Science, Spoken

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Cities Cause Hurricanes to Dump Extra Rain on Them Nov 15, 2018

Show notes

It wasn’t a whodunnit. Last year’s unprecedented rainfall and flooding in Houston were the proximate result of Hurricane Harvey, a massive storm born northeast of Venezuela and reborn in the Gulf of Mexico, where it rapidly intensified, made landfall over Houston, and then stayed—parked, as it were, for five days. LEARN MORE The WIRED Guide to Climate Change Harvey was, however, something of a whydunnit.

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Our Climate Is Headed for Disaster, But Voters Still Shrug Nov 14, 2018

Show notes

Tuesday’s midterm elections offered voters across the US the chance to move decisively to slow down the global ecological disaster of climate change. As the votes were tallied, however, one thing became clear: Americans remain as divided as ever on climate change. During his tenure, President Trump has moved to roll back Obama-era emissions standards, cripple renewable energy research, and pulled the US from global climate talks.

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Take a Good Look, America. This Is What the Reckoning Looks Like Nov 13, 2018

Show notes

Editor’s note: This is a developing story about California’s Camp Fire and Woolsey Fire. We will update it as more information becomes available. By at least one metric, we humans are dumber than frogs. The fable goes that if you toss a frog in a pot of hot water, it’ll leap right out. Put it in cold water, though, and bring it slowly to a boil, and the frog won’t notice before it’s too late. That turns out to be a myth—frogs are smarter than that.

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The Risk That Ebola Will Spread to Uganda Is Now ‘Very High’ Nov 13, 2018

Show notes

Ebola is one of those scourges where the mere mention of its name strikes fear: the virus, which kills about half of those it infects and gets passed on through body fluids, is notoriously hard to contain. Because of its long incubation period, healthy-looking people can spread the deadly disease for weeks before symptoms appear.

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These Wind Patterns Explain Why California's Wildfires Are So Bad Nov 12, 2018

Show notes

Editor’s note: This is a developing story about California’s Camp Fire, Hill Fire, and Woolsey Fire. We will update it as more information becomes available. In California three major fires—the Camp Fire in the north and Hill Fire and Woolsey Fire in the south—continue to rage on a scale the state has never seen before.

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The Terrifying Science Behind California’s Massive Camp Fire Nov 12, 2018

Show notes

Editor’s note: This is a developing story about California’s Camp Fire, Hill Fire, and Woolsey Fire. We will update it as more information becomes available. At 6:30 Thursday morning, a wildfire of astounding proportions and speed broke out in Northern California. Dubbed the Camp Fire, it covered 11 miles in its first 11 hours of life. A mile an hour might not seem fast in human terms, but it’s an extreme rate of speed as far as fires are concerned.

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Don’t Want to Fall for Fake News? Don’t Be Lazy Nov 09, 2018

Show notes

On Wednesday night, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders shared an altered video of a press briefing with Donald Trump, in which CNN reporter Jim Acosta's hand makes brief contact with the arm of a White House Intern. The clip is of low quality and edited to dramatize the original footage; it's presented out of context, without sound, at slow speed with a close-crop zoom, and contains additional frames that appear to emphasize Acosta's contact with the intern.

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A New Robot Tracks Sick Bees Wearing Tiny Coded Backpacks Nov 09, 2018

Show notes

Science hasn’t been giving us a tremendous amount of good news these days. We’re speeding toward climate catastrophe, for one. We’ve screwed up the environment so badly, it’s hard to even call it an environment anymore. And that’s coming back to bite (or sting) us: Bee populations, which we rely on to pollinate our crops, are plummeting.

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Weed Wins on Election Day. So What Comes Next? Nov 08, 2018

Show notes

And so a few more dominoes fall. Michigan voted to legalize the recreational use of cannabis, while Utah and Missouri legalized it for medical use, according to projections made late Tuesday night. (A recreational measure in North Dakota failed, though medical cannabis remains legal there.) They join 31 other states that have already gone the medical route, and nine others that have gone fully recreational.

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THC! CBD! Terpenoids! Cannabis Science Is Getting Hairy Nov 08, 2018

Show notes

Today, cannabis continues its slow march toward nationwide decriminalization with voters deciding whether to allow recreational use in Michigan and North Dakota, and for medical purposes in Utah and Missouri. As states keep chipping away at federal prohibition, more consumers will gain access, sure—but so will more researchers who can more easily study this astonishingly complex and still mysterious plant.

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