Transcript

5.29.25 · Science Show KY

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Radioized Diary of Science and Nature. Your reader
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is Kelly Taylor. I have some articles on the topics
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of science and nature. But first a reminder that RADIOI
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is a reading service intended for people who are blind
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or have other disabilities that make it difficult to read
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printed material. First up is an article from Axios, and
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the headline is America's summers keep getting warmer. This is
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from May twenty eight. Summers are getting warmer nearly nationwide.
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A recent updated analysis finds hotter summers are one of
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the most tangible ways we're experiencing climate change, and they're
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a health risk for vulnerable groups like children, pregnant women,
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the elderly, and homeless people. Average summer temperatures between nineteen
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seventy and twenty twenty four rose in ninety seven percent
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of the two hundred and forty two cities analyzed in
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a new report from Climate Central, a climate research group.
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Among those cities, summers are now two point six degrees
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fahrenheit hotter on average. The analysis uses NOAH data that's
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National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and defines summer as June
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through August. Reno, Nevada, eleven point three degrees, Boise, Idaho
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six point three degrees, and El Paso, Texas six point
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two degrees saw the greatest rise in average summer temperatures
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between nineteen seventy and twenty twenty four. Over sixty percent
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of the cities analyzed now have at least two more
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weeks worth of hotter than normal summer days compared to
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nineteen seventy. Many cities suffer from heat islands, areas of
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especially high temperatures caused by roads, parking lots, buildings, and
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other heat trapping features. Heat islands tend to be more
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common in low income neighborhoods and ones with predominantly black
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and Latino residents. Researchers have found some cities have been
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hiring chief heat officers and taking steps to keep streets cooler,
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like planting more trees and using reflective road coatings. Summer
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twenty twenty five is likely to be hotter than normal
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for much of the country, according to the National Weather
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Service's seasonal Outlook. Now to BBC News and this article
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is headlined coastlines in danger. Even if climate target met,
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scientists warn the world could see hugely damaging sea level
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rise of several meters or more over the coming centuries.
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Even if the ambitious target of limiting global warming to
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one and a half degrees celsius is met, scientists have warned.
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Nearly two hundred countries have pledged to try to keep
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the planets warming to one and a half degree sea,
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but the researchers warned that this should not be considered
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safe for coastal populations. They drew their conclusion after reviewing
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the most recent studies of how the ice sheets are
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changing and how they have changed in the past, But
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the scientists stress that every fraction of a degree of
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warming that could be avoided would still greatly limit the risks.
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The world's current trajectory puts the planet on course for
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nearly three degrees of warming by the end of the century,
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compared with the late eighteen hundreds before humans began burning
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large amounts of planet heating fossil fuels. That's based on
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current government policies to reduce carbon emissions from fossil fuels
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and other polluting activities. But even keeping to one and
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a half degrees sea would still lead to continued melting
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of Greenland and Antarctica, as temperature changes can take centuries
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have their full impact on such large masses of ice. Quote.
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Our key message is that limiting warming to one and
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a half sea would be a major achievement. It should
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absolutely be our target, but in no sense will it
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slow or stop sea level rise and melting ice sheets,
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said lead author Professor Chris Stokes, a glaciologist at Durham University.
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The twenty fifteen Paris Climate Agreement saw the world's nations
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agree to keep global temperature rises well below two sea
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and ideally one point five seed. That has often been
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oversimplified to mean one point five sea is safe, something
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glaciologists have cautioned against for years. The authors of the
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new paper, published in the journal Communications Earth and Environment
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draw together three main strands of evidence to underline this case. First,
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records of the Earth's distant past suggest significant melting, with
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sea levels meters higher than present. During previous similarly warm periods,
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such as one hundred and twenty five thousand years ago,
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and the last time there was as much planet warming
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carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as today, about three million
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years ago, sea levels were about ten to twenty meters higher. Second,
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current observations already show an increasing rate of melting, albeit
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with variation from year to year. Quote pretty dramatic thing.
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Dramatic things are happening in both West Antarctica and Greenland,
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said co author Professor Jonathan Bamber. East Antarctica appears from
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now at least more stable. Quote We're starting to see
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some of these worst case scenarios play out almost in
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front of us, added Professor Stokes. Finally, scientists use computer
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models to simulate how ice sheets may respond to future climate.
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The picture they paint isn't good quote very very few
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of the models actually show sea level rise slowing down
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if warming stabilizes at one point five sea and they
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certainly don't show sea level rise stopping, said Professor Stokes.
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The major concern is that melting could accelerate further beyond
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tipping points due to warming caused by humans, though it's
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not clear exactly how these mechanisms work and where these
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thresholds sit. The strength of this study is that they
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use multiple lines of evidence to show that our climate
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is in a similar state to win several mers of
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ice was melting in the past, said Professor Andy Shepherd,
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glaciologist at Northumbria University. This would have devastating impacts on
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coastal communities. He added, an estimated two hundred and thirty
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million people live within one meter of current high tidelines.
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Defining a safe limit of warming is inherently challenging because
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some populations are more vulnerable than others. But if sea
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level rise reaches a centimeter a year or more by
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the end of the century, mainly because of ice melt
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and warming oceans, that could stretch even rich country's abilities
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to cope. If you get to that level, then it
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becomes extremely challenging for any kind of adaptation strategies. And
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you're going to see massive land migration on scales that
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we've never witnessed in modern civilization, argued Professor Bambert. However,
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this bleak picture is not a reason to stop trying,
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they say, quote the more rapid the warming, you'll see
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more ice being lost and a higher rate of sea
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level rise much more quickly. Every fraction of a degree
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really matters for ice sheets, said Professor Stokes. And now
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we turn to the Atlantic and the article is headlined
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the man eater screwworm is coming. This is dated May seven.
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The United States has for seventy years been fighting a
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continuous aerial war against the New World screwworm, a parasite
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that eats animals alive, cow, pig, deer, dog, even human.
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Its scientific name C. Hominovorax translates to man eater. Larvae
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of the parasitic fly chew through flesh, transforming small nicks
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into big, gruesome wounds. But in the late nineteen fifties,
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the US Department of Agriculture laid the groundwork for a
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continent wide assault. Workers raised screwworms in factories, blasted them
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with radiation until they were sterile, and dropped the sterile
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adult screwworms by the millions, even hundreds of millions weekly
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over the US, then farther south in Mexico, and eventually
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in the rest of North America. The sterile flies proceeded
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to well screw the continent's wild populations into oblivion, and
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in two thousand and six, an invisible barrier was established
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at the Darien Gap, the jungle that straddles of Panama
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Columbia border, to cordon the screw worm free north off
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from the south. The barrier, as I observed when I
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reported from Panama several years ago, consisted of plains releasing
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millions of sterile screw worms to rain down over the
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Darian Gap every week. This never ending battle kept the
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threat of screw worms far from America in this article
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By the Ways, written by Sarah Jiang z h A
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n G. But in twenty twenty two, the burial barrier
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was breached. Cases in Panama, mostly in cattle, skyrocketed from
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a dozen year a year to one thousand despite ongoing
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drops of sterile flies. The parasite then began moving northward,
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at first slowly and then rapidly about twenty twenty four,
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which is when I began getting alarmed emails from those
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following the situation in Central America. As of this month,
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the parasite has advanced one thousand, six hundred miles through
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eight countries to reach Wahaka and Vera Cruz in Mexico,
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with seven hundred miles left to go until the Texas border.
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The US subsequently suspended live cattle imports from Mexico after
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this latest use broke. I spoke with Wayne Cockrell, a
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Texas rancher, who fears the screwworm's return to Texas is
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now a matter of wind, not if the anti screwworm
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program cannot produce enough sterile flies to stop the parasite's advance,
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much less beat it back down to Panama. Cockrel explained
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that he has followed the outbreak closely as the chair
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of the Cattle Health Committee for the Texas and Southwestern
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Cattle Raisers Association, even visiting the sterile fly factory recently. Quote,
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there's a sense of dread on my part now. He
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told me at sixty he is too young to remember
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screw worms himself, but he's heard the horror stories. Every cut,
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every scratch, every navel of a newborn calf threatened to
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turn fatal in the pre eradication era if the parasite
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does not take If the parasite does take hold in
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the US again, it could take decades to push screwworms
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back down to Panama. That is, after all, how long
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it took the first time. Decades of screwworm vigilance have
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been undone in just two years. You only have to
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glance at a map to understand why the screwworm outbreak
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is now at an alarming inflection point. Central America is
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shaped like a funnel with a long bumpy tail reaches
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its skinniest point in Panama. Back in the day, the
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US Department of Agriculture helped pay for screwworm eradication down
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to Panama out of not pure altruism but economic pragmatism.
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Establishing a one hundred mile screwworm barrier there is cheaper
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than creating one at the two thousand mile wide US
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Mexico border. Even after screwworms began creeping up the tail
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of the funnel recently, the anti screwworm campaign had one
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last good chance of stopping them in a narrow isthmus
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in southern Mexico, after which the funnel grows dramatically wider
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it failed. The latest screwworm detections in Uaca and Vera
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Cruz are just beyond the isthmus. The wider the new
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front of the screwworm war grows, the more sterile screwworms
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are needed to stop the parasite's advance, but the supply
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is all already overstretched. The fly factory in Panama has
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increased production from its usual twenty million flies a week
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to its maximum of one hundred million, which now all
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being dropped or dispersed over Mexico, but planes used to
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drop one hundred and fifty million flies a week over
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the Isthmus in Mexico during the first eradication campaign in
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the nineteen eighties, and when the front was even farther
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north in Mexico, a factory there turned out as many
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as five hundred and fifty million flies weekly to cover
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the huge area. That factory, as well as one in Texas,
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has long since shut down. The Texas and Southwestern Cattle
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Raisers Association is asking the USDA to build a new
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sterile fly plant in the US, one big enough to
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produce the hundreds of millions that may soon be necessary.
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We are working closely with Mexico to re establish a
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biological barrier and prevent further geographic spread in quote, says
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the USDA spokesman. If the fly spreads further geographically, we
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will need to reevaluate production capacity in quote. Several Texas
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lawmakers recently introduced the Stop Screwworms Act, which directs the
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USDA to open a new factory, but the whole process
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could still take years. Quote. The facility needs to start tomorrow.
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Cocker said. The US cattle industry is unprepared for the
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screwworm's return, he said, rattling off more reasons. Certain drugs
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to treat screwworm infection are not licensed in the US,
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having been unnecessary for half a century. Branches used to
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employ fifty cowboys who regularly inspected cattle, and now they
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might have only five, and routine industry practices such as
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branding and ear tagging leave the animals vulnerable to screwworm
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in infection. To face the screwworm, the cattle industry will
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have to adapt quickly to a new normal. The parasite
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could propel propel beef prices, which already are sky high
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due to drought, even higher. How screwworms managed to jump
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the barrier in twenty twenty two is not fully clear,
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but in the years immediately before, the coronavirus pandemic reportedly
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created supply chain snarls at the fly factory in Panama
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and disrupted regular cattle inspections that might have set off
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the alarm bells earlier, and the border between Panama and
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Columbia got a lot busier. The dairy and Gap, once
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a notoriously impenetrable jungle, became a popular route for migrants. Still,
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the screwworm advanced relatively slowly through Panama and Costa Rica
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for the first couple of years. Then it hit Nicaragua,
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and over just ten weeks in twenty twenty four, it
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shot from the country's northern border through Honduras and Guatemala
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to reach Mexico. Its rapid advance was because of the
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illegal cattle trade. Jeremy Radakowski, director for Mesoamerican and Western
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Caribbean in the Wildlife Conservation Society, told me his organization
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has tracked the practice in Central America, where eight hundred
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thousand cattle a year are raised illegally in nature reserves
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and then smuggled by boat and truck up to Mexico.
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This allowed the screwworm to spread much faster than it
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can fly. The line of new screwworm cases followed known
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smuggling routes. The constant northward movement of infected cattle could
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now make re eradication more difficult. It's like trying to
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empty a pool when the spigots still open. Decades of
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screwworm free existence meant that even ranchers whose livelihoods are
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directly affected were slow to recognize the growing emergency. We
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were so successful that literally people forgot a US official
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in Central America told me inspections, timely reports of infection,
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and restrictions on cattle movement are important pieces of eradication.
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In addition to the release of sterile flies. Over the years,
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scientists have also proposed more advanced ways of controlling the
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screw worm through genetics, though none is yet ready for
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prime time. The USDA supported research by Max Scott, entomologists
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at North Carolina State University, to create a male only
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strain that could reduce the number of flies needed for dispersal,
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but funding ended last summer. He is also proposed using
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gene drives, a still controversial technique that could rapidly drive
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genetic material that makes females sterile into the wild population.
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The USDA wasn't interested, he told me. A spokesperson says
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the USDA continues to research and investigate new tools, including
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genetically engineered male only screwworms. But he did strike up
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a collaboration several years ago with scientists in Uruguay studying
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a gene drive for sterile screwworms. Uruguay is interested because
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it never got to benefit from screwworm eradication. The country
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is located about halfway down South America, deep in screw
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worm territory. A retired USDA scientist, even Scota, told me
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that he and his colleagues used to dream of a
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world totally free of screwworm but eradication never reached South America,
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and now even the barrier protecting North America is no
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longer intact. A campaign to push screwworms from the south
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of Mexico roughly where the parasite is right now, to
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the southern edge of Panama took twenty one years. The
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way things are going, Cockrel said some of his longtime
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colleagues in Panama might not see screw worms eradicated again
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in their country in their lifetime. And now we have
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an article from May the twenty first in Popular Mechanics,
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A hidden blob beneath Africa is fueling volcanoes and it
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could split the continent in two. In East Africa, geothermal
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energy is big business and that's all thanks to the
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East African Rift System EARS, one of the largest rift
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systems on Earth, stretching four thousand miles from Ethiopia in
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the north to Malawi. In the south, Ears is filled
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with rift valleys and active volcanic regions that form some
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of the world's most famous volcanoes, including Mount Kilmajaro. This
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volcanic activity also means that Eastern Africa is a geothermal hotspot.
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For example, a large majority of Kenya's electricity is of
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geothermal origin. Geothermal being so lucrative in the region has
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some positive side effects for scientists studying the ever fascinating Ears.
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Because companies do so much experimental drilling for locating and
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running geothermal fields, scientists can use that data to gain
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a better understanding of what's driving these geologic processes in
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the first place. Although the running theory is that hot
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blent deep mantle upwelling drives the rift process, it's been
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very difficult to figure out if this comes from one
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deep sourced plume or multiple plumes along the Ears four
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thousand mile expanse. Now, in a new study, scientists at
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the University of Glasgow, armed with data gathered at the
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Maringay geothermal field in Kenya, analyzed of the Noble gas
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neon and determined that it originates in the deep mantle,
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likely between the outer core and the mantle using high
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precision mass spe spectrometry. The team also determined a common
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fingerprint of gases across a far distance, which supports the
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idea that EARS is powered by one singular superplume rather
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than multiple shallower processes. The results were published in the
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journal Geophysical Research Letters. Quote. We have long been interested
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in how the deep Earth rises to the surface, how
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much is transported, and just what role it plays in
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forming the large scale topography of the Earth's surface, says
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Finn Stewart, senior author of the study. Quote. Our research
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suggests that a giant hot blob of rock from the
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core mantle boundary is present beneath East Africa. It is
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the plates apart and propping up the Africa continent, so
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it's hundreds of meters higher than normal. To investigate whether
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EARS is in fact powered by a super plume, Stuart
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and his team first needed to analyze neon isotopes, as
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noble gases can reveal deep Earth behavior. However, these gases
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are also easily contaminated by the atmosphere and by other
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noble gases found formed in the lithosphere. Luckily, by analyzing
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noble gases from the Kenyon geothermal field, scientists found that
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contamination was minimal. Additionally, they discovered that these same neon
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isotopic features that had been observed in other parts of
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the rift system and in the Western Rift valley between
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Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Condgo. This study provided
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the first geochemical evidence for a common deep mantle between
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the of the East African rift system. This data also
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aligns with a twenty twenty three study from Virginia Tech
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that investigated why EARS displayed deformations parallel to the rift
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rather than perpendicular, which is more typical. Their analysis supported
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the idea that a deep rooted superplume must be driving
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northward moving magma flow in order for these strange deformations
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to take shape. While Ears appears somewhat static, at least
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to our lifespan limited perspective, the rift could eventually tear
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Africa in two so what we're now witnessing could one
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day result in the birth of an entirely new ocean. However,
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not all rifts turn into oceans, so we won't know
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for sure until geologic history takes its course. And now
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we have an article from Yale Environment three sixty and
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the headline reads out of the wild. How AI is
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transforming conservation science. This is dated May nineteenth and written
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by Jim Robbins. It has always been challenging to study
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nocturnal birds, especially if they use camouflage to blend into
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their surroundings. Quote. They are highly mobile, so they are
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really really hard to study, said Ellie Knight, University of
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Alberta researcher who studies common night hawks, a medium sized
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bird in the night jar family. Quote. Outside of traditional
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ecological knowledge, we don't know much about them in the
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boreal forest in quote. To surmount those challenges, night you
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turned to a huge set of recorded wildlife sounds. It's
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common these days to study animals with autonomous recording units,
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which federal and provincial wildlife agencies have placed throughout the
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Southern Royal Forest in northeastern Alberta where Night Works night
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had access to that audio trove, But there was a catch.
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The amount of stored data is vast and mixed in
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with other sounds, so there's no practical way an expert
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could parse and analyze only the calls of the night hawks. Quote. Realistically,
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we're only able to do that expert analysis for one
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percent of recordings. So there's this other ninety nine percent
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that's sitting there, she said. To address this gap, Night
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began using artificial intelligence on the giant pile of acoustic data,
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casting a good deal of light on the world of
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the night hawks. The analysis showed where the birds lived,
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when they were there, and how they're foraging and nesting habits.
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Different quote. It really opens what we can study, which
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can provide a wealth of ecological insights, Knight said, But
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further refinement will expand the applications and efficacy, including identifying
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individual birds to provide a far more detailed ecological portrait.
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Knight is now working on applying the same approach to
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a broad range of boreal bird species. The use of
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artificial intelligences spreading rapidly through the field of conservation these days,
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bringing rapid and dramatic changes and the promise of more
26:25
to come. A recent paper, for example, bore the title
26:29
the Potential for AI to revolutionize conservation. Ellie Knight agrees
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it's a paradigm shift, she said. Still, some scientists say
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that AI's burgeoning use in this field comes with the
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raft of drawbacks that go beyond the technology's widely discussed
26:47
enormous consumption of water and energy. There is also concern
26:52
that AI that synthesizes the vast constellation of existing information
26:57
available on the web will perpetual errors and biases I
27:02
relying primarily on Western academic expertise and excluding traditional or
27:08
indigenous knowledge. AI has also been criticized as a technological
27:14
barrier to people's direct engagement with organisms in their natural environments. Quote.
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If I could waive a wand and uninvent AI, I would,
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said Hamish Van Dervin, Professor of Sustainable Business Management of
27:31
Natural Resources at the University of British Columbia and a
27:35
leading critic of the spread of AI in conservation and elsewhere.
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For now, though it's full steam ahead around the world.
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Thousands of researchers are using AI to further biological research
27:49
and conservation projects. Well that's all for today's Diary of
27:55
Science and Nature. Your reader was Kelly Taylor. Thanks for listening.
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Now let's stay tuned for the Health Corner on RADIOI