Transcript

3.6.25 · 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'll have articles related to the topics
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of science and nature, but first a reminder that RADIOID
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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. We'll start off today with an article from
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Wired magazine. Appalachians are trapped in a disastrous cycle of
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flooding and rebuilding. This is March first. On Valentine's Day
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twenty twenty five, heavy rains started to fall in parts
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of rural Appalachian Over the course of a few days,
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Residents in eastern Kentucky watched as river levels rose and
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surpassed flood levels. Emergency teams conducted over one thousand water rescues. Hundreds,
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if not thousands, of people were displaced from homes and
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entire business districts filled with mud. For some, it was
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the third time in just four years that their homes
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had flooded, and the process of disposing of destroyed furniture,
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cleaning out the muck, and starting anew is beginning again.
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Floods wiped out businesses and homes in eastern Kentucky and
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February of twenty twenty one, July twenty twenty two, and
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now February twenty twenty five. An even greater scale of
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destruction hit eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina in September
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twenty twenty four, when Hurricane Heleene's rainfall and flooding decimated
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towns and washed out parts of major highways. Each of
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these events was considered to be one thousand year flood
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with a one in one thousand chance of happening in
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a given year, Yet they're happening more often. The floods
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have highlighted the resilience of local people to work together
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for collective survival in rural Appalachia, but they have also
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exposed the deep vulnerability of communities, many of which are
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located along creeks at the base of hills and mountains
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with poor emergency warning systems. As short term clean up
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leads to long term recovery efforts, residents can face daunting
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barriers that leave many facing the same flood risks over
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and over again. For the past nine years, I have
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been conducting research on rural health and poverty in Appalachia.
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It's a complex region often painted in broad brushstrokes that
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miss the geographic, socioeconomic, and ideological diversity it holds. Appalachia
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is home to a vibrant culture, a fierce sense of pride,
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and a strong sense of love, but it is also
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marked by the omnipresent backdrop of a declining coal industry.
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There is considerable local inququality that is often overlooked in
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a region portrayed as one dimensional. Poverty levels are indeed
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high in Perry County, Kentucky, where one of Eastern Kentucky's
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larger cities, Hazard is located. Nearly thirty percent of the
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population lives under the federal poverty line, but the average
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income of the top one percent of workers in Perry
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County is nearly four hundred seventy thousand dollars, seventeen times
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more than the average income of the remaining ninety nine percent.
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This income and wealth inequality translates to unequal land ownership.
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Much of Eastern Kentucky's most desirable land remains in the
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hands of corporations and families with great generational wealth. When
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I first moved to Eastern Kentucky in twenty sixteen, I
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was struck by the grave lack of affordable quality housing.
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I met families paying two hundred to three hundred dollars
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a month for a small plot to put a mobile
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home on. Others lived in found housing, often distressed properties
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owned by family members. They had no lease, no equity
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of no insurance. They had a place to lay one's head,
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but lacked the long term stability in the event of
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disagreement or disaster. This really was rarely acknowledged by local
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and state governments. Eastern Kentucky's twenty twenty one and twenty
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twenty two floods turned this into a full blown housing crisis,
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with nine thousand homes damaged or destroyed in the twenty
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twenty two flood. Alone, quote, there was no empty housing
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or empty places for housing. When resident involved in local
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flood recovery efforts tole me quote it was just complete
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disaster because people just didn't have a place to go
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end quote. Home owners did not have flood insurance to
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assist of rebuilding costs. While many applied to the Federal
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Emergency Management Agency for assistance, the amounts they received often
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did not go far. The maximum aid for temporary housing
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assistance and repairs as forty two thousand, five hundred dollars
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plus up to an additional forty two thousand, five hundred
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for other needs related to the disaster. The federal government
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often provides more aid for rebuilding through block grants directed
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to local and state governments, but that money requires congressional
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approval and can take months to years to arrive. Local
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community coalitions and organizations stepped in to fill these gaps,
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but they did not necessarily have sufficient donations or resources
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to help such large numbers of displaced people with a
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dearth of affordable rental's pre flood, renters who lost their
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homes had no place to go, and those living in
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found housing that was destroyed were not eligible for federal
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support for rebuilds. The sheared level of devastation also posed challenges.
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One healthcare professional told me quote and Appalachia, the way
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it usually works is if you lose your house or
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something happens, then you go stay with your brother or
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your mom or your cousin. But everybody's mom and brother
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and cousin also lost their house. There was nowhere to stay.
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Our homelessness just skyrocketed in quote. After the twenty twenty
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two flood, the Kentucky Department of Local Government earmarked almost
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three hundred million dollars of federal funding to build new
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flood resilient homes in eastern Kentucky, Yet the question of
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where to bill remain as Another resident involved in local
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flood recovery efforts told me, quote, you give us all
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the money you want, we don't have any place to
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build the house in quote. It has always been costly
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in time intensive to develop land in Appalachia. Available higher
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ground tends to be located on former strip mines, and
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these reclaimed lands require careful geotechnical surveying and sometimes structural reinforcements.
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If these areas are remote, the cost of running electric,
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water and other infrastructure services can also be prohibited. For
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this reason, for profit developers have largely avoided many counties
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in the region. The head of a nonprofit agency explained
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to me that because of this quote, the markets are broken.
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We have no housing market. There is also some risk
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involved in attempting to build homes on new land that
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has not previously been developed. A local government could pay
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for undeveloped plan to be surveyed and prepared for development,
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with the prospect of reimbursement by the US Department of Housing.
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And urban development. If housing is successfully built, but if
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after the work to prepare the land, it is still
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too cost prohibitive to build a profitable house there, the
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local government would not receive any reimbursement. Some counties have
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found success clearing land for large developments on former strip
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mining sites, but these former coal mining areas can be
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considerable distances from towns without robust public transportation systems. These
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distances are especially prohibitive for residents who lack reliable personal transportation.
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Another barrier is the high prices that both individual and
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corporate landowners are asking for properties on higher ground. The
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scarcity of desirable land available for sale, combined with increasingly
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urgent demand, has led to prices unaffordable for most Another
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resident involved in local flood recovery efforts explained quote, if
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you paid five thousand dollars for thirty acres forty years ago,
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why wouldn't you sell that for one hundred thousand dollars. Nope,
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they want a million dollars. That makes it increasingly difficult
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for both individuals and housing developers to purchase land and build.
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One reason for this scarcity is the amount of land
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that is still owned by outside corporate interests. For example,
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Kentucky River Properties formerly Kentucky River Coal Corporation, owns over
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two hundred seventy thousand acres across seven counties in the region.
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While this land holding company leases land to coal, timber,
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and gas companies, it and others like it rarely formit
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residential development. But not all unused land is owned by corporations.
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Some of this land is owned by families with deep
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roots in the region. People's attachment to a place often
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makes them want to stay in their communities even after disasters,
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but it can also limit the amount of land available
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for rebuilding. People are often hesit to sell land that
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holds deep significance for their families, even if they are
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not living there themselves. One healthcare professional expressed feeling torn
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between selling or keeping their own family property after the
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twenty twenty two flood. Quote, we have a significant amount
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of property on top of a mountain. I wouldn't want
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to sell it because my popall came from there. He
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was from nothing. His generation thought owning land was the
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greatest thing, and for him to provide his children and
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his grandchildren and great grandchildren a plot of land that
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he worked and sweated and ultimately died to give us
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people want to hold onto that you quote, She recognized
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that land was in great demand, but couldn't bring herself
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to sell what she owned. In cases like hers, higher
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grounds are owned locally but still remain unused. Two years
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after the twenty twenty two flood, major government funding for
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rebuildings still has not resulted in a significant number of
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homes homes. The state has planned seven communities on higher
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ground in eastern Kentucky that aim to house six hundred
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and sixty five new homes. As of early twenty twenty five,
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fourteen houses have been completed. Progress on providing housing on
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higher ground is slow, and the need is great. In
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the meantime, when I conducted interviews during the summer and
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fall of twenty twenty four, many of the mobile home
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communities that were decimated in the twenty twenty two flood
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had begun to fill back up. These were flood risk
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areas that there was simply no other place to go.
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Last week I watched on Facebook a friend's live video
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footed showing the waters creeping up the sides of the
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mobile homes in one of those very communities that had
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flooded in twenty twenty two, another of my friends mused,
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I don't know who constructed all this, but they did
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an unjustly favor by not thinking how close these towns
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was to the river. Can anyone in Frankfort help us?
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Or has it gone too far? With hundreds more people
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now displaced by the most recent flood, the need for
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homes on iron ground has only expanded and the weight
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continues now. We have an article from CBS News dated
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March the fourth Polar bears in Canada are on the
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edge of extinction. Heres what's being done to protect them?
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Just on the edge of the western Hudson Bay lies
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the small town of Churchill, Manostoba. Here the sea meets
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the boreal forests under the rippling northern lights. Farther to
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the north, the trees stopped growing, snow coats, a harsh
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landscape of Canadian shield, and the ceaseless wind cuts through
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the willows. No roads lead to churchilland just a rail
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line and an airport runway carrying the occasional charter plane.
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But it attracts tourists and scientists alike because for a
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short time in the fall, the kings of the Arctic
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migrate through town back to their homes on the frozen sea. Ice.
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Travelers come here from all over the world seeking one
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thing to lock eyes with a polar bear. Polar bears
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meander through Churchill every autumn as they wait for ice
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on the beta form. Males take to the ice first,
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roaming and testing out the edges, eager to travel north
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where they can finally hunt for the ringed seal, their
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primary food source. Scientists converge on Churchill because it is
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the most accessible point to study polar bears. The bears
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here are the most researched in the world and the
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most photographed. These Arctic beasts have big personalities. They play
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and cuddle and nap to pass the time. Males will
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often spar trying to get to know each other so
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that they're prepared for the charged battles in the spring.
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During mating season, cubs stay close to their mothers for
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two to three years before they're chased off in forced
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to live on their own. For the following year, they
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test the waters, sometimes struggling to survive as they learn
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to hunt and sustain themselves in the tundra. In recent years, however,
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the warming Arctic is melting their habitat on the ice,
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changing the bear's behavior. Scientists from Polar Bears Internationals say
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the ice is forming two weeks later than it was
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in the nineteen eighties and receding two weeks earlier in
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the spring. This month long change in their environment is
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forcing bears to keep to shore longer, closer to humans,
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and farther from the seal layers in the north. It's
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a change sparked by the altering climate that their parents
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and grandparents didn't have to face. Yes, the bears have
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been constantly evolving ever since they diverged from the Grizzly
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Rough the Diverse from the grizzly bear roughly five hundred
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thousand years ago, but the pace of change is what
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is alarming scientists. Chief climate scientists were Polar Bear International
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Flavio Elner says because of the decline in sea ice,
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the polar bear population in the western Hudson Bay is
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as low as six hundred and eighteen, approximately half of
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what it used to be in the nineteen eighties. That's
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quite profound, he says. It's hard to find other places
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other than maybe that have been deforested in the Amazon,
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where you see such a stark change in the ecosystem
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caused by climate change. Layer doesn't anticipate that the situation
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will improve, and beyond the population decline, he's seeing a
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behavioral shift. It used to be much more typical to
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find mothers with triplets, which in his personal experience, is
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now rare. Scientists that Polar Bear Internationals say that these
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bears can only sustain themselves comfortably on land for one
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hundred and eighty days. In other parts of the world,
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bears have been seen hunting bird and reindeer. The scientists
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say this high protein diet can damage their kidneys and
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doesn't stop them from losing two to four pounds a
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day when they're off the ice. Quote. The current pace
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of change is operating too fast, says John Whiteman, chief
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research scientists with Polar Bear International. Polar bears won't be
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able to evolve or acclimate in time to be able
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to deal with our current rate. Let's see ice loss.
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Whiteman expects that the polar bears will stick around for
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the next ten years or so in Churchill, but the
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timeline starts to get fuzzy twenty to thirty years in
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the future. Quote. We ultimately know if we lose sea ice,
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we lose polar bears, said Quitman. Churchill has always been
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a town at the precipice. It's lived many lives, from
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home to First Nations, to trading post, to military town
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to now polar bear capital of the world. It attracts
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a special type of person, often one that finds pleasure
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in solitude. The people who come for employment are semi
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nomadic tourist, industry workers, or maybe they're looking for a change.
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Their guides and nature enthusiasts, seasonal workers attracted to this slow,
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simpler pace of life. Others like the town's mayor of
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thirty years, Mike Spence, have spent their lives here. Back
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when he was a kid, conservation officers in town were
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shooting twenty to twenty two bears a year, but over
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time the approach has changed. First of all, we respect wildlife,
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he says. The polar bears are quite significant in the
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indigenous world. It's at the top of its food chain.
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There's a lot of respect in that the town is
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now facing a future where the polar bear tourist season
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could potentially disappear. In the interim, the community will be
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forced to coexist more closely with the bears as they
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wait for the ice to form on the bay, and
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as infrastructure too, also struggles to adapt to a warming
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climate and melting permafrost. Spence is one of many people
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looking for solutions. We've always been challenged, Spence is, but
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the community also usually finds a way. Now we'll turn
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to BBC News. This article is headlined the world's largest
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iceberg runs aground off remote island. The world's largest iceberg
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has run aground in shallow waters off the remote British
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island of South Georgia, home to millions of penguins and seals.
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The iceberg, which is about twice the size of Greater London,
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appears to be stuck and should start breaking up on
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the island's southwest shores. Fishermen fear they will be forced
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to battle with vast chunks of ice, and it could
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affect some macaroni penguins feeding in the area. But scientists
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in Antarctica say that huge amounts of nutrients are locked
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inside the ice and that as it melts, it could
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create an explosion of life in the ocean. Quote it's
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like dropping a nutrient bomb into the middle of an
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empty desert. Says Professor Nadine Johnston from British Antarctic Survey.
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Ecologist Mark Belcher, who advises the South Georgia government, said
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if it breaks up, the resulting icebergs are likely to
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present a hazard of vessels as they move in the
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local currents, and could restrict vessel's access to local fishing grounds.
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The stranding is the latest twist in an almost forty
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year story that began when the megachunk of ice broke
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off the Filtscher Roaning ice Shelf in nineteen eighty six.
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We have tracked its route on satellite pictures since December,
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when it finally broke free after being trapped in an
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ocean warts As it moved north through warmer waters. Nicknamed
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Iceberg Alley, it remained remarkably intact for a few days.
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It even appeared to spin on the spot before speeding
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up in mid February, traveling about twenty miles a day.
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Quote the future of all icebergs is that they will die.
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It's very surprising to see that a twenty three a
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has lasted this long and only lost about a quarter
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of its area, said Hugh Griffiths, speaking to BBC News
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from the Sir David Attenborough Polar Research ship currently in Antarctica.
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On Saturday, the three hundred million, three hundred meter tall
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ice colossus struck the shallow continental shelf about fifty miles
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from land and now appears to be firmly launched. Quote
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It's probably going to stay more or less where it
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is until chunksbury off, says Professor Andrew Myers from British
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Antarctic Survey. It is showing advancing signs of decay. Once
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thirty nine hundred square kilometers, it has been steadily shrinking,
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shedding huge amounts of water as it moves into warmer seas.
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It is now estimated thirty two hundred and thirty four
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square kilometers instead of a big, sheer, pristine box of ice.
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You can see caverns under the edges. Professor Myers says.
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Times will now be lifting it up and down, and
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where it's touching the continental shelf it will grind backwards
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and forwards, eroding the rock and ice. Quote. If the
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ice underneath the rotten eroded by salt, it'll crumble away
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under stress and maybe drift somewhere more shallow, says Professor Myers.
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But when the ice is touching the shelf. There are
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thousands of tiny creatures like coral sea slugs and sponge quote.
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Their entire universe is being bulldozed by a massive slab
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of ice scraping along the sea floor, says Professor Griffiths.
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That is catastrophic in the short term for these species,
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because he says, it is a natural part of the
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life cycle in the region. Where it is destroying something
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in one place, it's providing nutrients in food in other places.
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Sea as the life cycle of icebergs is a natural process,
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but climate change is expected to create more icebergs as
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Antarctica warms and becomes more unstable, More could break away
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from the continent's vast ice sheets and meltic quicker rates,
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disrupting patterns of wildlife and fishing in the region. Now
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will go to Popular Science dated March fourth. This article
22:31
headline reads pig organs in people the future of cross
22:37
species transplants. More than one hundred thousand people in the
22:43
United States are waiting for a new heart, kidney, or
22:46
some other organ Many will die waiting. Some scientists see
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new hope for these people in organs from pigs that
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have been engineered to work within the human body such species.
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These to species transplants, called xeno transplantation, offer a technical
23:05
solution to a basic problem. There are more people in
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need than there are organs, be they from living or
23:11
brain dead donors who go around quote. Unfortunately, as we speak,
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someone is dying just waiting for an organ, says surgeon
23:20
Mohammed Monsieur Muhudin, director of the Cardiac xeno Transplantation program
23:25
at the University of Maryland in Baltimore. Over the past
23:29
few years, a handful of people in the United States
23:31
and China have received specially modified pig kidneys, hearts, and livers,
23:38
but getting those organs to function safely in a person
23:41
is a huge challenge, as laid out in the twenty
23:44
twenty four Annual Review of Animal Biosciences. Now, thanks to
23:48
technological and medical advances, United Therapeutics in Silver Spring, Maryland
23:54
is starting the first official political trials of zeno transplant transplant,
24:01
and many researchers believe the procedure could eventually become routine.
24:06
Yet there are ongoing questions, including risks that pig organs
24:10
will transmit viruses to people, and a number of ethical
24:14
concerns here's a look at the state of play and
24:17
what may lie in After a long history of animal
24:21
transplant experiments, scientists are zeroed in on pigs or many
24:26
pigs as an organ source. The animals breed and grow quickly.
24:30
Their organs are about the right size. There aren't many
24:33
pathogens that infect both pigs and people. Quote. I think
24:37
a pig is almost an ideal donor for human transplantation,
24:41
says Winning Chin, senior vice president Renovation at e Genesis
24:46
in Cambridge, Massachusetts. But without any special tweaks to those organs,
24:51
the human body will immediately attack them. This hyperacute rejection,
24:55
as it's called, is kicked off when human antibodies reac
25:00
recognize as foreign three sugar molecules on the blood vessels
25:04
of a pig organ. The antibodies stick to the cells
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and set off a chain of events that clots blood,
25:11
blocking its flow. Quote. Within ten minutes, the organ would
25:15
turn from the color of pink to black, says Chin,
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the organ is dead end quote. To solve the problem
25:24
of hyperacute rejection, companies such as e Genesis and United
25:28
Therapeutics have used the crisper c as based gene editing
25:33
system to modify the DNA of pigs. Genesis destroyed the
25:38
three genes responsible with those problem pig sugars, but the
25:42
human immune system still has ways to recognize and reject
25:46
the foreign organ just later on, and standard immunopriss immuno
25:51
suppressive drugs designed for human human transplants can't fully prevent
25:55
the response to xenotransplantation. To help address this later stage rejection,
26:02
both companies added several human genes to the big cells.
26:07
These genes make proteins that sit on the cell surface,
26:09
disguising with big cells as human. In twenty twenty three
26:14
gegenies are supported. Five out of fifteen monkeys who received
26:18
kidneys from the company's big survive more than a year.
26:23
One scientist says, quote it's an exciting time for the
26:25
field of zeno transplantation. I think we're going to see
26:29
some significant progress in patients in the near future. Quote.
26:34
There are ethical concerns, however, in human beings. More than
26:37
a dozen pig organ transplants have occurred so far. The
26:40
first transplants were short term experiments and patients who were
26:44
brain dead, so there was no further risk to human health.
26:48
In a handful of these cases, researchers reported genetically edited
26:52
big hearts could be livers made bile, and kidneys were
26:56
able to function making urine without immediate rejection. From there,
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surgeons moved on to live organ recipients. These volunteers have
27:05
been too ill or otherwise ineligible for a human organ transplant.
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Some ethicists raise questions over how these human patients are
27:14
being selected In these early transplants. Physicians approached eligible recipients
27:20
and applied for approval from FDA under the Compassionate Use
27:24
pathway that allows a seriously ill person to receive it.
27:28
Unapproved or untested therapeutic scientists say we're not claiming we
27:34
have a perfect solution yet, but they hope eventually zeno
27:39
transplants can become a valid supplement to the human organ supply. Well,
27:44
that's all for today's Diary of Science and Nature. Reader
27:48
was Kelly Taylor. Now stay tuned for the Health Corner
27:52
on RADIOID