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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:

Mark Bekoff on why dogs play�fair Does being a dog mean never having to say you’re sorry? Not really, according to biologist Marc Bekoff of the University of Colorado. Bekoff talked to EarthSky about how and why dogs learn to play fair. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website See the Milky Way in the night sky In a very dark sky, you can easily see a bright region of the Milky Way– the direction toward the galaxy’s center in the constellation Sagittarius. We cannot see the exact center of our Milky Way galaxy. It’s obscured by dark curtains of interstellar dust. Instead, you’re gazing at part of one of the prominent spiral arms of our galaxy, called the Sagittarius Arm. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Janaki Alavalapati: Forest biofuel market evolving Forest scientist Janaki Alavalapati talks about how a forest-based energy industry might boost rural economies. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website James Woolsey: Plug-in hybrids for U.S. security, climate Listen to former CIA director James Woolsey talk about the relationship between climate change, U.S. energy use, and national security. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Albert Carnesale: Climate response could create growth Even in a tough economy like we’re seeing in 2009 – limiting carbon emissions might lead to economic opportunities, according to Albert Carnesale of UCLA. He’s an expert on international affairs and security – and chairman of a U.S. National Academy of Sciences committee on America’s Climate Choices. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The renewable energy potential of forests Hear Janaki Alavalapati talk about how forest biomass – small diameter trees and brush cleared from forests – can be used to create liquid fuel. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Ralph Cicerone: NAS studies to determine climate choices Listen to National Academy of Sciences president Ralph Cicerone talk about America’s choices in response to climate change. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Climate change may increase disease risk Listen to Harvard’s Paul Epstein talk about why climate change could lead to a cluster of problems like water-borne disease, mosquito borne disease, and even rodent-borne disease. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website April full moon on April 9 April 9, 2009. The April full moon will be out all night tonight, lighting up the nighttime from dusk till dawn. Watch for the moon low in the east at dusk – at its highest point in the sky around midnight – and low in the west before the sun comes up tomorrow. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Familiar molecules found in space Listen to astronomer Anthony Remijan talk about large molecules that formed in space – ones that might be the building blocks of all life here on Earth. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Chimps beat undergrads in memory test Tetsuro Matsuzawa of Kyoto University’s Primate Research Institute talks about how chimps learn, and what we can learn from chimps. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Expert urges earthquake vigilance Kathleen Tierney of the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado talks about what you can do to be prepared if you live in an earthquake-prone area. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Nanotechnology aids in plant knowledge Harvard chemist George Whitesides talks about how nanotechnology can improve our understanding of plants, and ultimately agriculture. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Will nanotech spark an agricultural revolution? Norman Scott of Cornell University discusses how nanotechnology– the control of matter at the atomic scale– can make our animal food systems safer. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website U.N. predicts 9 billion in aging world population Hania Zlotnick of the U.N. Population Division says that the world is still on course to have 9 billion people by 2050. She told EarthSky that an aging global population is inevitable in a world where people live longer as birthrates decline. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Amazon smoke slows formation of clouds, rainfall Listen to atmospheric scientist Ilan Koren talk about the effects of man-made forest fires on weather in the Amazon basin. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Architect Werner Lang on green building Architect Werner Lang, of the University of Texas, talks about creating buildings that work better for the 21st century. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 'Social intelligence' shaped human evolution Anthropologist Carol Ward said“It’s the interaction with members of our own species– in terms of competition, cooperation, and help that has shaped the evolution of the human brain and human abilities.” Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website AIDS detection lab on a cellphone Listen to Aydogan Ozcan talk about a pocket-sized device he’s developing to detect infectious diseases in people in the most impoverished parts of the world. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Oceans play role in Earth’s climate Listen to oceanographer Paul Baker talk about how oceans help regulate global temperature, and how global warming could bring the cooling of northern Europe. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Can nuclear weapons be controlled? Seismologist Paul Richards says that scientists can now detect any nuclear test of military significance, no matter how secret. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Rare Venus sighting dusk and dawn late March 2009 March 24, 2009. In the northern hemisphere, it should be possible to catch the blazing planet Venus low in the west just after sunset. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Ancient, fanged 'boar-croc' discovered Paul Sereno talks about an unusual fossil that his team unearthed in a remote region of the Sahara Desert. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Expert urges transparency for nanoproducts Hear Jennifer Kuzma talk about the impact of nanotechnology – the engineering of materials at the atomic scale — on the food we eat. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Where energy meets water Energy expert Lisa Epifani talk abouts what she calls the ‘energy-water nexus’ — how you need water to produce energy. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Scientists expect progress in stem cell research Listen to MIT professor Richard Hynes talk about President Barack Obama’s 2009 move to lift Bush’s limits on stem cell research. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Flower adapts for aeons, but faces modern threat Hear paleobotanist Sir Peter Crane Sir Peter Crane talk about the connections between fossilized and living plants, and about how human activity can impact plant survival. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website In midst of modern ills, some ocean success stories In the midst of modern ills affecting the world’s oceans – for example overfishing and pollution – oceanographer Jeremy Jackson likes to recall ocean success stories. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website First contact with inner Earth Hear Earth scientist Bruce Marsh talk about the first-ever discovery of magma – molten material – inside Earth. The dynamic movement of magma has helped shape the world on which we stand. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Chemicals on Mars possibly the salt of life Peter Smith, Principal Investigator of NASA’s Phoenix Mars Mission talks about some possible evidence of signs of life in Martian soil. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Scientists track changes in Antarctic ice sheet Earth scientist Terry Wilson talks about using seismic sensors to record the movement of ice and bedrock in Antarctica to help determine how much ice has been lost. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Cities can plan for global warming According to expert Jack Fellows, cities have more than one incentive to plan ahead for global warming. He thinks that if cities plan ahead, they might be able to sell their adaptive knowledge and technologies. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Bright ‘star’ near March full moon is Saturn March 10, 2009. Tonight’s full moon is near a fairly bright, star-like object – which isn’t really a star. It’s the planet Saturn, 6th planet outward from the sun and the most distant world that you can easily see with the unaided eye. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Venus disappearing from 2009 evening sky March 11, 2009. These March evenings provide your last opportunity to see the planet Venus in your evening sky until the year 2010. Venus – the 3rd brightest celestial body after the sun and the moon – is the brightest star-like object in all the heavens. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Arctic land is greening, says scientist You might picture the Arctic as endlessly white. But Skip Walker, a geobotanist at the University of Alaska, told us that satellite data shows the Arctic is ‘greening.’ Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Expert urges caution for nano in agriculture Rosalyn Berne studies the ethics of nanotechnology, the manipulation of atoms to create new materials. Hear her talk about nanotechnology applied to agriculture. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Nano sensors to help farmers monitor crops Aaron Strickland, a chemist at Cornell University is using nanotechnology – the science of the very small – to develop what he calls a biosensor. He says this sensor should help farmers manage their crops. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Saving seeds from extinction Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, talks about a large and ambitious seed-saving program that aims to safeguard the future of global agriculture. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Saturn closest and brightest March 8 March 8, 2009. Today, Earth swings between the sun and Saturn. This is Saturn’s yearly opposition to the sun. At opposition, Saturn rises in the east as the sun sets in the west, and climbs highest in the sky at midnight when the sun is below our feet. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Galaxy's spiral arms might reveal black hole mass Astronomer Marc Seigar studies the gargantuan black holes at the core of galaxies – including our Milky Way. He talks about what might be determining the size of these super massive black holes in different galaxies around the universe. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Science data on resources key to Afghanistan Geologist James Devine talks with EarthSky about how better-trained scientists could help Afghanistan’s government manage the country’s rich petroleum and copper reserves, and ultimately revitalize the nation’s troubled economy. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Energy and water tradeoffs in oil extraction Experts say usable oil can be extracted from a rocky substance, called oil shale, that’s abundant in western North America. But geologist Craig Cooper speaks of trade-offs in the extraction process. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Ice-free Arctic summers within a decade? Some scientists say that Arctic summers might be ice-free within the next decade. Oceanographer Wieslaw Maslowski of the Naval Post-Graduate School spoke to EarthSky about an accelerating melting of ‘multi-year ice.’ Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Scientist speaks out about pesticides Biologist Tyrone Hayes thinks it’s time for scientists to begin speaking out. Hayes has become an advocate of banning the pesticide Atrazine now widely used in the U.S. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Yellowstone's bison herd controlled for risk of disease Hear ecologist Marm Kilpatrick talk about the need to manage free-ranging bison herds to minimize the risk of spreading disease to nearby cattle. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Hinode mission brings news from the sun Solar physicist George Doschek of the Naval Research Laboratory spoke to EarthSky on what scientists are learning about the sun’s atmosphere. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Did volcanoes kill the dinosaurs? Since 1980, scientists have believed a meteorite impact in the Yucatan caused a mass extinction of species, including the dinosaurs. But geologist Gerta Keller of Princeton disagrees. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Space storms disrupt GPS, satellite radio signals Hear space scientist Rod Heelis talk about how the clarity of satellite radio and GPS signals depend on the ionosphere– the uppermost part of Earth’s atmosphere. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Cooperation necessary for polar research, says scientist Hear polar scientist Larry Hinzman talk about the technical challenges— and vital importance— of doing research at Earth’s poles. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Feeding future cities with 'vertical farms' Microbiologist Dickson Despommier envisions‘vertical farming’ in city buildings— growing produce, even fish and poultry, in vertical greenhouses. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Earth's magnetic field inundated in 2007 Hear astronomer Marit Oieroset talk about how spacecraft detected a surprisingly large number of solar particles penetrating Earth’s magnetic field. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Scientist says health of planet and people are linked Geophysicist Pamela Martin speaks about her recent study analyzing the environmental impact of an American diet based on meat versus a diet based on vegetables. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Full moon comes February 9, 2009 February 9, 2009. The February full moon falls at 14:49 Universal Time today. To look full to us, the moon has to be opposite the sun. That moment when it’s most opposite the sun for the month marks the instant of full moon. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Earth's upper atmosphere 'breathes' sun's energy Astrophysicist Marty Mlynczak has discovered that our planet’s upper atmosphere moves up and down. He describes it as“breathing” the sun’s energy in and out. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Time to rethink U.S. water, says expert Hear environmental scientist Peter Gleick talk about growing conflicts over scarce water resources in the U.S. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Were the Boskops smarter than us? A group of large-brained prehistoric people– scientist call them the Boskops– might have been even smarter than modern humans. But if the Boskops had so much brain power, why didn’t they survive? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Orangutan whistle may provide clues to human speech Serge Wich, a scientist at the Great Ape Trust of Iowa, thinks orangutan whistling could provide clues about the evolution of human speech. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Astronomer says she was a "why?" kid Hear astrophysicist Orsola De Marco talk about her early experiments with umbrellas, and her inklings that she wanted to be a scientist. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website HIV/AIDS impacts the environment in South Africa Population scientist Lori Hunter talks about some of the broad impacts of the HIV epidemic in South Africa, including a possibly unsustainable reliance on local resources. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Human and natural systems are “coupled” Biologist Robert Waide talks with EarthSky about how humans and nature are linked together. Dr. Waide is executive director of the Long Term Ecological Research Network Office. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Rainbow spectra offer clues about cosmos Orsola De Marco, an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History, studies the light of stars split into a rainbow of colors – what astronomers commonly refer to as a ‘spectrum.’ Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Climate change to prompt migration...specifics unknown Alex deSherbinin of Columbia University talks about the potential impacts of climate change on humans. Scientists believe climate change may force people in environmentally stressed regions to migrate. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Mystery ocean dead zones in Pacific Marine biologist Jane Lubchenco describes the ocean dead zones off the northwest U.S. coast as “virtual wastelands of dead crabs, dead worms, dead anemones, just littering the sea floor.” Though most ocean dead zones are caused by pollution from fertilizer runoff, Lubchenco said, this case appears to be different. She suspects the culprit may be changes in coastal winds due to climate change. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Undersea gliders monitor Atlantic currents David Smeed of the National Oceanography Center in England talks about recently launched robot gliders that are monitoring a system of currents, known as the ‘Atlantic heat conveyor,’ which influences European climate. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website What does it mean to build a better bee? Honey bees in the United States are in drastic decline. EarthSky spoke to bee breeder Susan Cobey of the University of California Davis about building a better bee. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Venus at greatest elongation January 14 January 14, 2009. Venus is the brightest star point of light seen anywhere in Earth’s sky. And Venus is particular about where it appears in our sky. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Engineering built around pedestrians Michael Fishman of Columbia University uses the term“pedestrian engineering” to describe a way of designing public space with walkers in mind. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Most detailed view yet of Milky Way center Astronomer Barbara Whitney of the Space Science Institute talked about a new mosaic image of the dusty center of our Milky Way galaxy– made by piecing together over 800,000 separate images. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Sea-going scientists find gigantic sea creatures Marine scientist Martin Riddle led a voyage to probe the seabed of the Southern Ocean near Antarctica. Hear about the astounding creatures he saw there. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Research identifies U.S. climate change hot spots By the end of this century, experts say, Earth’s climate will have changed. Noah Diffenbaugh of the Purdue Climate Change Research Center said that here in the U.S., the climate in the southwestern states might change most, Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Looking for excitement is wired into your brain Would you rather go rock climbing, or stay home? EarthSky spoke to neuroscientist Mike Cohen, who said that part of the decision may be hardwired in to your brain. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website A fungus that can turn waste into fuel Gary Strobel, a professor of plant sciences, talked to EarthSky about a fungus he discovered that can turn straw into a key component of diesel fuel. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website December solstice ushers in change of seasons December 21, 2008. The December solstice– sometimes called the southern solstice– marks the instant the sun reaches its southernmost point in our sky for the year. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Beetles may battle invasive trees in Texas Wildlife expert Carter Smith talks about using a kind of flea beetle to rescue Texas watersheds from the grips of an invasive species of tree. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Scientists develop Species Distribution Grids Information systems expert Malanding Jaiteh of Columbia University talks about a species mapping project that could help prevent deforestation and improve forest resources given the rapidly changing global environment. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Safe Harbor Agreement protects wildlife, landowners Robert Bonnie of the Environmental Defense Fund talks about an agreement that would require individual landowners to work to benefit an endangered species on their land. In return, landowners wouldn’t be subject to more regulation. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Incentives encourage forest stewardship A land conservationist says that good stewardship by private forest landowners in the U.S. can be a heroic effort, because it can require the rejection of sometimes lucrative financial offers. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Ice-free Arctic. Not whether, but when. Walt Meier of the National Snow and Ice Data Center says that“pretty much all sea-ice scientists are in agreement” that the were going to reach a point where we’ll have an ice-free Arctic Ocean. He talks about how soon it might be. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Space clouds contain enough water to fill oceans Astronomer Ted Bergin describes space clouds, light-years in size, that collapse to form thousands of stars and planets. These clouds of molecules, he said, contain the building blocks of life. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Proposal to divert the mighty Mississippi Hear about a plan to divert the Mississippi River, in order to rebuild the coast ravaged by Hurricane Katrina and create a more sustainable coastal delta. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website November full moon mimics sun's path in May November 12, 2008. All full moons rise around sunset and set around sunrise. Tonight’s full moon– like all full moons– shines from sundown to tomorrow’s sunup. Because the full moon occurs when the moon is most directly opposite the sun for the month, the full moon’s path across the sky mimics that of the sun six months from now. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Recipe for a sustainable city Columbia University urban designer Mitchell Joachim talks about designing an environmentally friendly city from scratch.“Location is everything,” he says. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Astronomers seek Earth-like planets NASA astronomer Drake Deming talks about using brightness detectors similar to those on digital cameras to help in the hunt for Earth-like planets around other stars. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Newspapers neglect food impact on climate Dr. Roni Neff led a study of thousands of newspaper stories about climate change. She said that although scientists have estimated that agricultural activities contribute 30 percent of the greenhouse gases now warming our planet, you wouldn’t know it from reading the newspapers. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Who controls Earth�s�thermostat? Scientists are contemplating ways of engineering Earth�s atmosphere to counter global warming. Scott Barrett, an environmental treaties expert at Johns Hopkins University, talks about who’s got their finger on the global thermostat. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Is climate engineering science fiction or�fact? The engineering of Earth�s atmosphere to stop global warming looks good – to some – in theory. But atmospheric scientist Richard Turco of UCLA disagrees. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Does the dark side of the moon really�exist? It’s a question people often ask. Here’s the answer… Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Why do humans use only part of the�brain? Ever heard that we humans only use a small portion of our brains? Pamela Zamora in Mexico asks the scientists, and Dr. Jay Giedd responds. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Modern chimps dig up clues to ancient�humans Listen to anthropologist Jim Moore, on what’s so important about a Tanzania study that provides the first evidence that chimps use tools to forage for tubers. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Astronomers to begin dark energy search in 2010 More than 70 percent of all energy in our universe is thought to be dark energy. But – though theoretical models say it should exist – astronomers have yet to detect dark energy. Hear atronomer Karl Gebhardt of the University of Texas talk about trying to solve one of the greatest scientific mysteries of our time. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Study predicts more intense, but fewer,�hurricanes Meteorologist Tom Knutson’s new climate study indicates that, while Atlantic hurricanes can be expected to become more intense as climate warms, there might not be as many of them. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Robots pump more iron with fuel-powered�muscles A scientist is developing robot muscles that use a power system that mimics our own, and doesn’t need to be plugged in to recharge. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Building a global fish-barcode�library Bruce Collette of Washington, DC is working to assign barcodes to all 30,000 fish species. But unlike barcodes at the grocery store, these won’t give you a price. These DNA barcodes – small, unique sections of genetic code – can be used to differentiate between species. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Want to help curb climate change? Eat less�beef Christopher Weber of Carnegie Mellon has found that eating less red meat and more chicken can help cut back on the greenhouse gas emissions now implicated in climate change. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Moon can guide you to Mars on June 7 June 7, 2008. Tonight, the waxing crescent moon and planet Mars will be close together on the sky�s dome. If you see them, you can also identify the golden planet Saturn and a blue-white star – Regulus – in the constellation Leo the Lion. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Scientists discover ocean current �stripes� Scientists have never had an accurate map of ocean currents, until now. Hear about oceanographer Peter Niiler’s recent discoveries about ocean currents, and how the ocean affects climate. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Atmospheric gas study shows carbon rise in 2007 Atmospheric scientist Pieter Tans found that during 2007, CO2 amounts in Earth�s atmosphere inflated by about 17 billion tons. Hear Tans talk about Earth’s changing heat balance and what’s driving climate change. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website More people, richer people, alter�habitats “When people go from poverty to better than poverty, they want to have some meat in their diet,” says Joel Cohen. More on how population growth affects biodiversity in East Asia. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website World Science Festival begins May 28 The World Science Festival opens May 28, 2008 in New York City. Hear from Brian Greene of Columbia University, one of the world’s best science communicators. He’s one of the festival’s organizers. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Brian Greene wants focus on the drama of�science Brian Greene, Columbia University physicist, and co-founder of the World Science Festival, wants people to know that science is dynamic. Hear Brian Greene talk about the excitement behind new discoveries. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Alan Alda on seeing beauty through�science Scientists interpret the world with a sense of wonder that comes with discovery, says actor and writer Alan Alda. Hear Alan Alda talk about the beauty and wonder of science, in advance of his appearance at this week’s World Science Festival in New York City. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Grasslands soak up carbon to slow climate�change People might look at North Dakota grasslands and just see some grass. But USDA scientist Rebecca Phillips says that Earth’s grasslands are actually players in global climate. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Student trip creates �modern naturalists� College students traveled to Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the Arctic to discover for themselves how the natural world is changing. But what made the biggest impression were the humans themselves. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Bright object near moon before dawn May 24 Friday, May 23, 2008. The waning gibbous moon and blazing planet Jupiter ascend over the horizon after midnight tonight. They can be found close together before dawn on May 24, when they will be the two brightest objects in the predawn sky. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Scientists to review Alaska seal status in 2008 Are Alaska’s ribbon seals endangered? Hear NOAA researcher Peter Boveng talk about how changes in sea ice could affect the seals’ breeding habits. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Scientists to review Alaska seal status in 2008 Are Alaska’s ribbon seals endangered? Hear NOAA researcher Peter Boveng talk about how changes in sea ice could affect the seals’ breeding habits. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Astronomers think they spy distant colliding�worlds There are still mysteries in astronomy, says Eric Mamajek. He talks about a surprisingly hot object 170 million light years from Earth that could be the result of a collision between two distant planets. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Astronomers think they spy distant colliding�worlds There are still mysteries in astronomy, says Eric Mamajek. He talks about a surprisingly hot object 170 million light years from Earth that could be the result of a collision between two distant planets. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Dark matter responsible for galactic�violence Dense pools of dark matter are yanking on galaxies deep in space. Astronomer Catherine Heymans talks about mysterious force of dark matter in the Abell supercluster of galaxies, 2.6 billion light years from earth. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Dark matter responsible for galactic�violence Dense pools of dark matter are yanking on galaxies deep in space. Astronomer Catherine Heymans talks about mysterious force of dark matter in the Abell supercluster of galaxies, 2.6 billion light years from earth. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Global warming may change ocean�biology Global warming could push ocean life in new directions, warns Jorge Sarmiento of Princeton University. Hear about Sarmiento’s research on how small temperature changes could have a big impact on ocean biology. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Global warming may change ocean�biology Global warming could push ocean life in new directions, warns Jorge Sarmiento of Princeton University. Hear about Sarmiento’s research on how small temperature changes could have a big impact on ocean biology. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Bright object near moon before dawn May 24 Friday, May 23, 2008. The waning gibbous moon and blazing planet Jupiter ascend over the horizon after midnight tonight. They can be found close together before dawn on May 24, when they will be the two brightest objects in the predawn sky. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website �Black gold agriculture� aids farming, curbs�warming Global food supply tops the agenda of many scientists. A piece of prehistoric wisdom practiced by ancient pre-Amazon people- combined with modern science – could be a big help to the global food supply, and help stabilize climate change. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Smallest, farthest full moon on May 19 May 19, 2008. In the course of one month, the moon gets closer to Earth, then farther away. Its distance from Earth varies by about 30,000 miles. Tonight, the full moon is farthest from Earth for the month. This coincidence makes tonight�s full moon the smallest full moon of 2008. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Proposal to divert the mighty�Mississippi Hear about a plan to divert the Mississippi River, in order to rebuild the coast ravaged by Hurricane Katrina and create a more sustainable coastal delta. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website In aftermath of Katrina, children still�suffer “Many children, while they’re pleased to be back, are showing symptoms of post-traumatic stress, depression, or problems when there’s a thunderstorm.” An expert talks about New Orleans children’s mental health in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Hockenberry speaks on �power of small� Nanotechnology is coming, says MIT’s John Hockenberry. Hear Hockenberry talk about what you should know about nanotechnology. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website In 2008, Mercury best in mid-May Now is the time to catch the planet Mercury in the evening. Mercury is the innermost planet of our solar system. It�s often difficult or impossible to see, because it stays close to the sun�s glare. But as seen from Earth now, Mercury is swinging to its greatest distance east of the sun. That means it�s showing up in the western sky after sunset. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Will string theory be�proven? Should string theory prove correct, says Columbia’s Brian Greene, this might well be the unified theory that Albert Einstein was looking for. Hear Greene talk about the possibility of testing string theory. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Nanotechnology for �smart� soldier�uniforms MIT’s Paula Hammond talks about using nanotech to protect against a biological or chemical attack. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Population, biodiversity interaction is 'complicated business' Population expert Joel Cohen talks about the “complicated busisness” that’s the interaction between Earth’s rising human population and our planet’s biodiversity. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Dropping the f-bomb: Steven Pinker on�swearing What do swear words reveal about the human psyche? Harvards’s Steven Pinker offers insight into taboo language. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Prehistoric insects grew�giant Eons ago, dragonflies had the wingspan of a hawk and millipedes almost as long as a man crawled along forest floors. What happened to decrease the size of these gigantic arthropods? Hear from Arizona biologist Alexander Kaiser. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Moon between Mars and Saturn on May 11 Sunday, May 11, 2008. As darkness falls tonight, the waxing moon can be found between two planets, Mars and Saturn. Saturn lies to the east of the moon. Mars lies to the west. Saturn is brighter, and easy to notice now because it’s right next to a bright star, Regulus in the constellation Leo. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website What will it mean to live in an urban�world? Earth is becoming more urbanized, according to the United Nations. Hear demographer Carl Haub talk about what ‘urban’ really means. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Will you see the very young moon on May 5? Monday, May 5, 2008. After the sun sets today, there’s a slim chance of someone spotting a record-setting young crescent moon in eastern Canada. From eastern North America, the young moon is less than 1/2 day old. No matter where you live, try to spot this razor-thin crescent moon in the west immediately after sunset. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Mystery ocean dead zones in Pacific�Northwest Six dead zones in the past six years, but none before that. That’s what scientists have discovered in the Pacific ocean off the northwest U.S. coast. Marine biologist Jane Lubchenco talk about what might be causing these “virtual wastelands.” Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Clear skies spell trouble for Arctic sea�ice Clear summer skies might be great for picnics, but sea ice does better with some cloud cover. Scientist Jennifer Kay talks about the dramatic loss of sea ice this past summer. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Meteor shower best before dawn on May 5 Friday, May 2, 2008. The annual Eta Aquarid meteor shower is lighting up the hours before dawn around now. But – because these meteors have a relatively broad maximum – you can look for the Eta Aquarids on any clear morning before dawn this weekend, too. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Research ship drills for�earthquakes Scientists have drilled closer than ever into an active quake zone off the coast of Japan. Did they learn anything earth-shaking? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Ten-second earthquake�warning The USGS estimates a 99 percent chance of a major earthquake striking California within the next 30 years. Berkeley’s Richard Allen talks about an earthquake warning system. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Listen to Neanderthals�speak Researchers are recovering the lost voice of the Neanderthals after 30,000 years of silence. Hear the Neanderthal accent, as reconstructed by Robert McCarthy, an anthropologist at Florida Atlantic University, in Boca Raton. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Animal-free meat within a�decade Imagine sinking your teeth into a nice juicy burger…grown in a test tube. An expert explains why test-tube meat could be better for your health, and better for the environment. Listen to Jason Matheny of New Harvest, a research organization in Baltimore. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Cousteau, Curious George explore the�sea The ocean is a magical place, says explorer Alexandra Cousteau. She talks about exploring our planet’s last frontier. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Human space travel, or focus on�Earth? We have the technology for human space travel. But it’s more important to direct resources toward studying climate change here on Earth, says Frank Wentz of Remote Sensing Systems in Santa Rosa, California. Here’s why he thinks so. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Why go back to the�moon? Plans are underway to establish a permanent human presence on the moon by the year 2020. NASA’s Pete Worden explains why he believes people should return to the moon. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Sylvia Earle speaks of global �hope spots� Take care of the ocean, says explorer Sylvia Earle, and it will take care of you. Earle talks about our human connection to the ocean, and the places around the planet she likes to call “hope spots.” Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Will U.S. presidential candidates debate science�policy? Climate change and the rise of Asian economies are science issues that will change our future. That’s why the U.S. presidential candidates should debate science policy, according to a citizen-led initiative – backed by thousands of scientists – that’s trying to persuade them. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Moon swings by star and Saturn in mid-April 2008 Monday, April 14, 2008. Around the world tonight, two shining points of light can be found near the waxing gibbous moon. They’re the planet Saturn and a star – called Regulus – the brightest star in the constellation Leo the Lion. You can tell which object is Saturn and which is Regulus, because Regulus is the closer body to the moon on Monday night. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website State of the World 2008 Worldwatch Institute’s State of World Report 2008 says that our economic base, our natural ecosystems, is in danger … but human innovation might turn things around. More from Tom Prugh, co-director of the report. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website James Baker: forever�young In this 8-minute Clear Voices for Science podcast, James Baker talks about nanomedicine and the future of vaccines. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Robots replace animals in toxicology�testing In the future, robots might replace animals in toxin tests. An NIH scientist spoke with EarthSky about a new method for toxicity testing that could one day make lab rats obsolete. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Moon, Mars, Gemini stars on April 11 and 12 Friday, April 11, 2008. Tonight and tomorrow, the waxing crescent moon pairs up with the planet Mars in front of the constellation Gemini, the Twins. The moon can help you recognize Mars, plus Gemini’s two brightest stars, Castor and Pollux. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Secret of Jumbo squid's powerful�beak How does the boneless Jumbo squid have a razor-sharp beak powerful enough to tear apart its prey? Researchers have discovered the secret … which may help in creating better materials for humans. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Halo star hints of long-ago�hypernova Astronomers have identified the telltale sign of a possible hypernova – a huge stellar explosion – in one of our galaxy’s oldest stars. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Sylvia Earle speaks for the�sea Renowned deep sea explorer Sylvia Earle says humans are Earth�s most relentless predator for the ocean�s large fish. But “we have an unprecedented chance to turn things around,” she says. Hear more from Sylvia Earle. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Progress in African AIDS epidemic not�enough Fighting AIDS means more than just combating the disease itself, says Dr. Peter Piot, Executive Director of UNAIDS. Piot talks about the issues that are driving the AIDS epidemic. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Why is AIDS so widespread in�Africa? Why is the biggest epidemic in the world in Southern Africa? It’s not a coincidence, says Dr. Peter Piot, Under-Secretary General of the United Nations and Executive Director of UNAIDS. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Go young moon hunting April 6 On April 6, 2008, people in the northern hemisphere have a chance to spot the youngest of young moons. Before this, the moon was new or hidden in the sun’s glare. It’s usually a day or two after new moon that we see the moon come back into view in the evening. That’s true except in spring. Springtime is the best time to spot a young moon and April 6, 2008 is the perfect time to try. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Astronomers study distant �habitable zones� Are we alone in the universe, or is there intelligent life out there? And if so, how would we find it? Astronomer Jill Tarter talked about the search for extraterrestrial life in the habitable zones of distant stars, or perhaps even on a satellite of Jupiter. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Moon and Venus before dawn April 4 and 5 This Friday and Saturday morning – April 4 and 5, 2008 – may be your last chance to catch the moon and bright planet Venus together before dawn…until next year. Find out how to see them. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Water below Antarctic ice might harbor�life Mysterious microbes might be lurking beneath Antarctica’s ice sheets. Oceanographer Chuck Kennicutt is interested in how organisms would make a living out of these cold, dark environments, and believes that the discovery and analysis of such microbes could shed light on how life evolved on our planet. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Understanding how planets grow from 'seeds' ‘Planetesimals’ is the name for the seeds around which entire planets form. Astronomer Jill Tarter talked to EarthSky about a new telescope in the Atacoma desert of Chile that might help explain the miracle of how grains of dust form into planets. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Dirt beneath our feet can slow climate�change The dirt under our feet can help slow down climate change. Soil microbiologist Chuck Rice of Kansas State University explained how it works. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Marc Bekoff on animal joy, animal�sorrow “Animals are just so there in the moment, perhaps their joy is richer than human joy and their grief is deeper than human grief.” said Mark Bekoff, evolutionary biologist at University of Colorado. Bekoff talked to EarthSky about animal joy and animal sorrow. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Fuel cells use bacteria to make energy from�waste Bruce Rittmann of Arizona State University is working on using bacteria to produce energy from the organic waste materials all around us. He said microbial fuel cells are in an early stage of development, but this technology could one day help decrease our dependence on fossil fuels. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Ocean �deserts� are expanding, say�scientists Scientists are seeing an expansion of the regions of the ocean that support the least life. These are regions of warm water at the centers of oceans. Scientists often refer to them as the ocean�s biological deserts. Jeff Polovina of the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service in Honolulu, Hawaii has seen these biological deserts in the oceans expand by nearly 7 million square kilometers over the past 9 years. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Moon and Jupiter in late March before�dawn The blazing planet Jupiter can be seen near the moon before dawn on March 29, 30 and 31 in 2008. If you watch on all three mornings, you can see the moon sweep past Jupiter as the moon moves eastward from day to day on the sky�s dome. This motion of the moon is a translation of its actual eastward motion in orbit around Earth. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website GRAIL satellites to map moon�s�gravity “If you want to understand a planet, understanding the inside is just as important as understanding the outside”, said MIT geophysicist Maria Zuber. Zuber will lead a science mission to Earth�s moon, called GRAIL, set for launch in 2011. GRAIL measures gravity. It consists of two satellites that�ll orbit the moon for about 90 days, like a pair of mini-moons of the moon. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website �Shared environment� forum begins in Aspen March 26 Leaders of industry, science, journalism, politics, and sustainability converge with members of the general public Wednesday, March 26 in Colorado for the first Aspen Environment Forum on the future of our shared environment. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website People want to know, says Nobel prize�winner Nobel Prize-wnning physicist John Mather of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland talks about the next generation of telescopes – after Hubble – the James Webb Telescope. He says the James Webb is about half built, with 5 years to go for it to launch. It should help answer many questions about this universe in which we find ourselves. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website New tsunami warning system may save�lives In 2004, the Indian Ocean tsunami claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people, who didn’t have time to evacuate to higher ground. Now scientists are developing a new warning system they say would quickly alert coastal dwellers that a tsunami might be coming. These scientists say they can use this technology to predict a tsunami before a tsunami even starts. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Earth warming might speed ocean�circulation Contrary to predictions by most climate models and even some Hollywood movies, Earth�s oceans might actually circulate faster as Earth warms. That�s according to research led by climate scientist J.R. Toggweiler of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Lab in Princeton, New Jersey. He said he started by looking at levels of the greenhouse gas CO2 at the peak of ice cover during the last ice age 21,000 years ago. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Warrior gene protects grains from�disease Steve Scofield of the USDA in West Lafayette, Indiana is studying a gene that protects grasses – including wheat, rice, corn, barley, and other grains – from disease. Scofield believes that our species owes its survival in part to the stoutness of the disease-resistant gene in grains. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Should our epoch be named for�humans? The past 10,000 years on Earth are now officially called the Holocene, meaning �all that�s recent.� But some scientists propose renaming our epoch the “Anthropocene” — the age of humans. Jan Zalasiewicz, a geologist at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom talks about how humans have modified Earth through agriculture and industry. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website March full moon and equinox set date of�Easter The March 2008 full moon on March 21 comes one day after the March equinox. In North American sky lore, the March full moon is called the Full Sap Moon or the Full Crow Moon. The first full moon of a northern hemisphere spring is called the Paschal Full Moon, and it determines the date of Easter. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Will Earth's tilt angle continue to�increase? Over two thousand years ago, the Greek astronomer Hipparchus made a careful study and came up with a wild idea. The axis around which the heavens rotated shifted very gradually. This is the motion of precession. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website NASA tests inflatable lunar habitat in�Antarctica NASA has announced plans to return to the moon by the year 2020 and establish a human presence there. NASA’s Larry Toup told Earth & Sky he is figuring out how to make a tent-like structure that�s compact to transport, and easy to set up on the moon. He and his team plan to test the structure at McMurdo Station in Antarctica. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Sun crosses celestial equator at March�equinox During the night of Wednesday, March 19 – according to U.S. clocks – the sun stands directly overhead at Earth’s equator. This event marks the March equinox, first day of spring or autumn depending on your location on Earth�s globe. The equinox comes on different dates from year to year. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Moon, Saturn, Regulus together on March 18 Tuesday, March 18. Look in the east on the evening of March 18 for the moon. It might look full to you, but the full moon will come on March 21. Look for two points of light below the moon on the evening of March 18. The higher and fainter light is a silvery-blue star, Regulus in the constellation Leo the Lion. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website What does it mean to �eat scientifically?� Berkeley professor Michael Pollan, who wrote The Omnivore�s Dilemma, is making a case against what he calls �eating scientifically.� He�s talking about breakdown of foods into scientific terms – for example, antioxidants and omega-3 fatty acids. Pollan believes nutrition science doesn�t yet have the authority to guide us in our food choices. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Study shows wine tastes better when costs�more Does some wine taste better just because it costs more? Scientists held a wine tasting inside an MRI scanner to find out. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Michael Pollan predicts a food culture�revolution We in the U.S. are due for a revolution in eating, according to Michael Pollan, UC Berkeley journalism professor and author of the bestseller In Defense of Food: An Eater�s Manifesto. Pollan talks about food scandals related to the way certain foods are processed and prepared, and predicts a future with more food choices. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website More rain from tropical storms than�hurricanes Scientists have found that tropical storms can do more to relieve drought than hurricanes. Marshal Shepherd of the University of Georgia talks about understanding how rainfall is related to climate change. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Moon, Mars high at nightfall March 14 and�15 Friday, March 14. The red planet Mars is that moderately bright starlike object near the moon on March 14 and 15. If you look, you can see that Mars appears reddish and glows with a steadier light than the twinkling stars. When the moon and Mars first pop into view at nightfall, they�re near their highest in the sky for the night. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Car exhaust linked to heart disease, says�expert Scientists have linked car exhaust with higher risk of heart disease. That�s according to a study led by research toxicologist John Incardona of the Northwest Fisheries Science Center near Seattle, Washington. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Architect calls for tens of thousands of 'green'�buildings R.K. Stewart says the architectural community wants to help green our buildings. Studies show that the design, construction, and operation of buildings are responsible for 48 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions. Buildings also consume 71 per cent of electricity from U.S. power plants. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Sun is not causing Earth to warm, says�expert Is it the sun or greenhouse gases that have been driving climate change over the past few decades? Caspar Ammann of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado talks about the evidence that the sun is not to blame for a warmer Earth. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Arctic explorer connects poles to the�world Will Steger began his career as a polar explorer by traveling unsupported thousands of kilometers across the polar regions by dog sled. Today�s explorers no longer have to head off alone into uncharted territory. In many ways, they can bring the modern world along with them, according to Steger. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website A cholera �early warning system� As Earth�s climate warms, surface waters remain warm for longer and lengthen the “cholera season” for countries like Bangladesh. Marine microbiologist Rita Colwell describes a cholera early warning system that could help combat outbreaks. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Will biofuel policies lead to more hungry�people? The emerging link between the world�s food and fuel economies means higher food prices – and more hunger for the poor – while creating some opportunities for some farmers. That’s acccording to Joachim von Braun of the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, DC. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website How bright is the Milky Way's�center? Astronomers estimate the total luminosity of the central dozen or so light-years of the Milky Way to be equal to about 10 million suns. But the center of our galaxy is 27,000 light-years away. And there is a vast quantity of interstellar dust between us and the galactic center. So what does it look like from Earth? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Ray Kurzweil�s vision of the�future Ray Kurzweil is best known for his projections into the future. They�re based on what he calls the Law of Accelerating Returns – that�s the idea that once the base of technology has been developed, it grows exponentially every year. He spoke of this century�s challenges. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Shaping up to prevent childhood�obesity Christina Economos of Tufts University took the small city of Somerville, Massachusetts and put it on a program to prevent the spread of childhood obesity. The program was called �Shape Up Somerville,� and it worked. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Phoenix mission to�Mars The 2008 Phoenix Mars Mission is designed to search for chemical traces of life on Mars. Richard Cook, Project Manager of the Mars Science Laboratory in Pasadena, CA, told Earth & Sky about the newest generation of life-seekers on the crimson planet. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Obesity is �crisis� in children, says�expert According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, 16 percent of U.S. children (over 9 million) between the ages of 6 and 19 are overweight or obese. Christina Economos studies childhood obsesity, and she says the problem is getting worse. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Predawn moon and Venus on March 4 and�5 The moon sweeps past Venus in the eastern predawn sky in early March, 2008. They’re close on March 4 – and closer on March 5. These are the two brightest nighttime objects in our sky. You�ll be surprised by how bright Venus appears, even when it�s low in the sky! Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Microcredit catching on, says �banker to poor� Microcredit – loans to the poor made without collateral – is catching on in Latin America with the help of the Whole Planet Foundation, according to Nobel-prize winner Muhammad Yunus. Known as the �banker to the poor.� Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Antarctic snowfall not as heavy as models�predict Scientists are working to confirm the predictions of climate models, and the results aren’t always as expected. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Arctic seals vulnerable to fast pace of�change Scientists at work in the Arctic say the pace of change there is now so rapid that some creatures might not be able to adapt. For example, Arctic ringed seals give birth and nurse their young in caves dug out on the snow-covered ice. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Are we near a solar energy tipping�point? Solar power currently provides less than 1% of the world’s energy, but a panel of experts announced in early 2008 that solar energy is part of a sustainable future. Ray Kurzweil, CEO of Kurzweil Technologies in Wellesley, MA told Earth & Sky why he believes the tipping point for solar energy will come soon. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website First-ever map of human impacts on�oceans Humans have left no spot on Earth�s oceans untouched, according to research biologist Ben Halpern of U.C. Santa Barbara. In early 2008, he and his colleagues released the first-ever global map of the total human impact on the seas. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Astronomers spy rare double 'Einstein ring' This object called SDSSJ0946+1006 is the first-ever double ‘Einstein ring.’ It looks like a double ring around a bright center. There are thought to be three objects here – a distant galaxy that warps the light of two more galaxies exactly aligned behind it. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Scientists test robots at poles, aim for�planets Scientists have been testing robots they say could take exploration of the moon and planets to a new level. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Are clones safe to�eat? In 2006, the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology found that 43 percent of Americans think food from cloned animals is unsafe to eat. Mark Walton of ViaGen, a Texas-based cloning company, shares his perspective. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Shipping lanes moved to save�whales In a first for the U.S., shipping lanes have been moved to avoid collisions with whales. Earth & Sky spoke with David Wiley of the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. Wiley led the science to protect whales from the nearly 5,000 ship transits each year. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Study finds human and natural Arctic�warming A new study finds that both humans and nature are contributing to the dramatic melting of Arctic ice. Oceanographer James Overland told Earth & Sky that scientists have long understood natural cycles can combine with human causes to raise global temperatures. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Saturn closest and brightest February�24 Sunday, February 24. The planet Saturn is at opposition on this day. That means Saturn is opposite the sun in Earth’s sky. At opposition, Saturn rises in the east at sunset and sets in the west at sunrise. This is when Saturn comes closest to Earth for all of 2008 and appears at its best in our sky. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Arctic change �faster than people imagined� Research oceanographer Ben Holt at NASA�s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena says that there is a sense of urgency, and that the Arctic is rapidly changing, faster than people might have imagined. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Scientists investigate the origin of�flowers Scientists are investigating the origin of flowers through a Floral Genome Project. They say flowers first appeared on Earth about 140 million years ago. By about 50 million years later, all the evolutionary ties of flowers known today had come into being. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website �Keep the science as science� on climate�change At a recent science meeting, Earth & Sky asked NOAA senior scientist Susan Solomon when leading world governments might begin to heed the IPCC reports and take major action to reduce greenhouse gases. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Can nutrients in water be traded like�carbon? Watersheds around the country are creating a market for trading water quality, which is somewhat similar to trading carbon credits. The purpose is to control nutrient pollution in water, which can – for example – cause coastal waters to become toxic to both humans and animals. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Seeking genes to make rice�healthier Much of Earth’s population today – approximately 3 billion people – depend on rice for food. Horticulturist David Salt is looking for the genes that regulate micronutrients and trying to create a nutrient-packed rice plant. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Do ring galaxies spread out as they�evolve? Located some 400 million light-years away, the Cartwheel galaxy is known as a ring galaxy. Its brightest stars can be seen in a ring orbiting the galaxy’s center. A 2008 computer study from Europe suggests that ring galaxies might undergo further evolution, ultimately becoming large diffuse galaxies. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Total lunar eclipse during night of February�20 Wednesday, February 20, 2008. The total eclipse of the moon on February 20 will be the last one we’ll see until December 2010. For North America, the total lunar eclipse is Wednesday evening, from 9:01 to 9:51 p.m. Central Time. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Lakes under glaciers a key to sea level�rise Earth scientist Chris Shuman studies liquid lakes beneath ice sheets in Antarctica. They stay liquid due to geothermal heat from Earth’s interior. Shuman said these hidden Antarctic lakes affect the way glaciers move toward the sea. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Moon and Mars close together February�15 Friday, February 15, 2008. The waxing gibbous moon shines near Mars on this night. Although the appear close together on February 15 and February 16, the moon and Mars are really far from each other in the vastness of space. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Parasite disguises ant as�berry Scientists have discovered a parasite that disguises an ant as a fruit. When nematodes – microscopic parasites – infect a gliding ant, they turn the end of the ant�s abdomen bright red, so that in sunlight, it looks like a juicy berry. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Climate change shrinking water in western U.S. A 2008 study shows that Earth�s changing climate has caused available water to shrink in the western U.S. during the last half century. And even bigger changes may lie ahead .. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website New map shows nutrient threat to coastal�areas In 2008, the World Resources Institute in Washington D.C. released a new map showing more than 400 coastal areas worldwide threatened by too many nutrients in watery ecosystems. This condition is responsible for life-destroying algal blooms and ultimately dead zones like that in the Gulf of Mexico. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Science Debate 2008 garners flood of�support Momentum is building for a citizen-led initiative calling for a science debate among U.S. presidential candidates. Science Debate 2008 wants to hear the candidates� views on science-related policy issues that will greatly affect all of our lives, and those for generations to come. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Where is the Milky�Way? In this century astronomers have thoroughly mapped the stars in this part of the Milky Way galaxy. That’s how we know our sun’s location with respect to the galaxy’s center. Likewise, astronomers have plotted the Milky Way’s position with respect to the nearest galaxies. But is it possible to say where the Milky Way is in space? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Chicken embryos reveal a secret of�life A team of scientists believes it has solved a longstanding mystery about the development of cells in animal embryos- the mystery was how embryonic cells later know to separate themselves into skin cells, brain cells, and so on. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Tight orbit of four stars surprises astronomers An astronomer has found four stars in a tight orbit that might help unlock secrets of how stars evolve. The system is BD -22�5866, and astronomers thought it was one star. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Insects sing to their�sweeties An orchestra of insect musicians await those with ears to listen to the trills and chirps of the outdoors. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Record high melt in Greenland high places in�2007 The high places of icy Greenland set a new record in 2007 for snow melt. Marco Tedesco is a research scientist at NASA�s Goddard Space Flight Center. He said that at altitudes above 2,000 meters in Greenland – a little over a mile high – snow melted for up to 30 days longer than the 20-year average. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Dwarf galaxy in Pegasus found stripped of�gas A dwarf galaxy in the direction of the constellation Pegasus is being stripped of its gas, according to astronomers. A galaxy needs its gas to create new stars. So we might be seeing this galaxy near the end of its ability to form stars. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website World rainfall harder, more frequent than�thought Around the world, rain falls harder and more frequently on average than previously thought. That�s according to climate scientist Graeme Stephens, principal investigator of the CloudSat Earth-observing satellite. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Blind cavefish given gift of�sight Though blind for the past million years, cavefish can produce sighted offspring. That�s with a little help from scientists. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Robot aircraft do dirty work of�science In early 2008, scientists launched the expansion of a system of robot airplanes to be used for science. Scientists say these planes have the potential to revolutionize the way they observe the Earth. They�ll deploy the robot planes for missions they call �dirty, dull, and dangerous.� Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Moon, Venus, Jupiter before dawn February�4 After the sun, the three brightest heavenly bodies to light up the heavens are the moon, followed by the planet Venus and then the planet Jupiter. Monday morning, February 4, all three of these brilliant worlds rendezvous before sunrise, to stage one of the most picturesque celestial scenes of 2008. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Moon, Venus, Jupiter before dawn February�2 Friday, February 1, 2008. This weekend, if you look in the east before dawn, you’ll see the waning crescent moon, blazing planet Venus and brilliant planet Jupiter. When you see these three bright objects up before the sun, remember that not one of them shines with its own light. The moon, Venus and Jupiter all shine by reflecting the light of the sun. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Astronomer successfully predicts distant�planet Astronomer Rory Barnes has become the first to find a planet outside our solar system by predicting its location in advance. That hasn�t happened since astronomers found Neptune in our own solar system in the year 1846. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Will India�s energy future be sustainable? The nation of India is expected to double its energy demand by the year 2030, according to the International Energy Agency – an energy policy advisor to 27 member countries. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Yunus calls people �bottom line of social business� Economist Muhammad Yunus is on a mission to promote a new type of business for the 21st century. A social business – according to Yunus� definition – doesn�t yield a dividend for shareholders. Instead, its bottom line is people. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Is climate engineering science fiction or�fact? The engineering of Earth�s atmosphere to stop global warming looks good – to some – in theory. But atmospheric scientist Richard Turco of UCLA is one who disagrees with this approach. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Red Antares at 600 light-years�away Antares is a red supergiant star, with some 700 times our sun’s diameter. If placed in the center of our solar system, Antares outer surface would lie between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Early stargazers knew Antares as a Royal Star. To modern astronomers, this star is a ball of shining gas in space – the brightest member of the Local Star Cloud. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website See Venus and Jupiter in January and�February Friday, January 25, 2008. The planets Venus and Jupiter are near each other before dawn in late January and early February, 2008. They look like blazingly bright stars, rising in the east a couple hours before the sun. In late January and early February, the brighter and higher-up object is Venus. The fainter object – closer to the horizon – is Jupiter. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Ice cores hold Antarctica�s climate secrets Scientists are looking deep into the ice to reveal Antarctica�s hidden climate history. And they�re finding the future is unlike anything the continent has experienced over the past millennium. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Moon, Regulus, Saturn on January�23 Wednesday, January 23, 2008. Tonight, around 9 or 10 o’clock, look eastward to see two bright points of light beneath the waning gibbous moon. These bright objects are silvery-blue Regulus, the brightest star in the constellation Leo the Lion – and the golden planet Saturn, the farthest world that you easily see with the unaided eye. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Hubble Space Telescope to be�reinvented A space shuttle mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope in late 2008 will be well worth the risk involved, says NASA astronaut John Grace Grunsfeld. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website January full moon rides high in�sky Your calendar probably says that January 22 is the full moon. But depending on where you live, the moon on the night of January 21 might be closer to full for you. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Betelgeuse could explode as a�supernova Betelgeuse – the somber red star in the shoulder of the constellation Orion the Hunter – is one of the largest stars visible to the eye alone. Massive stars like Betelgeuse will eventually explode as supernovae. Astronomer Brad Schaefer told Earth & Sky that Betelgeuse could become a supernova any day now. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website On January 19, the moon and�Mars Tonight, you can identify the red planet Mars. It’s the brightest planet in the vicinity of the moon. The great loop of bright stars currently surrounding Mars is called the Winter Circle by people in the northern hemisphere. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Energy poverty persists in rural�India The nation of India is racing to provide power to a rapidly developing economy and growing population. But modern forms of energy are not reaching potential users in rural India, according to Ambuj Sagar at Harvard University. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Scientists find �spiders� on�Mars NASA scientists have taken close-up images from space of what they�re calling �spiders� on the planet Mars. These spiders aren�t life forms, but spidery-looking channels, carved in ice at the south pole of Mars. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Modern chimps dig up clues to ancient�humans The discovery that chimpanzees use tools to dig up edible tubers might help us understand our human origins better. Tubers � such as sweet potatoes and cassava � were important foods for early hominids, and are still important foods in human societies today. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Scientists celebrate 50 years of�chickens Canadian scientists recently threw a 50th birthday party for chickens – predecessors to the broilers eaten today. No actual chickens were in attendance. Instead, the scientists were celebrating 50 years of preserving a group of chickens� genetic diversity. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Life-seeking robot sub to test in�Antarctica A robot sub being tested now in Antarctica might someday be used to find signs of life on other worlds. For example, Jupiter�s moon Europa might harbor life swimming in an ocean covered by ice. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Myth and science of Pleiades star�cluster The Pleiades star cluster is also known as the Seven Sisters. It’s one of the easiest patterns to see in the night sky, in the shape of a tiny misty dipper of six little stars. It is more dipper-like than the Little Dipper asterism in the northern sky. Many sky legends speak of the Pleiades’ origin, but modern astronomers know this pattern as an actual star cluster in space. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website High noctilucent clouds may signal human�impact High noctilucent clouds, created by icy particles, may be affected by how humans are changing the nature of our planet. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Climate close to tipping point, says�Hansen If we don’t reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, we will lose all of the sea ice in the Arctic. We have to begin making changes now. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Saturn recycles its rings, creates new�ones In the 1970s, Voyager 1 provided the first close-up views of Saturn�s rings. Astronomers determined then that the rings were a temporary feature, formed about 100 million years ago when a moon of Saturn was struck by an asteroid. But evidence from the more recent Cassini mission suggests the rings are much older, as old as the solar system itself. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Our solar system is squashed, says�scientist Evidence from the Voyager spacecraft reveals that the shape of our solar system is �squashed.� Ed Stone, Chief Scientist of the Voyager Mission, told Earth & Sky that the sun creates a bubble around itself. He said that in August of 2007, Voyager 2 reached the edge of the bubble about a billion miles closer to the sun than Voyager 1 did in 2004. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Mars rover finds possible hot springs deposits In 2007, scientists took a step forward in finding evidence for former life on Mars. A rock split open by the wheels of the Mars Spirit rover revealed that it, and rocks surrounding it, were made of more than 90 percent silica. These silica-rich rocks might be deposits from former hot springs on Mars, similar to hot springs found at Yellowstone National Park. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Who controls Earth�s�thermostat? In 2008, scientists are contemplating ways of engineering Earth�s atmosphere to counter global warming. One goal is to reduce the total sunlight that strikes the Earth. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website What would Earth be like without its�moon? Earth without its moon would be a very different world indeed. With no moon, there’d be no nearby world for astronauts to visit. We might never have begun to venture out into the solar system. And imagine no romantic moonlight walks – no concept of moon madness, or lunacy. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Changing Earth phases, seen from the�moon If you were born and raised on the far side of the moon, you might not know there was an Earth. But from anywhere on the moon’s near side, you’d see the Earth change in phase. As seen from the moon, the Earth waxes and wanes – just as the moon does as seen from our world. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Latest sunrises not on shortest�day At mid-northern latitudes, the latest sunrises of the year are happening now. That’s in spite of the fact that the shortest day for the northern hemisphere came two weeks ago, on the December 22 winter solstice. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Moon and Venus greet the new�year Venus blazes brightly in the eastern sky before dawn in early January, 2008. Before dawn on Friday, January 4, Venus is near the moon. They�re so bright you can�t miss them. They�re also near a bright star – the brightest star in the constellation Scorpius – called Antares. As darkness gives way to morning dawn, the moon, Venus and Antares will climb higher into your eastern sky. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Earth closest to sun, moon farthest from�Earth Every year, Earth�s perihelion comes during the first week of January. Six months later, Earth reaches its farthest point from the sun in early July. We are some 5 million kilometers closer to the sun in early January than in early July. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Does the dark side of the moon really�exist? The moon always keeps one face toward Earth, and to do that the moon has to rotate once on its axis every month. So no matter where you stand on the moon – on the side that faces Earth or the side that doesn’t – you’re going to be standing in sunlight for about two weeks out of every month. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Sirius midnight culmination New Year's�Eve On New Year’s Eve look up for the brightest star in the sky, Sirius, in the constellation Canis Major. This star is up in the evening every winter, and it’s always easy to identify. It outshines every other star in the night sky. On New Year’s Eve, Sirius is at its highest in the sky at midnight. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Roadside is birthing center for moose�moms Moose are giving birth in an unlikely place. Scientists tracking moose in Grand Teton National Park have noticed that nearly 90% of moose calves were born by the side of the road. Roads may actually be a safe haven for moose in national parks. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website What makes Venus the brightest�planet? Venus is bright because it reflects over 70 percent of sunlight striking it. It owes this reflective ability to the fact that it’s blanketed with clouds. Sunlight bouncing from these clouds is what makes Venus so bright. When the moon is close to full, it can look a lot brighter than Venus, but the moon reflects only about 10 percent of the light that hits it. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Update on Milky Way's black�hole Like many galaxies, our Milky Way galaxy is thought to have a giant black hole at its core. Astronomers call this black hole Sagittarius A. It’s located 27,000 light-years away from Earth, in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website �Many more� dinosaur species await�discovery Paul Sereno unveiled the Nigersaurus in late 2007, and he told Earth & Sky that there are many more dinosaur species waiting to be discovered in Africa. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Role of fossil fuels in our energy�future? What will the world�s energy use look like in the year 2030? Not as green as some might hope, according to a 2007 report by the International Energy Agency which suggests that global dependence on fossil fuels will grow as energy consumption increases by 55% between 2005 and 2030. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Earth between Mars and sun on December�24 On December 24, the red planet Mars is momentarily opposite the sun in Earth’s sky, as Earth goes between the sun and Mars. This is an opposition of Mars. Around this time, Earth and Mars are closest together in space, and the red planet shines brightly in our night sky! You can’t miss Mars in the east each evening. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The future of humanity�s�genes In the future, humans might be able to determine the genetic coding of their children and bypass natural selection. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Full moon near Mars on December�23 If you look outside you�ll see the December full moon near a blazing reddish light in our sky. This starlike light is the planet Mars. Flying through space at 18 miles per second, Earth is about to go between the sun and Mars. Earth will pass between Mars and the sun on December 24. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Coincidence that sun and moon are same�size? Although the sun is about 400 times larger than the moon, it is also about 400 times farther away. So the sun and moon are nearly the same size as seen from Earth. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Most southerly sun at solstice on December�21 At this solstice, the sun reaches its southernmost point over the globe of Earth. Or you can flip your perspective and say the southern part of Earth is tilted most toward the sun. This is the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere and summer solstice in the southern hemisphere. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Cygnus X-1 and how black holes are�made Cygnus X-1 was one of the first black hole candidates to be discovered and is still one of the star systems most reliably identified as containing a black hole. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Phobos and Deimos as seen from�Mars What do the two Martian moons – Phobos and Deimos – look like from the surface of Mars? Deimos, the more distant moon, looks like a bright star in Mars’ sky. Phobos resembles a shining gray-white potato. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Is the pace of human evolution speeding�up? A new study says that the rate of human evolution has sped up in the past 5,000 years, and that the increase is related to the growing number of humans on Earth. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Mars closest to Earth December�18 Tuesday night, the planet Mars will come closest to Earth for all of 2007. At a distance of about 88 million kilometers – or 55 million miles – this will be Mars’ nearest approach to our planet until the year 2016. But, no, Mars will not now or ever appear as large as the full moon. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Earth and humans better off in�2050? Trends in human population over the next 50 years may be positive for both humanity and the natural world. That�s according to population expert Joel Cohen, who said that billions more people will share this planet with other forms of life by 2050. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Quantum computers 'key' to deeper�knowledge Physicist and inventor of the idea of quantum computing David Deutsch says science is just creating computer programs that run inside human brains and simulate aspects of the rest of the universe. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Warming in Antarctica�s polar�desert In the Antarctic polar desert, only microscopic plants can survive the freezing, dry temperatures, and five-and-a-half months without sun. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Geminid meteor storm from 3200�Phaethon? 3200 Phaethon is known to be the source of the Geminid meteor shower, which peaks every year around this time. Most meteor showers stem from comets – but Phaethon doesn’t appear to be an active comet anymore. It probably ejected the debris needed to lay down the Geminid meteor stream long ago. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Our solar system is �squashed', says�scientist Evidence from the Voyager spacecraft reveals that the shape of our solar system is �squashed.� Scientists base their claim on the distance each of the Voyager spacecraft took to reach the boundary of the solar sytem. In August of 2007, Voyager 2 reached the edge about a billion miles closer to the sun than Voyager 1 did in 2004. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Scientists unearth behemoth Dukei�dino Scientists in South America say they�ve found the remains of one of the biggest dinosaurs ever. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Geminid meteor shower peaks December 13 and�14 Thursday, December 13, 2007. Our planet Earth is now passing through a stream of debris in space. Some of this debris will enter Earth’s atmosphere to appear as “shooting stars” in our night sky. In other words, these next few nights are the peak nights of the Geminid meteor shower. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Dinos suffer case of mistaken�identity New evidence suggests that what was thought to be three separate dinosaur species might actually be the same dinosaur – in three different growth stages. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 2008 mission a �go� for Hubble�upgrade The Hubble Space Telescope is now awaiting its final service mission scheduled for late 2008. The scientific capability of the instrument, of the telescope, will be increased by installing new instruments, in particular the Wide Field Camera 3 and the Cosmic Origin Spectrograph. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Land plates might shift on super-Earths In 2007. scientists investigated the possibility of shifting land plates on �super-Earths,� worlds between one and ten times Earth�s mass, orbiting distant suns. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Culture, economics a factor in�biodiversity It�s clear that human population growth affects biodiversity, the richness of living species. But it doesn�t act alone Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Sea ice may disappear, but native words�linger Arctic sea ice is changing – and so are traditional ways of knowing sea ice by the Eskimo or Inuit people of the far north. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website DNA reveals secrets of ancient Greek shipwreck DNA science has revealed the formerly secret cargos of ancient shipping vessels. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Moon, Venus before dawn December 5 and�6 The two brightest objects of nighttime will be shining close together before the break of day tomorrow morning and Thursday morning. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Hurricane season of 2007 continued active�trend The 2007 hurricane season fit a trend of increased hurricane activity that began in 1995. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Uncovering one way cancer may take�hold By studying how cancer sabotages our immune system, scientists may have found a new way to sabotage cancer. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website What scientists are saying about global�warming On the heels of a series of climate reports in 2007, scientists are still discussing the subject of global warming. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website What would you eat on�Mars? According to NASA, astronauts will be able to grow crops and cook their own vegetarian meals on future missions to Mars. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Nigersaurus: dinosaur called �cow of Mesozoic� Scientists have unveiled the �Nigersaurus,� a dinosaur stranger than any seen before. Pieced together from a deposit of dinosaur bones in the Sahara desert, the Nigersaurus is reshaping the way paleontologists look at long-necked dinosaurs. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Study supports global warming/hurricane�link Scientists at Purdue have found that tropical cyclones – which can become Atlantic hurricanes – cause strong feedbacks between Earth�s oceans and atmosphere. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Greenland and Antarctica �big gorillas� in climate�change Uncertainty about sea level rise from climate change looms largest at Earth�s poles, according to many scientists. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Anniversary of the discovery of pulsars On November 28, 1967, a new kind of star was discovered by a graduate student at Cambridge University. Jocelyn Bell was sifting through data from a radio telescope needed for her doctoral dissertation. She noticed a strange signal emanating from the same part of the sky each night … Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Muhammad Yunus - 'banker to poor' - is�hopeful 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, the man known as the �banker to the poor,� sees signs of hope for the one-fifth of Earth�s population living in extreme poverty. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website How population interacts with�biodiversity The economics and culture of Earth’s rising human population interacts with our planet’s biodiversity in a complicated way. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Study reveals roots of ethnic�conflict Scientists have developed a computer model that uses census data to predict outbreaks of ethnic conflict. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website What will it mean to live in an urban�world? For several years now, we’ve heard the story about Earth’s becoming a more urban world. Carl Haub of the Population Reference Bureau in Washington D.C. talks about what ‘urban’ means and what’s to be expected in 2008. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Bright Mars near moon November 26-27 Monday, November 26. Depending on where you live, the waning gibbous moon and reddish planet Mars will rise over your eastern horizon some 2 to 3 hours after sunset tonight. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Scientists build a robo-moth Scientists have built a a robot controlled by a moth. They�re calling it … what else? A robo-moth. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Climate change means more rain, snow for�some In a warming world, places with lots of rain and snowfall might get even more. And dry places might get drier. Earth & Sky spoke to Francis Zwiers, Director of the Climate Research Division of the federal agency Environment Canada in Toronto. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website What would Earth be like without its�moon? No solar or lunar eclipses. No calendars based on a system of months. The word month, after all, stems from a word that means moon – because many calendars are based on the changing phases of the moon. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Full moon and Seven Sisters on November�23 Friday, November 23. No matter where you live on Earth, you’ll see a large, full-looking moon tonight and tomorrow night in the vicinity of a tiny misty dipper of stars. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Research speaks to the poet in us, says�cosmologist A scientist shares his thoughts on why research in the sciences matters. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 'Engineering with heart' for world�s�poor Engineers without Borders works to build things such as systems to collect rainwater and photovoltaic solar cells to provide power in health clinics. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website One-third of world lives in energy�poverty Between 2 to 3 billion people – or roughly one-third of the world�s population – are living in energy poverty, according to the United Nations. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website How to put an owl on speed�dial Usually when biologists want to take a census or survey of bird populations, they have to venture out in the wilderness. But Dale Joachim finds owls a bit differently: He calls them on a cell phone. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website How many people will live on Earth in�2100? Global population grew in the year 2007 to 6.6 billion. We often hear the number 9 billion to describe Earth’s population in the year 2050. After that, according to many projections, falling birth rates should cause global population to decline. But demographers now are wondering about those projections. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Lonely interstellar Earths might roam�galaxy Hundreds of millions of systems like our own Earth and moon might be roaming between the stars of the Milky Way galaxy, according to a recent study. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Highest population growth among rural�poor Human population in the 21st century is growing most within developing nations, in the poorer rural areas. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Mom-scientist juggles family and career from�treetops Taking children into nature can be a bonding experience for families, and it can make for some good adventures. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Land use is key to sustainability, says�expert There are more than twice as many people on Earth today as 50 years ago. And human transformation of the landscape has accelerated over that time, often with unintended consequences. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website OceanInsight for visually�impaired Researchers working from a ship in the North Atlantic hope to make information about climate change research available to the blind and visually impaired. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Prehistoric insects grew�giant Transport yourself back in time 300 million years, and you might see dragonflies with the wingspan of a hawk or millipedes almost as long as a man crawling along forest floors. What happened to decrease the size of these gigantic prehistoric arthropods? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Can a robotic suit make you a better�athlete? Imagine that you�re taking a lesson from a tennis pro. At the same time your teacher is telling you how to swing the racket, you actually feel how your arm should move – because you�re wearing a robotic suit. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website What your brain's doing while you're�reading According to cognitive neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf of Tufts University, what you read literally changes the structure of your brain. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website So you think you can dance? Robot�version. Keepon the robot is not just a dancin’ fool. His raison d’etre is actually helping scientists understand how children learn to socialize. But you might like to see this robot dance. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Polar ice hit where it hurts, says�expert Earth�s warming oceans might be behind big changes at Earth�s poles. NASA scientist Robert Bindschadler said warming in the oceans is hitting the ice sheets where it hurts. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Was Leonardo�s genius�misunderstood? Leonardo Da Vinci is considered one of the greatest geniuses ever, but his scientific work might be largely misunderstood. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Moon and Jupiter November 12 and�13 This evening, look for the slim waxing crescent moon to appear with the very bright planet Jupiter shortly after sunset. They’ll be near the sunset point on the horizon. And they�ll be low in the sky, so you’ll need an open horizon to see the moon and Jupiter. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 2007 Leonid meteor peak Saturday, November�17 According to predictions, the famous Leonid meteor shower will peak this weekend. The best viewing is predicted to be during the wee hours before dawn on Sunday, when you might see as many as 10 to 15 meteors per hour. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Machiavellian monkeys scheme for�dominance Monkeys are taking a cue from Machiavelli, the 15th century Italian political philosopher who famously said, �The ends justify the means.� Dario Maestripieri at the University of Chicago is author of Macachiavellian Intelligence: How Rhesus Macaques and Humans Have Conquered the World. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Virus alone may not be enough to kill�bees Scientists who suggested a virus is causing the mysterious deaths of U.S. honeybees believe this virus is deadly mainly when working in conjunction with other factors. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Breakthrough needed to curb warming, say�authors Human potential unleashed, rather than curbed, might be the best way to reduce global warming. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Ozone layer treaty: 20 years�later September 16, 2007 marked the 20th anniversary of the Montreal Protocol. That’s an international treaty to phase out chemicals that deplete Earth’s protective ozone layer, which shields us from harmful ultraviolet rays of the sun. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website It came from outer space: Earth's�water Scientists believe that most of Earth’s finite water supply was brought here early in Earth’s history by icy comets and asteroids that bombarded the young Earth for hundreds of millions of years. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Dropping the f-bomb: Steven Pinker on�swearing What do swear words reveal about the human psyche? Steven Pinker: If you look at the common denominator of taboo language across the world’s cultures I would say it’s negative emotion. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Satellites help combat world�hunger Science has developed a new tool to help combat hunger in places like Africa. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Visit from bright Comet�Holmes November 6, 2007 Since October 24, 2007, a bright comet has been in the northeastern sky each evening. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Population 7 billion a sign of success, say�authors Global warming is prompting some environmentalists to reframe their approach on how to help stabilize Earth�s climate. Ted Nordhaus is co-author of the book, Breakthrough: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Steven Pinker calls language a window into human�nature Our use of language reveals who we are, according to Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker.Steven Pinker: _The meanings of words and how they’re used can expose our thoughts and feeling and social relationships. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website If we found alien life, would we know�it? NASA is preparing to launch missions in search of extraterrestrial life within our own solar system. A 2007 report from the National Research Council recommended widening this search to include what they called ‘weird life.’ Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Pollution in China during�Olympics? With less than a year to go until the 2008 Olympics, there�s concern that the games – to be held in Beijing next August – might be affected by severe air pollution. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Expert on lead in our drinking�water Do Americans take safe drinking water for granted? Most likely, according to Marc Edwards, a civil engineering professor at Virginia Tech. Edwards won a 2007 MacArthur Fellowship, commonly called a �Genius� grant. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website As of Oct.6, we're in 'ecological debt' By early October, we humans had already consumed all the resources Earth will produce for 2007. That’s the basis of Ecological Debt Day, announced by Mathis Wackernagel of the Global Footprint Network. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Tracking pollution from Earth's�orbit Some satellites have gotten so sophisticated they can measure some of the tiniest and most dangerous particles of ground-based air pollution. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Credit card fraud: solving the crime with�math Mathematician Keith Devlin of Stanford University is co-author of the book The Numbers Behind NUMB3RS: Solving Crime with Mathematics. He told Earth & Sky about using neural networks – computer programs – to fight credit card crime. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Simulating 100 days on�Mars NASA has a long range goal of sending humans to Mars in 30 years. To help prepare, seven scientists and engineers spent part of 2007 in the Arctic. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Mystery of Antarctica's huge, ghostly mountain�range Expeditions are underway to explore what scientists call the �new frontier� at Earth�s poles. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Scientists examine Wint-O-Green�effect Stand in a dark closet with a friend, chew on some Wint-O-Green Lifesavers, and watch the blue-white sparks fly. It�s called the Wint-O-Green Lifesaver effect. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Mars returns to easy viewing late October�2007 Tuesday, October 30. The planet Mars is finally returning to easy viewing in the evening sky. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Water crisis in India: is there water in the�well? As India’s population surged past 1.1 billion people in 2007, its water crisis has grown more severe. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Could penguins and polar bears swap�habitats? A listener asked, “Why aren’t there penguins up north in the Arctic, and polar bears near the south pole in Antarctica?” Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Roadside is birthing center for moose�moms Moose are giving birth in an unlikely place. Scientists tracking moose in Grand Teton National Park have noticed that nearly 90% of moose calves were born by the side of the road. Roads may actually be a safe haven for moose in national parks. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Venus morning elongation October�28 Saturday, October 27. Tomorrow – Sunday morning – the blazing planet Venus will reach its greatest western elongation. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 'Robot muscle' turns wave power into�electricity In 2007, researchers completed the first tests of a system that uses a type of “artificial muscle” to generate power from the motion of ocean waves. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Hunter�s Moon on October 25 closest for�2007 Thursday, October 25. Tonight�s full moon is the Hunter’s Moon. By coincidence, tonight’s moon is also the closest and therefore biggest full moon of 2007. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The biggest star explosions�ever Astronomers say they�ve seen the biggest star explosions ever. Earth & Sky’s Jorge Salazar spoke with astronomer J.Craig Wheeler of the University of Texas at Austin, who was on the discovery team. His graduate student at the time, Robert Quimby, found a two supernovae within just months of each other. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Reindeer herders, scientists team up on climate�change Scientists and reindeer herders in Norway have teamed up to help each other understand the impacts of climate change. Nancy Maynard: Recently, there have been serious declines in number of reindeer ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Shuttle commander on 'America in Space' Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website World obesity, 800 million�starving Scientific American’s John Rennie on the 21st century paradox of feast and famine. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Red tide toxins give up�secret Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have established how algae give rise to red tides. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Satellite survey gives coral reef big�picture A new satellite survey has let scientists pinpoint the location – and assess the health – of half a million square kilometers of coral reefs on planet Earth. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Satellite survey gives coral reef big�picture A new satellite survey has let scientists pinpoint the location – and assess the health – of half a million square kilometers of coral reefs on planet Earth. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website No-till farming antidote to 'skinning'�fields? A new analysis confirms that a farming technique called �no-till� agriculture can help curb soil erosion. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Orionid meteors before dawn on October 20-22 Friday, October 19. The Orionid meteor shower will peak this weekend. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The sun has a�twin Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Will Earth survive an expanding�sun? Forty-five hundred light-years away, at the star V 391 Pegasi, astronomers have glimpsed a star system that might reveal a possible future for our planet Earth. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Lizards do push-ups Jacky Dragons are small lizards native to Australia. Male Jacky Dragons have an interesting way of intimidating rivals. They do push-ups. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Design to prevent collapsing bridges, burst�pipes Burst pipes and collapsing bridges have raised concerns about aging infrastructure in the United States. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Moving sea ice feels like �walking on the moon� Scientists in Antarctica are for the first time ever combining live satellite data with measurements made right at the surface of sea ice. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Robosquirrel versus�rattlesnake California ground squirrels intimidate rattlesnakes by waving their tails. To study this in the lab, scientists built a robot squirrel, or what they call a robosquirrel. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website October 14 and 15 evening: moon, Jupiter,�Antares Sunday, October 14. At nightfall tonight and tomorrow, look low in your western or southwestern sky to see the waxing crescent moon near the planet Jupiter and the star Antares. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Join the Global Snowflake�Network Scientists are enlisting volunteers to document the shape of snowflakes around the world. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Taking out traffic signals to make roads�safer It may seem counterintuitive, but taking out stop signs and traffic signals might make city streets safer. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Ghostly ring evidence of dark�matter Astronomers have seen more evidence of what they call ‘dark matter.’ Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Satellites help verify abuses in�Burma Satellite images are being employed to help verify abuses of human rights in the Asian country of Burma. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Crop diversity essential to future food�supply Earth�s climate and weather are tied to our food supply. And many scientists who model future climate believe that temperatures will rise and patterns of rainfall, freeze, and drought will become less certain while population increases. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Save crop diversity with 'Doomsday'�vault Not far from the North Pole, chiseled deep into a mountain on a remote Norwegian island, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault will store a backup collection of the world�s seeds, after it opens in early 2008. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Bird moms benefit from bird�nannies Andrew Russell, a biologist at the University of Sheffield in England, studies this odd behavior � called cooperative breeding � in the superb fairy-wren of southeastern Australia. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Nobel laureate calls climate change 'major threat' The world may remember 2007 as the year when many leaders began speaking out about climate change. That includes Muhammad Yunus, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his work with microcredit – low interest loans – for the poor. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website October 5 and 6 before dawn: moon, planets,�star Friday, October 5. If you’re up an hour or more before sunrise this weekend, be sure to look toward the eastern sky to see the waning crescent, the planets Venus and Saturn, and the star Regulus. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Modeling past hurricanes with eye to�future Insight into future hurricanes could come from a new computer model grounded in the past. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Since 2006, unprecedented honeybee�decline The disappearance of what’s believed to be millions of bees could become a factor in U.S. food production. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website This is your brain on�music New research shows that different regions of the brain work simultaneously to extract information about musical sound. It�s then all put together in higher brain regions that give us a sense of a complete musical work. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Human landscapes bolstering�allergies How we�ve shaped the places we live has given rise to the epidemic rise of allergies in the U.S., according to Gregg Mitman, author of‘Breathing Space, How Allergies Shape Our Lives and Landscapes.’ Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Can organic farming�compete? Despite what critics say, organic farming methods can produce enough food to sustain Earth�s current population, according to Catherine Badgley of the University of Michigan, lead author of a 2007 study comparing yields for organic versus conventional food production across the globe. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website To contain GM crop genes: method�reexamined A discounted technique to contain the pollen of genetically modified plants may be more effective than previously thought. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Moon and Venus before dawn on September�8 In the predawn sky now, you�ll find the waning crescent moon and blazing planet Venus. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Restored ecosystems can help mitigate climate�change Ecosystems play a vital role in mitigating the impacts of climate change. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Narwhals and�climate The narwhal, a species of white whale, is helping scientists monitor water temperatures in the Arctic. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Mass transit and cities of the�future Cities around the world are growing. Some U.S. urban planners – who are concerned about the effects of urban sprawl and our American dependency on cars – are beginning to utilize what�s called transit-oriented development. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Arctic drilling may impact northern�ecosystems Arctic sea ice has declined, and oil companies want to expand their operations further offshore into Arctic waters. It�s easier and less expensive to drill when there’s less ice. But scientists are concerned that expanded drilling activity could impact sensitive ecosystems. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Extrasolar planet found near red�giant Astronomers have found a planet near a red giant star about 300 light-years from Earth. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Satellites aid food security in�Afghanistan Afghan farmers get most of their water from melting snow. But 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 Brain shown to change, heal through�thinking A new book by science columnist Sharon Begley explores the latest in scientific research about the brain. She told Earth & Sky that the way you think can re-wire your brain. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website THEMIS mission to study mystery of dancing�aurora NASA’s THEMIS mission is designed to study the northern lights, also known as the aurora borealis. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Ethanol may create worse smog than�gasoline Ethanol is touted as a green fuel at the pump, but it may create worse smog than gasoline, according to a study by Stanford University professor Mark Jacobson. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Who will see the total lunar eclipse of August 27-28? North and South America will see this eclipse in the wee hours before sunrise tomorrow. The farther west you live in the Americas, the more you’ll see of the eclipse. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Rock star describes spiritual lift from�astronomy Queen’s Brian May 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 Moon highlights Jupiter and the star Antares, August�21 At nightfall on August 21st, the slightly gibbous moon appears somewhat more than half-illuminated. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Scientists study concrete to make it 'greener' A team of researchers is working to make concrete ‘greener.’ Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Irregular moons sometimes orbit "backwards" Until recently, scientists thought that most moons in our solar system behaved like our own moon, but new data indicate that the majority are irregular moons. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Ecological footprint quiz. How many�Earths? How many Earths would it take if everyone lived like you? The Global Footprint Network offers an online quiz to help you find out. It�s called the Ecological Footprint Quiz. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Star near moon on August 17 is�Spica The sparkling blue-white star near tonight�s waxing crescentmoon is Spica, the brightest light in the constellation Virgo the Maiden. 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 Eskimos can continue 2,000-year whale�hunt Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Malaria vaccine research aided by tests on�mice Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Perseid meteors best from midnight to�dawn Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The 2007 peak of the Perseid meteor�shower Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website New desalination technique could run on "waste"�heat Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Population report: Unleashing the potential of urban�growth Within a generation, the population of cities in developing countries is expected to double. That�s according to the State of World Population report, issued in June 2007 by the U.N. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Mass of dwarf planet Eris 27% greater than�Pluto Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website In its sixth year, Pacific dead zone closer to�surf Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website U.S. biofuels may stress Latin American food�security Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Gulf dead zone big as New Jersey in�2007 Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Nanotechnology is "here and now," says�expert Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website China plans to build world�s first eco-city Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website L.A.'s One Million Tree�Initiative Most people see Los Angeles as a concrete jungle, or a place where just palm trees grow. But that may change. Here’s a plan to plant a million more trees of all types in the coming years. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Cities best for Earth in 21st century, says�expert Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Smart fabrics could repel bacteria,�viruses Scientists are using nanotechnology to develop smart textiles that could help keep you healthier. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Warming climate sparks wildfires, say�scientists A warming climate has triggered increased wildfire activity in the western U.S. That’s the conclusion drawn by environmental scientist Anthony Westerling of the University of California, Merced. He co-authored a study that looked at 34 years of government fire data since 1970. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Quantum computer uses atom-sized memory�cells 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. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Intel scientist describes quantum�computing Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Mysterious depths: Earth�s deepest�sinkhole Scientists have returned from an expedition to study one of Earth�s last unexplored environments. It�s the deepest water-filled sinkhole in the world: El Zacaton in Mexico. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Print your own organic solar cell,�someday Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Organics fall from space onto planets, says�scientist Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Extreme summer warming possible by�2080 Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Large is smart for�cities Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Astronomers identify two galaxies in�collision Astronomers have identified another two galaxies in the act of colliding. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 'Night shining' clouds no longer just near�poles 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 Scientist says role of science is�changing 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 More on unprecedented melt in West�Antarctica Scientists say a recently identified area in West Antarctica – which experienced melting and re-freezing over a week of balmy temperatures in 2005 – shows that the Antarctic continent is being affected by climate change. This particular melt – over an area roughly the size of California – surprised scientists. It was far inland, many hundreds of kilometers or over 500 miles from the ocean. Previously, warming effects weren’t seen outside the Antarctic Penin ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Author examines �world without us� Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Scientists learn to monitor underwater�volcanoes Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Urbanization to slow population growth, says�expert Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Moon near Jupiter, Antares on July 24 and�25 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 Desertification linked to�poverty Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Warming ocean surface threatens marine food�chain Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Dirty snow a culprit in Arctic�warming? 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 Consumer products made with nanotech�increasing In 2007, nearly 500 consumer products have been developed using nanotechnology, the science of the very small. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Solar ripples should shed light on sun's�birth Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Are synthetic muscles in our�future? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Mercury best before dawn on July�20 Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Hurricane eye "turbo charges" storm�intensity Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Recipe for organic haze requires invisible�particles 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 Nano products could top $1 trillion by�2015 Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Moon, Venus, Saturn, Regulus on July�16 Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Nano-scale fluids might help treat�cancer Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Amazon plants trigger seasonal�change Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Amazon plants trigger seasonal�change Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Carbon capture and storage: a coming�reality? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Radioactive thorium in another�galaxy Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Scientists consider carbon storage a �bridge��technology Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The heavenly origin of�copper Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Venus at greatest brilliancy on July�12 Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Fewer aerosols may step up global�warming An expert discussed why atmospheric aerosols— sometimes refered to as“global sunscreen”— have been been decreasing since 1991. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Spacecraft to give first global view of Mercury in�2008 Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The legacy of Rachel�Carson Rachel Carson was eloquent and visionary. Many consider her to be the person who launched the environmental movement. Her biographer discusses her legacy. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Astronomers identify two galaxies in�collision 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 Consumer products made with nanotech�increasing Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Venus' peak evening appearance in June�2007 Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Just a few degrees of warming affects coral�reefs Even a one-degree rise can start to kill the algae that provides the corals’ food and beautiful color. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website More on unprecedented melt in West�Antarctica Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website FCC considers protecting birds from�towerkill� It�s hard to know just how many birds are killed in collisions with communication towers each year, but estimates are in the millions. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Scientists learn to monitor underwater�volcanoes Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 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 3-D map of dark matter�distribution 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 Amazon plants trigger seasonal�change 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 Zhang of Texas A&M University. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Hurricane eye �turbo charges� storm�intensity Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Biomass map tracks forests and carbon in�Africa Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Bringing sunlight into buildings could reduce�CO2 An innovative and efficient new way to light a room has environmental benefits as well as human benefits. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website A symphony of underwater sounds in�Antarctica Hear an underwater earthquake and a humpback whale, with a special “ear” for listening to sounds underwater. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Harnessing high-altitude winds for�energy It’s a bird … it’s a plane … it’s a high-altitude “kite” for collecting wind energy … 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 Ethanol may create worse smog than�gasoline 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 Solar ripples should shed light on sun's�birth Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Climate models forecast southwestern�drought Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Ecological footprint quiz: how many�Earths? How many Earths would it take if everyone lived like you? The Global Footprint Network offers an online quiz to help you find out. It’s called the Ecological Footprint Quiz. Here’s executive director Mathis Wackernagel … Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Increased urban density better than�sprawl? One solution to our increasing urban sprawl is what experts call “cluster development.” 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 Astronomers peer into heart of largest�spiral An image from the Hubble Space Telescope is helping astronomers understand the ghostlike appearance of Marin 1, the largest spiral galaxy. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Earthquakes linked to volcanic�activity Scientists have long suspected that earthquakes cause volcanoes to respond. Now there’s evidence to support that theory. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Major ecosystem shift in Arctic�seas From clams to sea ducks to whales … in Earth�s warming north polar region, entire ecosystems are now known to be moving north. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Wildfire maps will aid in planning,�firefighting Satellite maps help predict a wildfire’s direction, how rapidly it fires will spread across a landscape, and how much energy it will release. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Lyrid meteor shower before dawn April 22 or�23 Get up early on Sunday and Monday, or stay up late the nights before, and see the Lyrid meteor shower in the predawn hours. Here’s how to see it best… Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Moon, Venus, Pleiades on April�19 Around sunset Thursday evening, look for the waxing crescent moon shining close to two major celestial attractions: Venus and the Pleiades. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website After Katrina, 3,500 vessels sunk or�stranded And over 8 million gallons of oil were spilled. It was Doug Helton’s job to figure out how to clean it up. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Fewer aerosols may step up global�warming An expert discussed why atmospheric aerosols — sometimes refered to as “global sunscreen” — have been been decreasing since 1991. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Global warming to increase heat�waves Since 1990, the U.S. has had its 10 hottest years on record. A climate scientist suggests that global warming will cause more heat waves. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Hydrologist maps an entire world of�rivers A hydrologist has developed a database that provides high-resolution maps of river networks across the globe. These maps are useful to conservationists who work in regions where few people ever go, much less map. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Friday the 13th part of cycle of�13s Here’s some fun with the number 13. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Just a few degrees of warming affects coral�reefs Even a one-degree rise can start to kill the algae that provides the corals’ food and beautiful color. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Satellite survey gives coral reef big�picture A new satellite survey has let scientists pinpoint the location – and assess the health – of half a million square kilometers of coral reefs on planet Earth. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website FCC considers protecting birds from �towerkill� It�s hard to know just how many birds are killed in collisions with communication towers each year, but estimates are in the millions. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website How slow is the world's slowest�animal? Scientists say that the slow movements of a sloth are the essence its success. By those standards, Mats is a very successful sloth indeed… Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Since 2006, unprecedented honeybee�decline The disappearance of what�s believed to be millions of bees could become a factor in U.S. food production. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Antarctic changing rapidly, scientists unsure�why What�s unclear is whether or not humans, through the emission of greenhouse gases that warm the atmosphere, are responsible. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Study shows carbon nanotubes may pollute�water Carbon nanotubes aren’t yet in wide circulation. They don’t yet pose a threat to rivers and oceans. That’s why – according to researchers – now is the time to pay attention. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Ghost of past climate haunts modern�research Fifty-five million years ago, an injection of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere rapidly warmed the Earth. Sound familiar? 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 New way to manufacture nano cubes and�spheres “Think of it like oranges in a box.” That’s how nanoscientist Andreas Stein describes his mold for spherical nanoparticles. But these“oranges” are smaller than 100 nanometers in size. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Clean water, sanitation goals for world�s�poor Jenna Davis of Stanford University says that though progress is being made in reliable access to safe drinking water for the world?s poor, access to basic sanitation facilities is lagging behind. 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 Improved tracking for migratory�birds “Where do birds come from and where do they go?” Judd Howell talked to Earth&Sky about how science is trying to answer a question that’s intrigued people from the beginning of time. 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 New blood test leads to early disease�diagnosis The purpose of the procedure is to evaluate parts of DNA, to look for abnormal or mutated sequences that can be signs of early stages of cancer or other problems. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Nanoparticles aim drugs directly at brain�tumors And once a cancer has gone into remission, drug-delivering nanoparticles could act as a kind of surveillance system to attack cancer cells that might reappear. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Small temperature changes, big effects on�life Something to think about in our warming world. Today’s example: the extent of sea ice in eastern Antarctica has decreased, taking with it part of the food supply for penguins and making it harder for them to go to and from their breeding grounds. 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 Lakes under Antarctic ice linked to sea level�rise Interconnected lakes under the Antarctic ice carry vast quantities of liquid water to the ocean. Listen, as study co-author Robert Bindschadler explains this new discovery. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Satellite system helps rescue ships at�sea If you’re in danger at sea, you want rescuers to know where you are– right way. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Scientists try to spot fires before they�start For several years, satellite have been used to track the direction of wildfires. More recently, satellites are helping scientists predict where a fire might start. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website WorldChanging's Steffen: "follow your geek" What that means, Alan Steffen told Earth&Sky, is to �take the thing that you have in front of you, that you know a lot about, and make it better…” Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Brain research may lead to jet lag�cure How jet-lag isn’t just for jet-setters, and how scientists may be on their way to figuring out a remedy. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Walrus census reveals favorite�habitat �To Alaskans, walrus is as important as cattle are to the lower 48.� said Jay Skiles. That�s why it�s important to know where they are. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Saturn at opposition on February�10 This is the best time of year to see the ringed planet. 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 Researchers learn elephants'secret�language Male elephants find fertile females, and elephants families stay together, via�conversations�too low in frequency to be heard by the human ear. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Millennium Villages project in Africa sees big�yield Rwandan farmers learned to plant in rows instead of broadcasting seed, and they used new seed varieties. The result: the largest harvest they�d ever experienced. 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 |