Science, Spoken

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How Climate Change and 'Smoke Taint' Could Kill Napa Wine Oct 17, 2017

Show notes

Nick Goldschmidt has been lucky so far. A wildfire has burned more than 8,000 acres just north of his vineyards in Geyserville, California, but so far his vines are OK. So is his house in Healdsburg, roughly midway between Geyserville and a 36,000-acre fire that destroyed more than 2,800 homes in Santa Rosa. But now, amid the charred, empty spaces that scar northern California’s winegrowing region, under skies yellowed by smoke, Goldschmidt has a race to win.

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Meet the Geek Who Tracks Rogue Satellites With Coat Hangers Oct 16, 2017

Show notes

Every 95 minutes, the Chinese satellite Zhuhai-1 02 makes a full pass around the planet, its solar-panel arms extending from its boxy body as it observes Earth. Sometimes, its path takes it over Pueblo, Colorado. There, more than 300 miles below, Mike Coletta’s receiving station can pick up Zhuhai’s transmissions. Because as sophisticated as space technology is, the terrestrial tech necessary to make contact with celestial satellites is surprisingly low.

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In Cities, It's the Smoke, Not the Fire, That Will Get You Oct 13, 2017

Show notes

No one knows what sparked the violent fires ablaze in the hills of California wine country. In the last five days, the flames have torched more than 160,000 acres across Napa and Sonoma counties, reducing parts of Santa Rosa to piles of cinder and ash and leaving more than 20 dead and hundreds missing.

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The Napa Fire Is a Perfectly Normal Apocalypse Oct 12, 2017

Show notes

Blame the wind, if you want. In Southern California they call it the Santa Ana; in the north, the Diablos. Every autumn, from 4,000 feet up in the Great Basin deserts of Nevada and Utah, air drops down over the mountains and through the canyons. By the time it gets near the coast it’s hot, dry, and can gust as fast as a hurricane. Or blame lightning, or carelessness, or downed power lines.

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This New Alzheimer’s Test Looks Beyond a Single Problem Gene Oct 11, 2017

Show notes

America is entering a period that may one day be known as The Great Forgetting. Alzheimer’s, a disease defined as much by the accumulation of mental lapses as by tangled proteins in the brain, is an ailment of the aging. Sixty-five-year-olds have a one in 10 chance of a positive diagnosis. By age 85, the odds jump to one in three.

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Silicon Isn't Just for Computers. It Can Make a Pretty Good Kidney, Too Oct 10, 2017

Show notes

Every week, two million people across the world will sit for hours, hooked up to a whirring, blinking, blood-cleaning dialysis machine. Their alternatives: Find a kidney transplant or die. In the US, dialysis is a roughly 40-billion-dollar business keeping 468,000 people with end-stage renal disease alive. The process is far from perfect, but that hasn't hindered the industry's growth.

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Let's Analyze the Ridiculous Physics of the Bugatti Chiron Oct 09, 2017

Show notes

At one point in the past, I was a teenager. Hard to believe, I know, but it's true. During that time, I thought about teenager things. In particular, I recall thinking about and wanting a super fast car. Maybe a Lamborghini or a Ferrari. At lunch my friends and I would argue about the best cars (THE BEST), and what we wouldn't give to drive them. Today I drive a minivan. Nothing wrong with that. Now that I'm older, I care more about fuel efficiency and safety than speed.

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Were US Diplomats in Cuba Victims of a Sonic Attack—or Something Else? Oct 06, 2017

Show notes

The 007-meets-the-X-Files adventures in Cuba continue. Last week the US Department of State recalled non-emergency personnel and families home from the embassy in Havana, citing injuries and illness among 21 people—“hearing loss, dizziness, headache, fatigue, cognitive issues, and difficulty sleeping” according to a statement from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Those 21 people weren’t just cultural attaches.

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The Physics Nobel Goes to the Detection of Ripples in Space and Time Oct 05, 2017

Show notes

The way the Nobel Committee tells it, the story of this year’s physics prize begins like a certain 1970s space opera. “Once upon a time, a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, two massive black holes engaged in a deadly dance,” said physicist and Nobel committee member Olga Botner at today's prize announcement. The pair spiraled toward each other, colliding to form an even bigger black hole with a mass 62 times that of Earth's sun.

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The Nobel Prize in Medicine Goes to Your Body's Circadian Clock Oct 04, 2017

Show notes

Today, the Nobel committee kicked off its 2017 season by awarding the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to three scientists for their discoveries of the molecular mechanisms that control circadian rhythms. The Americans—Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash, and Michael W. Young—used fruit flies to isolate a gene that dictates the biological clock ticking away inside all living organisms.

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