A new source of energy is being developed by using Michigan's industrial food waste. Using existing technology for converting manure into electricity, these anaerobic digesters are doing their work on pudding packs and canned peaches, among other delicacies. Listen to learn how they are turning waste into electricity.
Toys play an important role in children's development. They are also important to animals, even elephants. This public radio story is about how artists designed and built toys of elephants that were based on animal behavior and their environment. You’ll be inside the zoo with the elephants, hearing their joy when playing with the new toys.
While humans need food and water to survive, plants are able to get their energy from the sun through a process known as photosynthesis. Engineers are now trying to replicate this process of converting sunshine to power through artificial photosynthesis. They are trying to create an artificial leaf. Listen to learn how these problem solvers are approaching the challenge step by step.
What happens when human structures and nature come into conflict? Ocean Beach in San Francisco is naturally eroding, but the consequence of this shifting shoreline is that a sewage treatment plant is put in peril. Without intervention, raw sewage could be dumped into the ocean. A rock wall has temporarily stabilized the pipeline, but not without complications. Now other solutions are being considered, including construction of an artificial dune.
Over the past several years honeybee colonies have declined dramatically. There is no consensus over a single cause, and in fact, scientists point to multiple causes for this problem. An important, yet often overlooked, factor is basic land use decisions. This public radio story explores the importance of the symbiotic relationship between honeybees, flowers and humans, and what kids can do to help promote honeybees and other pollinators.
Flowers have many ways of attracting bees for the purpose of pollination. Bees are looking for nectar and pollen when they visit plants and flowers, as well as various colors, patterns and shapes. Recently scientists have discovered a new way that flowers attract bees. They can sense the electric fields around flowers. Listen to hear about the natural positive charges of bees, the negative charges of flowers, and how the electric attraction works for pollination to happen.
Biologists studying right whales face the challenge of studying rare, extremely large organisms that spend the majority of their time underwater. This public radio story explores some of the challenges and risks of studying right whales and explores the reasons that scientists are willing to work so hard to study them. In addition, the story discusses an experiment designed to learn how male and female right whales find each other during mating season.
Copying the way a desert beetle gets water, scientists have designed a membrane that can extract water from the air. Since all air contains water, even in the desert, this could provide a very inexpensive way to supply drinking water. This audio story describes an application of the idea of “biomimicry,” or using ideas from nature to solve technological problems. Listen to learn how this idea can help solve the problem of scarce drinking water.
Energy experts are thinking about ways to replace coal that’s burned in American power stations. One alternative is to burn plants because they can produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions. This is called biomass power. This public radio story looks at a movement in the Midwest that uses millions of acres of grass for biomass power.
For such a small molecule, caffeine has long been a controversial substance. Throughout the day, the human body produces a molecule called adenosine that can induce feelings of fatigue. Caffeine is a molecule that reverses the effects of adenosine. This results in feelings of alertness. But the impacts of caffeine can be dangerous. Listen to hear what determines whether caffeine is beneficial or harmful, and how to prevent caffeine-related deaths.
Discussion of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions often occur at the national level. Nations promise to lower emissions and scientists look for alternative energy sources. But new software is providing data for this emission reduction discussion at a local level. The software allows people to have a view into their carbon emissions on the level of a city, neighborhood, block and even household. Listen to learn how scientists and local officials are working together to track and understand emissions at the local level.
Food gives our body the energy needed to function and thrive. But what is energy? Where can you find it and how can you calculate it? This public radio story explores the energy in a cheese curl by burning it. Listen to learn about a great lab that allows you to calculate the energy in food.
The first wind chill table and formula was developed before World War II. It was updated at the beginning of the 21st Century. This public radio story is about how scientists have changed how they calculate the wind chill factor. You hear from people about how they experience wind chill and why it doesn’t affect inanimate objects.
Manatees, the vegetarian aquatic mammals that inhabit the waters of Florida, depend on natural warm water springs to survive the winter. But as a consequence of greater development, those warm water sources have diminished over the years. So manatees have come to depend on the warm water discharge of power plants. But now, they face losing these man-made refuges as power plants strive to be more efficient and environmentally friendly.
Rare earth minerals are very important to today's electronics. Your iPod, laptop, and television use them. They make electronics light so they don't need much power. But the Chinese have a lock on the production of rare earth elements and this could become a problem for the US.
Carbon can be found in just about everything on earth, including proteins, DNA, and fats. Scientists around the world are working together to measure carbon dioxide in our atmosphere and oceans. This public radio story introduces us to a scientist who is passionate about the global climate crisis. The story challenges students’ math skills and gets them thinking about their carbon footprint.
As more U.S. states and countries experience drought, scientists are looking at ways to help the clouds produce rain. It's called cloud seeding or weather modification and it's not proven to work. This public radio story looks at the scientific process and the controversy over cloud seeding.
Giant volcano eruptions are rare, but they are deadly. So scientists are studying two new suspected volcanic “hot spots.” By using seismic waves, a picture has emerged of large regions where intense volcanic activity could emerge in the distant future. This audio story looks at volcanic hot spots and supervolcanoes.
What makes up a coral? This audio story takes you to an underwater observatory where a scientist is studying coral reefs. The scientist has found that CO2 in the ocean is making the ocean warmer and dissolving the coral reef system. But the scientist also discusses how coral reefs can recover. Listen to this story to hear the factors that threaten coral reefs and how they can recover.
What can nature teach us? A lot. Biomimicry is the design and production of materials based on nature. In this public radio story you learn about how shellfish can stick so stubbornly to rocks underwater. You also hear from a scientist who has devoted his life to trying to figure out the secret of why oyster glue is so strong.
The naming of every living thing has it's place because of a Swedish biologist. This public radio story is about the system we use to organize life called Linnean system, named after Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. But now new DNA technology is changing the way to think about the classification system.
Earthquakes can have far-reaching consequences not just on homes but on the power infrastructure. A 2008 earthquake in Southwest China left officials and engineers monitoring the structural integrity of enormous hydroelectric dams built to generate power. A fear of flooding caused by a cracked damn led some to wonder if they had taken the strengths of the region, its rivers and irrigation systems, and turned them into a potential threat. Listen to learn how hydroelectric power systems impact places and people.
The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has inspired widespread fear throughout the U.S. and in many other countries. In reality, the threat of Ebola is actually quite small with only 1,700 deaths since 1976. The rarity of the Ebola virus has given major pharmaceutical companies very little incentive to develop a treatment for the virus given that the market for such a drug would be almost nonexistent. However, BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, a small pharmaceutical company based in Frederick, MD, has been given government help to develop a cure for the virus. Listen to learn more about the complexity of the Ebola virus and what is being done to develop a cure.
Animals adapt to their environment in ways that protect them from predation and allow them to find prey. Electric eels look like water snakes but use electricity to hunt. New scientific studies have gained insight into how electric eels use different electric volts to find and kill their prey. Listen to learn how the eel’s hunting method is adapted to their environment.
In this story we hear from the head of Ecovative, a company that uses mycelium fibers from fungi to create useful and environmentally-friendly products. The audio story discusses the advantages of using mycelium fibers in place of plastics and foams, as well as the challenges faced by the inventors in trying to create useful products. The Engineering design process is described, as well as how scientists used this process to get to where they are today. Students will get to explore the properties of Ecovative’s products, and evaluate their usefulness. Listen to this story and think about the idea of technological trade-offs.
Our bodies react differently to extreme heat depending on how much humidity is in the air. Heat index is a measure of how hot it feels outside, taking into account both air temperature and relative humidity. As the humidity rises, the heat index rises. In dry heat, our sweat quickly evaporates, which helps lower our internal temperature; but on a humid day, our sweat cannot fully evaporate as the air is already damp, and this prevents us from effectively cooling off. It also raises our risk of heat stroke and even death. To illustrate the science, this podcast considers the case of a man who was lost for three weeks in a remote desert in southern Utah and survived. Listen to hear more about dry versus wet heat and how it affects the human body.
Scientists are using computer computations to link cases of extreme weather to global warming. Scientists set out to link major flooding in England and Wales in the fall of 2000 to climate change. This task was undertaken by scientists and citizens alike - running thousands of computer simulations and comparing the result in a world with climate change and one without it. Listen to learn what these simulations found.
Animal species evolve and adapt over time. This ability to change lays the groundwork for human evolution. Over 375 million years ago an important transition in this lineage occurred - animals living in the sea, began living on land. This complex process happened gradually over generations and an unusual fish fossil found in the Canadian Arctic may help enhance our understanding of this progression.
Marine biologists are studying the sounds that fish make. They believe that sounds are key to understanding fish behavior. This audio story explores how listening to fish may also be a way to help protect fish. By studying the sounds that fish make when trying to attract mates and when breeding, we may be able to stay clear of them during those times to help them reproduce more productively.
Fungi plays a crucial role in decomposition. This audio story emphasizes the destructive power of molds but also their vital importance in sustaining ecosystems. You'll be transported to a forest full of fungi to get a good introduction to the topic of fungi.
Scientists say it’s nearly certain that human activity and fossil fuels are warming the planet. The mainstream discussion focuses on alternative energy and reducing fossil fuel emissions. But the field of geoengineering is looking for more large scale and proactive things we can do to offset warming. Some see this as an exciting way to help the planet, others as a threat. Listen to learn about the strategies geoengineers are exploring to prevent further global warming.
What does climate change sound like? You will hear in this public radio story about a geologist who has turned decades worth of data into music. He created a multitrack sequencer for data instead of music. The data and music shows a tight correlation between the amount of carbon dioxide and the amount of ice on the earth.
Scientists have wondered why giant squid and colossal squid have such enormous eyes. Their eyes are the size of basketballs. Their thinking about this question has been hampered by the rarity of these animals and the difficulty of preserving eye specimens. Using some clever techniques and luck, researchers have been able to measure the size of giant squid eyes. This has led to an interesting hypothesis about why their eyes are so enormous.
Throwing a curveball is one of the most difficult pitches in baseball. In this public radio story an expert in throwing the curve ball gives you a tutorial, but it’s also a lesson in physics and gravity as we look at how objects travel through space.
Gravity keeps the earth, moon and sun in orbit. It keeps us on the ground instead of floating in space. And yet, it is the weakest of all the forces. This public radio story explores the velocity in rockets, the shapes of planets, the trajectories of baseballs, and even the strength of the human leg bones.
Heirloom seeds are more than 50 years old and are not genetically modified. Jere Gettle, author of "The Heirloom Life Gardener," is particularly fascinated by heirloom seeds and he noticed they were being dropped by seed catalogs in the 1980s. The plants they produce are typically different from what we see in the grocery store. Listen to learn more about Gettle’s fight to bring heirloom plants back to our dinner tables.
Cells are used in research to make scientific discoveries. A certain set of cells are among the most widely used in biomedical research worldwide. These HeLa cells have been used to research almost every disease and have played an important role in many scientific breakthroughs including the development of the polio vaccine. The cells come from a woman named Henrietta Lacks who has been mentioned in more than 70,000 published scientific papers. Listen to hear more about how these cells are used and the issues of privacy with her family.
The Grand Canyon has amazed visitors and scientist alike since it was discovered. The debate over what created this geologic wonder has been reignited in recent years. Is the Grand Canyon 6 million years old or 70 million? Listen to learn more about this debate between two geologists who have very opposing viewpoints.
The phrase “no two snowflakes are alike” is actually scientifically accurate. Snow forms high in the atmosphere, and despite its uniform appearance, each snowflake is different based upon where and how it was formed. Although snowflakes are non-living, they grow and change from the time they are formed to the time they reach the ground. Listen to learn how snow is formed, and why it exists in some places but not others.
A United Nations report in 2014 shows that human activities are changing the planet. The scientists are more confident in their conclusions that humans are causing global warming. There are rising sea levels, higher temperatures and impacts on wildlife. This conversation with a public radio reporter looks at the long term trend in global temperatures and what humans can do to reverse the trend.
