Transcript

12.18.25 · Science Show KY

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Speaker 1: Hello, This is Kelly Taylor, and I'll be your host
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for radioize Diary of Science and Nature. We'll have articles
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on the topics of science and nature. But first a
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reminder that RADIOI is a reading service intended for people
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who are blind or have other disabilities that make it
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difficult to read printed material. First up, we have an
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article from Scientific American dated December sixteenth. The headline is
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these orcas are on the brink, and so is the
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science that could save them. This is written by Kelsoe Harper.
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Like many people who visit San Juan Island, I came
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here for the orcas. This little patch of forest and
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farmland off the coast of Washington State is one of
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the best places in the world to encounter them. But
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you can't schedule an orchest sighting. So on a sunny
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July day, I was killing time one during a lush
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meadow when a bolt of adrenaline struck. I had missed
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three calls from Deborah Giles, a researcher at the Sea
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Dock Society, a marine science nonprofit. The Southern Residents had
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been spotted nearby for the first time in months. I
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had forty minutes to meet her. On the far side
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of the island. The Southern resident Orcas have lived off
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the coast of the Pacific Northwest for thousands of years.
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They don't associate with any of the estimated fifty thousand
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other orcas living around the world, even those who share
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the same home waters. They have their own language, customs,
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and culture, and they are the most studied population of
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orcas on Earth. But because of human encroachment on the
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shores and waters of their territory, they are in dire trouble.
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I arrived at Giles's mooring just moments before she did.
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She lives on whale time, meaning she will drop anything
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to get on the water. With Southern residents the focus
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of her research. She told me that she hasn't taken
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a vacation away from San Juan Island in years. It's
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just not relaxing. What if the Southern residents appear while
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she's gone. Come on, pup, let's go, Giles called urging
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a little brown and white dog down the metal dock.
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The pup, named Eba, appeared immune to being rushed and
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trotted behind at the farthest extent of her leash, tongue lolling,
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black eyes squinting in the afternoon sun. As Giles climbed
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into a small motor boat and took her place behind
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the wheel. Her husband and research partner, Jim Rephold, lifted
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Eba onto the bow, placing her on a carpeted platform
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that he builds especially for her. Giles's research assistant, Aisha Rashid,
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handed everyone life vests and strapped a peach one around Eba.
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I hunkered down in the back near the boat's onboard
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wet lab, a large metal box that holds as sooner infuge,
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various vials, and other research equipment. We sped off through
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Harrow Strait on the western side of the island. The
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Southern residents used to spend so much time swimming up
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and down this channel that the locals took to calling
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it the routine, calling the routine the West Side Shuffle.
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The whales would use the strait's steep underwater canyon to
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corner their preferred cuisine, big fatty chinook salmon. But as
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chinook populations have declined, so have Southern resident sightings near
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the island. Over the past century, the world around these
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whales has changed dramatically. Metropolitan centers bloomed on their coastlines,
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and their core habitat transformed into a bustling waterway. The
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Salish Sea grew toxic from pollutants, and the fish the
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orc has evolved to hunt with deadly precision became scarce.
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In a single whales lifetime, humans have put the Southern
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residence on a path toward extinction. Giles and other scientists
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have devoted their careers to understanding and reversing the decline
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of this ancient population. By building out a picture of
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the whales health, habits, and diet. Researchers are deciphering the
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many ways humans impact their lives and guiding conservation actions
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that may mean life or death for the orcas. But
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the research itself is now at risk too. Actions by
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the Trump administration threatened to stall, diminish, or stop a
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swath of conservation studies at a crucial juncture for Southern
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residents and for other populations that hang by a human
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made thread. The science is endangered now. Giles said, just
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like the whales, orcas, like humans, are cosmopolitan animals. We
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live on every continent. Orcas live in every ocean, much
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like us. The whales have adapted to environments from the
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they see Antarctic to the balmy Gulf of California. By
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being smart social creatures, they pass down knowledge about where
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to forage and how to hunt. They share food, and
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collectively care for their young. They even have their own
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cultural trends. In nineteen eighties, as human teens donned parachute
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pants and legwarmers, Southern resident adolescents took to wearing dead
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salmon hats on their heads. With big, wrinkly brains and
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high levels of intelligence, orcas seem likely to have complex
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internal lives.
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Speaker 2: Quote they're clearly very smart animals.
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Speaker 1: They're just different from us, says Amy Van Seese and Assist,
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a professor at the University of Washington who studies orcas
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and other cetaceans.
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Speaker 2: Quote.
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Speaker 1: Killer whales don't write books, but killer whales can echo locate.
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Speaker 2: Can you echo locate en? Quote.
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Speaker 1: In twenty eighteen, a Southern Resident whale named Tahaliqua made
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headlines for carrying her deceased newborn for seventeen days in
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what became known as a tour of grief. The mother
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traveled nearly one thousand miles with her baby draped over
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her forehead or held gingerly in her mouth. In January
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twenty twenty five, when another calf died, Telequo repeated the ritual. Also,
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like us, orcas are deeply familial creatures. Resident killerwell offspring
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stay with their mothers for their entire lives, forming a
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nearly inseparable family group called a matriline. A handful of
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matrilines together form a pod, pods or led by older
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females who can live for a century, more than twice
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as long as most males. The Southern residents comprise three pods, J, K,
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and L. Historically, the pods spent much of April through
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October in the Puget Sound and near the San Juan Islands,
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often gave gathering as a superpod. In colder months, the
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pods tend to split up and spend more time on
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the outer coasts of Washington State, Oregon, and even California.
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No matter how far apart, though, the pods are tied
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together by their shared language, diet, habits, and behaviors, a
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culture distinct from that of any other population. Humans and
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killer whales share a long, complicated history. Indigenous communities of
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the Pacific Northwest lived peacefully alongside orches for thousands of years.
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Each tribe has its own relationship with the animals, whom
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they generally view as sacred, often as guardians of the
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sea or as family members under the waves. But settlers
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who arrived in the eighteen hundreds took a different view.
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Orcs became feared and reviled as a source of competition
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for fissures, a vermin species to be avoided or, better
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yet exterminated. Then, in nineteen sixty five, the world world's
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first captive performing orca, Namou, opened hearts and wallets at
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the Seattle Marine Aquarium. The whales surprisingly gentle nature. He
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even let his captor, ted Griffin, ride on his back.
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Shocked and enraptured onlookers. Soon aquariums around the globe began
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putting in orders for their very own killer whale, and
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over the next decade, more than fifty orcas were captured
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from the Salish Sea or killed in the process. Most
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of these whales were Southern residents. By the time the
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practice ended in the mid nineteen seventies, the population had
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shrunk to just seventy one whales. Scientists initially had hope
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that the Southern residents would recover their numbers rebounded to
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ninety eight whales by the mid nineteen nineties. Then all
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of a sudden, we started to see this decline, says
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Kim Parsons, supervisory research biologist at the time. Part since
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was studying the Southern Residence as an undergraduate and could
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recognize every individual. Over the course of six years, a
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fifth of Southern residents died, including Parsons' favorite whale j III.
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Speaker 2: Quote.
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Speaker 1: He had this really cool dorsal fin. Parson says, it
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almost looked like it was on backward. The precipitous decline
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couldn't be explained by the generational losses of the captive
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era alone. What was going on with the Southern residents.
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After millennia of relative quiet, the Salish Sea is now
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one of the busiest waterways in North America. Around nine
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million people live in the surrounding drainage basin, meaning ample urban,
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industrial and agricultural runoff has made its way into the water.
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When researchers began digging into the Southern Residence decline, they
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found an alphabet soup of toxic chemicals in the whale's blubber,
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polychlorinated by phenyls PCBs polybrominated diphenyl ethers PBDEs, dichloro diphenol, trichloroethane,
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or need et. Pollutants accumulate in the flesh of animals
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at every level of the food chain, but they get
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concentrated at higher levels, and orcas sit at the very top.
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But this couldn't have been the full story because neighboring
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orcas that share much of the same habitat didn't experience
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the same decline. These other whales, known as transients also
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called Bigs killer whales after pioneering orca researcher Michael Bigg.
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They eat mammals which are a higher level, which are
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a level higher on the food chain than the fish
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eaten by residents, so they tend to accumulate even more pollutants.
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The key difference transient orcus had plenty to eat Southern
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residents did not transience favor prey such as seals, Sea lions,
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and porpoises have proliferated since the Marine Mammal Protection Act
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of nineteen seventy two made hunting them illegal, but a
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combination of river damming, habitat destruction, over fishing, and pollution
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has caused numbers of the Southern residents preferred prey chinook
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salmon to plummet Since the nineteen eighties, eight populations of
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chinook made their way onto the Endangered and Threatened Species
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list before the Southern residents joined them in two thousand
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and five. In her early research, Giles found that the
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Southern residence lack of prey is compounded by the nearly
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constant disturbance the orca's experience from boats in and near
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the Salish Sea. The jetlike sounds of container ship engines
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can reverberate for miles, and many boat engines emit noise
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in the same frequency range that the whales used to communicate.
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In two thousand and eight, Giles helped to develop an
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acoustic device that she attached to the backs of orcas
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within suction cups, allowing her to eavesdrop on the whales
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as they hunted. She found that in noisy waters, females
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would just say screw it, I'm not even going to
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try to forage.
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Speaker 2: She says.
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Speaker 1: Males will try but miss because if vessel noise is
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too loud, it masks the whale's ability to echo, locate
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and find food. The northern resident killer whales provide another comparison.
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They spend more time in quieter, less polluted waters off
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the coast of British Columbia, and their numbers have doubled
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since the capture era. Today, seventy four Northern or Southern
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residents remain. Decades of research have identified these three factors pollution,
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vessel disturbance, and lack of food as central to the
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decline of the Southern residence. But each of these evolving
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threats is a universe unto itself, with countless variables and unknowns. Now,
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we have an article from Popular Mechanics China planted seventy
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eight billion new trees and seriously messed up its water cycle,
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written by Darren Orf from December twelfth. It's no secret
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that China is particularly adept at building things. The world's
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largest dam in China, largest high speed rail network, that
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would be China, largest wind farm, China, solar array Argentina.
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Really Nope, it's also china largest ancient landmark.
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Speaker 2: You get the picture.
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Speaker 1: Alongside all of that building, China has also been growing.
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Taking inspiration from that last infrastructure accolade, China began growing
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the Three North Shelter Belt or the Great Green Wall
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in nineteen seventy eight as an effort to combat soil
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erosion and decrease desert storms. The project, the country's state
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sponsored media announced, was finally complete as of last year.
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According to Reuter's, China grew one hundred and sixteen thousand
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square miles of trees, increasing the country's total forest coverage
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from ten percent in nineteen forty nine to roughly twenty
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five percent in twenty twenty four. But a new study
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published in the journal Earth's Future shows that all those
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additional trees, roughly seventy eight billion, come with some unforeseen
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consequences for China's water distribution. Scientists from Tianjin University, China's
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Agricultural University in Beijing, and Utrecht University in the Netherlands
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found that between two thousand and one and twenty twenty,
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increased vegetation reduced water resources in both the Eastern Monsoon
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region and the Northwestern arid region. That's a big deal
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considering these areas make up roughly seventy four percent of
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China's total land area. According to the study, re greening
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efforts like the Great Green Wall, along with other tree
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planting initiatives so such as Grain for Green Program and
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the Natural Forest Protection Program, both started in nineteen ninety nine,
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have increased evapo transpiration, which is a portmanteau of evaporation
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and transpiration, the process through which plants release water vapor
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through tiny pores known as stomata. These shifts caused changes
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in precipitation, directing more moisture to the Tibetan Plateau, which
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saw an increase in water availability, the authors wrote. In contrast,
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eastern and northwestern China experienced a decrease in water availability,
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with the northwest losing the most due to substantial moisture
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moving to the Tibetan Plateau. By studying these rapid land
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use cover changes, the authors also note that certain zone transitions,
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such as grasslands to forests or crop lands to grasslands,
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impacted evappo transporation, precipitation rates, and water availability at varying rates.
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For example, grasslands transformed into forests increased evappo transporation and precipitation,
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but negatively impacted water availability. Unfortunately, China's water availability isn't
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conveniently distributed for its population. According to the study of
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the country's northern regions contain roughly forty six percent of
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its population and more than half of the arable land,
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but only twenty percent of water availability. The authors argue
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that these altered hydrological cycles need to be taken into
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account when planning future reforestation efforts. Quote our findings highlight
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that land cover changes can redistribute water resources between regions.
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The authors wrote, understanding these effects is crucial for planning
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sustainable land and water management in.
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Speaker 2: Now.
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Speaker 1: An article from earth dot com dated December fourteenth, written
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by Jordan Joseph, the headline is new sodium battery promises
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more than five thousand hours of useful life. Engineers in
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Australia have built a sodium battery that keeps working for
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more than five thousand hours in lab tests. It uses
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a solid, plastic like core instead of flammable liquid, which
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makes the whole system much harder to overheat. The prototype,
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developed at the University of Queensland, targets battery banks for
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storing renewable energy on the grid. By swapping scarce lithium
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for common table salt sodium, it promises lower costs and
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less supply chain stress for many countries. Sodium sits just
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below lithium on the periodic table, but it is more
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abundant and easier to source. Several research groups now argue
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that sodium based batteries could cut material costs for large
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storage projects. The work was led by doctor Chang Jong
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at the University of Queensland's Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology.
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His research focuses on solid state batteries that pair safer
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electrolytes with low cost metals such as sodium. Traditional sodium
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metal cells use liquid electrolytes that often grow dindrites, tiny
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metal spikes that pierce internal battery layers. These spikes can
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short circuit the cell, waste stored energy, and in worse cases,
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start fires.
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Speaker 2: Inside. Every battery sits.
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Speaker 1: An electrolyte, a material that lets charged ions move between
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the two electrodes. Quote Most batteries use a liquid electrolyte,
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but these liquids are flammable and can overheat, says doctor Jong.
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Solid electrolytes trade that fluid for a solid layer, which
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improves safety and removes the need for heavy packaging. Earlier
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work showed that perfluoro polyether based polymers can support stable
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sodium cycling at high temperature. The problem is that a
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solid must be both strong enough to block growing metal
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and open enough inside for ions to slip through. Many
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candidate materials either crack under stress or slow the ions
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so much that the battery becomes too sluggish for real use.
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The Queensland team tackled that trade off by redesigning the
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electrolyte at the molecular level. Rather than simply swapping one
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salt for another, they wanted a plastic that could flex
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with the electrodes yet maintain organized pathways for sodium movement.
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Deep inside. The new material is a block copolymer, a
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long chain made from two different repeating segments joined together.
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One part of the chain grabs sodium ions while the
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other part stays slippery and fluorinated, so the polymer does
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not burn. When processed correctly, The chains form a body
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centered cubic structure, a three D pattern with connected pockets
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for the ions. These pockets link up into tunnels, so
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sodium ions can move with low resistance without letting filaments
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much through. In full cells using a sodium vanadium phosphate cathode,
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the device kept more than ninety one percent of its
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starting capacity. It maintained that level after a thousand rapid
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charge and discharge cycles at one hundred seventy six degrees fahrenheit.
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Unlike many lithium batteries, sodium metal designs do not need
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cobalt or nickel in their cathodes. That reduces pressure on
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supply chains linked to pollution and labor concerns in certain
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mining regions. For a power grid with solar panels and
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wind turbines, stationary batteries help smooth periods when generation drops.
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Cells that keep high capacity over years can sit in
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container sized packs at substations and soak up electricity. Because
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sodium comes from common sources such as sea water and
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rock salt, countries without lithium reserves can build large battery
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projects that diversity in materials can make the global energy
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system less vulnerable to sudden commodity shocks or export bands.
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Lab tests often run batteries at elevated temperatures to boost
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ion movement, but real devices must perform well at ordinary
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room conditions, and Energy and Environment Science Review notes that
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keeping sodium batteries efficient across wide temperatures remains a key
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barrier to commercialization. Quote This kind of long term performance
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is essential for grid level energy storage said doctor Jeng.
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For the Queensland prototype, the obvious next step is to
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boost its efficiency when it runs its standard indoor temperatures.
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On the material side, the team experimented with several internal
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patterns before settling on the one that carried sodium most smoothly.
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We tested a variety of internal structures to find the
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one that would give us the best battery performance.
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Speaker 2: Ju said.
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Speaker 1: The study is published in the Journal of the American
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Chemical Society. Now turning to Smithsonian, we have a headline
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that reads gas stoves or poisoning Americans by releasing toxic
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fumes associated with asthma and lung cancer, written by Sarah Kuta,
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dated December eleventh. A hidden danger may be lurking in
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your kitchen. Many Americans are breathing in nitrogen dioxide, a
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harmful pollutant that's been clinked with asthma and lung cancer,
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from fumes emitted by their gas stoves. A new study
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published this month in the journal PNAS Nexus suggests that
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gas stoves are the main source of indoor nitrogen dioxide
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pollution in the United States, responsible for more than half
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of some americans total exposure.
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Speaker 2: To the gas. Quote.
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Speaker 1: We've spent billions of dollars cleaning up our air outdoors
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and nothing to clean up our air indoors. Study co
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author Robert Jackson, environmental scientists at Stanford University, says, quote,
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as our air outdoors gets cleaner and cleaner, a higher
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proportion of the pollution we breathe comes from indoor sources
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in quote. Scientists and public health experts have long known
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that nitrogen dioxide is bad for human health. The reddish
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brown gas can irritate airways and worsen or even contribute
23:53
to the development of respiratory diseases like asthma. Children and
23:57
older individuals are particularly sceptible to its effects. Nitrogen dioxide
24:03
is a byproduct of burning fuel, so most emissions come
24:06
from vehicles, power plants, and off road equipment. However, indoors,
24:12
the primary culprit is the gas stove, the household of
24:15
plants that burns natural gas or propane to produce controlled
24:19
flames under individual burners. It's relatively easy to keep tabs
24:23
on outdoor nitrogen dioxide concentrations and estimate their corresponding exposure risks,
24:29
thanks to satellites and ground level stations located across the country.
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By contrast, however, indoor sources are quote neither systematically monitored
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nor estimated in quote. For the study, Jackson and his
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colleagues performed a zip code level estimate of how much
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total nitrogen dioxide communities are exposed to. Information came from
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two databases tracking outdoor nitrogen dioxide concentrations and a building
25:00
energy use database, which helped the team construct characteristics of
25:05
one hundred and thirty three million residential dwellings across the
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country along with their home appliances.
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Speaker 2: Among individuals who use.
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Speaker 1: Gas stoves, the appliances are responsible for roughly a quarter
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of their overall nitrogen dioxide exposure on average. For those
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who cook more frequently or for longer durations, gas stoves
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can be responsible for as much as fifty seven percent
25:29
of their total exposure.
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Speaker 2: Quote.
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Speaker 1: Our research shows that if you use a gas stove,
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you're often breathing as much nitrogen dioxide pollution indoors from
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your stove as you are from all outdoor sources combined,
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says Jackson in a Stanford statement. Individuals who use gas
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stoves are exposed to roughly twenty five percent more total
25:54
residential nitrogen dioxide over the long term than those who
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use electric stoves, which do not emit the gas. Total
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exposure tends to be highest in big cities, where people
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often have small living spaces and outdoor levels are also high.
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Switching from a gas to an electric stove would help
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roughly twenty two million Americans dip below the maximum nitrogen
26:17
dioxide exposure levels recommended by the World Health Organization. The
26:22
authors recommend replacing gas stoves with electric models whenever possible.
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Speaker 2: Quote.
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Speaker 1: You would never willingly stand over the tailpipe of your
26:31
car breathing in pollution. Why breathe the same toxins every
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day in your kitchen, says Jackson Dylan Plumber, acting Deputy
26:41
director for Building Electrification for the Sierra Club, a non
26:45
profit environmental organization, agrees. Plumber, who was not involved with
26:49
the research, says, years from now, we will look back
26:53
at the common practice of burning fossil fuels in our
26:55
homes with horror. If swapping stoves is not possible, experts
27:00
have some other tips for reducing nitrogen dioxide exposure.
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Speaker 2: Quote.
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Speaker 1: One thing people could do is to minimize the time
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the stoves are on, says Jamie Allen, toxicologist at Michigan
27:13
State University who was not involved at the research quote.
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Another suggestion would be to increased ventilation, such as by
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turning on the range hood and opening a window. Other
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suggestions by The New York Times as Rachel Wharton include
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using a portable induction countertop unit or electric kitchen gadgets
27:35
like tea kettles, toaster ovens, and slow cookers. Well, that
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would be all for today's Diary of Science and Nature.
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Your reader was Kelly Taylor. Thanks for listening and invite
27:51
you now to stay tuned for further programming on RADIOI