Transcript

3.26.26 · Science Show KY

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Radioized Diary of Science and Nature. My name's
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Kelly Taylor, and I'll be your reader for stories related
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to the topics of science and nature. First, a reminder
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that RADIOI is a reading service intended for people who
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are blind or have other disabilities that make a difficult
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to read printed material. From Scientific American, we have an
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article that is entitled NASA unveils new ambitious moon base plans.
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Dated March twenty fourth, NASA aims to establish a Moon
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base within the next decade. Space Agency Chief Jared Isaacman
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announced on Tuesday unveiling a thirty billion dollar plan to
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establish a permanent human presence on the lunar South Pole
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by twenty thirty six. The announcement from NASA headquarters call
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for dozens of launches to the Moon in the next
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decade and effectively canceled plans for a long proposed orbiting
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Lunar Gateway space station. Quote the goal is not flags
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in footprints, but to stay on the Moon. Isaagmund said
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the Space Agency will focus its human exploration efforts on
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developing the Moon base and will follow the Apollo program's
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pattern of flying full fledged test missions before sending people
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NASA will deprioritize the International Space Station and support the
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development of a separate commercial station to be built by
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private companies at the orbiting lab and then detached. The
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eventual goal will be to land human crews on the
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Moon every six months to explore the Moon's south pole,
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which is thought to harbor ice and other valuable materials
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in its shadowed craters. America will never again give up
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on the Moon, Isaigmund said. NASA is currently targeting April
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the first to launch its upcoming Moon mission, Artemis II T,
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which will send four astronauts on a journey around the
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Moon in a test of the Jumbo SLS rocket and
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the Orion space capsule. The space agency only recently announced
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a change of plans to its subsequent Moon missions. In
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twenty twenty seven, the ARTEMUS three crewed flight will test
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how well Orion docks in orbit with two lunar landing
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vehicles being developed by SpaceX and Blue Origin, and then
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in twenty twenty eight, if all goes to plan, Artemis
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four will land humans back on the Moon for the
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first time in more than half a century. The newly
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announced plans would accelerate and widen the Artemis program, requiring
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dozens of launches of rovers, drones, power communications and habitat
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modules over three stages, aimed at building a lunar outpost.
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The Moon station will require radioactive isotope power sources and
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eventually a nuclear reactor to survive. I have long periods
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of shadow, sometimes lasting months on the lunar south pole
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that preclude solar power. One of the most noteworthy parts
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of the Space Agency's announcement may be NASA's embrace of
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nuclear power, both for the Moon base and a potential
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future Mars mission. Nuclear electric propulsion would quote open up
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huge opportunities for energy use in various science missions and
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of course, crude missions around the Solar System. He says.
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The prime challenge of the very ambitious plan is quote cadence,
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the number of lunar landings. The first phase of the
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Moon based program calls for two dozen launches to the
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Moon by twenty twenty eight, including the Artemis fore landing.
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If those go smoothly, taxpayers will know the agency is
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meeting its goals. Rocket uncertainty could also present hurdles. The
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next four Artemis missions will rely on the Space Agency's
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Jumbo Space Launch System. Rocket to deliver astronauts to the
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Moon after that. However, the vehicle for future launches is
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less certain. A SpaceX Starship Rocket is one option. A
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different version of Starship is also SpaceX's contender as a
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lunar lander. The company is looking to lower the number
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of on orbit refueling missions needed for the Starship Lander,
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now estimated at around a dozen, in order to perform
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a test moon landing before delivering any astronauts. China plans
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to land its own astronauts on the Moon by twenty thirty.
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Isaacman speculated that China may even beat its own deadline,
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so that if NASA is first back to the Moon,
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it may only be by a matter of months, not years.
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Now we go to USA today and the headline reads
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early hurricanes forecast sees very concerning trend dated March twenty fifth.
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Early hurricane season forecasts have begun rolling out and will
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continue over the next several weeks, with the June first
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start to the season in the Atlantic just sixty eight
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days away. Atc Weather, a private weather company, released its
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seasonal outlook on March twenty fifth. Their forecast will soon
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be followed by the research team at Colorado State University
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typically in early April, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
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Administration later in May, among many others. With confidence increasing
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for a strong al Nino forming over the summer, the
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forecasts are expected to take into account the dampening effect
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that Pacific Ocean climate pattern can have on storms in
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the Atlantic basin. However, some of the nation's most destructive
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hurricanes have plowed into the US mainland during during an
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al Nino. Think Hurricane Michael in twenty eighteen, a Hurricane
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Andrew in nineteen ninety two. For the average person living
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within reach of a hurricane, similar preparations are advised every year,
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no matter the seasonal outlook. Also, Hurricane Helene and others
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show the path of a hurricane and its effects might
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reach much farther inland and be far more devastating than
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many imagine. Seasonal forecasts were never designed to tell a
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family whether their home is going to be hit, said
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Craig Fugate, a former FEMA administrator and former state Emergency
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Management director in Florida. Quote people here El Nino will
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suppress activity or below average season and translate that into
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I'm probably safe. History says otherwise in quote, Seasonal forecasts
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are about how busy the ocean might be. Disasters are
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about where one storm goes. Fugate said, quote. El Nino
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may change the number, but it doesn't change your risk.
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Prepare the same every year because it only takes one.
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For example, the nineteen ninety two season had just seven
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named storms, but it included Andrew, one of the more
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destructive US hurricanes on the record. Warm motion water and
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rapid intensification of storms close to the US coast are
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two key concerns for this hurricane season. However, the formation
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of an al nino in the Pacific Ocean may hold
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tropical activity to near or below historical average numbers as
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the season progresses. The outlook from the team at ACU Weather,
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released on March twenty five, predicts a season that could
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be near or below the historical average. The forecast includes
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eleven to sixteen named storms, four to seven hurricanes, two
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to four major hurricanes that's Category three or greater, and
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three to five direct US impacts. Other than in eastern
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portions of the Gulf Coast and the Carolinas face a
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higher than average risk of direct impacts this season, while
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Central and southern Texas could see a lower than average risk.
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The thirty year historical average for named storms in the
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Atlantic is fourteen. ACI Weather predicts a forty percent possibility
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of more than fourteen named storms in twenty twenty six
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and a fifteen percent possibility of more than sixteen. Alex
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de Silva, the company's lead hurricane expert, emphasize the need
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to prepare. Quote It's very important that people from South
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Texas all the way to Maine prepare equally for each
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and every hurricane season, regardless of the forecast to silvicid.
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When in Alnino forms along the equator in the Pacific,
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it tends to weaken trade winds over the Pacific. That
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increases a rising air motion that tends to drop shearing
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winds over the Atlantic, which can disrupt the structure of
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tropical cyclones, but it doesn't eliminate hurricanes or prevent impacts.
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Particularly in the Gulf, fu Get said, the golf plays
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by very different rules. Once a system gets into the Gulf.
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Local conditions matter far more than seasonal signals, he said,
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and short timelines compress quote. You can go from a
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tropical storm to a major hurricane near landfall faster than
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people can adjust Warmer water is an essential ingredient in
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hurricanes and can help fuel rapid intensification in the storms. Already,
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sea surface temperatures are warmer than normal in parts of
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the Atlantic Basin, and their forecasts to reach exceptionally warm
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levels again this summer. That can cause storms that spin
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up near the coast to pose bigger threats with less
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time to react, and could also increase chances for pre
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season or early season storm development. For the first time
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in a decade, the US mainland did not experience a
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hurricane landfall in twenty twenty five, but the season did
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produce three powerful Category five hurricanes. The storms included Hurricane Melissa,
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the name recently retired because of its impacts across Jamaica
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and the Caribbean. At least ninety five people died. The
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season produced thirteen named storms, five hurricanes, and four major
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hurricanes with winds of one hundred and eleven miles per
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hour or more. Let's see we have a list of
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the names for tropical storms or hurricanes that do form
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this summer and how to pronounce them. Well, we'll go
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through a few of these. We have Wilfred and then
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Arthur could be followed by Bertha and crystaball Or among
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the names they're considering using. Our next article comes from
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The Guardian Extraordinary event for mountain gorillas as new twins
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born in the d r C. A second set of
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mountain gorilla twins has been born in Vunga National Park
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in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in what conservationists
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are celebrating as an extraordinary event for the endangered primates.
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Just two months after tiny twin mountain gorillas were discovered
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by rangers in the Verunga Massif, another rare twin birth
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has been found by par by park wardens. This time
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an infant male and female have been spotted in the
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Baraka family, a troop of nineteen mountain gorillas that roam
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the region's high altitude rainforests. Park rangers have placed the
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young primates under additional monitoring to help them through the
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critical initial months, as the infants faced significant challenges to
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become fully grown adults. Twins are extra bedamely rare in
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mountain gorillas, accounting for less than one percent of births,
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and place extra demands on the mother. The gorilla subspecies
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found in only two isolated pockets of the Arunga massif
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and the Bewindi Impenetrable National Park in southwest Uganda has
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high rates of infant mortality, with about a quarter falling
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victim to disease, trauma or infanticide. In January, Varunga National
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Park announced that a female mountain gorilla called mufuko A
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given birth to twins. The infant males are now eleven
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weeks old and said to be thriving, with other gorillas
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in the troop taking extra care of the mother to
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support her caregiving. Park authorities believe that twin births are
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more likely to happen when females are in particularly good
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physical condition. Jacques Katutu, the head of gorilla monitoring at Varunga, said,
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quote two instances of twin earths within three months is
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an extraordinary event and provides another vital indicator that dedicated
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conservation efforts, which have continued despite the current instability in
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Eastern Congo, continue to support the growth of the endangered
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mountain gorilla population within Verunga National Park. Specialist veterinary care
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has played a leading role in the revival of the
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subspecies in Rwanda. Uganda and the DRC organizations such as
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the gorilla. Doctors have prevented dozens of deaths by helping
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animals affected by human behavior, such as by releasing gorillas
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accidentally caught in poacher's traps. One study attributes half of
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the mountain gorilla's population increase to the vets. Barely two
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hundred and fifty mountain gorillas were left in the nineteen seventies,
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and many thought the animals faced extinction. Decades of intense
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conservation work helped population numbers surpass one thousand in twenty eighteen,
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and conservation authorities have since downgraded the subspecies status from
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critically endangered to endanger. The DRC section of the Barunga
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Mountain Range remains one of the most dangerous places in
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the world for wildlife rangers. Over the past twenty years,
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more than two hundred and twenty rangers have been killed
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in the park, where rebel groups such as M twenty
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three and other militias, as well as bandits operate with impunity.
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Now let's turn to Science Alert and they have an
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article that has headlined huge fresh water reservoir found hidden
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under the Great Salt Lake. This is from March twenty fourth.
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The Great Salt Lake is so named because of the
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salinity of its water, but a new study appears to
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have detected a huge reservoir of salt free fresh hiding
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underneath it. Researchers from the University of Utah deployed a
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helicopter to carry out an airborne electromagnetic survey of part
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of the lake, covering parts of the Farmington Bay area
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along the southeastern edge of the water and am or.
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Airborne electromagnetic survey does two jobs. It detects electrical conductivity,
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which helps differentiate saltwater from freshwater, and it examines rock composition.
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That means the data can potentially show where freshwater is
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and how deep it goes. The team found that in
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the surveyed region, there's a sudden and substantial drop in
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the depth of underlying bedrock below the Great Salt Lake,
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leaving a massive space for sand and silt to fill
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sediment that appears to be saturated with fresh water. We
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were able to answer the question of how deep this
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potential reservoir is and what its spatial extent is beneath
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the eastern lake margin, says geophysicist Michael zandof Danoff quote.
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If you know how deep, you know how wide you
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know how porous the space, you can calculate the potential
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freshwater volume in ute. The researchers estimate that the freshwater
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reservoir could extend down between three and four kilometers that's
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almost two and a half miles, though a full survey
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will be needed to make sure only a small area
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of it was scanned. Here. It was already suspected that
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there might be freshwater lurking underneath the Great Salt Lake,
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in part due to the reed covered islands that have
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been popping up across the basin, but this is the
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first time that researchers have seriously tried to assess how
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big the freshwater reservoir might be, and while the presence
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of fresh water wasn't a surprise, the potential coverage area was.
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The reservoir discovered by the survey showed that the sediment
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holding bedrock extending further into the center of the Farmington
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Bay plaia than expected. Some freshwater would be expected at
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the margins of the Great Salt Lake as it feeds
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down from surrounding mountains, but the data points to there
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being a lot more across the approximately twenty five hundred
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square kilometers or nine hundred and fifty square miles of
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the lake. Quote. The unexpected part of this wasn't the
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salt lends that we see near the surface. It's that
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the freshwater underneath it extends so far in towards the
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interior of the lake, and possibly under the entire lake,
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we don't know. In quote and now from Smithsonian Magazine.
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This article is entitled Paw Patrol and it's dated undated.
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It looks like in central Texas, ranchers are beset by
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threats from coyotes, to drought and foreign competition. To protect
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their flocks from predators and help preserve their way of life,
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their turning to the ancient noaw of man's Best friend.
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Robin Giles did not quite believe the rumors that passed
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among his neighbors. He couldn't yet picture the carnage pastures
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bloodied by the carcasses of sheep and goats with highly
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distinctive wounds, bite marks at the throat, abdominal cavities, emptied
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of lungs and liver entrails left to rot in the
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hill country sun coyotes. It was the late nineteen sixties
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and Giles was in his twenties, a big man with dark,
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curly hair and cool blue eyes. His family had been
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raising livestock on their ranch in Kendall County, about fifty
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miles north of San Antonio for nearly a century. In
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by gone times, Texas ranchers had waged war against coyotes,
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and Giles believed the war had been won. Coyote had
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scarcely been seen in the landscape for more than forty years.
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The Hill Country makes up part of a vast region
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known as the Edwards Plateau. As a matter of both
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geography and legend, there is no place closer to the
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heart of Texas. Occupying tens of thousands of square miles,
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the plateau encompasses the intersection of central, South and West Texas.
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It is bordered by Austin and San Antonio to the east,
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and on the west by the Pecos River and the
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Chihuahuan Desert. Its history is exceptionally violent. By the seventeen hundreds,
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the Tonkawa people were driven out by the Apache, who
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were in turn nearly exterminated by the Comanche. For much
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of the nineteenth century, the Plateau was a site of
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the Texas Indian Wars, which resulted in the destruction and
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displacement of numerous indigenous nations and became fodder for countless westerns,
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including John Ford's The Searchers Kild the Civil War. White
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settlers primarily raised cattle. As overgrazing depleted the once rich grasslands.
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They brought in increasingly large herds of sheep and goats,
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whose diets were well suited to manage brush. Alfred Giles,
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Robin's grandfather, was an architect from England who arrived in
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Texas in eighteen seventy three, seeking a more agreeable climate
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to help him deal with long term effects of rheumatic fever.
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He established a practice in San Antonio and made his
20:32
name designing stately courthouses and homes, many of which now
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appear on the National Register of Historic Places. A ranching
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boom was on stoked by high prices for sheep's wool
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and for the mohair produced by Angora goats. In eighteen
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eighty five, Alfred and his brother in law began buying land.
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They amassed more than thirteen thousand acres, and the property
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became known as Hillingdon Ranch, after the rural English parish
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where Alfred was born. It was soon home to thousands
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of sheep and goats and a smaller number of black
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aberdeen angus cattle. Texas wool and mowhair production concentrated on
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the Edwards Plateau reached their respective peaks in the mid
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twentieth century, but growing foreign competition and punishing droughts made
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the business more challenging. Many ranchers got out of shearing
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and clipping altogether in favor of lamb and mutton, and
21:28
overall production declined. Still, Texas remains the largest source of
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sheep and goats in the country, and for decades Edward's
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Plateau ranchers did not count predation among their most pressing concerns.
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For Robin Giles, things changed in nineteen seventy. That year,
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more than four hundred of his sheep and goats were
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killed by coyotes. Quote. Before that, I kind of thought
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everybody was exaggerating, Giles said recently. And then boy, when
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they hit me, who I realized we had to do something. Quote.
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He enlisted a US Fish and Wildlife trapper, and together
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they killed fourteen coyotes, but the damage was done. The
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losses that year came to roughly ten thousand dollars more
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than eighty two thousand in today's dollars, or seventy percent
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of the ranch's potential income. Giles became expert in anti
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coyote measures, steel traps, helicopter hunts, a bait activated sodium
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cyanide gun called the M forty four. He improved his fencing,
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installing snares below and barbed wire on top to deter climbing.
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In response, the animals dug holes and shimmy beneath the
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fencing on their sides, creating characteristic hollows known as coyote slides.
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Coyotes are so smart, Giles said, the more you deal
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with them, the more you realize how they're going to
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be here when we're all gone. Giles got a reputation
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for the intensity of his campaign against predators. He shared
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his acquired wisdom with his son, and for several decades
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it was enough to keep them afloat. But in the meantime,
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a massive transfer of land was under way as historical
23:09
ranches were subdivided and sold off by a new generation
23:13
who preferred nine to five town jobs to agriculture. Some
23:17
properties were developed as ex serbs of the state's expanding cities.
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More frequently, they became commercial hunting preserves or lux getaways
23:27
for wealthy residents in Houston and Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio.
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As the ranchers who once kept coyotes in check by
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killing as many as they could sold out moved on,
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the predator population exploded, Grant Giles, forty years old, and
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his wife, Missives forty four, are now the primary stewards
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of Hillingdon Ranch. Quote. Not that long ago, there were
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many many landowners doing what we do Grant tomy. When
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there was a predator issue, they would all work together
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and try to nip it in the bud. Quote. As
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the regionary constitutes itself along modern lines, the plateau is
24:03
becoming ironically more wild, strange, and Macab's scenes are common.
24:08
Sharp beaked, crested kara kara birds devour the eyes of
24:13
newborn calves. Black vultures carry away kid goats. Feral hogs
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gobble up lambs, leaving behind nothing but hoofs. There are
24:23
bobcats and mountain lions. Coyotes, easily the most significant threat,
24:28
seem to be getting wildlier. Grant told me, quote, I've
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seen coyotes defecate on top of an M forty four
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as a message I see what you're trying to do,
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and I'm not buying it. By twenty sixteen, it was
24:42
clear to Grant that the status quo wouldn't hold. He
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was losing as many as twenty percent of his lambs
24:48
and kid goats to predators, and he knew things could
24:51
get worse. On the Edwards plateau, fifty and even ninety
24:55
percent losses were not unheard of. Coyotes were driving some
24:59
stockman out of business, others to the brink of collapse,
25:02
and generally threatening a way of life that his integral
25:06
to Texan identity quote. It's like having an ever increasing
25:10
size hole in your canoe and you're trying to bail
25:12
out water, Grant said. In desperation, he decided to go
25:16
see a fellow rancher about a decade younger than his father,
25:20
who was reputed to have cultivated in ancient knowledge largely
25:23
neglected in the United States that had allowed him to
25:27
prosper while his neighbors failed. His name was Bob Bookholtz,
25:30
and he was a man who knew about dogs other
25:34
than hunting. Protecting livestock may have been the first work
25:37
assigned to domestic dogs. They probably get the job more
25:41
than five thousand years ago. The ancestors of modern livestock
25:45
protection breeds, of which the white and downy Great Pyrenees
25:49
is probably the best known in America, are thought to
25:52
have arrived in Europe in the sixth century BC, accompanying
25:56
shepherds from the Caucasus. Roman farm management to trees of
26:00
Cato and Verrow, which compiles agricultural knowledge from the first
26:04
and second centuries VC, describes dogs as of the greatest
26:09
importance to us who feed the wooly flock, for the
26:12
dog is the guardian of such livestock as lack the
26:15
means to defend themselves, chiefly sheep and goats. For the
26:19
wolf is wont to lie and wait for them, and
26:22
we oppose our dogs to him as defenders. Geological isolation
26:29
and selective breeding have since yielded roughly forty distinct livestock
26:34
guardian breeds. These types include the Italian Marinma, the Balkan
26:40
star Planinac, the Afghan Cucci, and the Caucasian Okara bread.
26:48
For cold weather hardiness, many are on the fluffy side,
26:51
but they vary considerably in appearance within and among breeds.
26:55
Their coats may be long or short, black, brown, fawn,
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white or gray puring color, or brindled or spotted. The
27:02
breeds are uniformly large. Ideal specimens generally stand about thirty
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inches tall and weigh between eighty and one hundred and
27:09
fifty pounds. The Gileses finally got their first buckholes dogs
27:18
in twenty twenty one. Today they have fourteen plus one
27:21
dog they adopted from a rancher who is going out
27:23
of business. Quote. They all have the behaviors we're looking for.
27:27
Robin Giles, now eighty three, said on a recent morning
27:31
their livestock had adjusted to the dog's presence and having
27:34
drastically reduced predation. Giles said, we are in charge of
27:38
our own destiny. It's an oddity of livestock guardian dogs
27:45
that their owners almost never observe them interact with the predator.
27:49
Their art is practiced mostly unseen in the low light
27:52
of dusk and dawn, when their enemies are most active.
27:55
The proof of their value is the simple absence of death.
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A little all for today's Diary of Science and Nature.
28:03
Your reader was Kelly Taylor. Now stay tuned for further
28:06
programming on RADIOI