Transcript

4.23.26 · 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 on the topics of
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science and nature, but first a reminder that Radio Eye
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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 today with a piece from the
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Courier Journal from their opinion page. This is written by
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David Themister, one of their contributors. In David April twenty second.
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The headline is Hope for environmental restoration grows on Kentucky
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mine sites. On a beautiful March morning, I joined with
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dedicated volunteers near Middlesborough, Kentucky, to plant trees on a
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former mine site in the Cumberland Forest. Our mood was celebratory,
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even as a stiff breeze chilled us while we readied
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trees for planting one hundred bear root saplings. Bucket looking
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towards the sun with Cumberland Gap clearly visible in the distance,
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I felt its warmth, along with something that has seemed
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in short supply of late hope. From a distance, the
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area looked like a gray moonscape, dominated by rocks, small stones,
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and bare ground. But when I looked closer, I began
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to see all the little tree saplings being planted Oaks, hickoryes, sycamores,
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black gums, and per simmons, along with native wildflowers and grasses.
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I also spotted a mix of hardwoods and short leafd
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pines that professional crews had planted across nearly one hundred
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and fifteen acres during the preceding weeks. I realized that
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what had looked like torn up ground was the start
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of a new forest. For me, each sapling stood like
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a small but bright ray of hope for restoration and
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renewal in these mountains. That hope has a long and
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circuitous origin story. First Earth Day was celebrated fifty six
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years ago on April twenty second, nineteen seventy, and is
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widely seen as launching the modern environmental movement. Indeed, in
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the decade that followed, the United States passed a host
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of foundational environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act, the
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Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and, in nineteen
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seventy seven, the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act. The
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latter provided for the first time federal requirements on how
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surface mines, including coal mines, throughout the Central Appalachians of
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Kentucky were operated and reclaimed once mining was complete. In
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many ways, the legislation has been a tremendous success, reducing
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post mining pollution and largely eliminating landslides that had plagued
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mountain communities in the pre law days. However, some reclamation
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practices make it challenging for native trees to take root
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and reclaim these sites. Naturally stabilizing these lands has often
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involved extreme compaction of the soil. Imagine a concrete parking
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lot and you are not far off from the site
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conditions of many reclaimed mines. Our March Tree Planning event
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marked the fifth year that Suntory Global Spirits, the Nature Conservancy,
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and Green Forest's Work converged in the mountains of eastern
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Kentucky to reforest mine lands. To ensure success, Green Forest's Work,
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a small but mighty non profit out of Lexington, used
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a bulldozer to plow and break up the parking lot ines.
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In many ways, these sites look their worst when they
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are ready to start healing. The brave saplings taking root
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in the mountains were not the only reason I found
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myself smiling as I worked. Another reason for hope was
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the excellent group of volunteers from Suntory Global Spirits, many
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of them from the Gymbeam Distillery and Clearmont. Most of
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these folks had started their day with a mile hike
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uphill to the planting site because an old school bus
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they were traveling in could not navigate an especially tricky
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dip in the road. But I heard not a word
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of complaint, nor saw any hesitation with the task at hand.
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They simply grabbed their buckets and dibble bars and headed
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out to plant. The team finished the job shortly after lunch,
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having planted eight thousand trees across twelve acres. I saw
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a lot of dusty and tired folks, but they were
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mostly smiling and laughing as they prepared for the trip
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off the mountain. Doing good makes you feel good, and
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that was certainly the case that day. While Earth Day
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spurred a host of bedrock federal environmental legislation, it started
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as a grassroots movement focused on citizen led action to
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protect and restore the only home we have and the
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one we all share. While there are many valuable things
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to continue that legacy, planting a native tree, whether in
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the mountains of eastern Kentucky or along a busy street
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in Louisville is among the best and most satisfying across Kentucky.
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Trees are helping restore land and even improve our health.
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On this Earth Day, grab a seedling and a shovel
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and go plant hope for yourself and our world. And
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now we'll turn to Scientific American and this article from
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April twenty second, whatever Happened to the Ozone Hole, acid
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Rain and DDT, written by Andrea Thompson. Each decade seems
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to have its signature environmental crisis that dominates headlines. Over time,
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those issues seemingly disappear, leaving us to idly wonder from
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time to time if problems like the ozone hole or
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acid rain are still planetary concerns, or if we've solved them.
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On this Earth Day, Scientific American is here to give
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you a status update on some of the major environmental
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stories of past decades. In nineteen eighty five, three British
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scientists announced their discovery of a massive whole in Earth's
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protective ozone layer that was opening every spring over Antarctica.
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The culprits, it turned out, were chlorofluorocarbons, CFCs and certain
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other chemicals used in refrigeration and aerosol sprays. Another trio
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of scientists had warned the world about CFCs in the
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nineteen seventies and later won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
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for it. When CFCs break down in the atmosphere, they
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released chlorine that leads to the destruction of ozone, a
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molecule that contains three oxygen molecules and blocks harmful ultraviolet
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rays from reaching the planet's surface. As people became alarmed
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about the possibility of rising skin cancer rates, nations met
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in nineteen eighty seven to pass the Montreal Protocol and
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phase out CFCs. It was the first United Nations treaty
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to be universally ratified, and was possible in part because
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of ready alternative chemicals. Threats to the ozone layer continue from,
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for example, chlorine containing molecules emitted by massive wildfires, and
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aluminum oxide produced when satellites and other space objects burn
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up on re entry into the atmosphere. Even so, CFC
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levels have plummeted since the protocol was enacted, and the
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ozone layer has begun a long slow recovery. Current predictions
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suggest the ozone layer will recover to its state in
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nineteen eighty over the tropics and middle latitudes by twenty forty,
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and it will reach that point over the Arctic by
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about twenty forty five and over Antarctica by the mid
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twenty sixties. Quote the Montreal Protocol is the best environmental
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agreement we've ever created, says Derwood Zelki, and environmental policy
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expert at the University of California, Santa Barbara and founder
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of an organization focused on reducing climate pollutants. In the
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nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties, one of the top environmental
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crises grabbing public attention was acid rain, with news reports
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showing images of the partially dissolved faces of statues in trees,
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bare of leaves. Acid Rain is formed when sulfur dioxide
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and nitrogen nitrogen oxides released into the atmosphere react with oxygen, water,
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and other chemicals to form sulfuric and nitric acids, which
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can dissolve in water vapor. Any rain, snow, fog, or
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even hail that then falls has a more acidic pH
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than normal. That rain not only eats away a human stonework,
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but can also harm animals and ecosystems, especially aquatic ones,
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and because these chemicals can be carried for hundreds of miles,
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pollution in one state or country can cause damage in
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another downwind. Those sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides can come
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from natural sources such as volcanoes, the majority comes from
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burning fossil fuels, and again public alarm helped drive action.
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In the US, Updates to the Clean Air Act created
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a cap and trade system for power plants, which at
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the time were largely coal burning, that gradually ratcheted down
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the amount of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides they could release,
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incentivizing the addition of pollutant capturing scrubbers to smokestacks. These
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pollutants are of growing concern in places such as India,
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where coal fired power is generally increasing, but in the US,
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sulfur dioxide emissions have declined by ninety five percent and
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nitrogen oxides by eighty nine percent according to the EPA,
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and wet sulfur deposition, a common indicator of acid rain,
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dropped by more than seventy percent between nineteen eighty nine
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and ninety one and twenty twenty twenty two. With publication
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of her book Silent Spring in nineteen sixty two, biologist
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Rachel Carson helped ignite the modern environmental movement. The book
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detailed the devastating effects to wildlife, especially birds, from the
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widespread use of insecticide DDT. The chemical was developed in
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the early nineteen hundreds and came into wider use during
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World War II to prevent the spread of malaria and typhus. But,
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as Scientific American wrote in nineteen forty four, DDT's effectiveness
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now in war may well be overshadowed by its value
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and as yet unutilized in peace, and it soon became
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widely used on crops, lawns, in homes, and on pets.
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Some one point three five billion pounds were sprayed in
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the US over about thirty years. Public sentiment began to
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turn as some insects became resistant and the toll on
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wildlife became clear. DDT is persistent in the environment and
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accumulates up the food chain. It caused numbers of several
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bird species, including bald eagles, to nosedive as the shells
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of their eggs were so thin that they broke or
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failed to hatch. The early EPA banned DDT in nineteen
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seventy two and levels in the environment have dramatically declined,
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though it is still found in trace amounts in soils.
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DDT is classified as a quote probable human carcinogen, and
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there are lingering effects. The grandchildren of women exposed to
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high amounts have higher rates of obesity and earlier age
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of the first period. Today. It is also banned by
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international treaty for all uses except to control the spread
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of Mola. One particularly bright spot in this story is
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the recovery of many bird species after the chemical was banned.
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Bald eagle populations grew from only four hundred and seventeen
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known nesting pairs in nineteen sixty three to more than
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seventy thousand today. From the mid twentieth century onward, Los
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Angeles became the poster child for cities choking in brownish
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gray smog, a portmanteau word of smoke and fog. As
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Scientific American wrote in nineteen sixty four, quote, there's a
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growing realization that smog, beyond being a vectatious of sorry
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vexatious nuisance, may indeed present hazards to health. Smog arises
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from pollutants released by the burning of fossil fuels in
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this case, nitrogen oxides and what are called volatile organic
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chemicals with sunlight to create ground level ozone, the principal
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component of smog. Though ozone is protective in the stratosphere,
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it is an irritant to the throat and lungs and
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can cause lung or can damage lung function. In nineteen
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seventy one, the EPA enacted National Ambient Air Quality Standards
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in AAQS on six common pollutants, including ground level ozone,
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and those were strengthened in nineteen ninety seven. Since nineteen eighty,
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ozone pollution in the US has declined by twenty nine percent,
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according to the EPA. Smog is still a problem in
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US cities, including Los Angeles, and the EPA under the
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Trump administration has proposed changes to various rules that could
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increase smog levels. Smog is also a growing concern in
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countries such as India that have rapidly industrialized. Let's turn
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out of the USA today and the article with the
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headline are Stinging Asian needle ants invading in your state?
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This is from April to twelfth. Another invasive species is
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slowly crawling its way across the United States over the
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past few decades, the Asian needle ants have spread to
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more than twenty states since their first appearance in Georgia
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and North Carolina in nineteen thirty two. They originate from
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the temperate regions of East Asia. Experts are concerned about
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the insects spreading throughout the nation since they are venomous
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and can cause serious allergic reactions with their painful sting.
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In twenty twenty four, at least three cases of life
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threatening anaphylactic reactions were reported in Georgia, making this little
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and little known insect a growing problem. Even though it's
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not often aggressive, the ants sting can pierce clothing and
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cause severe, persistent pain. Its sting can cause anaphylaxis adentally
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life threatening allergic reaction, causing a rapid heartbeat, breathing issues,
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and swelling in the throat. Here's what you should know
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about invading ants and how to keep your family safe.
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There have been reports of the invasive Asian needle ants
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in more than twenty states in the United States, mostly
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in the Southeast and certain regions of the Mid Atlantic.
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States with the highest concentrations and reports are North Carolina,
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South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama. With notable increases in Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky,
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New York, and Wisconsin. There are reports they have also
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appeared in Texas. It's very possible to learn to live
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with Asian needle ants, just as we've learned to live
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with bees, said Andrew Johnston, insect diagnostician at Purdue University's
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Department of Entomology. They're not aggressive, they don't swarm the
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way fire ants do. Johnston said, wear gloves and pay
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attention to what you're grabbing. Quote. Because Asian needle ants
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resemble other ant species that are found near your home,
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it can be difficult to tell the difference between them.
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Their bodies are long and thin. The needle in their
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name actually comes from their Japanese name u haarri Ai,
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which means giant needle ant and refers to the size
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of their stinger. Quote. Imagine somebody inserting a needle directly
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into your flesh, said Benoit Gnard, professor of ecology and entomology.
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Thing versus Hong Kong. Quote It's a very sharp, acute pain,
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but it's quite local. Quote. Unlike fire ants, for example,
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which build massive mounds to indicate their location, Asian needle
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ants do not make foraging trails or the visible lines
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of ants. They prefer to build their nests in damp
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woods such as wet mulch or fallen logs. In their
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natural habitats. These ants also cause severe damage they outcompete
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other ant species that are crucial to the local ecology.
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So far, there is no formalized management recommendation for the species,
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but protein based pesticide baits seem to work best for
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this kind of ants. It's crucial to remember that you
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might only be keeping the colony at bay rather than
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completely eliminating it. Make treatment zones specifically for the bait
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around your home and then set them up according to
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the manufacturer's instructions for the next three to four weeks.
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Keep a watchful eye on your baits to see whether
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there's any ant activity in the area you have selected.
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Now going back to Scientific American, This article from April
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twenty second is headlined Earth Day in the Artemis era.
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Can NASA's moon missions spur a new environmental movement? Just
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fourteen days ago, amid the mundanity of East coast commutes
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and West coast alarm clocks, Artemis two mission gave humans
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across the nation and around the world a stunning new
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image of our planet. In it, a crescent of Earth's
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blue vitality hovers amid the blackness of space, above a
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high definition brownish gray wasteland of lunar craters. It's an
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eerily familiar recreation of the iconic earth Rise photograph from
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nineteen sixty eight's Apollo eight, a mission with a similar
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flight path to Artemis two. It came amid a troubled
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moment for Earth that many also say feels familiar today.
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The original earth Rise was just one of hundreds of
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thousands of photographs taken during the eleven Crude Apollo missions,
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but it has over the decades become laden with symbolism
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about humanity and our relationship with space and our planet. Quote.
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What's been fascinating about Artemia two is that we've seen
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many of these overarching narratives about spacelight return, how space
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exploration helps us understand, how we're connected, how we share
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the planet, how beautiful but vulnerable our planet is, says
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t Cell Mure Harmony, a space historian at the Smithsonian
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Institution's National Air and Space Museum. On Apollo eight's launch day,
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human spaceflight was less than a decade old, and no
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one had seen the Earth from beyond orbit. When the
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trio of astronauts zipped around the far side of the
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Moon and saw their home planet sparkling above its barren surface,
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even though they had known to expect the moment, they
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were spellbound. It was a response repeated on each subsequent mission,
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says Catherine Newell, a historian of religion and science at
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the University of Miami who has written a book about
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space exploration. Quote, almost every Apollo astronaut came back to
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work at a fundamentally changed person. She says, it really
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shook them to their core in a spiritual way to
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see Earth just kind of hovering there by itself in
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the void. A sense of that experience translated to the
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billions of humans back on Earth through the images astronauts
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captured of our planet, particularly Earth Rise and Apollo seventeen's
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Blue Marble photograph. The first image captured by an astronaut
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that showed Earth's full disc suspended in space. Between these
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two missions and their iconic photographs was the first Earth Day,
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celebrated on April twenty second, nineteen seventy. On that day,
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a loosely organized network of celebrations, protests, and teachings tapped
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into decades of growing interest in land and wildlife conservation
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and concerns about pollution and overpopulation. At the time, environmental
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initiatives were popular across the political spectrum, says Keith Woodhouse,
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an environmental historian at Northwestern University. Quote, there was more
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of a sense back then that environmentalism was a common
21:10
sense idea, because who would object to clean water, clean air,
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forests and pretty places. As the environmental movement developed, it
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adopted the images of Earth from space thanks in part,
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and asked his own efforts to communicate how the agency's
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Earth science research was related to phenomena such as the
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Ozone hole and climate change. Says Neil Marr, an environmental
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historian at New Jersey Institute of Technology. Quote. By collecting
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global scientific data and then combining it with these incredible
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images of Earth, they turned images from space into environmental symbols. Quote.
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By the nineteen nineties, the Earth rise and Blue Marble
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images were all over environmental demonstrations. Again from Scientific American,
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we have an article from April seventeenth, the Dinosaurs at
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your Window, How birds survived the asteroid that killed all
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other dinosaurs. This is by Kendra Pierre Louis. From television
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shows like Land of the Lost and Terra Nova to
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the blockbuster Jurassic Park movie franchise, Hollywood loves to envision
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what it would mean for humans to live alongside dinosaurs,
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but the truth is we already do. Birds, after all,
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are dinosaurs. But how did birds survive the extinction event
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that killed so many non avian dinosaurs. Steve Bruce Satti,
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a professor of paleontology and evolution at the University of
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Edinburgh and the author of the upcoming book The Story
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of Birds, dug into the subject of birds survival in
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the May issue of Scientific American. He's here today to
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speak with us about it. Thanks so much for joining
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us today, Steve, Steve Brussetti, my pleasure, Kindred. Thank you.
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So it's funny because I think most people by now
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know that birds are dinosaurs, but I don't think most
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of us really think about how they survived, while like
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dinosaur species like t Rex didn't. He recently wrote a
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feature for Scientific American digging into how birds survived. What
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interested you in the SUBJECTSTI Yeah, so the article I
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wrote for Scientific American it tackles that question which really
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has been a mystery for a long time among paleontologists.
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Why is it that birds were the only dinosaurs to
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survive that asteroid that fell out of the sky sixty
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six million years ago and changed the trajectory of evolution.
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And this is also something I write about in the
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Story of Birds. It's one of the middle chapters. So
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the book tells the whole story of birds, how they
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evolved from dinosaurs, what it means that birds are dinosaurs,
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how birds survived the asteroid, and then all the amazing
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things birds have done since then. But of that entire story,
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I really do think it is this mystery of why
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did birds have what it took to get through that asteroid,
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to stare down that asteroid, to endure that worst day
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in the history of life. And part of the mystery
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here is it just seems so unfathomable. You have these
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dinosaurs like t Rex and triceratops and the long neck dinosaurs.
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They had been around for over one hundred and fifty
24:28
million years. They lived all over the world. They were
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at the top of the food chain. They were the
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biggest meat eaters, the biggest plant eaters, they had incredible diversity,
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they were utterly dominant, and then all of a sudden
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they're gone. But one particular type makes it through, and
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those are the birds. It's an incredible mystery, and it
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really has been a mystery for scientists until quite recently.
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And I do think not that we understand it completely.
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Now we're dealing with fossils, we're dealing with these clues
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from millions of years ago that we have to interpret
24:59
like detectives. But I think we have a pretty good
25:01
handle now on why birds survived Pure Louis. Okay, So
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before we get there, can you like set the scene
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of what it was like back when birds and dinosaurs coexisted.
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I mean, I know birds are dinosaurs, but like when
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birds and kind of the charismatic dinosaurs that we all
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think of when they overlapped, what was it like Brusati
25:24
two hundred and thirty million years ago or so, back
25:27
in the Triassic period. That's when the first dinosaurs entered
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the scene. And this was back during the super continent
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of Pangaea, when all the world was gobbled together or
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globbed together into this one giant land mass. And it
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was on that super continent that the first mammals and
25:43
first dinosaurs had their origin story. Now, the first dinosaurs
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were quite simple. They were small. They were the size
25:50
of dogs, the size of people. Pure Louis, hold on,
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so you're telling me that the early dinosaurs were the
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size of dogs. I could have had a pet dinosaur.
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Brussetti laughs. Pierre Leuis laughs. Brussetti, You could have. You
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could have the first dinosaurs. They would have been really cute.
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They wouldn't have been quite adorable. You could have held
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them in your arms. They looked nothing like a t rex,
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nothing like Brotosaurus, nothing like triceratops. Those dinosaurs would come
26:18
later and really the big dinosaurs. It took tens of
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millions of years, and it took dinosaurs surviving a great
26:24
extinction about two hundred million years ago as a supercondent
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broke apart. The Earth was cracking and breaking apart, and
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that led to global warming, and it led to a
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mass extinction, and dinosaurs had to endure that. We don't
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exactly know why, exactly how they did it, but they did.
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And then in the Jurassic Period, the next interval of time,
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that's when dinosaurs become the sublime creatures we all know
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and love the giant, long necked ones, the meat eaters,
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the size of buses, the ones with horns and spikes
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and spines, and duck bills. That's really the Jurassic period
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when that started. And by the end of the Jurassic
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about one hundred and fifty million years ago, you had
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another type of dinosaur enter the scene and break the
27:07
bounds of earth and fly. These were the birds. You
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had small dinosaurs evolved feathers and wings that start flapping
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those wings, and those dinosaurs took to the skies, and
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for the next many tens of millions of years, you
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had plenty of dinosaurs living all over the world, but
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living with them was birds. The same way you have
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all kinds of mammals living around the world, including bats,
27:31
one weird type of mammal that has wings and can fly.
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But over time they adapted to the air, that became
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better flyers. They evolved better wings, and they evolved larger muscles,
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turned their tail into a rudder, their bones hollowed out,
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became full of air. They traded their teeth for beaks
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and enveloped this lightweight, hyperficient, hyper efficient, fast growing body
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that was the ultimate flying machine, and that's where things
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stood sixty six million years yars ago, on the last
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day of the Cretaceous, at the moment that everything changed forever. Well,
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that's all for today's Diary of Science and Nature. Your
28:11
reader was Kelly Taylor. Stay tuned now for more programming
28:15
on RADIOI