Kgnu - How On Earth

Today we're joined by Dr. William Alley and Rosemarie Alley to learn about the nuclear waste crisis in the United States. Bill Alley, a distinguished hydrologist, was in charge of the USGS's water studies at Yucca Mountain from 2002 until 2010, when the Obama administration ended the project. Rosemarie Alley is a writer and educator and is passionate about the nuclear waste issue. Together, they've written a highly readable and informative book published by Cambridge University Press in 2013: Too Hot To Touch: the Problem of High Level Nuclear Waste. The Alley's also discuss the Ft. St. Vrain Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation near Platteville, where 15 MTHM (metric tons of heavy metal) are housed until a more permanent home can be found. We'll be bringing you more on the Ft. St. Vrain facility later in the year. Host: Jim Pullen Producer: Jim Pullen Executive Producer: Susan Moran Listen to the show:

Smoke Free Casinos Reduce 911 Calls (starts at 2:41) Colorado's ban on smoking up at Central City and Black Hawk casinos has not only reduced second hand smoke.  It’s reduced the number of 911 calls for ambulances.    A new study in this week’s journal, Circulation, reports that ambulance calls to casinos in Gilpin County fell 20 percent after smoking was banned.  For more, we speak with the study’s lead author Stanton Glantz, director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education Mirrors and Water = Hydrogen Fuel (starts at 7:40) We hear how to make hydrogen fuel, from water,  sunshine and mirrors, from  Chris Muhich, a PhD student at CU-Boulder whose dream is to create affordable, clean burning hydrogen available to everyone. Hosts: Shelley Schlender & Jim Pullen Producer: Shelley Schlender Engineer: Shelley Schlender Executive Producer: Susan Moran Listen to the show:

Buzz Aldrin's Vision for Space Exploration (starts at 6:14) Dr. Buzz Aldrin advocates that the United States should not enter a space-race to the moon against the Chinese, or a race to Mars against the Russians, but rather show leadership by cooperating with the major space-faring nations to systematically step across the great void to the Red Planet. This is his personal Unified Space Vision. He is also working toward an independent council, a United Strategic Space Enterprise, that would advise American citizens about the nation's space policy. USSE experts would draw on a deep knowledge of America's previous successes and failures to present a unified plan of exploration, science, development, commerce, and security within a national foreign policy context. Buzz shared these visions with How On Earth's Jim Pullen. Here's an excerpt from his hour-long discussion with Jim. Stay tuned for the rest of his discussion, in which he shares little-known insights into why Apollo 11, not Apollo 12, was first to land

We bring you two recent science releases involving Colorado scientists.  One features bumblebees and the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory.  The second looks at new tick-born disease from Missouri that was tracked down by Harry Savage, CDC Fort Collins. We also share a story about an unusual medical treatment that is saving people from a devastating gut infection called recurrent C-Diff Colitis.  The treatment that cures this condition the most effectively is a fecal microbial transplant.  Giving perspectives about the "cure" are CU Health Sciences Gastroenterologist Steve Freeman, and CSU Veterinary Scientist, Rob Callan.  As for the treatment, this spring, the FDA put up hurdles so it was harder for doctors to do fecal transplants.  So much outcry arose, this summer, the FDA lifted the ban. Hosts: Jim Pullen, Shelley Schlender Producer: Shelley Schlender Engineer: Shelley Schlender Executive Producer: Susan Moran

WWVB Ft. Collins (© 2013 Jim Pullen)The World Listening Project celebrated its 40 anniversary on Thursday, July 18th. On Thursday, How On Earth's Jim Pullen was in Ft. Collins recording audio for an upcoming story on the National Institute of Standards and Technology radio station WWVB. To celebrate the World Listening Project, World Listening Day, and the field of acoustic ecology, he took a few minutes to record a thunderstorm that was causing some havoc at the station. Take some time to listen quietly to the sounds in your life! (Recorded using linear pulse-code modulation at a sample rate of 96 kHz and resolution of 24 bits per sample with a Marantz PMD 661 recorder specially fitted with low-noise preamplifiers by Oade Brothers and an Audio-Technica BP4025 x/y stereo field recording microphone. The audio file posted here is a 192 kbps mp3.) Producer: Jim Pullen Listen to the storm:

The world is awash with artificial lights – so much so that most of us never experience the night sky like our ancestors did. So what?  Does it matter?  Is it simply an inevitable and acceptable result of progress?  Here in the studio with us today to talk about the personal and global effects of light pollution and the loss of dark skies at night is Paul Bogard who has written the book The End of Night. Searching for Natural Darkness in an Age of Artificial Light, Hosts: Joel Parker, Shelley Schlender Producer: Shelley Schlender Engineer: Joel Parker Executive Producer: Susan Moran

Good & Bad Calories (starts at 4:50) Ever since the 1970s, the rise of obesity in the United States has an epidemic. Researchers around the world are trying desperately to figure out why so many of us get fat, and what we can do to change that.  A large amount of funding, and support from public health policy, goes toward the hypothesis that we get fat because we eat too many calories and do not exercise enough; when someone eats more calories than they need, the instructions go, they should exercise.  That's "Calories in, Calories Out."  But recently, an expert with a different point of view spoke to a packed audience of doctors, staff and medical students at the University of Colorado Medical Center.  The expert is Gary Taubes, the author of the New York Times bestsellers "Good Calories, Bad Calories" and "Why We Get Fat".  Taubes is also the recipient of angel investor funds: $60 million to devote to research to better understand how the kinds of foods we eat affect our metabolism.  Central to Taubes' idea

The Voodoo Doll Task - (begins 5:30) Scientists have few ways to accurately measure agression.  How on Earth's Garth Sundem talks with University of Kentucky psychology professor, Nathan DeWall, about a new fix. It’s called the Voodoo Doll Task. DeWall’s recent studies include over thirteen hundred subjects, and an upcoming research paper shows his voodoo doll task works darn well. What does an angry person do when holding a voodoo doll and a handful of pins, or when presented with a computerized version of the doll? The answer could indicate that person’s desire to carry out the aggressive action in real life. Drones for Climate Science - (begins 15:00) These days they get a bad rap because of their use by the government to snoop on people, and even to kill terrorists. But unmanned aerial vehicles – often called  “drones” – are increasingly being used to save the planet, or at least to measure and understand a slice of it.  For more, How on Earth's Susan Moran talks with Doug Weibel  who is part of a CU-B

Today, June 18, we offer two features interviews: Feature #1 - China's Environmental Impact (start time  4:46): China’s meteoric economic rise is causing harmful side effects, ranging from choking air pollution domestically to threatened forests, wildlife and air quality around the globe. Of course China's per capita greenhouse gas emissions still pale in comparison to those in the United States, and roughly one-third of China's CO2 emissions are generated to manufacture goods that are exported to the U.S. and other nations.  Craig Simons, a former journalist and author of a recently published book, The Devouring Dragon: How China’s Rise Threatens Our Natural World, discusses with co-host Susan Moran these critical issues, including coal mining in Colorado for export to China.   Feature #2 - 100 Year Starship (start time 15:35): Science and exploration tend to be long-term commitments. That’s well-known by fans of the "Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy" series, where the computer Deep Thought did calculation

  One to two million additional bird deaths per year. Wind is the most rapidly growing energy source in the US, but are environmental protections keeping pace? Tuesday on How On Earth, Kelly Fuller, the American Bird Conservancy's Wind Campaign Coordinator, talks with Jim Pullen about the impact of big wind on birds. Host: Jim Pullen Producer: Jim Pullen Executive Producer: Joel Parker Listen here:

Enjoy the two features we offer today, June 4: Feature #1 (start time 5:36):  Cancer drugs are much more targeted than they were many years ago.  But researchers are still trying to find a way to deliver drugs much more precisely to cancer cells, partly to avoid damaging, sometimes lethal, side effects. A huge obstacle has been getting nucleic acids to cross the membrane of cancer cells.  A new study has brought researchers closer to crossing this big hurdle.  Dr. Tom Anchordoquy, a lead author of the study, speaks with co-host Susan Moran about the study and what it means for cancer patients and researchers. Dr. Anchordoquy is an investigator at the University of Colorado Cancer Center in Denver and a professor at the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.   Feature #2 (start time 15:02): Being an astronaut is a risky job, but perhaps one of the less-known risks is the high levels of radiation beyond the relatively protective cocoon of Earth’s magnetic field.  This will be a particular

(starts at 08:19) At (high? no, not this plant) noon on Tuesday, Governor John Hickenlooper will sign a bill that will legalize growing industrial hemp in Colorado. But it's been 70 years since hemp was legally grown in the US... Fortunately, because Canada lifted its ban in the 1990s, we can seek the experience of our northern neighbors. Join the How On Earth team and guest Dr. Jan Slaski, a Canadian plant science expert, to learn about the modern practice of growing industrial hemp. Hosts: Jim Pullen and Joel Parker Producer: Jim Pullen Engineer: Joel Parker Executive Producer: Joel Parker Listen to the show:

(start time: 07:23) We talk with Lindsey Allen, the Executive Director of the Rainforest Action Network, about the destruction of rainforest from the proliferation of palm oil plantations. Hosts: Jim Pullen, Joel Parker Producer: Jim Pullen Engineer: Joel Parker Executive Producer: Joel Parker Listen to the show:

We talk with Larry Gold about this year's Gold Lab Symposium at CU-Boulder.  It features, "The Biological and Social Evolution of Healthcare: Rube Goldberg and Time.  Friday, May 17th - Saturday, May 18th, 2013, Muenzinger Auditorium, University of Colorado Boulder.  NOTE:  After the conference, speaker presentations will be posted at the Gold Lab Symposium site. Hosts: Joel Parker, Jim Pullen Producer: Shelley Schlender Engineer: Shelley Schlender Executive Producer: Joel Parker Listen to the show:

Brain Trust (starts at 4:23)  When you are trying to make a decision about something important or having a disagreement with someone, don’t you sometimes wish you had a scientist with you – a world expert on the topic at hand – to help you out?  In fact, it would be great to have dozens of experts in many fields available, sort of your own personal Brain Trust.  Well, luckily Garth Sundem can help you out with his book called: “Brain Trust,” where he has interviewed 93 of the top scientists in fields like physics, genetics, cognitive science, economics, nutrition, mathematics, and talked to them about very important topics in their fields.  And not the easy topics like Higgs Bosons, Fermat’s Last Theorem, and inflationary cosmology, but rather the much more difficult – and immediately useful – topics like: the best design for a paper airplane, how to survive Armageddon, how to create giant man-eating plants, successful dating techniques (and we don’t mean carbon dating), and how to tell when someone is lying.

Today on How On Earth, KGNU's award-winning science show, we continue our discussion with Boulder's Dr. David Wineland about the human side of winning the Nobel Prize. The National Institute of Standards and Technology scientist shared the 2012 physics award with France's Serge Haroche. They've developed experimental methods for trapping and holding particles so that weird quantum behaviors can be studied. The research is critical to developing extreme quantum computers that may someday break today's best encryption algorithms...and make truly unbreakable ones. Host: Jim Pullen Producer: Jim Pullen Executive Producer: Joel Parker Listen to the show:

Headlines: Climate Change Accelerates Changing Climate Zones - CU-Boulder and CIRES Scientist Irina Mahlstein (starts at 1:00) Family Dogs Harber Family Microbes - CU Boulder Scientist Rob Knight (and the American Gut Project) (starts at 2:26) Sound from the Big Bang - from John G. Cramer (starts at 4:45) Mapping Pain in the Brain (starts at 7:30 ) If you hit your thumb with a hammer, you feel physical pain.  Terrible sunburn? Pain.  A muscle cramp?  Pain.  In each case, you know it’s pain.  But how a body senses this pain has been elusive.  Surgeons have tried to cut out what they think of as the brain’s pain center.  This often doesn’t work, and it has side effects.  Painkilling drugs?  Sometimes they help, sometimes they cause addiction.  Understanding the brain’s pain circuits might help scientists find better ways to deal with pain.  Last week, CU-Boulder researchers took a step in that direction by publishing a magnetic resonance imaging  map that they believe shows the signature of physical pain

Welcome to a special episode of How On Earth with Dr. Seth Shostak, the Senior Astronomer at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute. We've been listening for their tell-tale signal for 50 years with no luck, but Seth says that he'll bet a cup of coffee we'll hear from them in the next few decades. We explore what might happen if we find these brainy aliens or if we don't find them at all. It's part of the Conference on World Affairs. Host: Jim Pullen Executive Producer: Joel Parker Listen to the show:

Extinction at the K-Pg boundary CU professor Doug Robertson and a multidisciplinary team  argue afresh that a global firestorm swept the planet in the hours after a mountain-sized asteroid vaporized above the Yucatan, 66 million years ago. When the blown-out rock missiled back to earth, Robertson says the atmosphere became so hot the whole world burned. Almost every organism above ground and in the air perished. We talk to Dr. Robertson about that terrible day and how some species reemerged. His team just published their research in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Biogeosciences. Host: Jim Pullen Executive Producer: Shelley Schlender Listen to the show:

The Universe Within (starts at 4:40) Within each and every one of us is the history of life on this planet, the planet itself and the entire universe.  This is the theme of a new book “The Universe Within.”  The author, Neil Shubin, is a professor of Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Chicago.  Starting with what physically constitutes a human being and what makes a human life possible, Shubin surveys many domains of science to find out what we can learn about what’s out there from what’s inside of us.   It’s a fantastically broad scope, bringing together the common history of Rocks, Planets and People.  As professor Shubin explains to How On Earth’s Chip Grandits, it is the very concept of this common history that binds all of these topics, which are normally found scattered throughout disparate domains of science and academia. De-Extinction (starts at 14:15) You may think that when a species dies, it's gone forever.  But with enough motivation, scientists might be able to return s