Science Magazine Podcast9 Aug 2018

Doubts about the drought that kicked off our latest geological age, and a faceoff between stink bugs with samurai wasps

We now live in the Meghalayan age—the last age of the Holocene epoch. Did you get the memo? A July decision by the International Commission on Stratigraphy, which is responsible for naming geological time periods, divided the Holocene into three ages: the Greenlandian, the Northgrippian, and the Meghalayan. The one we live in—the Meghalayan age (pronounced “megalion”)—is pegged to a global drought thought to have happened some 4200 years ago. But many critics question the timing of this latest age and the global expanse of the drought. Staff writer Paul Voosen talks with host Sarah Crespi about the evidence for and against the global drought—and what it means if it’s wrong. Sarah also talks to staff writer Kelly Servick about her feature story on what happens when biocontrol goes out of control. Here’s the setup: U.S. Department of Agriculture researchers wanted to know whether brown marmorated stink bugs that have invaded the United States could be controlled—aka killed—by importing their natural predators, samurai wasps, from Asia. But before they could find out, the wasps showed up anyway. Kelly discusses how using one species to combat another can go wrong—or right—and what happens when the situation outruns regulators. This week’s episode was edited by Podigy. Download a transcript of this episode (PDF) Listen to previous podcasts. [Image: Melissa McMasters/Flickr; Music: Jeffrey Cook] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(642)

Fighting deepfakes, and using bacteria to deliver medicine inside the body

First up on the podcast, Meagan Cantwell produced a segment with Contributing Correspondent Kai Kupferschmidt on the fight against deepfakes. Kupferschmidt talks with Hany Farid, professor at the Univ...

14 Mai 31min

A team effort to save a giant fish, the power of moonlight, and how scientists can navigate a tough political environment

First up on the podcast, along Brazil’s Juruá River, local residents have been working with scientists to manage a giant fish called the arapaima—affecting the land, the people, and the economy. Contr...

7 Mai 53min

Watching a spiders’ heart beat, epigenetic ethics, and what science biographies reveal about fame

First up on the podcast, Online News Editor David Grimm shares a batch of fun stories with podcast host Sarah Crespi—from spider hearts racing when traffic gets loud to a disease-preventing house. Sta...

30 Apr 46min

Cleaning up uranium mining, and how the heart avoids cancer

First up on the podcast, freelance science and environmental journalist Quentin Septer joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about a controversial uranium mine getting fast-tracked in South Dakota. Septer c...

23 Apr 30min

The normals | Episode 3

The final of a three-part limited Science Podcast series that looks at the history of normal human subjects in research In episode two, we heard what happened to the normals program after church volu...

21 Apr 33min

How to keep quantum computers cool, whether prediction markets harm public health, and podcasting on podcasting

First up on the podcast, quantum computers require extremely low temperatures—less than 1°C away from absolute zero. But getting down to those temperatures has usually required dilution fridges using ...

16 Apr 50min

The Normals | Episode 2

Last time on The Normals, we learned that in the 1950s, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) wanted to recruit many healthy volunteers for basic research. Two peace churches, the Mennonites and the...

14 Apr 27min

A chimpanzee ‘civil war,’ and NASA plans for nuclear propulsion

First up on the podcast, freelance science journalist Hannah Richter joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss NASA’s plans to send a nuclear-powered spacecraft to Mars in less than 3 years. Having not launc...

9 Apr 42min