Cost of Coal in China, Discrimination in France, Ancient Conches
This week: We’re taking you to China to learn about the human and environmental costs of using coal. The country is also exploring clean coal technologies. Elsa brings news about ancient conch shells, discrimination against Muslims in France, and gliding pterosaurs. And don’t forget to stop by our online discussion with fisheries economist Rashid Sumaila. He’s taking your questions through Friday, December 3rd.
The Cost of Coal: China’s industrial growth is powered by coal, but the mining and burning of coal is causing health problems across the nation.
Reporter: Mary Kay Magistad
Reporter’s notebook: Marky Kay’s visit to a Chinese coal mine.
China leads the world in “clean coal” technology. (Article in The Atlantic)
UN climate talks low on expectation. (BBC article)
Elsa’s Favorite Science Stories
- Pterosaurs Flew Like Frigatebirds: A new aerodynamic analysis of model pterosaur wings suggests that the creatures were slow gliders that avoided turbulent winds.
The study.
Loads of great pterosaur information at pterosaur.net.
Other recent pterosaur news:
They may have launched themselves off on all fours to get airborne. (ScienceNOW article)
They may have flown up to 10,000 miles at a stretch. (Science News article) - Religious Discrimination: In France, being Muslim makes it harder to get a job—at least for women who apply to secretarial and accounting positions. Researchers sent a set of fake resumes to employers all over France. Their results are among the first that reliably detect discrimination against members of a religion in Europe.
The study.
Not Exactly Rocket Science blog coverage. - Ancient Musical Shells: The cacophonous music of conch shell horns, performed in dark galleries, probably thrilled or frightened visitors to Chavín de Huantar. At this pre-Inca ceremonial center in the Peruvian Andes, archaeologists unearthed 20 of the shells. Now they’re working with acoustical scientists to learn more about the instruments, and how they might have been used in local ceremonies.
More about the archaeological acoustics project.
Explore Chavín de Huantar.
Music in Science
Perry Cook is a computer scientist and musician at Princeton University, and is a member of the team studying the Peruvian conch shell horns. In this week’s music-in-science segment, Cook explains the connection between Saturday Night Live and his current research. And he describes what it’s like to play a mud-caked 3,000-year-old shell.
Song: Exploration, by Steve Turre
Perry Cook’s homepage
To hear some of Cook’s own compositions for shells, click here.
During the podcast Elsa spoke about how ancient conch shells might have been used in Peru 3000 years ago, and they had no idea of its practical manner of use, but they settled on music.
Fast forward to Eastern PA c. 1840 to 1940. In this region, conch shells were used by canal boat captains to alert upcoming lock tenders on the Delaware Canal of their approach and the need to proceed into the lock. The canal boats transported coal from the mountains of northeast PA south nearly to Philadelphia for trade; the then-empty boats transported goods for the needs of the inhabitants to the north end.
At all lock approaches (22 of them over a span of 60 miles), the captain was expected to alert the lock tenders. Conch shells were used because it could be heard at a distance aprox. .5 miles.
Hi Wolf,
Wow, that’s a fascinating piece of history! Thanks for sharing.
Talking about conches/trumpets/horns, I was just listening to an episode of the Radiolab podcasts last night about a similar topic. The hosts, Krulwich and Abumrad start with a simple question about a Biblical story – “could a team of trumpeters really bring down the walls of Jericho?” I think you’ll enjoy the story.
http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2010/oct/04/walls-jericho/
Rhitu