Citizens Help Discover Pulsar, Lost Frogs, Stem Cell Work in China
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.
