Health Map is one of the many projects that monitor infectious diseases online.

This Week: I’m sad to announce that this is the last episode of this podcast. I’m ending my wonderful time here at PRI’s The World and won’t be able to host this show anymore. But before I go, here are some fantastic stories I hope you will enjoy. A growing number of projects in the U.S. and Europe are monitoring social media to track infectious diseases, like the new bird flu in China. I look at the promises and challenges of this technology. We learn about a recent study which shows that waste water from oil drilling stored underground caused the largest recorded man-made earthquake in November, 2011. Finally, a conversation with psychologist Charles Fernyhough of Durham University about his new book, ‘Pieces of Light: How the New Science of Memory Illuminates the Stories We Tell about Our Pasts.’

Tweets and Germs—Monitoring Infectious Diseases Online: Several scientific groups are tracking the global spread of infectious diseases by monitoring Twitter, web searches, and other content online. We learn about the promise and challenges of disease surveillance via the internet.

Waste Water from Oil Extraction Can Cause Earthquakes: A growing number of companies around the globe are using hydraulic fracturing, commonly referred to as fracking, as a procedure to extract natural gas and oil. At the same time, local communities — here in the US, but also in other countries — fiercely oppose the practice because of concerns about ground water pollution and earthquakes. A recent study in the journal Geology adds more reason to worry. It shows that the largest recorded earthquake in Oklahoma — a magnitude 5.6 temblor in November 2011 — was caused by the underground injection of waste water from oil drilling. Anchor Marco Werman speaks with journalist David Biello, of Scientific American about the implications of these findings on fracking efforts across the globe, as well as other oil and natural gas extraction procedures.
Click here for the study.
David Biello on Twitter.
David Biello’s Website.

The New Science of Autobiographical Memory: What is your earliest memory? Why do we remember certain events from our past and not others? How do how our brains record, store and recall memories? Those questions are also the topic of a new book called Pieces of Light. How the New Science of Memory Illuminates the Stories We Tell About Our Pasts. The author is Charles Fernyhough, a psychologist at Durham University in the U.K. In the book, Fernyhough discusses some of the common misconceptions we have about autobiographical memory. For example, most of us think of the part of our brain involved with memory like a video camera..that records and replays at will certain events from our past.
Fernyhough explains why that analogy is incorrect. And he does so using some of the latest research on memory and with stories from his own life.
Charles Fernyhough’s website.

Shikha Patra and her friends conduct a water survey to document the lack of clean drinking water in their community. (Photo: Rhitu Chatterjee)

This Week: In the slums of Kolkata, India, a community relies on local children to hold adults and political leaders accountable. A new medical study of the vascular health of more than 100 mummies from different parts of the world showed signs of heart disease. After the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Japan’s stuck in a tug-of-war over the country’s energy future.

CT Scans Reveal Ancient Mummies with Heart Disease:A new medical study of the vascular health of more than 100 mummies, some as old as 4,000-years-old, and from different geographies, has been published in the medical journal Lancet. The mummies all underwent CT scans and surprisingly, many showed signs of serious heart disease.

Post-Fukushima, Japan Plays Tug-of-War Over Energy Issues: Two years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, renewable energy is surging in Japan. But economic pressures are also helping revive support for nuclear power, leading to an internal tug-of-war over Japan’s energy future.
Read more here.

Kids Improve Lives in Kolkata Slums: A community organization that aims to improve living conditions in the slums of Kolkata, India, takes an unusual approach. It relies on local children to hold elders and political leaders accountable.
Click here to read more and see pictures of the kids and their community.

RevOpt TEDxChange 2012_FINAL_CREDITS_ FULL RES from Grainger-Monsen Newnham on Vimeo.

Watch this short film based on The Revolutionary Optimists, a feature documentary about Prayasam that will be broadcast on the PBS series Independent Lens in June 2013.

This Week: In this episode, the last episode for 2012 we will hear both old and new stories. A conversation with British seismologist Roger Musson about his new book, ‘The Million Death Quake: The Science of Predicting Earth’s Deadliest Natural Disaster.’ And a collection of my favorite stories from 2012: the science of earworms, accents in goats and changes in a historic hospital in Africa. Wishing you all a very happy and peaceful 2013!

‘The Million Death Quake’: Earthquakes have been in the news a lot lately. The 2010 Haiti quake, the temblor in Chile the same year, and the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan are among those that come to mind. Some of these quakes have caused enormous destruction and loss of life. Others haven’t. So what besides the strength of a quake determines how much damage an earthquake can cause? And are scientists getting closer to predicting where and when the next one will strike? Those are some of the questions addressed in the new book, The Million Death Quake: The Science of Predicting Earth’s Deadliest Natural Disasters. I speak with the author of the book, British seismologist Roger Musson.

My Favorite Stories in 2012

• Tunes That Get Stuck in Your Head: How often does a tune intrude on your thoughts and plays and replays in never-ending loops? Scientists call these intrusive musical thoughts “ear worms.” I looked into the science behind the phenomenon back in February, 2012 and it is so far one of my favorite stories of the year.
  Read my blog post about earworms. It has more science than I got to include in my story.
  Want to know about earworms that plague our listeners? Click here and scroll to the bottom.
  
• It’s True, Goats Have Accents Too: A 2012 study by British scientists shows that baby goats develop different “accents” depending on the groups they associate with.
  
• Historic Albert Schweitzer Hospital Adapts to New Africa: One of the world’s most storied charitable institutions confronts a difficult question: How do you achieve lasting good in Africa? After a century spent healing the sick, it has spent the past year healing itself.

An ancient bowl features a turkey. (Photo: Amerind Foundation)

This Week: We’ll hear about the surprising origins of the domesticated turkey. A remarkable, almost miraculous story about how scientists in England reversed paralysis in dogs using nose cells. We visit Austria’s Clever Dog Lab, where scientists are studying the roots of canine personalities. Some scientists in Delhi are trying to restore the lost ecosystems on the banks of river Yamuna.

The Circuitous Journey of the Domesticated Turkey: The turkey, or at least the commercial breeds available in the US, did not originate here. Credit goes instead to the Aztecs of Mesoamerica who first domesticated the bird 2500 years ago, and the Spanish conquistadors who escorted it along a circuitous journey to the US.
The Complicated History of the Domesticated Turkey.
Lost Turkeys of the New World.

Clever Dog Lab-Exploring the Roots of Canine Personality: What makes a dog bold or shy, eager or sullen? The Veterinary University of Vienna’s Clever Dog Lab aims to find out with the help of some 600 Austrian dogs that owners volunteer for experiments. The results could improve the training and selection of dogs that serve society, from helping the disabled to assisting the police. Ari Daniel Shapiro of our partner program NOVA reports.
Watch “What Are Animals Thinking?” on NOVA ScienceNOW

Paralyzed Dogs Walk Again After Cell Therapy: Scientists at the University of Cambridge in England say they have found a way to use a dog’s nose cells to regenerate canine nerve cells, and help reverse paralysis in our four-legged friends.

Restoring a Riverbank in Urban India:A new biodiversity park along a stretch of the river is starting to restore some of the natural services the landscape used to provide.

Deer mice infected with Hanta virus pass the pathogen on to humans either through direct contact, or droppings. (Photo courtesy of C G-K/Flickr)

Download audio file (science157.mp3)
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This Week: Science journalist David Quammen talks about his book, Spillover. A researcher at Oxford University is testing a new way of boosting children’s brainpower. It involves applying electric current to the brain. And we meet Noc, a white whale (beluga) that mimicked human voices.

Boosting Your Kids’ Brainpower: An Oxford University researcher will soon test whether applying an electric current to part of the brain can help children learn math – an effect previously demonstrated in adults. Some parents are eager to gain access to the device. But is the technique safe? And is this an ethical way to improve a child’s performance in school? Ari Daniel Shapiro of our partner program NOVA reports.

The threat of Zoonotic Diseases: We hear from science journalist David Quammen about his new book, Spillover: Animal Infections And The Next Human Pandemic. Quammen argues that zoonotic diseases (diseases that come to humans from other animals) are becoming more widespread. Take for example, the swine flu pandemic of 2009 or the recent Hanta virus outbreak in Yosemite national park. SARS, AIDS, and bird flu are other examples. So can scientists predict what the next big pandemic will be?

David Quammen’s Op Ed in the New York Times: Anticipating the Next Pandemic.

Photographing Penguins Under Ice: Paul Nicklen risks life and limbs to take photographs in some of the most inhospitable places on earth. One of them has just won him the prestigious Veolia Environment Wildlife Photographer of the Year award. It is for a picture he took underwater of emperor penguins bursting through a hole in the ice off Antarctica. Nicklen says he wants to do more than just shoot pretty pictures. “With the current state of the planet, if we are just shooting pretty pictures, then we’re just fiddling while Rome burns,” he told the BBC. “We need to be doing conservation-driven stories that educate people.”
Click here to see Nicklen’s award winning picture.

The White Whale That Mimicked Humans: Noc was a beluga whale that spent most of its life at a naval research facility in San Diego. Scientists studying Noc say he imitated human sounds. They have published Noc’s human-like sounds in a new study in the journal Current Biology. Scroll down below to listen to Noc’s human-like sounds and other normal white whale calls.

All the beluga calls below are courtesy of Vancouver Aquarium Cetacean Research Program.

(Photo: Flickr/The Exo Guy)

Download audio file (science156.mp3)
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This Week: On the western Indonesian island of Sumatra, scientists are using drones to help protect the endangered Orangutan. The sound of the Earth’s magnetosphere. And a mysterious kidney disease that’s killing thousands of people in Sri Lanka’s rice growing North Central Province. A new study thinks the likely cause is farm chemicals.

The Sounds of the Earth’s Security Blanket: We hear a lot about the fragility of life on earth these days. The impact of 7 billion-plus people is putting huge stresses on the natural systems that we depend on. But at least some of the vital systems that protect our planet are largely beyond our ability to mess with. And that’s a strangely reassuring idea to The World’s environment editor Peter Thomson. He got to thinking about it, when he heard a newly recorded piece of sound.

Conservation Drones Help Protect Orangutans: Primatologist Serge Wich of Liverpool John Moores University has been studying Sumatran orangutans for nearly two decades. The species is critically endangered, threatened by deforestation and poaching. Wich wants to protect the species. So, he monitors orangutan populations. But it takes a long time and costs a lot of money to monitor this tree dwelling species. That’s why he and his colleagues recently decided to put drones to the task. The drones fly over swaths of the forest and come back with detailed pictures. It’s a quick and inexpensive way to track orangutan populations and monitor illegal human activities like logging and poaching.
Learn more at Conservation Drones.

Sampath Kumarasinghe and his widowed mother, P. Dingirimenike, share a quiet moment outside their home in Sri Lanka's North Central Province. Kumarasinghe has chronic kidney disease. (Photo: Rhitu Chatterjee)

Thousands of people in the Asian island nation of Sri Lanka have been struck by a mysterious and deadly form of kidney disease. A new study points to a likely cause: pesticides and fertilizers. This story was reported as part of a joint investigation with the Center for Public Integrity. Read more reports in the series Mystery in the Fields.
Click here for slide show and video from Sri Lanka’s North Central Province.

Mask #3 found at the Diablo in El Zotz. (Photo: El Zotz archaeological Project, Brown University)

Download audio file (science155.mp3)
Download MP3

This Week: Northern India, where I am right now has been facing severe power outages these past couple of days. I’m putting together this podcast in candlelight, as almost the entire northern and eastern part of the country is without electricity. I won’t go into the details of the reasons behind this power failure, but I want you to know that this is the first time I’ve podcasted in near complete darkness, with only a candle and the light from my computer screen to guide me. Oh the fun in doing podcasts while traveling! In this episode, you’ll hear sounds from India and Sri Lanka (where I visited recently). You’ll also hear stories from Uganda, Chile and Guatemala.

Clean Cookstoves Help Women and the Environment: An estimated 3 billion people in the developing world cook and heat their homes by burning wood, charcoal, or dung. Their simple stoves cause trendous amounts of air pollution. Ari Daniel Shapiro reports from Uganda on the introduction of more efficient stoves that also help protect women from sexual violence.

Extremely Large Telescope in Chile: Chile’s Atacama Desert is already the site of several astronomical observatories, including the Paranal Observatory. Now, a coalition of 15 European countries is planning on building the world’s biggest optical telescope there. Steven Bodzin has the story for us.
Read more here and here.


Ancient Mayan ‘Place of Bats’: In the northern part of Guatemala lies a Mayan city, long since abandoned. Its name is El Zotz, meaning “place of bats” in the Mayan language. And it is swarming with bats– millions of them. Archaeologists have recently discovered an old temple here. The temple is called “Diablo” or devil’s temple. Brown University archaeologist Stephen Houston tells us more about El Zotz, its ancient temple and the bats that live there.

An ancient temple in Sri Lanka and its resident bats : I recently some time in Sri Lanka doing some reporting. One morning, I visited an ancient Buddhist temple in the historic city of Anuradhapura. The temple, called Isurumuniya has several chambers carved into rock boulders. It was early in the morning and the temple had a calm and serene feel to it. So I wasn’t expecting to stumble upon a cave full of bats in the temple. You’ll get an audio tour of this ancient place in Sri Lanka including its resident bats.