can serve as new historic source material for studying European history.

This episode was produced by Nanci Bompey and Liza Lester and mixed by Robyn Murray and Jon Schriner.

Bärbel Hönisch, Associate Professor of Environmental Sciences at Columbia University also known as Queen of Boron, transported us millions of years beyond the ice cores to the realm when Greenland had no ice. She took hold of a magical instrument and fell in love with plankton. Diving off One Tree Island near the Great Barrier reef, she conducted research in the blue water, and at times rose amongst a highway of turtles. Painstakingly, she reconstructs the microfossil environment.

This episode was produced and mixed by Shane M Hanlon. Special thanks to Jordana Schmierer for production assistance.