Living Lab Radio

Living Lab Radio: December 29 and 30, 2019. Dec 29, 2019

This is the last episode of Living Lab Radio. Heather Goldstone will be joining Woods Hole Research Center to communicate about what is possibly the most pressing issue of our time: climate change. Elsa Partan will be staying at WCAI as a news producer. It has been seven and a half years. We've done more than 800 interviews covering everything from black holes to sexual harassment. There’s really no way to sum all that up. Instead, today, we’re revisiting highlights from a handful of memorable interviews. They aren’t necessarily our newsiest or hardest-hitting reporting. They are conversations that left us with not only new knowledge but a nugget of wisdom that we still carry with us. How Mindfulness Reduces Stress and Improves Health Originally published May 9, 2016. In 1971, Jon Kabat-Zinn finished his Ph.D. in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Salvador Luria at M.I.T. Then, he took what might be considered a left turn – he went to study with Buddhist masters. Several years later, he

Is Winter Miserable for Wildlife? Dec 22, 2019

Bridget B. Baker , Wayne State University While the weather outside may indeed get frightful this winter, a parka, knit hat, wool socks, insulated boots and maybe a roaring fire make things bearable for people who live in cold climates. But what about all the wildlife out there? Won’t they be freezing? Anyone who’s walked their dog when temperatures are frigid knows that canines will shiver and favor a cold paw – which partly explains the boom in the pet clothing industry . But chipmunks and cardinals don’t get fashionable coats or booties. In fact, wildlife can succumb to frostbite and hypothermia, just like people and pets. In the northern United States, the unfurred tails of opossums are a common casualty of cold exposure. Every so often an unusual cold snap in Florida results in iguanas falling from trees and manatees dying from cold stress . Avoiding the cold is important for preserving life or limb (or, in the opossum’s case, tail) and the opportunity to reproduce. These

Living Lab Radio: December 22 and 23, 2019 Dec 22, 2019

“If you have scientific misconduct, there are some clear rules that have been around for quite a while where your funding could be at jeopardy. We thought that sexual misconduct should be at that level. Even laboratory safety is an issue that can have consequences, so we said that – at the minimum – [sexual misconduct] should be at least at the level of scientific misconduct and safety.” – Joyce Wong

What Makes Wine Dry? It’s Easy to Taste, but Much Harder to Measure Dec 22, 2019

Aude Watrelot , Iowa State University When you take a sip of wine at a family meal or celebration, what do you notice? First, you probably note the visual characteristics: the color is generally red, rosé or white. Next, you smell the aromatic compounds wafting up from your glass. And then there’s the sensation in your mouth when you taste it. White wine and rosé are usually described as refreshing, because they have brisk acidity and little to moderate sweetness. Those low levels of sugar may lead you to perceive these wines as “dry.” People also describe wines as dry when alcohol levels are high, usually over about 13%, mostly because the ethanol leads to hot or burning sensations that cover up other sensations , especially sweetness. People also perceive red wines as dry or astringent because they contain a class of molecules called polyphenols. As an enologist – a wine scientist – I’m interested in how all the chemistry in a glass of wine adds up to this perception of dryness.

MOSAiC Mission Aims to Paint More Complete Picture of Changing Arctic Dec 16, 2019

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released its annual Arctic report card last week, with data tracking seven vital signs of Arctic health, including air and water temperatures, sea ice and tundra greenness. The conclusion: “Arctic ecosystems and communities are increasingly at risk due to continued warming and declining sea ice.”

Whakaari Volcano Eruption Reveals Difficulty in Forecasting Volcanic Events Dec 16, 2019

In the early hours of December 9th, the volcano known as Whakaari, or White Island off the northern coast of New Zealand erupted, killing several people .

Turning Off Volume on Skype Sheds Light on How Languages Emerge Dec 16, 2019

There are thousands of languages spoken around the world today. While we know how many of them are related to each other, we know very little about how they actually arose. "The main reason is because we can't travel back in time and go back to the times when these languages actually emerged," said Manuel Bohn, a postdoctoral researcher at Leipsig University. There are languages, particularly sign languages, that have emerged over the past century. Even in those cases, though, Bohn says documentation of the evolutionary process began at some point after those first moments when two people needed to communicate and didn’t have a way to do so. And it is those very first steps toward language that Bohn wants to learn about. Lacking a time machine, Bohn and his colleagues wanted to try to simulate the birth of a new language in the lab to watch how it works. The problem was, they couldn’t figure out how to deprive their study participants of language. Then came the aha moment. “We were on

Alone Time an Important Part of a Balanced Social Diet Dec 16, 2019

We all know we’re supposed to eat a balanced diet with a combination of different types of foods. A growing body of research suggests the same is true when it comes to social behavior – that a mixture of different types of social interactions, as well as alone time, leads to the greatest well-being.

Living Lab Radio: December 15, 2019 Dec 15, 2019

“We get to read the whole book. Normally, you go out for a couple of months. It's like you have a complicated mystery and you get two chapters and you're supposed to figure out what's going on. But here, we've already started. We’re there in the fall, when the ice begins to freeze, we'll watch it evolve through the whole winter and see what happens when summer comes.” – Don Perovich

Parker Solar Probe Findings Surprise Scientists Dec 09, 2019

Last year, the Parker Solar Probe flew closer to the sun than anything ever has before. Now, scientists have released the first results, and there are some big surprises, like solar winds up to twenty five times faster than expected, and previously unknown rogue waves.

How to Pick the 'Right' Amount to Spend Dec 09, 2019

By Jay L. Zagorsky , Boston University Gift giving is a big deal this time of year. To find the “perfect” gift , Americans will spend about 15 hours shopping. Women will do about twice as much as men. And they’ll shell out about US$1 trillion on gifts. While retailers relish the holiday shopping season as a time when consumers open their purses or wallets, for many consumers – especially those who do not like shopping – these days are filled with dread . They mark moments when shoppers clog malls, websites become overloaded and delivery trucks block streets . The entire process generates untold amounts of stress and anxiety . One source of stress is just how much to spend on gifts. Spending too much can put you in financial distress. Spending too little may make you look cheap. How do you decide what’s the “right” amount to spend on gifts? As an economist , I study holidays and gift giving because a large fraction of retail shopping is driven by seasonal events like Black Friday, Cyber

We've Reached 'Peak Cow,' Report Says Dec 08, 2019

The Impossible Burger has put high tech meat alternatives on people’s plates and minds. But just how big could this emerging sector become? And how soon? A new analysis says it could make the cow all but obsolete in a matter of years.

A Mood Of Urgency At UN Climate Change Conference in Madrid Dec 08, 2019

This year’s United Nations conference on climate change is underway in Madrid, Spain, with about 25,000 people from 200 countries attending. The mood is one of urgency, according to participants.

Living Lab Radio: December 8, 2019 Dec 08, 2019

“Essentially, the cost of producing protein is going to come down fast. So, it's five times cheaper by 2030 - and ten times by 2035 - than existing methods. And so, ultimately, this means 50 percent fewer cows by 2030. And it won't stop there.” – Catherine Tubb

New Effort to Understand Arctic Craters Caused by Warming Dec 02, 2019

In July of 2014, images of an enormous crater in the Siberian tundra captivated scientists and the public, alike. Others were soon found, and a cause proposed: climate change. Specifically, the finger was pointed at an underground build-up of methane released as permafrost thaws. But this was not a climate change impact that anyone had anticipated.

Study: Does Science Advance One Funeral at a Time? Dec 02, 2019

“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” – Max Planck The Nobel Prize-winning physicist Max Planck articulated what has come to be known as Planck’s Principle in his 1950 Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers . The idea was born out of his frustration that eminent colleagues, notably Albert Einstein, were resistant to the revolutionary ideas of quantum mechanics that he had introduced. “That was his sort of cynical quip that, you know, maybe what was needed is for the generation of scholars who had been trained in a different tradition to simply sort of pass away before suddenly of young people could pick up the mantle and sort of push physics forward,” explained Pierre Azoulay of M.I.T. Sloan School of Management. Planck’s Principle strikes a chord for many researchers, and it has been fodder for science philosophers

Studies Show Meditation Can Reduce Pain AND Opioid Use Dec 01, 2019

A new meta-analysis of dozens of studies finds evidence that mind-body therapies, like meditation, can reduce not only pain, but also opioid use. “There have been other reviews of studies of mind body therapies for people experiencing various types of pain,” said Eric Garland, lead author of the study in the Journal of the American Medical Association and director of the Center on Mindfulness and Integrative Health Intervention Development at the University of Utah. “By and large, those reviews have showed that my body therapies are effective for reducing pain.” But Garland and his colleagues were interested in another question, and that is whether mind-body therapies could not only reduce pain but also reduce opioid use and misuse. “We did not know whether these therapies could help people who were also prescribed opioids,” Garland explained. “Given the opioid crisis in this country, that question seemed really important.” A search of published research turned up more than 4,000

Defamation Case Mixes Climate Science and First Amendment Dec 01, 2019

Before heading home for turkey, the Supreme Court this week declined to hear a case pitting a prominent climate scientist against a conservative news outlet and a free-market think tank. To be clear, this is considered a win for the climate scientist as it allows his defamation case to go forward. Michael Mann is the scientist in question. He leads the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University and is best known as one of the originators of the now infamous hockey stick graph of rising global temperatures. He is suing – or has been trying to sue - National Review and Competitive Enterprise Institute for defamation after they attacked his science and called him “the Jerry Sandusky of climate science,” saying that he had “molested and tortured data in the service of politicized science” and that the University had covered up his wrongdoing. “These two columnists wrote pieces pretty much harpooning [Mann’s] science concerning the hockey stick graph and then inserted that

Living Lab Radio: December 1, 2019 Dec 01, 2019

"I didn't expect it then and I still don't expect it now. It's not something that any Arctic scientists talk about for this to happen on land - to have land explode because of a buildup of methane below the ground. It still surprises me now." - Sue Natali This week on Living Lab Radio: Jennifer Hijazi of E&E News reports on a defamation lawsuit that is mixing climate science and free speech issues in novel ways. The Supreme Court has said that scientist Michael Mann's case can move forward. Integrative health researcher Eric Garland breaks down the evidence that mindfulness meditation and other mind-body therapies can reduce both pain and opioid use. He says the biggest challenge, at this point, is providing access to these safe and effective therapies. Pierre Azoulay of M.I.T. explains what happens to a scientific field after a prominent researcher passes away prematurely. The research suggests some avenues for accelerating scientific advancement across the board. Climate

Star Stories - A Tradition That Spans Time and Cultures Nov 24, 2019

Stargazing and storytelling are universal, age-old past-times. For millenia, people have looked to the sky, seen shapes in the stars, and attached stories to them. Constellations and their movements have been used to navigate the seas, predict personalities and major events, and to teach moral lessons. “The sky was always there,” says Anthony Aveni, professor emeritus at Colgate University and author of Star Stories: Constellations and People . “The sky was the storyboard, filled with tales about the meaning of life and social relations.” Aveni speculates that linking myths and legends to constellations may predate cave paintings. And, while different cultures have enshrined different constellations and stories, there are many common themes. The cluster of stars known in the Greek system as Pleiades, or Seven Sisters, is recognized almost universally as a group of between six and eight stars. In fact, Aboriginal Australians also call them the Seven Sisters, KungaKungaranga, while

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