This week: You’ll hear the true story of a Siberian tiger that hunted a poacher. We’re also talking about tigers in our latest Science Forum discussion. Our guest is renowned tiger expert, John Seidensticker. He’s taking questions about efforts to save wild tigers. Check out what he has to say in the podcast then join the conversation.   Also in today’s show, U.K scientists release first drafts of the wheat genome sequence. And please tell us what you think in this online survey!

‘The Tiger’: That’s the name of a new book that tells the true story of a Siberian tiger that killed a poacher, for revenge. The drama takes place in the late 1990s, in far-eastern Russia, just across the border from China. We spoke with the author, John Vaillant.
Guest: John Vaillant
Read the first chapter of ‘The Tiger’.

More about the Siberian tiger on National Geographic.
John Vaillant’s previous book, The Golden Spruce.

Saving Wild Tigers: The tiger is facing extinction. There are some 3500 of the beasts left in the wild today. That’s barely half their number just a decade ago. Poaching and habitat loss are among the many threats facing tiger populations around the world. Several countries are gearing up to enforce stricter measures to protect the species as part of the new Global Tiger Recovery Program. But can we save the species? Or is it doomed to become extinct? Listen to our interview with tiger expert John Seidensticker. Then bring your questions for Seidensticker to the latest Science Forum discussion. He’ll be taking your thoughts and questions until September 13th.
Guest: John Seidensticker.
Join our online conversation about tigers.
Tiger facts from the World Wildlife Fund.

Wheat Genome Sequences: Scientists in the U.K have released draft sequences of the wheat genome. The discovery comes at a time when wheat crops around the world are threatened by disease and climate change. The findings provides scientists and crop breeders with genetic tools to help select for hardier varieties of wheat in the coming years.
Guest: Neil Hall
International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium.
FAO cuts outlook for global wheat harvests
More work needed to get the entire genome sequenced.
Stem rust and global wheat production on Podcast 62.

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Listen to our interview with journalist and author, John Vaillant about his new book, The Tiger, followed by our conversation with conservation biologist John Seidensticker.

Seidensticker then joins us as our guest in this Science Forum discussion. He is a conservation biologist at the Smithsonian Washington National Zoological Park in Washington D.C. He also advises countries that are part of the Global Tiger Initiative, a tiger conservation program supported by the World Bank.

The future for tigers looks dismal.  Today, there are some 3500 wild tigers in 13 countries. That’s barely half their number just a decade ago.

Poaching and habitat loss are the two biggest threats to wild tigers today. Tiger-human conflict, where tigers sometimes attack people and livestock and are in turn killed by people also threatens survival of the species. “If there isn’t an incentive to make live tigers worth more than dead tigers, we’ll lose tigers,” says Seidensticker.

China and Russia have just announced a plan to set up the first cross-border protection zone for the Siberian tiger. There are less than 500 Siberian tigers in the wild today, only about 20 of them in China.  This international tiger conservation effort will attempt to protect the remaining tigers from poaching and habitat loss.

Nepal runs a program that pays local communities to protect tigers and tiger habitats. Other countries that are still home to the wild tiger are also drafting plans to protect the species as part of a new Global Tiger Recovery Program.

Can such efforts save the tiger? Or is it facing inevitable extinction? Bring your thoughts and questions to our conversation with John Seidensticker. It’s just to the right. He is taking your comments till September 13th.

• Tiger poaching is driven by a global demand for tiger parts and products. Can we stop this illegal trade?
• How can ordinary citizens help protect wild tigers?
• Have you ever encountered a wild tiger? Tell us about your experience.

Additional Resources:

• Read Chapter 1 of John Vaillant’s book, The Tiger on The World’s website.
• Tiger facts from the World Wildlife Fund.
• Siberian tigers: photos, videos and facts from the National Geographic.

This week: We’re visiting Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park to hear about a battle between conservation and development. A Scottish researcher tells us how to make biofuel from the byproducts of single malts. We have two stories about bacteria—one about microbes that survived outer space, and the second about methane-eating bacteria in peat bogs. Also in today’s show, plastic in the Atlantic ocean and helping the blind see, with sound.

Conservation vs. Development in Tanzania: Can wildebeest and trucks coexist? That’s the question at the heart of a controversy in Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park. The Serengeti is home to some of the last great herds of migrating animals… including hundreds of thousands of wildebeest. That’s great for nature lovers and tour operators, but there’s a downside: most of the region has no roads, which is bad news for some remote communities. Now the Tanzanian government has a controversial plan to build a road through the park.
Report by: Benedict Moran
Wildebeest facts from National Geographic.
Serengeti official site.
Serengeti information from UNESCO.

Microbes Survive Outer Space: Bacteria from an English village have survived more than a year in space. The microbes were taken from cliffs in the village of Beer and placed in experimental boxes outside the International Space Station. Scientists were conducting the research to find microbes that could be used as life-support systems for humans traveling in space. The surviving bacteria are now back in a laboratory at the Open University in Milton Keynes.
Guest: Charles Cockell
See a video of Charles Cockell in his laboratory talking about his space-traveling microbes.
Cockell also studies microbes that live in Icelandic volcanoes.
Planetary and Space Sciences Research Institute

Elsa’s Favorite Science Stories:

• Methane-Eating Bacteria: One-third of the Earth’s terrestrial carbon is tied up in peat bogs, where it’s stored as frozen and partially decayed plant matter. Global warming could thaw the bogs, accelerating decay and pumping tons of carbon into the atmosphere. Now researchers have found that methane-eating bacteria living inside sphagnum moss could help sop up the greenhouse gas as its released from rotting plant matter.
  The study.
  Photo gallery of sphagnum mosses.
  More about permafrost, peat bogs, and climate.
• Plastic in the Atlantic: Researchers have released 22 years’ worth of data on the location and quantity of plastic crumbs floating in the Atlantic Ocean. Much as in the Pacific Garbage Patch, ocean currents in the Atlantic concentrate the plastic soup in a giant slow-moving whirlpool hundreds of miles from shore. The amount of plastic in the Atlantic didn’t increase over the 22 years of the study–but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we’ve been keeping our garbage out of the ocean.
  The study.
  The Sea Education Association led the new research.
  Our previous coverage of plastic in the Atlantic, in the Pacific, and in albatross bellies.
  Slate article on plastic beads in exfoliants.
• Seeing with Sound: A Dutch inventor came up with a way to translate camera images into soundscapes. Blind people can train their brains to interpret these sounds as visual scenes in their minds. New Scientist looked into how the system works.
  The New Scientist article (preview only).
  More about the technology from the inventor’s website. (To hear soundscapes and the images to which they correspond, follow the link next to “No Surgery” at the top of the page, then scroll down to “Example Sounds.”)

Biofuel from Single Malts: A team from Edinburgh Napier University has come up with a way to produce a biofuel from the byproducts of whiskey. They say the fuel could soon be mixed with gasoline or diesel to power cars. Not only would that be a boon to Scotland, but the new process could save a lot of fuel.
Guest: Martin Tangney
Edinburgh Napier University’s Biofuel Research Team.
Watch a video about the discovery from Edinburgh Napier University here.

This week: We’re going to Lebanon for a story on threatened cedar trees. Then to Sweden and India to learn about a greenhouse pollutant that’s been making headlines lately – black carbon. This month seems to be one of astronomical discoveries – scientists have discovered a new magnetar. Also, Elsa is back from vacation and brings us news about birds and insect and tips on pouring Champagne. And we’re still talking online about volunteer computing projects in our Science Forum discussion. So please stop by with your comments and questions.

Saving Lebanon’s Legendary Cedars: Cedars have been an important part of life in Lebanon for at least 8,000 years, but they’re vanishing from the landscape. Ari Daniel Shapiro reports on efforts to preserve Lebanon’s legendary cedar trees.
Report by: Ari Daniel Shapiro
See a slide show of Ari’s trip to see Lebanon’s Cedars.

Elsa’s Favorite Science Stories:

• More on Urban Bird Songs: Some male songbirds sing higher-pitched tunes in the noisy city environment than in the quiet countryside. Researchers thought that the new pitch might help the songs to be heard over the urban racket. But two new studies suggest that high-pitched songs don’t help city birds very much after all.
  There are two new studies, here and here.
  Listen to our recent story about finch songs in Mexico city.
  More on urban birdsong from the BBC.
• Water Striders Coerce Females to Mate: Talk about pressuring a girl for sex! Male water striders (Gerris gracilicornis) climb on a female’s back and start tapping the water to draw in hungry predators. They don’t stop tapping until the female, under threat of death, consents to mate.
  The study.
  Here’s a video that shows what happens when the female doesn’t consent quickly enough.
  
• Romanians Make Butterfly DNA Library: Romania is now the first country to have barcoded its entire butterfly fauna–all 180 species. The project fits in with a global effort to generate DNA barcodes for every plant and animal. The barcodes provide an easy way to identify species for biodiversity monitoring, regulatory enforcement, and a host of other uses.
  The study.
  What is DNA barcoding?
  More about the international barcode of life project.
  Barcoding bushmeat.
• The Science of Pouring Champagne: Pouring Champagne straight into the bottom of the flute may look festive and fizzy, but it flattens the drink and could change its flavor. For a more sparkling toast, pour the bubbly down the side of the glass like beer. That’s the verdict of a new study, which shows that the traditional pour can rob Champagne of more than a quarter of its carbonation.
  The study.
  Here’s our previous story about Champagne bubbles (in which Elsa manages to spill alcohol all over her office).
  The chemistry of Champagne.
  More about Champagne bubbles.

Black Carbon from Cook Stoves: The leading pollutant blamed for climate change is carbon dioxide, but a new study says another form of carbon ranks a close second. So-called black carbon is a kind of soot produced by diesel engines, power plants, and the burning of wood. A major source of black carbon is cook stoves in the developing world, and scientists are now trying to clean those stoves up.
Report by: Rhitu Chatterjee
See a slide show of my pictures from rural India.
Controlling Soot Emissions Can Help Slow Climate Change, Wired
Black Carbon’s grey areas, by the Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media.
Black carbon and atmospheric warming, a recent paper by V. Ramanathan.
More about Ramanathan’s latest black carbon studies.

New Magnetar Discovered: Scientists have discovered a rare magnetic star, or magnetar. It’s about 16,000 light years away in a star cluster called Westerlund 1, in the Ara constellation. Magnetars, a type of neutron star, form when stars collapse following a supernova explosion. This magnetar was formed from a star 40 times the size the Sun. Stars that big typically form black holes. The new discovery has led scientists to re-evaluate their theories about what happens to stars when they die.
Read more on the BBC’s website.
More about the new discovery here.

Fly through the Westerland 1 star cluster to see an artist’s illustration of the newly found magnetar. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada.
Scientists recently discovered another kind of neutron star last week – a pulsar. Check out that story in last week’s podcast.

This week: Ordinary citizens and their computers helped astronomers discover a new celestial body – the rotating remains of a dead star. We’re starting a new Science Forum discussion related to this discovery. If you’ve ever volunteered to help scientists, we want to hear your story. Or if you want to learn more about such citizen science projects, come join the conversation with our Forum guests. You’ll find the discussion here. Also in this week’s show, scientists go looking for lost frogs, and China emerges as a new player in stem cell research.
Einstein@Home Discovers Pulsar: An international astronomy project, which uses the computing power of 250,000 home computers, has made its first discovery. The Einstein@Home project has found a rare type of pulsar — a dense star that emits pulses of radiation.
Report by: Rhitu Chatterjee
Bring your questions about Einstein@Home project in our Science Forum.
Einstein@Home Project
Interested in volunteering? Take your pick from a range of volunteer computing project.

Searching for Lost Frogs: A major scientific effort to search out frogs around the world is getting underway. As part of the U.N. summit on biodiversity, researchers will fan out across 14 countries looking for rare frog and toad species that may be on the brink of extinction, including the gastric brooding frog. Anchor Katy Clark interviews Conservation International’s Robin Moore about the search for lost frogs. (Photo: David Crosse/Conservation Int.).
Guest: Robin Moore
Video:  Conservation International’s Robin Moore and Don Church talk about frogs.
A lifelong passion for frogs.
Worldwide Amphibian Decline
Global lizard decline in The World Science Podcast no. 66.

Iceberg Breaks off Greenland: A massive iceberg broke off Greenland this week. It’s the largest calving event in Greenland in 50 years, setting off alarm bells among climate watchers.
Guest: Dr. Robert Bindschadler.

Extreme Weather in Europe and Asia: Monsoon rains are frustrating attempts to get aid to millions of people in a flooded region in Pakistan. China too is struggling with its worst flooding in years. In Russia, it’s the opposite problem – too little rain. Heidi Cullen is a research scientist and correspondent at Climate Central. She’s also author of the new book The Weather of the Future: Heat Waves, Extreme Storms, and Other Scenes from a Climate-Changed Planet. Guest: Heidi Cullen.

Cloned Cow Sparks Food Fears in the U.K: Cloned cows have sparked food fears in Europe. Food safety officials in Britain are investigating how meat and possibly milk from the offspring of cloned cattle entered the food supply there. Listen to my conversation with The World’s David Baron about the ongoing controversy in the U.K.
E.U leaders are trying to ban food from cloned animals and their offspring.

China, a New Force in Stem Cell Research: Europe and the United States are where most advances in cloning and stem cells have taken place, but another country is quickly becoming a major player in the field. That’s China. As reporter Ari Daniel Shapiro explains, China’s efforts are starting to get some attention.
Report by: Ari Daniel Shapiro.

Listen to our story about the new pulsar discovery by Einstein@Home.

Learn how scientists are enlisting a global network of citizens – and their computers – to make discoveries in space. Join our conversation with physicists Bruce Allen (left, in photo) and Benjamin Knispel (right). They’re both at the Max Planck Institute of Gravitational Physics in Hannover, Germany, and they run the  Einstein@Home project.

The project is using the computers of some 250,000 volunteers from 192 countries to look for gravitational waves and new astronomical objects. Data from various detectors and telescopes are fed into the volunteers’ computers to be analyzed for signals from space.

In a study published in the journal Science this week, the scientists report Einstein@Home’s first discovery – a pulsar, some 17,000 light years from Earth. Pulsars are rotating neutron stars (leftover cores of dead giant stars). They spin rapidly and emit pulses of electromagnetic radiation. Those radio waves are picked up by radio telescopes like the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, which was used in this study.

How it All Began: Nearly 100 years ago, Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves. He proposed that massive stars and black holes produce these waves as they move through space. But scientists are still trying to detect gravitational waves.

Einstein@Home began in 2005 when scientists realized that gravitational wave detectors in Italy, Germany and the U.S were generating more data than could possibly be analyzed by the computers available to researchers. So Bruce Allen decided to enlist the help of regular citizens. And in 2007, he extended the project to detect celestial bodies like pulsars.

Allen and Knispel are taking your questions until August 26. Come join the conversation. It’s just to the right.

• Have you volunteered your time or your computer to help a research project? What motivated you to sign up?
• Might “volunteer computing” break down barriers between scientists and the lay public? Is this a good thing?
• Can you think of any other scientific projects that might benefit from a global network of personal computers?

Volunteer your computer.  Here are some popular citizen science projects you can sign up for:

• Rosetta@Home – studies the shapes of proteins
• SETI@Home – looks for signs of intelligent life in space
• Africa@Home – helps with humanitarian projects in Africa
• ClimatePrediction.net – analyzes models of the Earth’s climate
• Or find a host of other citizen science projects–computing and otherwise–at ScienceForCitizens.net.

This week: Big storms are brewing on the Sun, and they’re sending flares of plasma towards the Earth. There’s a new book out about the science of life in space. It’s called Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void. We talk to the book’s author, science journalist Mary Roach. Then, Elsa brings news about oceans, malaria and high-heeled shoes.

Packing for Mars: A trip to space isn’t as exciting as you may think. So says Mary Roach, science journalist and author of the new book, Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void. The book paints an unromantic picture of life in space. Roach spoke with The World’s David Baron. This is a longer, podcast-exclusive version of the interview that aired on the radio program.
Guest: Mary Roach
Watch a video about space hygiene and the people who stopped bathing for science.
Follow Diego Urbina’s twitter feed from the Mars500 experiment.
More about the Mars500 simulation on Podcast 70.
Robonaut2 is tweeting. You can follow it here.

Elsa’s Favorite Science Stories:

• Bearded Gobies Save an Ocean Ecosystem: This is a story about a marine ecosystem that seemed to be doomed by overfishing. But an unsuspecting species – the bearded goby – revived it. The ecosystem hasn’t recovered to its original state, but is evolving in a new direction.
  The Study.
• Cases of Malaria Misdiagnosis: A new study has found that a large number of malaria diagnoses are inaccurate. Many countries don’t have the tests to determine when someone is infected with malaria parasites, leading to misdiagnoses of ordinary fevers as malaria.
  The Study.
• High Heeled Shoes Impact Your Calves: Ladies, beware! Those fashionable high-heeled shoes may be scrunching up your calf muscles permanently. That’s according to a new study that compared the leg muscles of people wearing high-heeled and flat shoes. The study was limited to 13 heel wearers. So the findings may need further confirmation from a bigger group of subjects.
  The Study.

Solar Flares & Northern Lights: The Sun is experiencing some stormy weather, and scientists say the solar storms may affect us on Earth. The World’s David Baron spoke with the U.S National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Doug Biesecker. He says the solar flares may cause a brilliant display of northern lights. The storms are expected to continue through August 5th.
Guest: Doug Biesecker.
See video and pictures of the sun on the shownotes for Podcast 64.
Check out the the location, intensity and extent of the northern lights here.

Language Influences How We Perceive People: We may think differently of people depending on our own and their linguistic background. That’s according to a recently published study by researchers in the U.K and Israel. I spoke about the study in this week’s Language Podcast. Don’t miss it – it’s a really fun listen!
Learn more about Patrick Cox’s language podcast.

This week: I’m devoting the entire episode to population. Is overpopulation still a threat to our planet? I talk to veteran environmental journalist Fred Pearce, author of the new book The Coming Population Crash: and Our Planet’s Surprising Future. (See book cover on the left.) Pearce argues that consumption, not population, is the biggest environmental threat we face. Pearce is also the guest in our latest Science Forum discussion. So don’t forget to stop by and join the conversation.

Population or Consumption? Many environmentalists blame environmental problems on overpopulation. There are 7 billion of us on the planet today, and that number keeps rising. But population is no longer a serious threat says environmental journalist Fred Pearce. In The Coming Population Crash: and Our Planet’s Surprising Future, Pearce argues that birth rates are falling all over the world and that total population is likely to decline after the next few decades.  Pearce also contends that focusing on population can distract us from the real environmental threat – consumption. Listen to the podcast, then come join our online conversation with Pearce in our latest Science Forum.
Guest: Fred Pearce
Read Fred’s essay on population in Grist.
And here’s the rebuttal to Pearce’s arguments by Robert Walker of the Population Institute.
The U.N’s Population Division.

Listen to our interview with environmental journalist Fred Pearce. He’s our guest in the latest Science Forum discussion.

There are almost 7 billion human beings on the planet today, and that number will likely rise to 9 billion by 2050. What will that mean for the earth’s environment?

Not much, according to Pearce.

Pearce rebuts fears about population growth in his new book, The Coming Population Crash: and Our Planet’s Surprising Future.

Pearce says birth rates today are much lower than in the last century, and after a few decades, our numbers will likely fall and then stabilize. He documents how women from all over the world – rich and poor alike – are choosing to have fewer children.

Pearce also contends that population growth isn’t the root cause of today’s environmental ills. The current growth in population is occurring in poorer countries, which consume relatively little of the earth’s resources.

The biggest environmental threat, Pearce argues, is consumption in rich countries.

“We’re defusing the population bomb,” says Pearce. “But we haven’t begun to defuse the consumption bomb.”

Do you agree? Come share your thoughts with Pearce in this online discussion. The conversation is just to the right.

• Which is easier to defuse – a population bomb, or a consumption bomb?
• Would you be willing to limit the size of your family for the good of the earth?
• What do you think is the “right” population for our planet? Seven billion people? Seven million?

Additional Resources:

• Watch Fred Pearce on The Daily Show.
• Check out Princeton University’s Population Clock.
• The U.N’s world population database.

This week: Plato’s writings contain hidden meanings and musical structures.  Big news about AIDS prevention efforts in Africa.  Colombian scientists mount an attack on a nasty mealybug that’s devouring Thailand’s cassava crop.  (Their weapon – a wasp that feasts on the pest.)  Also in today’s show: finch songs in cities, the Planck telescope, and leaf-cutter ants. And don’t forget to stop by our online conversation about the origins of kindness with Israeli science historian Oren Harman.

Epiphany on Plato and Music: The writings of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato are cryptic and often end in riddles. Few Plato scholars claim to know precisely what the philosopher thought, but now a professor at Britain’s University of Manchester believes he has cracked a code hidden in Plato’s writings. Jay Kennedy is an expert on Greek mathematics and music theory. He talks about the epiphany he had as he was poring over his volumes of Plato one day.
Guest: Jay Kennedy
More on Plato’s writings

Hopeful News for AIDS Prevention: A new AIDS study suggests that there’s a way to encourage people to avoid the risky behavior that helps spread HIV. It involves paying them. A second study reports the development of a vaginal gel that offers protection against the virus.
Guest: David Wilson
More on the payment study by the World Bank.
The New York Times on the new AIDS studies.

Cassava Sting Operation: A team of Colombia-based scientists is mobilizing to stop a mealybug infestation from destroying the cassava crop in Thailand. To counter the pests, scientists are releasing hundreds of thousands of wasps.
Guest: Tony Bellotti, International Center for Tropical Agriculture
National Geographic’s take on the story (nice pictures here).

Elsa’s Favorite Science Stories:

• Finches Songs in Cities: City noise isn’t a bother for human ears only. Birds seem to be bothered by it too. A new study shows that house finches change the frequency of their songs to adjust to noises in urban environments.
  The Study.
  More about birdsong and city noise
  Check out pictures of Darwin’s finches on our Facebook page.
• Leaf-cutter Ants Weed Out Leaf Fungi: Leaf-cutter ants are famous for their farming prowess. These ants, which live in Central and South America, grow crops of fungi in their nests by feeding the fungi leaves harvested from plants. (See photo of ants returning to their nest with fungi food.) It turns out that these six-legged farmers are more sophisticated than scientists had realized. When the ants go looking for leaves to cut, they avoid harvesting leaves that already harbor fungi, which might compete with the fungi in their nest.
• The Study.
  Video and background about leaf-cutter ants and their fungus gardens, from PBS.

• The Planck Telescope Is Up and Running: And it has sent its first image of background microwave radiation. (That’s all the radiation left over from the Big Bang.) Scientists hope to learn more about the beginnings of the universe from future images.
  More about the Planck Mission from the European Space Agency
  Another version of the map with some landmarks labeled
  Further explanation of the image, from the Bad Astronomy blog
  Pick your own wavelength with Chromoscope