Transcript

7.10.25 · Science Show KY

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Radioized Diary of Science and Nature. Your reader's
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Kelly Taylor. I'll have some articles related to science and nature,
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but first a reminder. RADIOI as a reading service intended
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for people who are blind or have other disabilities that
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make it difficult to read printed material. We'll start with
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an article from a huff Post. The headline is actual
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weather experts explain what weather modification does minus the conspiracy theories.
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This is from July eighth. In the wake of the
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devastating floods in Texas, Representative Marjorie Taylor Green announced new
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legislation aimed at an unusual target, weather modification. Quote. I
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am introducing a bill that prohibits the injection, release, or
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dispersion of chemicals or substances into the atmosphere for the
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express purpose of altering weather, temperature, climate, or sunlight intensity.
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The Georgia Republican posted on x formerly Twitter quote it
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will be a felony offense. I have been researching weather
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modification and working with the Legislative Council for months writing
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this bill. She said that the legislation would be similar
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to Florida's Senate Bill fifty six and added quote, we
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must end the dangerous and deadly practice of weather modification
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and geoengineering end quote. But what exactly is weather modification?
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Is it actually happening and is it deadly? Off Post
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asked experts to explain the term, as well as the
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most common example, cloud seating, and what you should know
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about it. Weather modification simply means trying to change or
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influence the weather in some way, says Frank Lombardo, certified
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consulting meteorologist and CEO of weather Works. Quote. That could
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be trying to increase rain or snow, reduce hail, or
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lessen the intensity of a weather event. It's really just
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a way to nudge the atmosphere in a certain direction
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with varying results. As science advances and climate change leads
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to more extreme and unpredictable weather, there's been increasing interest
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in weather modification. Weather modification intentionally alters the weather using technology,
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said Kaccia Friedrich, Professor and chair of the Department of
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Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
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This includes cloud seating, hail suppression, hurricane weakening, fog suppression,
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the idea of being able to lessen devastating storms, or
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put an end to severe droughts is certainly tempting, but
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we aren't actually able to carry out these kinds of
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weather modifications effectively at a large scale, and even if
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that changes, there are concerns about unintended consequences on ecosystems,
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international cooperation, ethical distribution of resources, and more. While a
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large scale weather modification doesn't yet exist, cloud seating is
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the most widely studied and applied method. Quote. Cloud seating
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is when we add tiny particles like silver iodide or
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dry ice into clouds. Lombardo said, These particles help form
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more water droplets, which can lead to more rain or snow.
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In quote, you will mostly find this happening regionally in
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places like the western US, China, and the United Air
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Emirates for the purposes of drought relief and or snow
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generation in specific areas. Basically, special planes or generators on
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the ground release the seating agents to encourage water drops
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uplets to form and fall. Most clouds do not need
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to be seated, Friedrich said, as precipitating clouds are generally
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good at doing this naturally. Quote. The goal is usually
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to increase precipitation, but some people also talk about using
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cloud seeding to calm storms or break up heavy rain,
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though that's mostly theoretical and not well proven. Lombardo noted,
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there are so many misconceptions around cloud seating, and I
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am always honored to see how much confidence people have
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in science. Friedrich said, Unfortunately, we showed in our studies
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on orographic wintertime cloud seating that we can produce snow
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through cloud seating, but it is really not that much. Indeed,
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cloud seating has only shown modest success in increasing precipitation,
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with studies indicating about five to fifteen percent or even
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twenty percent jumps under optimal conditions. It's also difficult to
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fully gauge effectiveness, as weather is dynamic and many factors
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can play into changes in precipitation, its usefulness is extremely limited,
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said Clifford Mass, professor of atmospheric and climate sciences at
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the University of Washington. Some people are making money doing
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cloud seeding, but the benefit is extremely small. Probably the
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most valuable use of it is with super cool fog
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in Arctic areas. The ability to modify precipitation is marginal
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at best. Cloud seating also only works if there are
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already existing clouds. You cannot use cloud seating to create
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a single cloud out of thin air, and its impact
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on precipitation is not enough to form a large storm,
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even if there are many existing clouds filled with moisture. Quote,
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if we were that good at cloud seating, we would
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have solved the water crisis in the western US or
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any other arid place in the world, Friedrich said, is
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powerful and often very efficient in producing large amounts of precipitation.
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She added that other forms of weather modification aren't anywhere
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near as common as cloud seeding, if they're even possible.
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At this point, the research around hurricane and hail suppression
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has shown that we are not able to modify anything significantly,
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Friedrich said, I don't know of any hurricane seating activities.
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Hail suppression is still being done, but there is very
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little scientific evidence that we can alter hailstone sizes in thunderstorms.
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I also haven't seen much around fog suppression. Lombarda wanted
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to clear up another misconception around cloud seating. Quote. Some
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folks think if you see clouds in one area, you
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steal the rain from nearby areas, he said, but there's
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no real evidence to support that. Cloud seeding might help
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in one region, but it doesn't cancel out rain somewhere else.
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The many misconceptions in general lack of public understanding around
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weather modification have given rise to many conspiracy theories around
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weather modification. In the aftermath of devastating events like the
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floods in Texas, these theories tend to get a bigger
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spotlight when a disaster hits, like a big flood or hurricane,
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people naturally look for someone or something to blame. Lombardo said,
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is it cloud seating, climate change, bad planning politics? He
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noted that Texas has a long history with cloud seating,
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particularly in old, drier parts of the state, so it
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could feel like a convenient answer to the flooding. Social
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media posts about the government or private entities engineering disasters
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offer an easy scapegoat. First off, cloud seating didn't cause
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the massive storm they hit Texas on July fourth and fifth.
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Lombardo said, events like that are driven by much bigger
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weather patterns, and they're tough to forecast and even more
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difficult to control. Also, cloud seating can't stop hurricanes or
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weaken them. People have tried, but it hasn't worked. Although
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Marjorie Taylor Green didn't explicitly link her legislative proposal to
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the flooding in Texas. The timing of her announcement and
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previous statements following natural disasters certainly fuels the conspiracy theory.
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It's just complete nonsense. Mass said of links between weather
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modification and the Texas flooding. They think that the US
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government has a secret program that are creating the clouds
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in the sky. He also compared the frenzy to the
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debunked conspiracy theory around kim Trails, which Health and Human
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Services Secretary Robert Kennedy has also promoted. As with conspiracy
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theories before it, the linking of the Texas flooding to
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cloud seating tends to say more about human psychology than
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about science. We as human beings, want to find answers
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to our why and who questions, Friedrich said, simply accepting
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that nature is powerful and hurricanes and flooding can cost lives,
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it's harder to believe because we have to accept it
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and cannot blame anyone. Now, sticking with the theme of
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the floods, we have an article from NPR Floods are
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getting more dangerous around the country, not just in Texas.
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This is from July to seventh. The catastrophic flash floods
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in Texas over the weekend were caused by extremely heavy rain.
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Up to twelve inches of rain fell in south central
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Texas in the early hours of July fourth, according to
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the National Weather Service radar. Climate change is driving more
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extreme rainstorms across much of the United States, which drop
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more water in shorter periods of time and make dangerous
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floods more likely. That's what happened in Texas last week.
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When a large amount of rain falls very quickly, the
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ground can't soak up the water if the terrain is
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even a little bit hilly. All that excess water is
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funneled into low areas, picking up speed as it flows downstream.
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This can cause dangerous flash floods when water rises quickly
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and is moving swiftly. The part of Texas that flooded
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last week is known as flash Flood Alley because of
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its impermeable limestone hills and frequent downpours. But these floods
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are unusually severe for the area, and climate change is
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making such floods even worse. That's because a warmer atmosphere
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can hold more moisture that extra water vapor means storms
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can drop more rain than in the past. Today, the
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heaviest rainstorms in Texas drop about twenty percent more water
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than they did in the late nineteen fifties, when the
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planet was significantly cooler, and extreme rain in Texas is
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expected to get much more frequent in the coming decade
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as the climate warms even more. According to a twenty
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twenty four report by the Texas State Climatologists, it's not
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just Texas. Across the United States, the heaviest storms are
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projected to drop more rain as the planet continues to warm.
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We don't know yet how much climate change contributed to
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this particular storm. An initial analysis by a group of
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European scientists estimates that climate change may have caused slightly
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more rain to fall during the July fourth storm. Scientists
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will be able to do more accurate analyses as more
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detailed data from Texas become available in the coming days
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and weeks. Friday's rain was particularly intense because the remnants
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of tropical Storm Vary were moving over Texas after the
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storm made landfall last week in Mexico. As the earth worms,
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tropical storms and hurricanes are dumping more rain than they
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used to. Most of the excess heat that humans have
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trapped on Earth has been soaked up by the oceans.
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In warmer ocean water combined with warmer air in the atmosphere,
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makes large wet storms more likely. Such storms can cause
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deadly flooding very far inland, a phenomenon that was on
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full display last year when Hurricane Helene caused devastating flooding
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and Appalachia. In twenty twenty one, flash floods from the
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remnuts of Hurricane Ida killed dozens of people in the
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northeastern United States after making landfall in Louisiana. More than
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one third of the estimated two hundred thirty billion dollars
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of damage caused by inland flooding in the US between
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nineteen eighty eight and twenty twenty one would not have
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happened without human caused climate change, according to the National
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Climate Assessment. The flash floods in south central Texas washed
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out roads and bridges and swept away buildings in rds
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along the Guadalupe River. Despite the growing risks, many communities
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around the country are still not planning for more intense
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rain storms as they build roads, floodways, and storm infrastructure.
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That's in part because local governments around the country relye
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on historical rainfall records from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
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Administration NOAH INAA to plan flood control systems, but in
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some places the records are decades old, meaning they don't
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reflect how rain storms have already gotten more intense in
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most of the country. In Texas's Harris County, which includes Houston,
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NOAH updated the rainfall records in twenty eighteen and found
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that extreme storms, those that have a one percent chance
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of occurring in any given year, now drop almost eighteen
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inches of rain, compared to thirteen inches prior to the
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nineteen sixties and seventies. That increase meant that one third
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of the major roads and highways in Harris County are
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vulnerable to flooding. To respond to the growing risk, the
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county's flood infrastructure plan became one hundred and fifty to
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two hundred million dollars more expensive, largely due to the
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flood's safety needs. NOAH is currently updating outdated rainfall records nationwide,
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taking into account how climate change could continue to make
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storms worse. Those updates are expected to be released starting
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next year. Noah did not respond to questions about whether
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that timeline is changing under the Trump administration, which has
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proposed significantly shrinking the agency, including programs that work on
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climate change research. Now we'll turn to The Guardian for
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an article about bees honeybees. The headline is could become
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a debt's spiral. Scientists discover what's driving record die offs
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of US honeybees From July eighth. Brett A. D. That's
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ade is one of the largest bee keepers in the US,
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with two billion bees across fifty five thousand hives. The
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business has been in his family since the nineteen thirties
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and since truckloads of bees across the country from South Dakota,
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pollinating crops such as almonds, onions, watermelons, and cucumbers. Last December,
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his bees were wintering in California. When the weather turned cold,
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bees grouped on top of hives trying to keep warm. Quote.
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Every time I went out to the beehive, there were
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less and less, says D. Then a week later there'd
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be more dead ones to pick up. Every week. There
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is attrition just continually going down in quote. A D
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went on to lose seventy five percent of his bees.
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It's almost depressingly, he says. If we have a similar
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situation this year, I sure hope we don't, then we're
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in a death spiral. It developed into the largest US
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honeybee die off on record, with beekeepers losing on average
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sixty percent of their colonies at a cost of six
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hundred million dollars. Scientists have been scrambling to discover what happened.
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Now the culprits are emerging. A research paper published by
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the US Department of Agriculture, though not yet peer reviewed,
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has found nearly all colonies had contracted a bee virus
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spread by parasitic mites that appear to have developed resistance
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to the main chemicals used to control them. Varroa mites,
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equivalent in size to a dinner plate on a human body,
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crawl and jump between worker bees. If there are no
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infections present, they do not typically damage the bee, but
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if diseases are present, they quickly spread them. While varoa
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typically infects honeybees not wild bees, the diseases that they
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spread can kill other pollinators. Research has shown that the
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viral outbreaks among honeybees often spill over to wild colonies,
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with potential knock on effects. On biodiversity. All beekeepers in
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the USDA screening used amatraz, a pesticide widely used in
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the sector to get rid of mites, but the research
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showed all mites tested were resistant to it. After years
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of heavy use, amatraz no longer appears to be effected.
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This discovery underscores the urgent need for new control strategies
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for this parasite. Mite numbers have increased to high levels
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in recent surveys, according to the researchers, who collected hundreds
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of samples from dead and living hives from one hundred
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thirteen colonies. When mites become uncontrolled, virulent viruses are more
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likely to take over. Researchers say since the nineteen eighties,
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veroamites globally have developed resistance to at least four leading miticides,
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pesticides specifically formulated to control mites that are challenging to develop,
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causing significant problems for beekeepers. Norman Carrick, a senior technician
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the University of Sussex who was not involved in the research, says,
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quote sadly, it was inevitable that major honeybee colony losses
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would again occur in the US at some point it
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was only a matter of time before widespread resistance to amatraz,
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the only remaining effective synthetic chemical, would develop, he says,
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but the discovery of amatraz resistant mites in hives does
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not mean that they alone were responsible for all of
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last year's record die offs. A combination of factors is
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likely to be causing successive colony deaths among usbes, including
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the changing climate, exposure to pesticides, and less food in
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the form of pollen and nectar. As monocrop farming proliferates,
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many US beekeepers now expect to lose thirty percent of
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their colony or more every year. These wider combined factors
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are also devastating for wild pollinators and native bee species,
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and honeybees, which are closely monitored by their beekeepers, may
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be acting as a canary in the coal mine for
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pressures affecting insects more generally. Paul Heatherington of the charity
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Bug Life says honeybees are in effect quote a farmed
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animal as opposed to wild bees, but they will be
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suffering from the same stresses as their wild cousins, in
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particular loss of good habitat, climate stress, chemical stress, light
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adi says he had mites for twenty years and we
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never had over three percent losses. He believes there is
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a combination of things that makes the bees more stressed
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and the mites more deadly. He cites the use of
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neo nikotenoid neo nicotinoid, that's it, neonicotinoid insecticides in the
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US which harmbee's nervous system, paralyzing and ultimately killing them.
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Some researchers have warned of neonicotinoids causing another silent spring,
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referring to Rachel Carson's nineteen sixty two book on the
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effects of the insecticide DDT on bird populations. Dave Gulson,
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professor of biology at the University of Sussex, says the
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study provided no evidence that the viral load was higher
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in weaker colonies. Quote, almost all be e colonies have
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these viruses, but they only do significant harm when the
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colony is stressed. He says high levels of viral infection
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may be a symptom of ill health, not the cause.
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Due to government staffing cuts, the USDA team were unable
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to analyze pesticides in the hives and asked be experts
21:17
at Cornell University to carry out the results, or carry
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out the research with the results still to be published.
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Experts are concerned that successive loss of honeybee colonies could
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affect food security, as the insects pollinate more than one
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hundred commercial crops across North America. Reports of new losses
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this year came through before the California almond blossom season,
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which is the largest pollination event in the world, requiring
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the services of seventy percent of US honeybees. Daniel Downey,
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director of nonprofit beekeeping research organization Project APIs, which conducted
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the die off survey, says, if you like to eat,
22:01
you need healthy bees to pollinate crops. Beekeepers try to
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rebuild each year, but they are pushed to the brink
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as losses and input costs keep increasing. If beekeepers fail,
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there is no backup plan for the pollination services they
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provide in US food production, she says. Meanwhile, beekeepers are
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being pushed close to ruin. When d was growing up,
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he would get upset about losses of more than five percent. Now,
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a loss of thirty percent each year's standard. It's absolutely
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insane that that's an acceptable loss in any livestock industry,
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He says, like many beekeepers. Ade was unable to restock
22:40
this year because the losses were so high. Quote I'm
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just watching every nickel and dime right now because I
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don't want to get rid of men that have helped
22:49
me manage these bees for years in quote. Now we'll
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go to Smithsonian and the article headline reads the largest
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Martian meteorite in the world is heading to auction and
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could sell for four million dollars. This is from July eighth.
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Humans are still dreaming about landing on Mars, but periodically
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chunks of the red planet come crashing down on Earth.
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Now one of those rare Mars rocks is heading to auction,
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the largest Martian meteorite ever found on Earth, called NWA
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one six seven eighty eight, that sell for as much
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as four million dollars at Sotheby's Natural History Sale in
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New York on July sixteenth. Meteorites are pieces of space
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debris that survived the journey through Earth's atmosphere to reach
23:39
the surface. When these objects are still hurtling through space,
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they're known as meteoroids, and as they're traveling through the
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Earth's atmosphere, they're called meteors, or colloquially shooting stars. An
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anonymous meteorite hunter discovered NWA one six seven eight eight
23:59
in theF Calfe region of Nizer on July sixteenth, twenty
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twenty three. According to the Lunar and Planetary Institute, A
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fragment of the grayish brown rock was later sent to
24:11
the Shanghai Astronomy Museum for analysis. The chunk weighs more
24:16
than fifty four pounds, which makes it about seventy percent
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bigger than the next largest known Mars metiawrite. According to Sotheby's,
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NWA sixteen seven eight eight is so large that it
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represents more than six percent of all Martian material ever
24:32
found on Earth. NWA sixteen seven eight eight is also rare.
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It's one of roughly four hundred known meteorites from Mars,
24:42
which together make up a small fraction of the more
24:45
than seventy seven thousand officially recognized meteorites from all extraterrestrial
24:51
sources quote that chunk had to be loose enough to
24:56
break off, and then it had to get on the
24:58
right trajectory to travel on ndred and forty million miles
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to Earth, and then it had to land in a
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spot where someone could find it. Says Cassandra Hattan, vice
25:07
chairman of Science and Natural History for Sotheby's. And then
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we were lucky enough that someone came by who knew
25:14
enough about meteorites to recognize that it wasn't just a
25:17
big rock. The object is what's known as a sergotite meteorite,
25:23
which is the most common type of meteorite from Mars.
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Scientists believe these fragments, named after the Shergati meteorite that
25:31
fell in India in eighteen sixty five, come from the
25:34
red planet's volcanic regions. Based on its internal composition, scientists
25:39
think in Wa sixteen seven eight eight was torpedoed from
25:44
the Martian Service surfaced by an asteroid impact. The collision
25:49
was so powerful that it transformed about twenty percent of
25:53
the meteorite's minerals into a type of glass known as masculinite.
25:59
Parts of this surface are also covered in a glassy
26:03
fusion crust, which likely formed as a careem through the atmosphere,
26:07
generating high temperatures. It's not clear exactly when in Wa
26:12
sixteen seven eight eight landed on Earth, However, based on
26:15
the lack of visible weathering, it probably fell somewhat recently.
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According to Sotheby's. In a statement, Hatton describes a meteorite
26:23
as once in a generation find that provides a link
26:27
to our celestial neighbor that has long captured the human imagination.
26:31
Some onlookers are disappointed that in Wa sixteen seven eight
26:36
eight is being sold to the highest bidder rather than
26:38
being donated to a scientific institution or museum. It would
26:43
be a shame if it disappeared into the vault of
26:45
an oligarch, says Steve Brusati, palaeontologists at the University of
26:50
Edinburgh in Scotland. However, other experts are less concerned about
26:55
the sale. A fragment of the rock has already been
26:57
analyzed and a reference samples being kept at the Purple
27:00
Mountain Observatory in China. In addition, the new owner may
27:04
ultimately choose to donate the specimen or support future research
27:08
on it. Meteorites are unique specimens that carry information about
27:12
the history of the Solar system that cannot be learned
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any other way, says Paul Asimov, geologist at the California
27:20
Institute of Technology. He goes on to say this is
27:24
mitigated by the scale at which we can study meteorites.
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And a subsample is likely to contain all the information
27:31
that the whole stone contains. In addition to the meteorites,
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Sotheby's is also auctioning off other rare items. The authoring
27:40
offerings include a late Neolithic stone axe, the skeleton of
27:45
a one hundred fifty million year old juvenile sarah Thossaurus dinosaur,
27:53
and articulated Tyrannosaurus rex foot and other fossils. Well, that's
28:00
all for today's Diary of Science and Nature. Your reader
28:03
was Kelly Taylor. Now stay tuned for the Health Corner
28:07
on Radio I