Coral species differ in their response to rising temperatures. (Photo courtesy of Terry Hughes)

This Week: We have two stories about how the planet’s changing climate may be affecting life on land and in our oceans. We look at how coral reefs are likely to fare in warmer waters. We hear from Dutch scientists who are tracking how shifting seasons are affecting ecosystems. Also, an international team of scientists is about to go looking for a rare white orca that was spotted in the North Pacific two years ago.

Can Coral Reefs Survive in Warmer Waters: Warmer ocean waters cause corals to bleach and sometimes die. The bleaching happens because at higher temperatures corals spit out the algae that live inside them. A growing number of bleaching events around the world led scientists to think of coral reefs as the canary in the coal mine with regards to climate change. But that view is changing slowly, as scientists look more closely at a whole range of coral species around the world. Indeed, some species are vulnerable to higher temperatures. But others are more resilient. I recently wrote about a study by Australian scientists that showed that with rising temperatures, there will be winners and losers among coral reefs. You can read that story here. In today’s episode, we hear from marine biologist Stephen Palumbi of Stanford University who just returned from a trip to American Samoa and the Cook Islands where he was studying different species of corals to understand each species’ tolerance to higher temperatures.

Click here to read Palumbi’s blog posts during his trip to American Samoa and the Cook Islands.

Looking for Consequences of Shifting Seasons: The shifting of the seasons as the world warms up is putting a new focus on the field of phenology. It is the study of the timing of seasonal events like the emergence of a particular plant or insect. As The World’s Clark Boyd reports from The Netherlands, scientists are trying to track winners, losers and ecological relationships that are getting out of whack.
Clarb Boyd’s blog post about citizen science going Dutch.

Russian Scientists Search for Elusive White Orca Whale: Two years ago Russian researchers spotted what they believe is the only all white, adult killer whale in the North Pacific Ocean. Now the research team plans to explore the region to try to identify and observe the orca named Iceberg.

We’ve done quite a bit on the crowd-sourcing of scientific work over the years. You can help SETI search for extra-terrestrials, help the FBI solve cryptography conundrums, and even assist  scientists in tracking historic climate change by digitizing old ship’s logs. In this week’s podcast, we’ll tell you about another crowd-sourcing effort…but it has a fun twist. You can help scientists better understand genomics by playing an online game called Phylo. Ari Daniel Shapiro, working in partnership with PBS’s NOVA, has the story for us.

We’ve also got a great interview with Linus Torvalds, father of the Linux operating system and winner of the 2012 Millennium Technology Prize.

What, that’s not enough for you? OK. How about a piece from Manila on some smog-busting paint? And we’ll end with an interview with one of China’s leading hackers.

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Human ancestors used fire in this cave a million years ago. Photo: M. Chazan.

This Week: We’re bringing you stories from three different parts of the world today: Siberia, France and South Africa. We have new discoveries from ancient times. One is a baby woolly mammoth. The other is earliest evidence of fire us by not humans, but our ancestors. Also, a scientist exploring the chemical ingredients of the world’s oceans.

Frozen Baby Woolly Mammoth: Scientists recently discovered a baby woolly mammoth preserved in the frozen tundra of Northern Siberia. Nicknamed Yuka, the mammoth lived around 10,000 years ago.
Video: Baby Mammoth Carcass Found in Siberia.

Scientists Find Evidence of Early Use of Fire By Human Ancestors: It is well known that our ancestors used fire to ward off predators, provide warmth, and cook food. But exactly when they started doing this is a matter of debate. A new study by an international team of scientists may push back the dawn of fire by hundreds of thousands of years. The finding also supports a provocative theory about the role cooking may have played in human evolution.
Read more here.
BBQ Begets Bigger Brains: Listen to our interview with Harvard anthropologist Richard Wrangham.
Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human.

Tracing the Ocean’s Ingredients: The world’s oceans are full of salt and also contain ingredients vital to marine life and the Earth’s climate. Reporter Ari Daniel Shapiro of our partner program NOVA met up with a French scientist who’s studying the chemistry of seawater for clues to our planet’s future.
Nova: “Elements in the Ocean”.

Carol Zall's late grandmother, Ray Zall, with her late father, Milton Zall

This Week: We have a short episode this week, but a meaty one. You’ll hear what my colleague Carol Zall learned about her ancestry from her DNA. Then, a story about genomics: about one man and his unusual gene.

Roots 2.0: Using DNA to Trace My Ancestry: Until recently, people interested in their family history relied on relatives or archives for genealogical information. These days, they can also look to DNA testing for clues about their ancestry. The World’s Carol Zall decided to see what she could find out from her genes.
See Carol’s pictures and read more about her story here.
Blog: How to Choose a Genetic Testing Company.
23andMe.

Gene Test Offers Whiff of Hope:Genetic tests allow doctors to diagnose disease, but the knowledge of what’s in your DNA doesn’t always help in the way one might hope. Reporter Ari Daniel Shapiro of our partner program NOVA talks about one man and his unusual gene.
Click here for more about the story, including some behind the scene stuff with Ari.

We have a tech history treat for you in this week’s program. We’ll go to Spain to hear about a pair of Enigma code-breaking machines that were found in a locked basement recently. The machines date from the 1930s, the era of the Spanish Civil War. Much is known about how the Engima machines were used in World War II at Bletchley Park in Britain. Without the machines, and their skilled operators, the Allies would not have been able to crack German codes and gain vital information.But what is the history of the machines during the Spanish Civil War? Listen in and find out.

We’ve also got a great interview with Leslie Chang, author of the book Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China. Chang shares her account of her time spent among workers in Apple factories in China. It’s a real ear-opener.

In our quest to cover Tech that Matters, we’ve also got the story of the Wonderbag, a low-cost, eco-friendly insulated bag that might significantly reduce fuel consumption for cooking, especially in the developing world.

And finally…a piece about the history of that most-loved, most-reviled instrument…the Theremin. Here’s a taste of what’s in store:

A reminder that you can ignore us equally on Twitter, Facebook, and now Google +.

I’m just back from Greece, where I met Vassilios Makios, the General Director of Corallia, a high-tech incubator on the outskirts of Athens. Makios and Corallia are spear-heading an effort to foster technology start-ups in Greece. The universities provide the talented young engineers with great ideas, and Corallia tries to give them the tools they need to turn those ideas into successful global products. But it’s not easy in the kind of economic crisis the country is currently going through. Listen in to this week’s show to hear more. You can also read the column I wrote for BBC Future on this.

Also in this episode, you’ll hear about how the FAA is revisiting those pesky (some say wonderful) rules against using certain kinds of electronic equipment during flight.

Then it’s on to Brazil, to hear about a plan to use micro-chips to track kids. OK, they’re not putting the chips in the kids, but in their clothing. But suffice to say that the plan is still causing some controversy.

And we end with…what else? A camera that see around corners.

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Tablet computer fans, today is your day. No, I’m not talking about the new iPad. I’m talking about the Way-C tablet computer, designed by a 26 year old from the Republic of Congo. Verone Mankou hopes the Way-C can be a commercial hit in Brazzaville and beyond. But at $300, it’s still a pretty steep price for many in Africa. You can hear more about the Way-C in this week’s episode. We’ll speak with Erin Conway-Smith, who wrote about the Way-C for GlobalPost.

In this week’s show, I’ll also take you to London to hear about a company called Pavegen. CEO Laurence Kemball-Cook tells us about a unique energy harvesting system the company has developed. It converts your kinetic energy (your footsteps!) into electricity.

You can hear about the use of webcams in the recent Russian elections, and about the engineer who tricked those full body scanners at the airport. Here’s a taster:

A reminder that you can ignore us equally on Twitter, Facebook, and now Google +.

This Week: We go inside the exclusion zone around Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi atomic plant one year after the devastation caused by 2011′s earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown. We hear what archaeologists have learned about an ancient and artistic culture in Central Asia. And China acknowledges a gruesome truth: it continues to harvest human organs from death-row inmates.

Visiting the Hot Zone: A year after a tsunami triggered a triple meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant, the cleanup of the contaminated area has just begun. As Sam Eaton reports from Fukushima, no one knows if the cleanup will ever be finished, because no one’s tried anything like it before. (Check out Sam’s other stories here.)

Gold of the Nomads: In eastern Kazakhstan, excavations of centuries-old burial sites have turned up spectacular gold pieces, jewelry, and animal figurines. More than 200 of these items are now on display at New York University’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. Marco Werman talks to the curator of the exhibition, Jennifer Chi, about the artifacts and what scientists have learned about the ancient nomadic culture. (Read a related story by John Noble Wilford of the New York Times here.)

Organs from Death Row: A government official has acknowledged that death-row inmates remain the main source of human organs for transplant in China, despite a pledge to phase out the practice. We hear more from The World’s Beijing correspondent, Mary Kay Magistad.

Download MP3 (28:12)

In the show’s never ending attempt to cover “Tech That Matters,” we’ve got a great one for you this week. Here you see a picture of Raspberry Pi, the $35 (no that’s not a typo) computer. Well, OK – no keyboard, no mouse and no monitor. But still, for $35 you still get a lot, especially if you’re keen to tinker. It was built by the Raspberry Pi Foundation in the hopes that it will get people, and kids especially, to learn how to code, to learn how to control the technology, instead of letting the technology control them. It should be an interesting project to follow moving forward. In this episode, you’ll hear from David Braben, who’s been involved in the development of the credit-card sized computer.

Also in this episode, we’ll step into Google’s new privacy regulations, and examine whether or not they might violate European Union privacy laws. And we’ll introduce you to Salamworld, a new social network that’s being billed as a Muslim alternative to Facebook.

Oh, and you’ll get a taste of A Matter of Life and Tech, a new column that I’m writing for a just-launched BBC website called BBC Future. The idea of the column is to look at technologies and ideas that are taking on some of the world’s biggest problems and challenges. First up, the LuminAID. It’s an inflatable, rechargeable solar lantern designed for use in post-disaster situations.

A reminder that you can ignore us equally on Twitter, Facebook, and now Google +.

Hourglass Frog (Photo: Brian Gratwicke)

This Week: In Panama, scientists are racing to find and save frogs from a deadly fungus. Color-blind artist, Neil Harbisson uses sounds to see colors. He’s able to do this using a high-tech headset designed specifically for him. Researchers in Stockholm have now conducted a detailed examination of a17th century Swedish warship and have found new clues as to why it sank. Also, a new report finds that when the tsunami struck last year, Japan was much closer to a bigger nuclear calamity than was known at the time.

Fukushima Report-Japan Dodged a Major Nuclear Disaster: Nearly a year after the Fukushima disaster, a new report has found that the country was much closer to a bigger nuclear calamity than was known at the time.

Color-Blind Artist Hears Colors: Color-blind artist, Neil Harbisson, uses sounds to see colors. He’s able to do this using a a high-tech headset designed specifically for him.

Read more here.

Scientists Rush To Save Frogs in ‘Amphibian Arks’: In Panama, scientists are racing to find and save frogs before they succumb to a virulent fungus that’s been killing amphibians around the world. Sabri Ben-Achour reports on the effort to get frogs into what they’re calling “amphibian arks.”

New Clues Emerge in Centuries-Old Shipwreck: On August 10, 1628, the world’s most powerfully armed warship at the time set sail from Stockholm port. Twenty minutes into her journey the ship was caught in a powerful wind and sank. Nearly four centuries later, scientists studying the ship say they have found new clues as to why the ship sank.