Science, Spoken

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Everyone Needs a Good Pillow—Even Astronauts Bound for Mars Jun 03, 2019

Show notes

By all accounts sleeping in space is a dream. After a long day of running experiments and rigorous exercise, astronauts on the International Space Station retire to their padded sleep pods, which have just enough room to fit the astronaut, a laptop mounted to a wall, and a few practical items. To prevent themselves from drifting through the station while catching some zero-g z’s, astronauts snuggle into a sleeping bag mounted to the wall of their sleep pod.

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Why It’s So Hard to Predict Where a Tornado Will Strike Jun 03, 2019

Show notes

Editor’s note: This is a developing story about severe weather in the Midwest. We will update it as more information becomes available. This week brings atmospheric devastation to the Midwest: nearly 200 tornadoes have torn through the region since last Friday, including Jefferson City, the capital of Missouri, on Wednesday night. All told, the disasters have left at least three dead and 25 injured.

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Geothermal Energy Could Save the Climate—or Trigger Lots of Quakes May 31, 2019

Show notes

This story originally appeared on Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Imagine if there was a carbon-free form of energy hiding in the ground beneath you. One that we could turn to anytime, even on cloudy, windless days. There’s no need for imagination: It exists. Research suggests that geothermal energy could be the key to running the country on purely renewable power.

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Military vs. Wind Farms, Facebook vs. Fake Accounts, and More News May 29, 2019

Show notes

The military is decidedly not here for wind farms, Facebook busted up more fake news accounts, and we have some advice for your next poo. Here's the news you need to know, in two minutes or less. Today's Headlines The military is locked in a struggle with wind farms Advocates say that wind power is a win-win: wind farms help struggling rural economies with a new source of revenue, while also helping wean utilities off of fossil fuels.

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This AI Uses Echolocation to Identify What You're Doing May 29, 2019

Show notes

Guo Xinhua wants to teach computers to echolocate. He and his colleagues have built a device, about the size of a thin laptop, that emits sound at frequencies 10 times higher than the shrillest note a piccolo can sustain. The pitches it produces are inaudible to the human ear. When Guo’s team aims the device at a person and fires an ultrasonic pitch, the gadget listens for the echo using its hundreds of embedded microphones.

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These Hidden Women Helped Invent Chaos Theory May 28, 2019

Show notes

A little over half a century ago, chaos started spilling out of a famous experiment. It came not from a petri dish, a beaker or an astronomical observatory, but from the vacuum tubes and diodes of a Royal McBee LGP-30. This “desk” computer—it was the size of a desk—weighed some 800 pounds and sounded like a passing propeller plane.

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Mysterious Midwest Tornadoes, Airbnb's NYC Truce, and More News May 28, 2019

Show notes

Tornadoes are tearing up the Midwest, Airbnb calls truce, and we've got some books for your long weekend. Here's the news you need to know, in two minutes or less. Today's Headlines Tornadoes are tearing up the midwest. So why are they so hard to predict? Over 200 tornadoes have hit the Midwest in the past week alone, wreaking havoc on the towns they pass through.

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For the Midwest, Epic Flooding Is the Face of Climate Change May 27, 2019

Show notes

Fierce storms lashed across the central US this week, unleashing hundreds of powerful tornadoes that carved a path of destruction through parts of Missouri and Oklahoma Wednesday night and left at least three dead. While the worst of the violent winds have passed, the region is now bracing for massive flooding, following record amounts of rain brought by the severe weather system and with more expected over the weekend.

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Measles Had Been Eliminated. Now It’s Nearly a Daily Threat May 24, 2019

Show notes

The year 2019 isn’t even halfway over yet, and it’s already the worst year for measles since NBC stopped airing episodes of Saved By The Bell. Since January 1, the rash- and fever-causing virus has sickened 880 people across 24 states. That’s more than all the cases of the past three years combined.

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Scientists Go Back in Time to Find More Troubling News About Earth's Oceans May 24, 2019

Show notes

Plankton don't get nearly the respect they deserve. These tiny organisms (phytoplankton being plant-like cells that produce much of the world’s oxygen, zooplankton being little animals) float around at the mercy of currents and form the very foundation of the ocean food web. You like whales? They eat krill, which eat, wait for it, plankton. You like your climate? Phytoplankton soak up CO2 and spit out oxygen, helping keep the planet a pleasant human habitat.

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