Transcript

2.26.26 · Science Show KY

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Speaker 1: Hello, this is Kelly Taylor. I'll be your reader for
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Radio Wize Diary of Science and Nature. We'll have articles
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related to science and nature, But first a reminder. Radio
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wi is a reading service intended for people who are
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blind or have other disabilities that make it difficult to
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read printed material. From Scientific American, we have an article
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dated February twenty fourth and the headline is horse is
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whinny by making sounds in a unique way not seen
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in other animals. How horses whinny and nay have long
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been a mystery. The sound is quite distinct to any
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other in the animal kingdom, and now scientists think they've
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discovered why horse's whinny by producing sounds at two frequencies,
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much like singing and whistling simultaneously. The findings, which published
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on Monday in Current Byfeology, suggest horses produce sounds at
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two frequencies in two distinct ways. In the larynx or
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voice box, a low frequency sound about two hundred hertz
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is produced by vibrating the vocal cords, just as we
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do while singing. Another high frequency sound at more than
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a thousand herts is produced by whistling within the larynx quote.
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We now finally know how the two fundamental frequencies that
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make up a winnie are produced by horses, says led Briefer,
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an associate professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution
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at the University of Copenhagen and an author on the paper.
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In general, the larger in animal and its larynx is
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the lower the frequency of sound it produces. Smaller critters meanwhile,
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such as mice, produce high frequency whistles, but this study
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suggests that horses are unique in their ability to whistle
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and vibrate their vocal cords at the same time. This
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is going to be a mark paper in terms of
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stimulating research into vocalizations and equides or sorry equids, says
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Sue McDonnell, adjunct Professor of Reproduction and Behavior through Nursity
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of Pennsylvania. The results support a theory that horses may
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have evolved to communicate multiple messages in a single vocalization quote.
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In the past, we found that these two frequencies are
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important for horses, as they convey different messages about the
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horse's own emotions, Briefer said in the statement, we now
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have compelling evidence that they are also produced through distinct mechanisms.
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Next up from Smithsonian Magazine, researchers retrieve the deepest ever
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rock core from beneath Antarctica's ice. It holds clues about
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the Earth's past and future. They did February twentieth. Researchers
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are looking into our planet's past to understand and its future.
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Just like archaeologists investigate layers of dirt for ancient artifacts,
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geologists analyze layers and cores tube shaped samples of earth
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or ice pulled from the ground for clues about bygone
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environmental conditions. Now, a team has recovered a record breaking
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sediment core from beneath Antarctic ice. To do just that,
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researchers working on the sensitivity of the West Antarctic ice
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sheet to two degrees celsius of warming that's the name
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of the project, drilled through one thousand, seven hundred and
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sixteen feet of ice to extract a seven hundred and
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forty eight foot log sediment core below it, making it
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the longest ever retrieved from beneath an ice sheet. The
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rock and mud likely hold a record of the past
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twenty three million years, based on preliminary dating of some
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tiny fossils within which will help researchers understand how the
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planet fared during warmer times in its history and prepare
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for a future influenced by climate change. What we're doing
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here is important and the need for it is urgent.
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We're trying to constrain what's going to happen to almost
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the entire Earth over the coming century, that says Hugh Horgan,
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glaciologists in Zurich, Switzerland. The drilling took place at an
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ice dome called Prairie Ice Rise, hundreds of miles from
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the nearest Antarctic stations. For a statement from the Etch Zurich.
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The site is on the border between the Ross Ice Shelf,
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which floats atop water, and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet,
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which sits on land. If the continental hunk of ice
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were to fully melt, the global sea level would rise
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by roughly thirteen to sixteen feet. Satellite data indicate that
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the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has been losing mass and
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that the depletion is speed, but researchers aren't sure what
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temperature rise might kickstart rapid melting, or how it relates
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to the temperature limit goals of the Paris Agreement and
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the International treaty dedicated to minimizing global warming. Before retrieving
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the record breaking core, researchers primarily relied on geological data
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from next to the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet, underneath ice shelves,
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Sea Ice, and the Ross Sea and Southern Ocean to
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investigate the ice sheet's future. The deep sediments will give
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us critical insights about how the West Antarctic Ice Sheet
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and Ross Ice Shelf are likely to respond to temperatures
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above two degrees celsius. Oregan says in a statement, it
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holds records of time periods when Earth's global average temperatures
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were slightly higher than two degrees above pre industrial levels.
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Now that the core has reached New Zealand, researchers aim
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to find more precise dates. In Tell's Radio New Zealand's
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Kate Newton. Being able to then take that and relate
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it to what the temperature was in the past, what
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global temperatures were in the past, that's really strong evidence
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for what we can expect the ice sheets to do
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in the future, he says. The sediments are already revealing
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secrets within them. The researchers have identified remnants of marine
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organisms that would have needed light to live, hinting that
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at some point in the past the area wasn't covered
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in ice. The small shell fragments in sandy layers are
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in indication it was like a beach. Organ Tell's Nature's
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Veronica Maduna. There must have been open ocean. While researchers
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have already hypothesized that this region previously supported open ocean conditions,
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suggesting the Ross ice Shelf was partially or completely melted
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and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet possibly collapsed. Scientists aren't
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sure about the timeline, so the core might help them
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figure it out. Additionally, sediments should provide some clarity about
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how environmental factors such as the ocean temperatures, may have
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caused the ice sheet to melt long ago. The core
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retrieval came after two previous failed attempts, but the hard
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work is paid off with the remarkable record of Earth's history.
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To unpack quote, it still feels a little bit unreal
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to be honest, Patterson tells Radio New Zealand. I can't
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imagine anything else in my professional life scaling that experience up.
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And now we'll turn to Scientific American. This article from
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February twenty fifth is headlined Baby butterflies keep the beat
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to fool ants into taking care of them. Certain crafty
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caterpillars have an unusual approach to ensuring they live long
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enough to become a butterfly. Each convinces an ant to
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carry it into the ant's nest, providing food and shelter. Now,
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scientists have found that these caterpillars use a surprisingly complex rhythm,
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like a secret knock, to convince the ants to come
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fetch them. That's according to research published on February twenty
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fifth in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences,
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which found that caterpillars can keep a beat called double
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meter that has so far been identified only in a
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couple of primates. That's according to co author Chiara d gregorio,
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who studies animal behavior at the University of Warwick in England.
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That was very exciting, she says d gregorio more recent
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more regularly studies primates than insects, but her focus is
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on how rhythm shapes communication. She expanded to insects when
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colleagues approached her and noted that these caterpillars were somehow
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internally generating vibrations that seemed to mimic the pitch of
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a queen ant. The ants rubbed together hardened parts of
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their abdomen to make their vibrations, but scientists aren't sure
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yet how the caterpillars are accomplishing the feet. The scientists
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wondered whether the caterpillars might have been matching the ants
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rhythm as well, so the researchers headed out to the
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field in northern Italy and collected nests from two groups
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of ants, as well as caterpillars from nine species of
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butterflies that were related to one another but that had
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shown varying degrees of association with ants, Some absolutely requiring
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tending by ants to survive, others were happy to be
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taken in and could manage on their own, and the
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rest had no connection with ants at all. The scientists
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then recorded the vibrations each animal made, amplified to reach
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a human ear. They just sounded like noise, but with
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the help of acoustic analysis software, Di Gregorio and her
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colleagues were able to parse the rhythms created by each insect.
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All the insects that the researchers analyzed were able to
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keep a steady, pulsing beat that scientists call isochrony. Quote,
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we were already shocked when we found really regular metronomic
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isochronous signal, DiGregorio says. We were like, oh, that's very cool.
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But what was even more surprising was that both the
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ants and the caterpillars who required care from them also
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created a much rarer rhythm called double meter, in which
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one beat lasts either twice or half as long as
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the beat that follows it. So far, DiGregorio says, scientists
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have yet to observe double meter in birds, and only
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found it in the vocalizations of a couple species of primate.
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She and her colleagues hope to follow up with more
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experiments on these insects, particularly manipulating caterpillar recordings to understand
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how ants tendency to rescue caterpillars varies with the summons. Overall,
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DiGregorio hopes the finding underscores the role of rhythm in communication. Quote.
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The more we study rhythm, the more we see it
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in so many different animal species. Evolution works in very
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weird and funny ways, she says. And then we'll go
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back to Scientific American. We have an article that's from
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back on January twenty second. The headline is scientists just
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calculated how many microplastics are in our atmosphere. The number
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is absolutely shocking. Microplastics are pervasive, found everywhere on Earth,
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from the Sahara Desert to patches of Arctic sea ice.
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Yet despite these plastic particles ubiquity, scientists have struggled to
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determine exactly how many of them are in our atmosphere. Now,
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a new estimate published in Nature suggests that land sources
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release about six hundred quadrillion microplastic particles into the atmosphere
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every year, about twenty times more than the number of
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particles contributed by oceans. The median concentration of microplastics is
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point zero eight particle per cubic meter over land and
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point zero three particle per cubic meter oversea. The study
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found these estimates are between one hundred and ten thousand
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times lower than previous accountings of atmospheric micro plastics, a
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discrepancy that the researchers behind the new studies say underscores
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the need for better global measures of these pollutants. Quote
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we knew that uncertainties of existing emission estimates were very large,
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says Andreas Stole, senior author of the study. And an
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atmospheric scientists at the University of Vienna quote they are
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even still large after our study, but we could at
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least narrow down the uncertainty range, especially when it comes
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to the importance of land based versus ocean based emissions.
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A microplastic is any plastic particle sized between one micron
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and five millimeters easily swept up by wind and carried
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long distances by water. These tiny moats are also exceedingly
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difficult to detect and almost impossible to remove from the environment.
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Past estimates have focused on accounting for microplastics generated by
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human activity or directly measuring their concentration in the air
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in any given area, but these measures are highly variable.
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Along with the southeastern coast of China, for example, atmospheric
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microplastic estimates have ranged from point zero zero four to
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one hundred ninety particles per cubic meter. To try and
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get a more global estimate, Stolen is Steam compiled two thousand,
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seven hundred eighty two measurements collected at two hundred eighty
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three locations worldwide. The researchers hope the findings will lact
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as a baseline for future studies of global microplastic levels,
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including new measures that will be able to account for
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even smaller particles than they did now. From Smithsonian Magazine,
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we have an article that is headlined what is Artemis two?
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This is dated February twenty Soon, four astronauts will launch
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on a mission to the vicinity of the Moon for
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the first time in over fifty years. The mission, called
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Artemis two, is the second mission and first crude mission
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of NASA's Artemis program. NASA is currently targeting no earlier
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than April for the launch What is Artemis two? The
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ten day Artimists two mission will fly around the Moon
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and is considered a test flight of NASA's exploration ground systems,
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the systems involved in launching and recovery rockets and spacecraft,
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the SLS rocket and the Orion spacecraft. As a follow
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up mission to the uncrewed Artemis I mission in twenty
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twenty two, this crewed mission will allow an asset to
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flight test Orion's life support systems with astronauts on board.
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This is essential as NASA intends to send astronauts on
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longer duration missions as the Artemis program goes on. Artemis
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three is currently planned for thirty days Unlike the Apollo program,
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which launched crews of three, the Artemis program will feature
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a crew of four astronauts Commander Red Wiseman, pilot, Victor Glover,
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mission Specialist Christina Coch and Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen. This
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historic crew features many firsts. Reid Wiseman, Commander is a
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Native Veteran, Navy veteran and pilot who went to space
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for the first time fourteen During that mission, he conducted
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two spacewalks, totaling thirteen hours outside the spacecraft. He recently
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served as chief of NASA's Astronaut Office. Victor Glover, pilot
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is a Navy pilot who took his first trip to
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space in twenty twenty as mission pilot of the SpaceX
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Crew one mission to the International Space Station, during which
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he conducted four spacewalks. Glover will be the first person
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of color to go to the Moon. Christina Coke mission Specialist,
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worked as an electrical engineer at NASA Goddard and JOHNS.
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Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory before becoming a NASA astronaut. She
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launched on an eleven month mission in twenty nineteen, during
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which she conducted six spacewalks. Coke will be the first
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woman to go to the Moon. Jeremy Hanson, mission specialist,
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was a fighter pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force
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before becoming a Canadian Space Agency. Artemist two will be
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his first Spacelight, hence will be the first Canadian to
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go to the Moon. When comparing the Artemis program with
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NASA's first moon landing program, Apollo, the closest analog for
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Artemis two is Apollo eight. Much like Artemis two, Apollo
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was the first mission in the Apollo program, and in fact,
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ever to send humans to the Moon. One major difference
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between Apollo eight and Artemis two, however, is that while
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Apollo eight orbited the Moon, Artemis two will fly around
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the Moon but not enter lunar orbit. Artemist two is
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it anticipated to break Apollo thirteen's record or two hundred
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and forty thousand, six hundred and fifty five miles for the
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farthest distance humans have traveled from Earth. The Artemis two
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Oriyan spacecraft will travel over four thousand miles beyond the
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Moon as it flies a loop around the Moon's far side.
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An Orion spacecraft will transport the Artemis two astronauts to
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the vicinity of the Moon and back. It is capsule
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shaped like Mercury, Gemini and Apollo spacecrafts and seats four astronauts.
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Orion has been in development for over twenty years, originally
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part of an earlier lunar exploration program called Constellation. The
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crew of Artemis two named the Orion spacecraft Integrity to
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honor the trust among the people who are bringing this
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mission to life. The name is also a reference to
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the massive effort to integrate more than three hundred thousand
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individual components into a single spacecraft by teams working across
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the world. The Artemis two mission will launch using the
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SLS or Space Launch System rocket SLS, which launched for
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the first time in November twenty twenty two. During the
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Artemis one mission, can launch astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft
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and cargo into space. This heavy lift launch vehicle was
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developed using a combination of components from the Space Shuttle
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program and new technology. SLS is one of the most
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powerful rockets to ever launch, providing eight point eight million
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pounds of thrust. It is powered by two solid rocket
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boosters and a core stage with four RS twenty five engines.
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Two minutes after launch, the solid rocket boosters will separate
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from the core stage and fall back to Earth, splashing
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into the ocean. While the Space Shuttle solid rocket boosters
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were reusable, sls' is or not and NASA will not
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be recovering these solid rocket boosters from the ocean. The
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core stage will separate from the Orion spacecraft eight minutes
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after launch. This happened shortly after main engine cutoff. The
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core stage will re enter the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean.
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What is Artemis sect the Artemis two's flight path. Flight
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day one, Artemis two will begin to fly around the Earth,
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first in low Earth orbit and then into a high
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elliptical orbit. While flying around the Earth, the crew will
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conduct a twenty three hour checkout of the Orion spacecraft.
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This allows them to test the system while they are
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still close to the Earth in case any unexpected issues arise.
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This will include an opportunity for the crew to pilot
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the spacecraft in manual mode. Flight day two, Orion's main
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engine will conduct a translunar injection burn, which sets Orion
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on its path toward the Moon. This burn also puts
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the spacecraft on its figure eight free return trajectory, which
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means that the Moon's gravity will eventually guide the Orion
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spacecraft back to the Earth even without on board propulsion.
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This provides a safeguard should Orion experience engine failure. Orion
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and its crew continue on their journey towards the Moon
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on days three through five, entering the lunar sphere of
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Influence on day five. On day six, Orion spacecraft integrity
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performs a lunar flyby and conducts both its closest approach
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to the Moon and its furthest distance from Earth. During
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the lunar flyby, the crew will make observations and take
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photos of the far side of the Moon. On flight
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days seven through nine, Orion spacecraft leaves the lunar sphere
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of Influence and begins its journey back to Earth, which
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includes the first two return trajectory correction burns. On day ten,
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Orion performs his final return trajectory correction burn and the
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crew prepares for re entry. Conducting the re entry checklist,
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the Orion crew module and Service Module separate. The Orion
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spacecraft re enters Earth's atmosphere and splashes down in the
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Pacific Ocean with the help of three main parachutes. A
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US Navy ship will recover integrity and the crew welcoming
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the back to Earth. Earth does Artemis two have a
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mission patch? Like the great space missions it came before it,
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Artemis two has an official mission patch that will be
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worn by the crew on the sleeves of their Ryan
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Crew Survival Systems spacesuits. The patch designates the mission AII,
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using the Roman numeral for two to also evoke the
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visual of the word all. It's a common refrain amongst
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the crew and other mission supports staff at NASA that
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this mission is quote an endeavour of discovery that seeks
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to explore for all and by all. Quote. The red
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line that helps form the A and swirls around the
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Moon and Earth is representative of the mission's flight path,
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which includes the spacecraft lying around both our home planet
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and its only natural satellite. The depiction of the Earth
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and the Moon on the path can also be seen
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as an artistic variation on Apollo eight s famous Earth
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Rise photo, linking that historic mission of the nineteen sixties
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to this modern day Moon mission of the twenty twenties.
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Now from Popular Science, elephants are smart, so are their whiskers.
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Dated February the twelfth, an elephant's trunk is a wonder
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of evolution. Gentle yet dexterous. It can pick up solid items,
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keep them, help them communicate, and be a helpful showering
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tool inside a thousand. Whiskers give the large animals a
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very strong sense of touch to compensate for poor eyesight
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and thick skin. They are also more like a cat's
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whiskers and have a design that engineers consider to be
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quote unquote intelligent, according to a study published today in
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the journal Science. To examine how the elephant trunk whiskers work,
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engineers from Max Plunk Institute for Intelligent Systems, neuroscientists from
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Humboldt Versuy of Berlin, and materials scientists at the University
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of Stuttgart in Germany joined forces. They hoped to understand
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how the whiskers are shaped or they are geometry, how
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porous they are, and how soft they are. Initially, the
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team expected that the whiskers would be more similar to
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the tapered whiskers of mice and rats. These rodent whiskers
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have a circular cross section, are completely solid throughout, and
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have approximately uniform stiffness. They used micro ct scanning to
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measure the three D shape of several whiskers and found
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that elephant whiskers are actually quite different from rat whiskers
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and more like the ones found on domestic cats. Elephant
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trunk whiskers are more thick and blade like, have a
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flattened cross section, a hollow base, and several long internal
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channels that look more like the structure of sheep worms
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and horseshoes. Having a more porous build reduces the whiskers
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mass and provides in impact resistance, which helps them eat
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hundreds of pounds of food without damaging their whiskers. Not
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damaging these whiskers is vital since they do not grow back. Additionally,
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the whiskers on domestic cats faces and inside of elephant's
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trunks have stiff bases that transition to soft, rubber like
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tips that work differently than the uniformly stiff whiskers seen
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on mice and rats. The stiffed to soft transition in
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the whiskers is called a functional gradient. It keeps them
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intact and lets them and helps them let the elephant
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determine what it is feeding or feeling sorry about that.
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The team believes that elephant whiskers. Unusual stiffness gradient helps
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them know precisely where an object is when coming in
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coming in contact along each of their one thousand trunk whiskers.
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In other words, the stiffness gradient helps explain how they
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can pick up a brittle tortilla chip without breaking it,
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or precisely pick up a peanut. The team also compared
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the trunk whiskers to elephant body hair. Quote. The hairs
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on the head, body, and tail of Asian elephants are
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stiff from base to tip, which is what we were
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expecting when we found the surprising stiffness gradient of elephant
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trunk whiskers, says Andrew Schulz, co author and postdoctor researcher
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at mox Planck Institute. To better understand how the changing
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stiffness along an elephant's whisker would affect touch sensing, they
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created a physical whisker WAND with a three D printer.
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The WAND had a stiff, dark base and a soft,
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transparent tip and helped the researchers get a sense of
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one in elephant trunk feels through its whiskers. Study co
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author and engineer Katherine Kuchenbecker carried the whisker wand with
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her when walking through hallways, gently hitting columns and railing. Quote.
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I noticed that tapping the railing with different parts of
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the whisker wand felt distinct soft and gentle at the
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tip and sharp and strong at the base. She recounted,
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I don't need to look to know where the contact
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was happening. I could just feel it. After testing the
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whisker wand, they used computational modeling to assess how the
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unique geometry, porosity, and stiffness gradients they had measured affect
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how an elephant's whisker responds when it comes in contact
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with an object. They found that the transition from a
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stiff base to a soft tip makes it easier to
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feel where something is touching along the whisker, allowing the
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elephant to react appropriately and carefully manipulate delicate objects. Quote.
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It's pretty amazing. The stiffness gradient provides a map to
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allow elephants to detect where contact occurs along each whisker,
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Schultz said, quote This property helps them know how close
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or how far their trunk is from an object. All
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baked into the geometry, porosity, and stiffness of the whiskers
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call this natural phenomenon, Embodied Intelligence team hopes that these
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insights can be applied to robotics and other intelligence systems.
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A sensor with an artificial elephant like stiffness gradient could
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help give a future robot more precise information through its
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simple yet intelligent design. Well that's all for today's Diary
28:23
of Science and Nature. Your reader is Kelly Taylor. Now
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stay tuned for further programming on RADIOI