Transcript

7.16.26 · Science Show KY

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Radio Wized Diary of Science and Nature. Your
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Speaker 1: reader is Kelly Taylor. I'll have articles on the topics
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Speaker 1: of science and nature. But first a reminder that RADIOI
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Speaker 1: is a reading service intended for people who are blind
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Speaker 1: or have other disabilities that make it difficult to read
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Speaker 1: printed material. Our first article comes from Scientific American, dated
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Speaker 1: July the thirteenth. Why the US and the world have
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Speaker 1: seen so many hot waves heat waves this summer. Temperatures
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Speaker 1: across the Western and central US are smashing records. On Sunday, Billings, Montana,
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Speaker 1: set a new all time high of one hundred and
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Speaker 1: eleven degrees. Fah Night, Salt Lake City and Sheard in
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Speaker 1: Wyoming both reached one hundred and nine degrees, and Idaho Falls,
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Speaker 1: Idaho hit one three. We're looking at temperatures that have
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Speaker 1: not been seen or are very rare in some of
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Speaker 1: these locations, says National Weather Service meteorologist Frank Perira. That's
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Speaker 1: thanks to a heat dome, an area of high pressure
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Speaker 1: in the atmosphere that traps heat beneath it like a
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Speaker 1: lid on a pot of boiling water. Perreira explains, quote,
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Speaker 1: it doesn't allow the heat to escape, It just kind
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Speaker 1: of builds upon itself even at night. As the heat
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Speaker 1: dome extends eastward. Forecasters expect unusually high and possibly record
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Speaker 1: breaking temperatures this week from the Midwest to the Northeast
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Speaker 1: and mid Atlantic region, including Richmond, Virginia, Washington, DC, and Boston.
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Speaker 1: It's not just the US that has suffered. Around the globe,
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Speaker 1: this summer has been historically hot. France, for instance, recorded
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Speaker 1: its hottest average temperature ever, part of a series of
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Speaker 1: heat waves that's estimated to have claimed thousands of lives
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Speaker 1: across Europe. Earlier this month, New York Cities Central Park
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Speaker 1: hit one hundred degrees fahrenheit for the first time since
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Speaker 1: twenty twelve, and parts of Asia and the Middle East
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Speaker 1: have seen scorching temperatures. Quote. Heat domes quote are behind
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Speaker 1: many of these heat waves, says Zachary Labe, a climate
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Speaker 1: scientist at the research nonprofit Climate Central. Though heat domes
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Speaker 1: aren't a new phenomenon, what is abnormal is the influence
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Speaker 1: of climate change. Quote. We're getting so many of these
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Speaker 1: heat domes building across the northern hemisphere that they're all
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Speaker 1: kind of blending together at this point. For keeping track
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Speaker 1: of them, Labe says, It's really in line with what
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Speaker 1: we have expected to see and expect to see going
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Speaker 1: forward into the future. We're going to see more of
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Speaker 1: these more intense, larger and more widespread heat waves every
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Speaker 1: single summer. Quote. Research shows heat waves are becoming more
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Speaker 1: frequent too. Our research shows it is quite clearly that
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Speaker 1: with an increase in global temperatures due to human induced
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Speaker 1: climate change, we see both an increasing likelihood of heat
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Speaker 1: waves as well as an increase in the temperatures that
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Speaker 1: come with them, says Friedrich Auto, a climatologist and co
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Speaker 1: founder of the research group World Weather Attribution. Quote. Increasing
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Speaker 1: the likelihood of heat waves in every month and every
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Speaker 1: region means we see a lot of back to back
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Speaker 1: heat waves. The challenge is figuring out exactly how and
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Speaker 1: why heat domes form, as well as the role of
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Speaker 1: climate patterns such as El Nino laibads. What we're trying
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Speaker 1: to figure out now is this summer in particular, what's
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Speaker 1: the driver for these heat domes over individual regions. To
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Speaker 1: be safe in the heat, the World Health Organization recommends
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Speaker 1: staying hydrated, limiting time outdoors, and checking in on older
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Speaker 1: adults or those with disabilities. Cars and other vehicles can
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Speaker 1: heat up fasts, so don't leave children or pay that's unattended inside.
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Speaker 1: If you're in the US, you can expect summerlief from
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Speaker 1: the heat for now later in the week, when the
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Speaker 1: heat dome will give away to a cold front and
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Speaker 1: temperatures will back off relatively speaking, PERIRUSS, we'll be looking
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Speaker 1: at above above normal temperatures, but perhaps not quite to
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Speaker 1: the extreme that they'll be record breaking. Now we'll turn
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Speaker 1: to the Washington Post. The headline is wildfire smoke from
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Speaker 1: Canada will soon spread across the Midwest and East. This
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Speaker 1: is day to July the fifteenth. Smoke from wildfires raging
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Speaker 1: across northern Minnesota and western Ontario in Canada is forecast
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Speaker 1: to drift into the lower levels of the atmosphere across
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Speaker 1: the Midwest, Northeast, and mid Atlantic from Wednesday to Friday,
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Speaker 1: probably creating unhealthy air quality conditions, while smoke from the
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Speaker 1: fires created hazy skies and part of the East on Tuesday.
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Speaker 1: Conditions will deterior further through the end of the week
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Speaker 1: as some of that smoke settles down toward the ground
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Speaker 1: with a little wind to blow it away. As a
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Speaker 1: heat dome remains in force, air quality conditions were expected
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Speaker 1: to significantly worsen across much of Michigan, northern Wisconsin, and
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Speaker 1: eastern Minnesota on Wednesday. Quote. It is recommended that when possible,
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Speaker 1: you avoid strenuous outdoor activities, especially those with heart disease
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Speaker 1: and respiratory conditions like asthma, wrote the Michigan Department of
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Speaker 1: Environmental Quality in its air quality alert for Wednesday. Quote.
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Speaker 1: Keep windows closed overnight to prevent smoke from getting indoors,
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Speaker 1: and if possible, run air conditioning with MIERV thirteen or
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Speaker 1: higher rated filters, the department said. Meanwhile, farther east, smoke
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Speaker 1: modeling from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showed air
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Speaker 1: quality conditions had the potential to gradually worsen on Wednesday
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Speaker 1: in these cities. Buffalo, Binghamton, Poughkeepsie, and New York City
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Speaker 1: in New York, Hartford, Danbury and New Haven in Connecticut,
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Speaker 1: Providence in Rhode Island, Scranton in Pennsylvania, Newark in New Jersey.
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Speaker 1: This smoke is forecast to drift south and east on
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Speaker 1: Wednesday night, reaching Philadelphia and then potentially Baltimore, DC and
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Speaker 1: Boston by Thursday morning. Wind flows are expected to continue
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Speaker 1: blowing smoke of varying intensity into the Northeast and mid
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Speaker 1: Atlantic through Friday, before a brief shift in winds on
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Speaker 1: Saturday may blow some of the smoke away. This smoke
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Speaker 1: was billowing from a dozen large and out of control
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Speaker 1: wildfires burning in western Ontario. The largest one had grown
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Speaker 1: to more than one hundred and thirty thousand acres late Tuesday.
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Speaker 1: It was located in Wabakimi Provincial Provincial Park, about one
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Speaker 1: hundred and thirty five miles north of the northern shores
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Speaker 1: of Lake Superior. Meanwhile, several large wildfires in Minnesota were
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Speaker 1: also contributing to the smoke plumes. The two largest fires
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Speaker 1: there were called the Thumb Fire and the bare Trap Fire,
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Speaker 1: burning through fourteen thousand, five hundred and thirteen thousand, five
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Speaker 1: hundred acres, respectively. These fires, which have prompted evacuations and
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Speaker 1: closures of wilderness areas, were discovered on July seventh, the
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Speaker 1: day after a large thunderstorm complex produced significant amounts of
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Speaker 1: lightning across Minnesota. On Sunday, Minnesota Governor Tim Walls declared
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Speaker 1: a peacetime emergency and mobilized the National Guard to assist
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Speaker 1: with the wildfire response quote. This emergency declaration allows for
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Speaker 1: the mobilization of additional resources necessary to protect lives, prevent damage,
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Speaker 1: and help the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and our
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Speaker 1: local communities respond. He said. Dry weather is expected in
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Speaker 1: the areas where these fires are burning on Wednesday and Thursday,
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Speaker 1: although scattered rain and thunderstorms are possible on Friday. For
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Speaker 1: a time, New York looked more like Mars as the
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Speaker 1: skies turned a tinge of orange. Air quality there reached
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Speaker 1: the most hazardous level on record, peaking at a value
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Speaker 1: of four to sixty five. At this time, current forecasts
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Speaker 1: do not indicate a repeat of twenty twenty three conditions,
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Speaker 1: rote New York City Emergency Management, while adding that the
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Speaker 1: arrival of the smoke would coincide with high heat on Wednesday,
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Speaker 1: creating simultaneous environmental health challenges. To protect the health of
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Speaker 1: New Yorkers, especially those at greatest risk, Free kN ninety
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Speaker 1: five masks are available at public library branches across the
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Speaker 1: five boroughs, The statement read, this time, the highest and
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Speaker 1: most dangerous smoke concentrations may end up occurring in eastern Minnesota,
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Speaker 1: northern Wisconsin, Michigan, and western New York, which are close
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Speaker 1: to the fires. And then we'll turn to vox for
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Speaker 1: an article about renewable energy, and the headline reads, this
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Speaker 1: renewable energy source is actually terrible for the planet day
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Speaker 1: to July fourteenth. The modern soybee is one of the
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Speaker 1: world's miracle technologies, capable of cheaply, efficiently, and healthfully supplying
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Speaker 1: protein and other nutrients to billions of people, But unfortunately
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Speaker 1: we've mostly chosen to squander it on the most destructive
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Speaker 1: purposes possible. Soy is America's second most widely cultivated crop,
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Speaker 1: occupying a land area equivalent to more than four percent
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Speaker 1: of the continental US. That's not because we become a
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Speaker 1: nation of tofu obsessives. Rather, American soy production has expanded
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Speaker 1: substantially in recent decades, in part because the US government
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Speaker 1: effectively mandates funneling it into fuel tanks. The other major
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Speaker 1: market for American soil, meanwhile, is feed for factory farmed animals.
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Speaker 1: For the past twenty years, the US Renewable Fuel Standard
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Speaker 1: RFS has required that biofuels fuels made from crops and
10:16
Speaker 1: other biological materials like animal waste, be mixed into the
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Speaker 1: national fuel supply. In practice, it's dominated by corn ethanol
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Speaker 1: that goes into passenger car tanks and biomass based diesel
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Speaker 1: comprised in large part of soybean oil used to power trucks, tractors,
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Speaker 1: and buses, and last month the Environmental Protection Agencies twenty
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Speaker 1: twenty six and twenty seven rules for the Renewable Fuel
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Speaker 1: Standard took effect turbocharging that system, with an unprecedented nearly
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Speaker 1: seventy percent increase in the biomass based diesel mandate relative
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Speaker 1: to the twenty twenty five baseline. Ostensibly, part of the
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Speaker 1: point of the Renewable Fuel Standard is to reduce greenhouse
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Speaker 1: gas emissions by replacing some of our fossil fuels with renewable,
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Speaker 1: less carbon intensive ones. So it might come as a
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Speaker 1: surprise that the Trump administration, which has been gleefully canceling
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Speaker 1: anything having to do with green energy and climate policy,
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Speaker 1: is expanding the program. But the RFS as currently designed
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Speaker 1: does not benefit the climate. It actually probably harms it.
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Speaker 1: Few experts outside the powerful agrarian lobby defend the Renewable
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Speaker 1: Fuel Standard in its current crop heavy form as sound
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Speaker 1: policy anymore. It survives now mostly due to a guarantee
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Speaker 1: of a market to coin corn and soy growers. These
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Speaker 1: are industries that President Donald Trump is particularly keen to
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Speaker 1: please after angering farmers with his trade war last year
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Speaker 1: and the disruptions to global trade, including fertilizer supplies from
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Speaker 1: the war in Iran. The soy industry has hailed the
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Speaker 1: program's latest massive increase in the biomass based diesel quota,
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Speaker 1: but it will likely come at the cost of more
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Speaker 1: ecological damage than the fuels it's meant to replace. The
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Speaker 1: first wave of interest in modern biofuels came during the
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Speaker 1: nineteen seventies energy crisis, as the US sought to reduce
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Speaker 1: its dependence on foreign oil, but it wasn't until the
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Speaker 1: mid two thousands, when the RFS was devised, that they
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Speaker 1: became a routine part of nearly every American strip to
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Speaker 1: the gas pump. At the time, the thinking was that
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Speaker 1: biofuels were less damaging to the climate than petroleum fuel,
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Speaker 1: because at least growing corn and soybeans draws some carbon
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Speaker 1: out of the air via photosynthesis, while extracting and burning
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Speaker 1: oil only releases it. But that reasoning has been most
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Speaker 1: discredited by a large body of research finding that biofuels
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Speaker 1: made with food crops are just as bad and perhaps
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Speaker 1: even worse for the climate than conventional fossil fuels. The
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Speaker 1: main reason for this is land use change, a concept
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Speaker 1: that is more exciting than it sounds because it refers,
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Speaker 1: in this case, to the destruction of our planets remaining
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Speaker 1: wild lands. When the government suddenly mandates that billions of
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Speaker 1: gallons of biofuel be added to gas pumps nationwide, the
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Speaker 1: crops for that fuel must, to state the obvious, be
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Speaker 1: grown somewhere. One widely cited study of the environmental impacts
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Speaker 1: of the Renewable Fuel Standard found that between two thousand
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Speaker 1: and eight and twenty sixteen, the program caused the conversion
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Speaker 1: of about four point four five million acres of natural
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Speaker 1: and semi natural areas into cropland in the US. In
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Speaker 1: any time wild areas are cleared for agriculture, a substantial
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Speaker 1: amount of greenhouse gases are emitted from the raising of
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Speaker 1: existing vegetation and disturbance of carbon rich soils. Whatever carbon
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Speaker 1: sequestration results from growing crops does not make up for
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Speaker 1: these impacts, nor for the lost carbon storing capacity of
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Speaker 1: the pre existing eco system. As a result, the study found,
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Speaker 1: for example, quote the carbon intensity of corn ethanol produced
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Speaker 1: under the RFS is no less than gasoline and likely
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Speaker 1: at least twenty four percent higher. Meanwhile, although the soy
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Speaker 1: and corn used in US biofuels are overwhelmingly American grown,
14:43
Speaker 1: the renewable fuel standards impacts don't stop at our borders.
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Speaker 1: Crop based diesel mandates, in particular, driven by the RFS
14:51
Speaker 1: and similar policies in other countries, have created a huge
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Speaker 1: new source of demand for vegetable oils on top of
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Speaker 1: what's already needed for food. As of twenty twenty three,
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Speaker 1: about seventeen percent of global vegetable oil is diverted to
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Speaker 1: diesel production that has had devastating impacts on wi wildlands abroad,
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Speaker 1: especially the world's remaining tropical forests. It works like this.
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Speaker 1: When US policy requires that massive amounts of crop based
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Speaker 1: diesel be added to our fuel supply, the market price
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Speaker 1: of soybean oil rises around the world. The prices of
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Speaker 1: other widely used vegetable oils sunflower, canola, and palm rise
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Speaker 1: in tandem because few food manufacturers use them interchangeably with
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Speaker 1: soybean oil in a massive range of packaged products like salad, dressing, oreos, crackers,
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Speaker 1: and others. Higher prices signal to farmers around the globe
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Speaker 1: to grow more vegetable oil crops. That can mean more
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Speaker 1: soybean acreage in the South American Amazon, more canola or
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Speaker 1: sunflower fields elsewhere, and more oil palm plantations in Southeast Asia,
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Speaker 1: where agricultural expansion into tropical forests and peatlands is especially destructive.
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Speaker 1: The upshot is that using crops for fuel expands the
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Speaker 1: world's total crop land, pushing agriculture into forests, grasslands, and
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Speaker 1: other wild areas, a mechanism known as indirect land use change.
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Speaker 1: The more American soybean oil goes into fuel tanks, the
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Speaker 1: more food companies can and will simply replace it with
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Speaker 1: palm oil. A recent working paper by a group of
16:35
Speaker 1: University of California agricultural economists detailed how global demand for
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Speaker 1: biomass based diesel has accelerated deforestation in Southeast Asia. Between
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Speaker 1: two thousand and two and twenty eighteen, they found about
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Speaker 1: four point two million acres of forest land in Indonesia
16:54
Speaker 1: and Malaysia were converted to palm oil plantations as a
16:58
Speaker 1: result of global vegetable oil based diesel demand. About twenty
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Speaker 1: percent of all forest to oil palm conversion in the
17:07
Speaker 1: region during that period. Accounting for these deforestation impacts, the
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Speaker 1: authors found makes vegetable oil based diesel about twenty two
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Speaker 1: to fifty two percent higher in greenhouse gas emissions than
17:21
Speaker 1: petroleum diesel, and that does not include the impacts of
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Speaker 1: land use changes caused by biodiesel anywhere else in the world.
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Speaker 1: Agricultural economist Richard Sexton, one of the authors of that study,
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Speaker 1: told me in an interview last year, quote, we are
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Speaker 1: deforesting Indonesia and Malaysia due to our biofuel policies, and
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Speaker 1: of course these forests are much more than carbon reservoirs.
17:46
Speaker 1: They are also the home of critically endangered orangutans and
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Speaker 1: countless other species that live nowhere else on Earth. All
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Speaker 1: of this will be made worse by the new RFS mandates,
17:57
Speaker 1: which are projected to drive by far are the largest
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Speaker 1: increase in soy based diesel use in the program's history.
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Speaker 1: There is another important consequence of biofuels mandates. By diverting
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Speaker 1: valuable crops into the fuel supply, they have put upward
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Speaker 1: pressure on global food prices, especially squeezing the world's poor,
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Speaker 1: who spend a very large share of their household incomes
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Speaker 1: on food there's a bigger lesson here. Support for biofuels
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Speaker 1: mandates in the US, like support for policies that favor
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Speaker 1: farmers more generally, is a bipartisan affair shielded by a
18:35
Speaker 1: quote force field of agro political influence in quote, as
18:40
Speaker 1: journalist Michael Grunwald phrased it in his book we are
18:44
Speaker 1: eating the Earth. Surely part of the reason that it's
18:47
Speaker 1: been possible for the renewable fuel standard to gate by
18:51
Speaker 1: for so long is it Unlike fossil fuels, farming seems
18:55
Speaker 1: natural and virtuous, But all farms, as Grunwald puts it,
18:59
Speaker 1: are quote a kind of environmental crime scene, responsible for
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Speaker 1: the devastation of the ecosystems that came before them. Biofuels
19:09
Speaker 1: mandates may now be too politically entrenched to disappear anytime soon,
19:14
Speaker 1: but it is possible, at a minimum, to limit further acceleration.
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Speaker 1: The corn ethanol mandate has remained roughly flat for over
19:22
Speaker 1: a decade, and the EPA could certainly change its rules
19:25
Speaker 1: to prevent the continued proliferation of soy based diesel. In
19:30
Speaker 1: the long term, the transition toward electric vehicles may finally
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Speaker 1: render crop based biofuels obsolete for road transportation. At least
19:39
Speaker 1: aviation is a different story. But in the meantime, the
19:42
Speaker 1: least we can do is to stop expanding them. Will
19:48
Speaker 1: now turn to Time magazine. They have an article its
19:51
Speaker 1: headlined A rising tide, A sinking town. Don't see a
19:57
Speaker 1: date on this article. Lovey Miller doesn't remember a time
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Speaker 1: when floods weren't a part of life in Scranton, North Carolina.
20:07
Speaker 1: A native North Carolinian, Miller left the area after high school,
20:11
Speaker 1: but when she moved back home in two thousand and nine,
20:13
Speaker 1: she quickly realized that the floods were nothing like the
20:15
Speaker 1: interludes she remembered experiencing as a child, legs dangling over
20:20
Speaker 1: the water as it lapped at the porch, a close
20:24
Speaker 1: enough approximation to a swimming pool. So every year when
20:27
Speaker 1: the news brought warnings of a summer storm, she would
20:30
Speaker 1: pack her bags and evacuate to higher ground. But when
20:33
Speaker 1: Hurricane Irene hit in August to twenty eleven, she decided
20:37
Speaker 1: to stay. Quote. I just wanted to see what happens,
20:41
Speaker 1: Miller says. You could not see the fence. She reports,
20:44
Speaker 1: the water was over the knob of the garage door.
20:46
Speaker 1: It was like I'm sitting in the middle of an
20:48
Speaker 1: ocean that may be apt. Rising sea levels have put
20:55
Speaker 1: this rural, historically black community on the front lines of
20:58
Speaker 1: the climate crisis. Scranton lies in a low lying county
21:02
Speaker 1: defined by waterways, on a coast where seas are expected
21:05
Speaker 1: to rise by ten to twelve inches by twenty fifty.
21:10
Speaker 1: The waters on the US Southeast and Gulf coasts are
21:12
Speaker 1: among the fastest rising in the US, reaching record breaking
21:16
Speaker 1: rates of half an inch per year since twenty ten.
21:20
Speaker 1: On North Carolina's northeastern coast, where Scranton is located, sea
21:24
Speaker 1: levels have risen about two inches per decade since nineteen
21:27
Speaker 1: seventy eight, and the impacts are already being felt. Scranton
21:32
Speaker 1: often experiences quote sunny day flooding when high tides cause
21:38
Speaker 1: water to spill over onto land, closing down roads and
21:42
Speaker 1: flooding homes with increasing frequency. When hurricane season arrives, the
21:46
Speaker 1: town sometimes sees flooding even when it's not in the
21:49
Speaker 1: path of a storm. Photographer Cornell Watson has been visiting
21:53
Speaker 1: Scranton since twenty twenty two to document how flooding is
21:57
Speaker 1: being felt there. Quote. We don't suddenly go from dry
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Speaker 1: land to underwater overnight, says Miyuki Heino, associate professor in
22:06
Speaker 1: the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University
22:08
Speaker 1: of North Carolina, who has studied the impact of sea
22:11
Speaker 1: level rise in North Carolina. Quote the way that this
22:14
Speaker 1: happens is that little by little, over time, the water
22:17
Speaker 1: level rises, and in this slow, pernicious, hard to see way,
22:22
Speaker 1: it creeps up on you and all of a sudden,
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Speaker 1: you're flooding ten days a year, then thirty days a year,
22:27
Speaker 1: than fifty days a year. Quote. National adaptation measures tend
22:32
Speaker 1: to focus on large economic hubs like New York City
22:35
Speaker 1: and Miami. Quote. A lot of the major flood risk
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Speaker 1: reduction projects have largely been federally funded and been in
22:42
Speaker 1: metropolitan coastal areas, says Heino. For a lot of the
22:45
Speaker 1: rest of the country that doesn't have that level of
22:48
Speaker 1: concentrated urban development, it's a really different picture. Quote. In
22:53
Speaker 1: towns like Scranton, scant federal funds mean many people have
22:57
Speaker 1: to take on the costs themselves. Eilean Howard, who saw
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Speaker 1: three feet of water enter his home during Hurricane Floyd
23:04
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen, hasn't been able to raise his home
23:07
Speaker 1: off the ground and has made home repairs himself. The
23:11
Speaker 1: vulnerabilities compound. Studies have found that those living in poverty
23:15
Speaker 1: are more likely to live in flood prone areas, and
23:18
Speaker 1: rural areas facing population decline often have fewer resources to
23:23
Speaker 1: devote toward climate resilient infrastructure and disaster preparedness. Scranton's population
23:30
Speaker 1: is aging and dwindling, with many younger residents leaving to
23:34
Speaker 1: make a life elsewhere. Quote they go to other places
23:37
Speaker 1: because there's no work here, says an man who has
23:40
Speaker 1: little immediate family left in Scranton. Many residents, though, won't
23:44
Speaker 1: let the floods drive them away. If anything, it's something
23:47
Speaker 1: they're resigned to. Quote when water starts coming in, it
23:51
Speaker 1: gives me a headache, says Gretchen Davis, who lost her
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Speaker 1: home because of flooding and Hurricane Florence in twenty eighteen.
23:58
Speaker 1: I've been in Scranton all my life. I was born
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Speaker 1: in it, and I guess I'll die in it now.
24:10
Speaker 1: From BBC Wildlife. Their abdomens are swollen with liquid fat.
24:16
Speaker 1: The irresistible feast drawing grizzly bears to Montana's mountaintops. This
24:22
Speaker 1: is day of July fifteenth. In Montana's Glacier National Park.
24:27
Speaker 1: One particular critter plays a vital role in the grizzlies'
24:30
Speaker 1: annual bid to fatten up before their long winter slumber.
24:34
Speaker 1: Army cutworm moths. After hatching on the Great Plains in spring,
24:39
Speaker 1: these two and a half centimeter long alpine insects leave
24:43
Speaker 1: the heat of the valley floor for the cooler upper
24:45
Speaker 1: slopes of the park, where they congregate in huge numbers.
24:49
Speaker 1: Packed with calories. They are a feast the bears can't resist.
24:53
Speaker 1: As autumn sets in any surviving moths make their way
24:56
Speaker 1: back to the valley to mate and lay eggs, and
24:58
Speaker 1: so the cycle begins once more. But the important grizzly
25:02
Speaker 1: foraging sites high up in the mountains only occur in
25:06
Speaker 1: three tenths of a percent of Glacier's land. In a
25:09
Speaker 1: new study published in the journal Biological Conservation, researchers from
25:14
Speaker 1: Washington State University have mapped these sites. The teams say
25:18
Speaker 1: their work offers park managers a tool for protecting these
25:21
Speaker 1: vital habitats as recreation in the mountains grows. Quote. The
25:27
Speaker 1: moths are full of fat, and they're also quite nourishing
25:30
Speaker 1: in protein so they satisfy two macro nutrients of a
25:34
Speaker 1: grizzly bear's diet, like few natural food resources do, says
25:38
Speaker 1: lead author Eric Peterson from Washington State, their abdomens are
25:43
Speaker 1: swollen with liquid fat in quote. Grizzly bears are relatively
25:48
Speaker 1: abundant in Glacier, but with roughly three million people visiting
25:51
Speaker 1: the park every year, encounters between the two animals are inevitable.
25:55
Speaker 1: This can distract the bears from foraging the high calorie moths. Quote.
26:01
Speaker 1: There are moth sites in Glacier where there are waves
26:04
Speaker 1: of climbing groups scrambling by each day. On a given day,
26:08
Speaker 1: there may be upwards of twenty bears foraging for moths
26:11
Speaker 1: at major sites. If a grizzly bear is having to
26:15
Speaker 1: watch people pass by, whether it's alarmed or habituated to people,
26:19
Speaker 1: it's there to eat calories, not to watch us. End quote.
26:25
Speaker 1: Locating the grizzly foraging sites wasn't easy. The team spent
26:29
Speaker 1: three years conducting ground surveys of potential moth habitat before
26:33
Speaker 1: using helicopters to record bear activity. Quote. The effort involved
26:38
Speaker 1: in collecting this data cannot be overemphasized, says co author
26:41
Speaker 1: Daniel Thornton climbing up to Talus slopes to survey for
26:46
Speaker 1: moths across glacier with a team of technicians going up
26:49
Speaker 1: in helicopters to search for bears, all happening in a
26:53
Speaker 1: flagship national park. End quote. The team says their findings
26:58
Speaker 1: can help park managers develop access management strategies to limit
27:04
Speaker 1: recreational impacts on moth eating grizzlies. Now here's an article
27:12
Speaker 1: from Popular Science. Underwater Research Lab installed in the Florida Keys,
27:17
Speaker 1: a school bus sized habitat anchored fifty six feet underwater
27:21
Speaker 1: in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary is ready to
27:25
Speaker 1: open its hatch for visitors. Developed by the marine engineering
27:28
Speaker 1: company Deep, the Vanguard system is the first open ocean
27:33
Speaker 1: subsea facility deployed in the United States in forty years.
27:37
Speaker 1: Once cleared for hosting duties, Vanguard will house as many
27:40
Speaker 1: as four aquanauts at a time as they monitor marine life,
27:45
Speaker 1: restore coral reefs, study climate changes impacts, and even train
27:50
Speaker 1: for extreme environments. Successful deployment gets us closer to enabling
27:55
Speaker 1: a continuous human presence in the ocean and is a
27:58
Speaker 1: major step forward in das's mission to make humans aquatic,
28:02
Speaker 1: says Deep chief Technology Officer Norman Smith. Well, that's offered
28:08
Speaker 1: today's Diary of Science and Nature. Your reader was Kelly Taylor.
28:11
Speaker 1: Now stay tuned for further programming on RADIOI