Science, Spoken

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Los Angeles Must Pay Billions to Adapt—or Slip Into the Sea Oct 31, 2018

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Los Angeles derives much of its charm from its diversity, both of its people and its amenities—rolling hills here, lovely architecture there, a national forest to the north and legendary beaches to the west. But much of it is in trouble: Sea level rise is coming for Los Angeles County and its 74 miles of coast. According to a new report from the New York Academy of Sciences, it’ll take LA as much as $6.

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A New Climate Change Lawsuit Takes Aim at ExxonMobil Oct 31, 2018

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This story originally appeared in the Guardian and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. New York is suing the oil giant ExxonMobil in a lawsuit that claims the company engaged in a “longstanding fraudulent scheme” to downplay the risks posed to its business by climate change regulations.

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Does Climate Change Mean You Should Fly Less? Yeah, Maybe Oct 30, 2018

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This story originally appeared on Slate and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Two weeks ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a dire report that made crystal clear that we have about a decade to stop catastrophic levels of climate change. The report caught fire for another extremely near deadline: It suggests that if we don’t manage to dramatically shift carbon emissions, we’ll start feeling the brunt of the effects as soon as 2040.

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Carbon Capture Is Messy and Fraught—But Might Be Essential Oct 30, 2018

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On paper, carbon capture is a simple proposition: Take carbon that we’ve pulled out of the Earth in the form of coal and oil and put into the atmosphere, and pull it out of the atmosphere and put it back in the Earth. It’s like hitting undo on the Industrial Revolution. And scientists can indeed yank CO2 out of thin air, except that the process is expensive, not very efficient, and morally complicated.

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The Science of the Sniff: Why Dogs Are Great Disease Detectors Oct 29, 2018

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In November 2016, a team of scientists from the Medical Research Council in Gambia visited primary schools armed with hundreds of beige-colored nylon socks. Handing them out to children there aged five to 14, the researchers instructed them to wear the socks overnight, only taking them off if they were washing their feet for prayer.

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How Trick-or-Treaters Can Stay Visible on a Dark and Spooooky Night Oct 29, 2018

Show notes

When I think of Halloween, I think of kids outside in the dark. Traditionally, this is the way it works. First, darkness makes everything just a little bit spookier and more Halloween-like. Second, the end of October used to be after the end of Daylight Savings Time such that it would get dark earlier. Of course this year, Daylight Savings Time doesn't end until November 4. However, let's assume it's dark. Kids running around in the dark on streets with cars can lead to bad things.

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Water, Flour, Syrup, Dye: Mastering the Elements of Fake Blood Oct 26, 2018

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The internet is oozing (dripping? spurting?) with recipes for fake blood, but to get the exact color and consistency your Halloween costume calls for—be it bright and wet or dark and crusty—your best bet is to brew your own bloody concoction. To do it, it helps to know the properties of blood that you're approximating and the non-biohazardous ingredients you can use to imitate them.

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Ginkgo Bioworks Is Turning Human Cells Into On-Demand Factories Oct 26, 2018

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From the windows of Ginkgo Bioworks’ Boston offices you can peer down into a grimy vestige of the city’s past. Across the street, workers in yellow-slicker overalls scrub, scrape, and repair the decks of worn-out warships and ocean tankers parked in a drydock. During World War II, 50,000 people worked the docks and the eight-story waterside warehouse that Ginkgo now calls home.

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An Ebola Outbreak in a War Zone Is About as Bad as It Gets Oct 25, 2018

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In July, a 65-year-old woman running a high fever checked into a hospital in the province of North Kivu, along the Democratic Republic of Congo’s border with Uganda. She was later discharged and returned home to her remote town, only to die a few days later. By the time health officials checked in on the case, seven members of her immediate family had also died the violent, bloody deaths that can usually only mean one thing: Ebola. Normally, this wouldn’t be reason to panic.

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These Wasp-Like Drones Lift Heavy Loads With Their Bellies Oct 25, 2018

Show notes

You might know wasps for their ability to brainwash cockroaches or inflict one of the most painful stings on Earth—one so powerful that the actual scientific advice to victims is to just lie down and scream until it passes. Lesser-known is the wasp’s superlative ability to carry loads that are unexpectedly heavy given the creature’s size. Small drones, or “micro air vehicles,” are only able to lift the equivalent of their own weight.

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