Transcript

7.17.25 · Science Show KY

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Radio Wise Diary of Science and Nature. Your
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reader's Kelly Taylor, and I have some articles on the
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topics of science and nature. But first a reminder that
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radioi is a reading service. It's intended for people who
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are blind or have other disabilities that make it difficult
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to read printed material. Let's start with an article from
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BBC Science Focus magazine. The headline is quote doomsday tsunami
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is ready to strike the US. The Cascadia Subduction Zone,
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a massive fault line stretching from northern California to British Columbia,
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has been eerily quiet for three hundred years. When it
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finally ruptures, it's expected to trigger a colossal earthquakes. They
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could rattle the Pacific Northwest for minutes. Even worse, tsunami
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waves up to thirty meters or one hundred feet high
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will likely crash to the shore, unleashing destruction along the coast.
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But according to a new study published in the Proceedings
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of the National Academies of Science, that will only mark
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the beginning of Cascadia's cataclysm. If a wave the same
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size as Indonesia's two thousand and four Boxing Day Mega
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tsunami wasn't bad enough. The new analysis reveals that a
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land along the coast could drop by more than eight
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feet in a matter of minutes. Quote. We talk about
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climate driven sea level rise, which is occurring at three
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to four millimeters a year, and that does eventually add up,
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says doctor Tina Dura, lead author of the study. But
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here we'll have two meters of sea level rise in minutes.
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Why aren't we talking about that. The Cascadia subduction zone
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marks the boundary where the oceanic Juan de Fuca plate
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is slipping beneath the North American plate. But rather than
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moving smoothly, these plates tend to get stuck, and as
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they lock together, the strain grows over centuries. When it
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finally releases, the result is a powerful earthquake. Cascadia is
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capable of producing quakes of magnitude nine point zero or more,
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with major events thought to strike every four hundred and
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fifty to five hundred years. The last one occurred on
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January twenty sixth, seventeen hundred, and based on geological records
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and contemporary reports, its magnitude was likely between eight point
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seven and nine point two. According to the United States
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National seismic hazard model, there's now a fifteen percent chance
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of a magnitude eight or greater earthquake along the zone's
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margin in the next fifty years. A twenty twenty two
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planning exercise by Federal Emergency Management Agency predicted that such
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a quake could directly cause fifty eight hundred deaths and
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a further eight thousand from the subsequent tsunami. More than
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one hundred thousand people could be injured, and over six
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hundred and eighteen thousand buildings damaged or destroyed, including more
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than two thousand schools and one hundred critical facilities. The
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projected economic cost one hundred and thirty four billion dollars.
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This is going to be a very catastrophic event for
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the US for sure, said Dura. While the earthquake and
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tsunami would be devastating, Dura and her colleagues warned that
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the long term aftermath could be just as damaging and
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is far less understood. By combining geological records of past
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Cascadia quakes with numerical models, the researchers assessed how the
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coastal landscape could be reshaped by subsidence, the sudden sinking
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of land during an earthquake. If a Cascadia quake happened today,
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land at twenty four estuaries from southern Washington to northern
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California could permanently drop by zero point two three to
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two point sixty seven meters that's three quarters to eight
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and three quarters feet. This would dramatically expand one hundred
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year floodplains areas expected to flood at least once every
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hundred years, by as much as one hundred and fifteen
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square miles. That means more homes, roads, and infrastructure would
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be pushed into the flood zones. Under high subsidence scenarios,
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the team estimates that flood exposure could more than double.
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It's a dual threat, said Durap. The tsunami is going
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to come in and is going to be devastating. But
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with tsunamis, we also know that some places are going
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to be very hard hit while other places are probably
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not going to feel as severe effects because of the
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way the coast is configured, but those areas can still
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be in the zone of subsidence. In seventeen hundred, there
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was little infrastructure to damage. To day, the region is
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packed with critical systems that would be left vulnerable to flooding.
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These include five airports, eighteen emergency facilities, for example, hospitals, schools,
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fire stations, eight wastewater treatment plants, one electric substation, and
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fifty seven potential contaminant sources such as gas stations and
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chemical storage facilities. These submerged roads and flooded emergency hubs
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would make recovering from the disaster extremely difficult, and the
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salt water could ruin farmland soil, causing lasting economic damage.
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At the same time, natural flood defenses like intertidal wetlands
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may drown or erode, weakening protection against future storm surges.
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Rising tidal ranges could worsen high tide flooding, and already
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eroding sandy coastlines would likely shrink even faster. Quote after
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the tsunami comes and eventually recedes, the land is going
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to persist at lower levels. Dura said that floodplain footprint
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is going to be altered for decades or even centuries.
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While on earthquake hitting at any moment would be bad,
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the longer Cascadia stays quiet, the worse the eventual disaster
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might be. Researchers modeled what might happen if the earthquake
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struck in twenty one hundred. Thanks to climate change sea
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level rise to make everything more destructive. Global mean sea
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level has already risen by eight to nine inches since
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eighteen eighty, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration projections suggests
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it will rise by another two feet or more by
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twenty one hundred. In Cascadia, however, the story is slightly
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more complex. As the wand I Fuca slips under the
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North American tectonic plate, the continental land has been slowly
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pushed upwards, masking the effects of global sea level rise,
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but that slow uplift won't last. Eventually, climate change will
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catch up and sea levels in the Pacific Northwest will
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begin to rise just like everywhere else. Slowly, but surely
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two disasters tectonic and climate are converging. Quote, during the
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next earthquake, when the land drops down, you're going to
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suddenly have to contend with multiple centuries of equivalvalent sea
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level rise in minutes, Dura said. By twenty one hundred,
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even without an earthquake, the researchers estimated that floodplains could
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expand by forty square miles. Combine that with subsidence from
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an earthquake that hits in twenty one hundred, and flood
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exposure could triple compared to today, expanding floodplaines by up
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to one hundred and forty five square miles. Faced with
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this compounded threat earthquake, tsunami, subsidence, and sea level rise,
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what can communities do to prepare? Dura acknowledge there are
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no easy answers. Quote Cascadi opposes a unique challenge because
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it's so seismically quiet. She said, it's hard to keep
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residents aware of the hazard without undue panic. How do
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you get people prepared without scaring them away? At a
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starting point, Dura's team recommends integrating their findings into flood
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hazard and tsunami maps and working across agencies to improve preparewareness.
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Key actions include identifying critical infrastructure in future flood zones
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and planning how to relocate or adapt them to make
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them flood resistant. Increasing public awareness will also be key,
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as well as promoting nature based solutions such as wetland restoration.
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New infrastructure developments in high risk areas should also be reconsidered.
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Is all hope lost? Not at all? Dura said, But
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the clock is ticking quote. There are definitely people working
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on it, and I don't want to diminish the hard
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work of those individuals, she said. I think we just
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need more people on the problem. But we're all trying
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to work together, and there's a lot of new science
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coming out. Now. Okay, now we'll go to USA today
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and they have an article that is headlined Meet the robobunny.
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This tiny furry robot is taking on invasive pythons in Florida.
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This from July sixteenth. Among the Cyprus and sawgrass of
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South Florida. A new weapon in the state's fight to
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remove invasive pythons lurks waiting to entice its prey. Yes,
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it's a mechanical rabbit, just don't call it the energizer Bunny.
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Researchers at the University of Florida have outfitted forty furry
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fake toy rabbits with motors and tiny heaters that work
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together to mimic the movements and body temperature of a
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marsh rabbit, a favorite python meal. The Fluffy Army's mission
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helped conservationists remove the highly destructive serpents that have invaded
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the state's ecosystem. The bunnies spin, they shake, they move randomly,
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and their creation is based on more than a decade
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of scientific review. That began with a twenty twelve study
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that transported rabbits into Everglade's National Park to see if
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and how quickly they would become python prey. The rabbits
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didn't farewell, said Robert McCleary, University of Florida professor Wildlife,
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Ecology and Conservation, who's leading the robot bunny study. Subsequent
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studies revealed that pythons are drawn to live rabbits in
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pins that pe ns with an average python attraction rate
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of about one snake per week. But having multiple live
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rabbits and pins spread across a formidable landscape is cumbersome
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and requires too much manpower to care for them. So
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why not robot bunnies? Quote, we want to capture all
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of the processes that an actual rabbit would give off,
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McCleary said. But I'm an ecologist. I'm not someone who
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sits around making robots instead. Colleague Chris Dutton, also a
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University of Florida ecology professor, but more mechanically adept pulled
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the stuffing out of a toy rabbit and replaced it
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with thirty electronic components that are solar powered and controlled
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remotely so the researchers can turn them on and off
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at specific times. The rabbits replaced in different areas of
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South Florida in July twenty twenty five for a test
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phase that includes a camera programmed to recognize python movement
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and alert researchers when one nears the rabbit pin. One
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of the biggest challenges was waterproofing the bunnies so the
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correct temperature could still be radiated. Mcleary was reluctant to
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give specific somewhere the rabbit pins are located. I don't
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want people hunting down my robo bunnies, he said. Version
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two of the study will add bunny sent to the
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stuffed rabbits. If motion and heat aren't enough to fool
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the snakes, why are Burmese pythons a problem? Burmese pythons
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aren't native to Florida. They were introduced to the state
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through the pet trade in the nineteen seventies and released
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over time into the wild. The snakes gained a foothold
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in Everglades National Park by the mid nineteen eighties. According
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to a twenty twenty one Florida Python control plane. They
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quickly proliferated, threatening other key species in the ecosystem. A
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twenty twelve study by United States Geological Survey found the
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pythons had contributed to population declines of a half dozen animals,
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including raccoons, possums, bobcats, foxes, marsh rabbits, and cottontail rabbits.
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The USGS puts the Burmese python population in the Everglades
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in the tens of thousands. Pythons have migrated north from
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the park, and researchers believed they may be able to
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survive as far north as Georgia if temperatures continue to
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warm and the snake's burrow during cold snaps. State officials
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trying to mitigate the python population have turned to many
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stres rategies with varying degrees of success. Renowned that snake
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hunters from the Arula tribe in India were brought in
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to hunt and share their skills. People have used near
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infrared cameras for python detection, an especially designed trap. Some
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pythons are tracked by the DNA they shed in water.
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The annual Florida Python Challenge has also gained legendary status.
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Attracting hundreds of hunters each year, vying for the ten
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thousand dollars grand prize. The ten day Challenge was developed
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by Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to remove the
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pythons from state land. This year's challenge runs through July twentieth.
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Starting in twenty seventeen, the South Florida Water Management District
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and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission also began
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paying one hundred bounty hunters hourly wages and bonuses based
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on the length of the the snake caught. The hunters
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have removed an estimated fifteen thousand, eight hundred snakes since
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twenty nineteen and were called the most effective management strategy
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in the history of the issue. A district invasive animal
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biologist Mike Kirkland. Kirkland oversees the district's hunters and is
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involved in other python removal projects, including the robo bunny experiment.
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Quote it's projects like McCleary's that can be used in
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areas of important ecological significance, where we can entice the
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pythons to come out of their hiding places and come
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to us, Kirkland said at the board meeting. It could
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be a bit of a game changer. Quote McCleary said,
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he's pleased state officials are willing to experiment. Quote. Our
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partners have allowed us to trial these things that may
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sound a little crazy, McCleary said. Working in the Everglades
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for ten years, you get tired of documenting the problem.
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You want to address it. McCleary said. Researchers did not
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name the robot bunnies, although he did bring one home
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that needed repair. His son named it bun Bun. Well.
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Back to USA today and the headline for this one
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is the Grand Canyon fire exploded in size, catching officials
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off guard why. This is from July sixteenth, when a
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lightning strike ignited a wildfire on the Grand Canyon's north rim.
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Fire officials allowed it to burn for several days as
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they set up containment lines and urged the public that
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it was not a threat, But then a dangerous shift
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in the weather occurred, turning the seemingly low risk fire
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into a fast moving blaze that jumped containment lines and
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torched dozens of buildings in the park over the weekend,
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including a historic lodge. What fueled the explosive growth of
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the Dragon Bravo fire was a mix of gusty winds,
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dry air, and above normal heat weather conditions experts described
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as atypical for this time of year, when monsooner moisture
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typically tamps down wildfire risk across Arizona. Quote it was
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a break in the monsoon pattern, says Robert Ricky, science
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and operations officer with National Weather Service. Rather than having
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daily afternoon showers, we had a period of several days
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without that. Instead we had extremely dry, warm conditions. Since
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its rapid expansion over the weekend, the wildfire has torched
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over fourteen square miles of land, making one of the
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largest wildfires to break out in the National Park since
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twenty twenty one. No one has been injured. As a
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North Rim and nearby key communities were evacuated last week
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because of a separate fire. Officials also shut down the
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North Rim, which receives only ten percent of all park visitors,
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for the rest of the year. In recent days, members
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of the state's congressional delegation and Arizona Governor Katie Obbs
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criticized the National Park Service's decision to initially treat the
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fire as a controlled burn, a practice that's regularly employed
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who reduced wildfire risks and promote healthy plant growth. The
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Park Service has said the wildfire was expertly handled, blaming
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quote historic in quote winds for the blaze's explosive growth
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and highlighting the evacuation of hundreds of residents, tourists, and
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park employees. After the fire started on the fourth of July,
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the National Park Service decided to manage the blaze as
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a controlled burn to benefit the land, but by July tenth,
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the threat of expansion set in as a dry trough
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of low pressure passed over northern Arizona, pushing out monsoon
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moisture and bringing in drier air and gusty winds. Relative
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humidity dropped into single digits. The winds shifted, blowing twenty
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miles per hour from the west and northwest, fanning the
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flames and driving them across the north rim. Temperatures climbed
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to the upper eighties and low nineties, about ten degrees
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above average for this time of year. On Friday, junely eleventh,
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the fire expanded by more than eight times its size.
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The rapid growth continued Saturday night, as peak winds around
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forty miles per hour pushed the flames to buildings in
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a row of cabins that firefighters had sought to protect
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the combination of weather conditions is unusual during the regions
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of monsoon season, which officially runs from June fifteenth to
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September thirtieth, as heavy moils, sure and thunderstorms drive up
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humidity levels and limit the risk of wildfires. Quote, during
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the monsoon season, we usually have high pressure sitting in place,
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so we're not often dealing with strong west or northwest
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wind events. Ricky said this pattern just happened to line
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up in a way that really fueled the fire. The
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contain slash confine strategy that the National Park Service employed
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in the initial days the wildfire is not uncommon, especially
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in national forests, said Susan Pritchard, research scientists specializing in
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wildfire ecology at the University of Washington. Pritchard said such
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a decisions reached through extensive calculation, with authorities employing risk
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models and simulations to analyze the potential fire spread. If
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it's considered low risk, fire managers will let a wildfire
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burn so it can chip away at fire fuels and
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limit the danger of future blazes. On the Grand Canyon's
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north rim. The method worked for several days until gusty
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winds combined with low humidity and high temperatures to set
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the stage for extreme fire growth. Quote. I feel bad
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for the managers here because unfortunately the winds were not
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as predictable as we wish, and they got an outlier event,
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Richard said. She added that research supports the use of
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let it burn practices, but said the damaging wildfire and
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its handling should be investigated. Quote fire is a blunt tool,
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so everything is risky, she said. But when there's an
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outcome that's so far from what was expected, we need
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to learn from it. End. Quote. Now we'll go to
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BBC Wildlife and this article is headlined five weirdest dogs
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on the planet, including one that can climb a tree
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like a primate and another that looks like a cuddly bear.
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This is from July seventh. When you think of wild dogs,
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chances are you don't think of a species able to
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climb trees like a primate, or one that eats a
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lot of fruit, or even one that looks like a bear.
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But just like any other family, the canine family has
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its weird members too. The maimed wolf isn't so much
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a walking contradiction as a portmanteau creature assembled from parts
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of other animals. For a start, it isn't a wolf,
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and it doesn't behave like one. It eats a lot
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of fruit for a start. In addition to its supermodel
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legs and endearing long black socks, this canid's most striking
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characteristics are its huge ears, made of charcoal fur, and
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brushy white tail. It's often described as a fox on stilts,
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but that doesn't do it justice. The largest canid in Africa,
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African wild dogs are neither wolf snore dogs. Despite their name.
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Like wolves and dogs, African wild dogs do belong to
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the canaday family, that's Cnidae. However, gray wolves, coyotes, dogs
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and jackals are all in the Canis genus, whereas African
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wild dogs are the only living species in the like
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Chaon genus genus. With its streamlined body and sturdy long legs.
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During chases, the wild dogs can reach top speeds of
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sixty to seventy two kilometers per hour and are specially
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adapted to dealing with heat stress with their trademark long,
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large circular ears. Unlike other dogs, wild dogs have four toes.
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Instead of five. The gray fox moves like a cat,
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climbs like a primate, and spends much of its time
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high up in trees. It's anatomy is notable for features
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seemingly borrowed from across various mammalian orders. Like primates, it
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has rotating wrists that enable it to grip the sides
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of trees to climb branchless trunks. Its long curved claws
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and large, spreadable paws resemble those of cats, again useful
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for gaining traction on essentially vertical surfaces. With oversized ears,
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big dark eyes, and a petite frame built for desert life,
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The finnic fox, the smallest wild dog in the world,
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is one of the nature's most adorable and fascinating creatures.
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One of its weirdest features is its oversized ears. They
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have large ears, the largest ears relative to the body
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size of any member of the family Caniday, which can
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grow up to fifteen centimeters in length. They help keep
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the little mammals cool by radiating body heat, enabling them
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to cope with living in the day. Their ears also
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allow them to listen to and track prey underneath the sand.
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The bush dog is a species that looks more like
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a small bear than a dog. Native to the Amazon
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Basin and other parts of South America and Panama, bush
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dogs are small, unusual canids, weighing little more than four
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to seven kilograms, about the size of a red fox,
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and which more closely resemble many bears than other dogs.
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They live in packs of up to twelve individuals and
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hunt cooperatively, frequently driving their prey, which can include rodents
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such as puckas, towards water or other pack members. By
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hunting in groups, they can also, despite standing no higher
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than a basset hound, take down much larger species such
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as armadillos, copy beara, and even the ostrich like rheas.
25:57
And now we go to ours Nica. The ISSS is
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nearing retirement, So why has NASA still gone the hole
26:06
about Starliner? From July sixteenth? After so many delays, difficulties,
26:11
and disappointments. You might be inclined to think that NASA
26:15
wants to wash its hands of Boeing's troubled star Liner spacecraft,
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but that's not the case. The manager of NASA's Commercial
26:23
crew program, Steve Stick, told reporters Thursday that Boeing and
26:27
its propulsions supplier aerojet rocket dying are moving forward with
26:33
several changes to Starliner to resolve problems that the devil
26:37
to test flight last year. These changes include new seals
26:42
to plug helium leaks and thermal shunts, and barriers to
26:45
keep the spacecraft's thrusters from overheating. Boeing, now more than
26:50
two billion dollars in the hole to pay for all
26:52
of Starliner's delays, is still more than a year away
26:56
from executing on its multi billion dollar NASA contract in
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beginning crew rotation flights to the International Space Station, but
27:05
NASA officials say Boeing remains committed to Starliner. We really
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are working toward a flight as soon as early next
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year with Starliner, and then ultimately our goal is to
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get into crew rotation flights with Starliner, stick said, and
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those would start no earlier than the second crew rotation
27:23
slot at the end of next year. That would be
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eleven years after Boeing officials anticipated the spacecraft would enter
27:31
operational service for NASA when they announced the star Liner
27:36
program in twenty ten. The next star Liner flight will
27:40
probably transport only cargo to the ISS, not astronauts, but
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NASA hasn't made any final decisions on the matter. The
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agency has enough crew rotation missions booked to fly on
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SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft to cover the space station's needs until
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well into twenty twenty seven or twenty twenty eight. Well
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that's all for today's Diary of Science and Nature. Your
28:06
reader was Kelly Taylor. Now stay tuned for the Health
28:09
Corner on RADIOI