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Award-winning, 90-second daily science program, covers all areas of science - environment, space, astronomy, earth science, biology and sustainability. Primary Format : Science Language : English Also Listed as: City : Austin State/Province : TX Country : USA Region : NA User Tags: User Votes: RSS Feed Website People found this Podcast Searching for: View this Podcast on a Google Map. Podcast iTunes Link Text Only listing of Earth & Sky radio show Podcasts Methings.com listings of Earth & Sky radio show Podcasts If you like this podcast, you might also like:

Is the 2007 blue moon on May 31? People around the world might now be wondering: is the blue moon tonight? Or is tonight’s full moon the first of two full moons in June? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Expert: “Carbon offsets are questionable” Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Strategies for luring lost whales back to sea Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Protected coral reef found to recover Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Twilight zone near clouds raises warming questions About 30 to 60 percent of what was thought to be a cloud-free sky is actually part of this twilight zone of aerosol particles. Lorraine Remer: _A lot of times, if you go outside on a hazy day, and you look at the clouds, you’ll see the twilight zone yourself with your own eyes … Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Shedding light on a star's mass limit Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Satellites used to track whales in Arctic Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Stellar outburst surprises astronomers Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Astronomer believes habitable planets are common Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website High Infatuation: Steph Davis on what’s true Steph Davis, considered one of the best climbers in the world, talked about pushing boundaries and finding yourself at the end of your rope. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Twin GRACE satellites monitor changes in gravity One unanticipated finding: the earthquake that caused a deadly tsunami in the Indian Ocean in 2004 was so large that it affected local gravity. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Do any other animals besides humans dream? Your dog is twitching his feet and whimpering as he sleeps. Is he dreaming? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Using nanotech to mark and starve tumors A team of scientists is working on a method to use microscopic nanoparticles to find and treat even the smallest cancerous tumors. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Pollution from Asia found to intensify storms Pollution from China and India has important consequences for global weather, according to Renyi Zhangof Texas A&M University. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Experts study “dialects” in blue whale songs People who speak the same language may speak in different regional dialects. The same is true for blue whales. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website April 2 full moon farthest, smallest in 2007 The moon’s distance from Earth ranges from about 350,000 to 400,000 kilometers each month. The moon will be its most distant for this month before dawn on Sunday, April 3. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Contrails' effect on warming "big question mark" Experts say that, as air traffic increases, aviation’s contribution to greenhouse warming will increase, and that will mean more cloud-like contrails. Many scientists think that contrails contribute to trapping heat. What will their effect be on our warming climate? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Nanotech silk plus shell for bone repair Researchers cloned proteins from spider webs and fused them with proteins from tiny marine shellfish to engineer new new materials with the flexibility and strength of spider silk and the intricate structure of tiny marine diatoms. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Jupiter and moon on April 7 and 8 In June, Earth will pass between Jupiter and the sun. Now Jupiter is steadily getting brighter in our sky. Want to identify Jupiter? Check out Jupiter near the moon before dawn on April 7 and 8! Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Wild deer find homes in American suburbs A few decades ago, it was a treat to catch sight of a white-tailed deer. Today, we’ve got what experts call a“suburban deer problem.” Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website What's your earliest memory? When we asked that question at Earth&: Sky, everyone had a story. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Citizen scientists! Help with Budburst campaign. This spring, you can contribute to a national science project– Project Budburst– which will run April 1– June 15. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Scientists search for “God particle” Scientists are puzzling over the question of why mass exists in our universe. They want to search for an elusive particle that would help explain the mystery. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Expert: Atacama Desert "nearest Mars analog" Parts of Chile’s Atacama Desert contain the driest, most lifeless soil on Earth. It’s our planet’s closest analog to the soil on the planet Mars, according to NASA scientist Chris McKay. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Moon, giant planet, super star on March 11, a.m. The moon, Antares and Jupiter rise in a general east-southeasterly direction after midnight. This bright trio of objects will soar to its highest point in the sky before dawn on Sunday morning. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Cities are source of nature’s services for humans As Earth’s population becomes increasingly urban, scientists are looking to the green areas of cities for the services– clean water, air, food– that nature provides. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Neil deGrasse Tyson on “cosmic connectivity” He told Earth&Sky,“I think the most remarkable fact about the universe is that the elements that comprise the human body and life on Earth are traceable to the actions of stars.” Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Earth-orbiting satellites aid cancer study Researchers used satellite images to identify past corn and soybean fields, and associate them with the pesticides used in previous decades. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Every continent sees March 3-4 lunar eclipse It’s only at full moon that Earth’s shadow can brush the moon’s face. That will happen next on Saturday night. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Expert: Humans affect animal adaptation to warming By looking 55 million years into the past, a researcher is trying to understand how animals might adapt to global warming now. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Sea life in the wake of a hurricane A hurricane’s water-churning winds can give rise to life in barren stretches of the Atlantic. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Expert: Water is a different kind of resource “And conservation couldn’t be more different between water and energy,” said Brad Udall, Director of the U.S. Western Water Assessment. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Nano-magnets enhance MRI brain-imaging Scientists have engineered tiny, nano-sized magnets that can be combined with MRI technology to learn more about our most complex organ: the brain. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Scientist: greatest warming at higher latitudes “Who cares if it only gets down to minus 30 instead of minus 40?” David Easterling explains who cares, and why. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Algae shows promise as renewable fuel Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Economist values nature It seems obvious that there’s economic value in nature’s raw potential for goods. But nature has other, perhaps less obvious, economic value, said Scott Barrett. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Accept human-caused warming? “No choice.” The vast majority of scientists agree that humans are causing Earth to get warmer, but can people accept this troubling reality? Elisabeth Holland told Earth & Sky, “I don’t think they have a choice.” Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Venus and Mercury in early February Look westward after sunset in early February. See two bright “stars” near the horizon? That’s Venus and Mercury. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Last gasps for global warming"disinformation?" Was there ever really a controversy among scientists about global warming? Or did some groups create a false controversy? Climate expert Michael Mann has this to say… Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Do plants grow as well under artificial light? There are some differences between sunlight and artificial light. For one thing, sunlight is unlimited and free. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Nano separations for pollution, resources In pollution control, we take out what we don’t want. In resource extraction, we take out what we do want. Both processes may benefit from a new nanotech technique. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Moon, Saturn, Regulus on February 2 A golden planet, a blue-white star and a moon just past full. What more could you ask? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website February 1 full moon falls on Groundhog's Eve Will the legendary groundhog – Punxsutawney Phil – see his shadow tomorrow? He could see it tonight … in the light of tonight’s full moon. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Researchers see a human impact on wind, rain Pollution is slowing wind and rain in some places, said researchers. In California, they said, that results in a reduction in the water supply. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Researchers believe herbicide may stunt ocean life Atrazine finds its way to coastal areas from agricultural runoff. It may be harming phytoplankton at the bottom of the ocean’s food chain. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website When will the U.S. have mass transit? Gas prices are going up. But America’s landscape of scattered suburbs and devoted commuters make it difficult to encourage mass transit on a nationwide scale. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Bill Haast, 95, has had 173 poisonous snakebites He said that regular injections of venom from rattlesnakes, cobras, mambas, and vipers are what have kept him alive. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website New distance estimate for Orion Nebula Astronomers have just learned that a famous birthplace of new stars – the Orion Nebula – is closer than was previously believed. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Tropical forest management a "two-way street" Darron Collins told Earth and Sky, "The forest is how people live." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Planet Venus near crescent moon on January 20 The first “star” you notice tonight might not be a true star. Instead, you might be noticing the planet Venus. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website How "green" is ethanol from corn? Not as green as you might think, according to economist Liz Marshall. She co-authored a study showing negative environmental effects of this renewable energy source. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Scientist finds deep mystery, beauty in atoms IBM’s Don Eigler told us about the moment he lives for. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Study shows green roofs can help cool cities Imagine grass covering the roofs of New York City’s public schools. .. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Building computer circuits at the atomic scale Silicon-based semiconductors won’t be small enough or fast enough for the computer of the future. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Human activities found to increase urban haze A scientific study of the air in Mexico City found that human activities contribute even more to the formation of urban haze than previously thought. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Astronomers see liquid lakes on Saturn's moon ... but that liquid isn’t water. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Researchers develop a nearly silent airplane When a plane takes off near you, you expect to hear a deafening roar. But a team of researchers from Cambridge University and MIT have designed a nearly noiseless aircraft. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website African dust storms huge, but how do they form? Dust storms over Africa can be as large as the continential U.S. They travel for thousands of miles. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Are most stars solitary? Here’s news about double stars that you won’t find in any astronomy textbook… because it represents a complete reversal in thinking on the subject. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Brazilian desert transformed to fertile soil In 1972, Pedro Sanchez was asked to advise the Brazilian government. “They told me,” Sanchez said, “we just took our capital from this wonderful place called Rio de Janeiro, one of the nicest places in the world, and plunked it in the middle of this desert. Can we make this land productive?” Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Sea turtle tracking reveals migration routes After a winter of rehab, it’s back into the surf for this cold-stranded sea turtle. This time, though, satellites are watching where it’s going. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Satellites study earthly lights, other phenomena Military satellites launched during the Cold War are now being used for more peaceful purposes. See satellite images of New Orleans, before and after Katrina. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Since age 13, astronomer has "never looked down" Astronomer Thebe Medupe spoke with Earth & Sky, “Where do we come from, what will happen to us in the future, are we alone in the universe? Until quite recently these things were considered to be very philosophical. But, today, astrophysics has allowed us to have scientific answers to these questions …” Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website What is the sun's name? The sun’s a star too, right? Like Polaris, the north star – or Betelguese in the constellation Orion. Doesn’t it get a name? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website "Monoculture" affects more than trees Mining and logging companies will sometimes replace large areas of leafy hardwood trees with pine plantations. Is that a good idea? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Pulsar found near center of galaxy A pulsar is a rapidly spinning dead star that’s smaller than a large city but more massive than our sun. Astronomers have discovered what looks like a pulsar only one light-year away from the black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Infrasound from volcanos might warn airplanes Volcanos can sometimes spew glass-like ash into the stratosphere after an eruption. If the ash enters a plane’s jet engine, it’ll melt and potentially cause engine failure. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website African dust can rip potential hurricanes apart Studies have revealed that dust storms from Africa cause hurricanes to weaken. Here’s how. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Do capillaries recede with receding waistlines? Your body grows 200 miles of new capillaries for each added pound of weight … Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Nanotechnology pluses and minuses “It is hard for the average informed person to figure out which of the concerns that you hear about with respect to nanotechnology are real, and which are speculative,” said Christine Peterson of the Foresight Nanotech Institute. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Flight decisions in icy weather made easier When pilots unexpectedly encounter icy weather, they typically radio the air traffic control center for guidance out of that area. But the necessary information might not be available immediately. Here’s how new technology that will help. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Space-based lightning studies could save lives Lightning is beautiful – but dangerous. Earth-orbiting satellites are helping to increase the lead time for severe weather warnings. NASA’s Steve Goodman told Earth & Sky why observing lightning from space is better than studying it from the ground. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Particle accelerator used in dark matter study Like many scientists, physicist Dan Hooper – who works at Fermilab near Chicago – is a detective. He’s looking for the missing mass of the universe. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Geminids best meteor shower in 2006? The annual Geminid meteor shower peaks tonight, December 13th. For many meteor shower enthusiasts, the Geminids rank as a favorite. Tonight’s will streak all over the sky. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Satellites aid food security in Afghanistan Afghan farmers get most of their water not from rain, but from melting snow. In Afghanistan, the reservoirs and canals designed to hold snowmelt have suffered from decades of conflict. There’s snow in the mountains, but how do you find out how much? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Weather planes sense atmosphere, help forecasts Scientists have developed palm-sized weather sensors mounted on aircraft that will give pilots detailed and near-instant information about turbulence, icing, and winds. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Sea turtle strandings not a new phenomenon Connie Merigo told Earth&Sky, ” There are some early writings, back in the Thoreau days, when he does his walks across Cape Cod, of coming across sea turtles. These are events that have been happening for, probably, centuries … ” Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Astronomers discover first double centaurs Centaurs are a bit like asteroids, and also a bit like comets. They go around the sun in the realm of the giant planets. A report from the outskirts of the solar system describes the discovery of the first double centaurs. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Wyoming deer challenged by energy development The largest herd of mule deer in the U.S. is at the Green River Valley in Wyoming. But the deer are being increasingly challenged by oil and gas development in the area. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website El Nino and rice production Walter Falcon is looking at the effect of climate variables and climate change on the welfare of common men and women in poor countries. He’s developing computer models to help Indonesian farmers predict the upcoming rice crop by … Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Nano sensors to improve thermal imaging A new kind of tiny sensor – smaller than the thickness of a human hair – could soon used to sharpen the images from infrared cameras used by firefighters to see through smoke and find people. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Satellite tracking shows dust suppresses hurricanes Satellites can track Saharan dust storms across the Atlantic ocean. NOAA’s Jason Dunion analyzed over 20 years of images showing atmospheric dust blowing off of the Sahara desert, and compared that to hurricane and storm activity. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Nanotech lets scientists create "lab-on-a-chip" Experts are calling it lab-on-a-chip. These are miniaturized devices—as tiny as a computer chip—that can analyze chemicals just as in a laboratory … Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Satellites help identify possible terror targets Images from Earth-orbiting satellites might help identify areas vulnerable to attack by terrorists. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Scale of cosmos gives astronomer perspective Maura McLaughlin told Earth&Sky, “Most of the time I’m just sitting here in my office with my computer, writing computer programs to do this or that … Sometimes, I forget about how amazing it is that we are actually looking at things that are thousands of light-years away.”That’s Maura McLaughlin at West Virginia University. She helped discover a pair of pulsars in orbit around each other … Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Rural lands provide ecosystem services Farms and ranches provide more than just corn or dairy products, according to agricultural economist Scott Swindon. Rural lands also filter air and water, store greenhouse gases, and provide habitat for wild plants and animals. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Pulsar pair confirms Einstein's theory of gravity Astronomers have confirmed Einstein’s theory of gravity using a pair of pulsars two thousand light years away. Earth&Sky spoke to astronomer Maura McLaughlin, who said, “It turns out that systems like this are kind of like Einstein’s dream come true, because we have these two extremely massive objects in orbit around each other, and we can measure all of these really cool relativistic effects that we can’t measure on Earth … ” Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Nanotech creates most precise point ever Nanotechnology has created the most precise point in existence: a tip a million times sharper than the point of a really sharp pencil. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Rock star describes spiritual lift from astronomy Queen’s Brian May was once a student in astronomy, and he’s returning to complete his Ph.D. He told Earth & Sky, “I think that rock stars could be accused of losing their sense of perspective quite often. And this keeps me with one foot in a different kind of world, where it’s necessary to be very humble ..” Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Bang! An astronomy book by Brian May of Queen Rock star Brian May is the guitarist for Queen. He’s also co-author of a book about the other kind of stars. It’s called, “Bang! The Complete History of the Universe.” Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website El Niño mystery solved, monsoon forecasts improved By solving a mystery surrounding the El Niño, scientists have found a way to warn people of coming drought in India. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Synthetic Vision could make air travel safer Air accidents caused by poor visibility and pilot disorientation occur regularly around the world. But a new technology, called Synthetic Vision, could make them a thing of the past. Synthetic Vision always shows the landscape as though it were a clear, sunny day. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Are humans causing stronger hurricanes? The controversy continues about humanity’s effect on hurricanes. Warm ocean waters fuel hurricanes. And, although not everyone believes it, the evidence indicates that hurricanes have gotten stronger … Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Look for full Hunter's Moon on November 4-5 It’s not the Harvest Moon. But it’s just as good. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website National Science Foundation studies change Though change has always been a feature of the world, recent human innovations are accelerating the pace of change. And that’s why scientists have begun to study change itself. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 5,000th broadcast: "hope in a human world" Earth & Sky’s 5,000th radio program – on the subject of hope in a human world. There’s now scientific evidence that we humans are linked to nature in a way that’s very profound. Scientists now sometimes say that humans and nature are “interconnected.” Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Expert says northern forests affected by warming Earth’s warming climate is noticeably changing the forests of the far north, according to Amber Soja, a research scientist with the National Institute of Aerospace … Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Some birds adapt well to human world Roughly 12 percent of bird species are threatened with extinction over the coming century, but many bird species are thriving. One reason may be simply that birds can fly. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Vampire stars munch on neighbors Even elderly stars can keep a youthful glow … if they devour their comrades. Special for Halloween. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Nanotechnology, surveillance and your privacy Nanotechnology will someday enable all kinds of devices to become very small. Surveillance technologies could miniaturize to the point where privacy becomes an issue. Earth & Sky talked to James Moor at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, who specializes in the ethics of nanotechnology … Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Why so few hurricanes in 2006? Last year, 2005, was a record-breaking hurricane season. This year’s hurricane season was mild. Chris Landsea of the National Hurricane Center explained that … Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Ecologist says Pacific Ocean is a turtle highway “It’s just amazing that these loggerhead turtles that we track really seem to have a map of the ocean. We’ll see them go into eddies, which are underwater cyclones and they’ll ride around the edge of these eddies for months at a time. Then they’ll get off exactly where they got on … ” Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Study suggests possible future ocean on Neptune There’s no ocean on Neptune today, no place in Neptune’s atmosphere for water to accumulate. But the calculations of two astronomers indicate that an ocean might be in Neptune’s future. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Which bird migrates the farthest? When Earth & Sky visited the Bronx Zoo, Sophia Noulas, from Scarsdale, NY, asked, “Which bird migrates the farthest?” Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Automation ahead in future of aviation A study of the future of air transportation indicates that, in the coming decades, pilots might be less and less involved in actually flying aircraft … Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website How aspirin works Aspirin is used everywhere in the world, but it’s anything but “ordinary.” It’s only in the past two decades that scientists have begun to learn how aspirin works … Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website In late October, where are the planets? Here’s why don’t you spot many planets now in the night sky—and one possibility for sighting two planets low in the west at dusk. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Orionid meteor shower peaks on October 20-21 The annual Orionid meteor shower peaks this weekend. The Orionid meteor shower is a consistent, but modest shower. It typically produces a couple of dozen meteors per hour. Here’s how to see it, and when to look. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website "How much do oceans add to world's oxygen?" A listener wrote to Earth & Sky, “Since 70% of the planet is covered with water, how much does the ocean plant life contribute to our planet’s oxygen supply?” Earth & Sky replies … (odeo/4e885ab6dfd708e7) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website More households create greater impact on nature Alex de Sherbinin told Earth & Sky, “Environmental impacts actually increase more rapidly in relation to the growth in the number of households, compared to the growth in the average population.” (odeo/4e885ab6dfd708e7) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Green roofs clean rainwater runoff Rain that falls in urban areas typically flows into sewers and storm drains. This urban runoff has been found to contribute greatly to pollution in rivers, lakes, the ocean, and other natural bodies of water. That’s why some communities are turning to alternatives such as “green roofs …” (odeo/4e885ab6dfd708e7) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website In Bangladesh, 100,000 rural poor are "phone ladies" Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank, won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in helping millions of the poorest poor receive small, low-interest loans. Earth & Sky first heard about Muhammad Yunas last spring, when we talked with Cornell economics professor Stuart Hart about Yunus’ effort to help impoverished Banladeshis overcome what Hart called “information poverty … ” (odeo/4e885ab6dfd708e7) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Unconventional health indicators When it comes to assessing the health of a community, it’s not enough to look at the scientific indicators, such as mortality and morbidity rates. Henry Lickers, Director of the Department of the Environment for a Mohawk Indian territory in Quebec and New York State, told Earth & Sky that he looks at some unconventional indicators – for example, the number of picnics on a sunny day, or the amount of fish or game being caught. (odeo/4e885ab6dfd708e7) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Nature enthusiasts once aided species invasions J.R. McNeil of Georgetown University told Earth & Sky that in the 18th and 19th centuries, nature enthusiasts often intentionally transported creatures and seeds over long distances—even across oceans. He said, “Thomas Jefferson was one such, he wanted to establish mulberry trees and silkworm culture in Virginia, for example. And there was a fellow in the 1890s who allegedly had decided that what North America really needed was all the birds mentioned anywhere in the works of Shakespeare ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Ed Shadle, world land speed challenger Earth & Sky talked to Ed Shadle, Washington state retiree, about his preparations for breaking the land speed record in the converted body of a retired fighter plane. (odeo/4e885ab6dfd708e7) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Lab-on-a-chip for heart attack detection Tiny devices that use only a drop of blood are capable of quickly detecting a possible heart attack … Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Marine animal health tied to human health Usha Varanasi studies the biology of marine organisms in Puget Sound—from migratory fish like salmon and steelhead trout—to bottom dwellers like rockfish—to marine mammals like killer whales, harbor seals, and porpoises. Dr. Varanasi talked to Earth & Sky about the relationship between the health of these organisms and human health … (odeo/4e885ab6dfd708e7) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website North American Eagle Project eyes speed record Ed Shadle is preparing to become the fastest man on Earth. The vehicle Shadle intends to drive is no ordinary car, but a retired fighter plane modified by Shadle’s team to race on land. (odeo/4e885ab6dfd708e7) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website