Third Pod from the Sun

Latest Episodes:

Waiting for Poop Jan 02, 2019

Show notes

There are lots of weird, dirty jobs out there. Roadkill collector. Deodorant tester. Catfish noodler. Chicken sexer. But what about… whale poop collector?

Leigh Torres, a marine ecologist at Oregon State University, collects the feces from these giant mammals to measure levels of stress hormones present in their bodies. The dirty job involves following a whale for some time and scooping the soft stool out of the water with a net. In this episode, Leigh describes the fascinating process of collecting whale waste and discusses what she and her team are learning about how whales respond to stress in the great big ocean.

Bonus Clip: The Smell of Water Dec 17, 2018

Show notes

Check out this clip that didn't make it into our recent episode, The Oldest Water on Earth, what old water smells like!

How the Cold War advanced atmospheric science Dec 13, 2018

Show notes

Tensions escalated between the United States and Soviet Union in the wake of World War II as the two countries stockpiled nuclear weapons and detonated hundreds of test bombs in the atmosphere. But this arms race had an unexpected side effect: scientists learned for the first time how air behaves in Earth’s upper atmosphere and how pollution, volcanic ash, and radioactive fallout travel around the globe.

In this inaugural episode of Third Pod from the Sun’s Centennial Series, researchers from NOAA’s Air Resources Laboratory discuss how scientists’ understanding of Earth’s atmosphere changed as a result of the Cold War. Listen to one meteorologist describe witnessing nuclear bomb tests in on a remote Pacific Island and hear how scientists used their newfound knowledge of the atmosphere to trace radioactivity from Chernobyl, the most disastrous nuclear power plant accident in history.

The Oldest Water on Earth Dec 03, 2018

Show notes

Thousands of feet below the surface of the Earth is salty water that hasn’t seen the light of day in millions or even billions of years. Miners working deep underground had encountered and wondered about the origin of this water for decades, but it wasn’t until the 1980s that scientists started to investigate where this water was coming from and what it might contain – giving researchers clues into how life survives in the deepest parts of our planet.

In this episode, Barbara Sherwood Lollar, a professor of earth sciences at the University of Toronto, describes the process of going deep underground to find and research the origin of this old water, including the discovery of the oldest water on Earth. Barbara also describes how research into the origin of water on our planet and the life potentially contained in these fluids helps scientists understand where life might lurk on other planets, like Mars.

Deep Sea Drilling with Dawn Nov 01, 2018

Show notes

The ocean floor stores a vast amount of information about Earth and its history. Volcanic rocks that make up most of the seafloor tell scientists about the composition of Earth’s interior, and the sediments lying on top of those rocks document what conditions were like when they were laid down millions of years ago.

Scientists access this record of Earth’s past by drilling and extracting cores – long cylindrical samples – of the layers of rock and sediment. To do this, researchers spend weeks aboard a scientific drillship, anchored in place, braving the harsh conditions of the sea. Early in her career, oceanographer Dawn Wright, Chief Scientist at the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), spent several years as a marine technician aboard the drillship JOIDES Resolution, supporting ocean drilling operations all over the world.

In this episode, listen to Dawn describe her experiences during the months she spent anchored in the freezing Weddell Sea off the coast of Antarctica and hear how support ships have to “lasso” icebergs to keep them from damaging the drillship while it’s anchored. Ahoy, matey!

Tracking Adorable Chainsaws Oct 01, 2018

Show notes

Northern fur seals spend more than half their lives at sea. But every summer, they congregate on the rocky, charcoal-colored beaches of Alaska’s Pribilof Islands to mate and give birth to tiny, black-furred pups.

Researchers take advantage of the seals’ short time on land to learn more about them and try to understand why their populations have been declining since the mid-1970s. Part of this research involves attaching GPS trackers to the seals’ bodies so satellites can monitor their movements from afar.

But it’s not easy walking into a fur seal breeding colony full of aggressive, 500-pound males – not to mention getting close enough to attach a satellite tag. In this episode, Noel Pelland and Jeremy Sterling, researchers at NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Seattle, describe what it’s like to work with these beautiful yet unpredictable creatures.

Listen to Jeremy recount his experience crawling into a fur seal rookery full of cuddly pups with razor-sharp teeth and hear Noel describe what the satellite tags tell us about fur seal migrations. Find out how modern science is confirming what native Alaskans have known for centuries about seal migrations and learn what it’s like to watch male fur seals battle for territory with nothing more than a plywood box for protection.

Read more about tagging seals in the Pribilofs in this blog series from NOAA and learn more about how winds influence seal pup migration in this press release from AGU. And watch this video from NOAA to learn more about fur seals and their migrations.

Bonus Clip: The Sounds of the Sun Sep 17, 2018

Show notes

Check out this clip that didn't make it into our recent episode, Inside the Boiling Center of the Solar System, with Dan Seaton, about what the sun actually sounds like!

Inside the Boiling Center of the Solar System Sep 04, 2018

Show notes

At the heart of our solar system is an enormous, churning ball of hot plasma. The Sun blows a stream of charged particles over our planet, creating the solar wind. Sometimes the Sun flares bursts of x-rays, or burps bursts of charged particles, which can sweep over Earth and potentially create havoc for power grids, satellites, and GPS networks. There is weather in space, and it has more consequences for civilization than you might think.

Solar physicist Dan Seaton studies the Sun at the University of Colorado in Boulder and NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, where he is working to understand the Sun’s atmosphere and predict when events on the Sun will affect the near-Earth environment. In this episode, Dan explains how space weather and space weather prediction is analogous to Earth weather—and how it is not—and how what happens on the Sun can affect us here on Earth.

Read a new paper by Dan and his colleagues about how solar flares disrupted radio communications during the September 2017 Atlantic hurricane relief effort.

Bonus Clip: Scientists of the Corn Aug 15, 2018

Show notes

Check out this clip that didn't make it into our recent episode, The Dark Sound of the Moon, with Trae Winter about balloons, astronauts. and aliens!

The Dark Sound of the Moon Aug 01, 2018

Show notes

On August 21, 2017, a total solar eclipse swept across the continental United States from Oregon to South Carolina. Millions of people stood looking up at the sky, their mouths agape, as the Sun’s disk was completely covered by the Moon. For many people, the experience of day turning into night and back into day, and the sight of the Sun’s corona streaming out behind the dark circle of the Moon, is a picture they’ll remember for the rest of their lives.

But what about people who are visually impaired? How did they experience this celestial event? In this episode, Henry “Trae” Winter III, a solar astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, describes how he and his colleagues designed a new way for people who are blind and visually impaired to experience the 2017 total solar eclipse and his work to design and build tools that make astronomy and astrophysics more accessible to everyone, including people who are blind and visually impaired.

Learn more about the app Trae and his colleagues created for the 2017 solar eclipse at eclipsesoundscapes.org.