Humans Help Plant Diversity, Earworms-Sticky Tunes in Our Heads
(Photo: Ikhlasul Amal)
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
This Week: A new study suggests that human beings don’t always hurt biological diversity, at least when it comes to plant species. An Australian scientist is proposing a radical solution for the country’s problems with an invasive species of grass. The World’s environment editor Peter Thomson reflects on concerns about Apple’s record for environmental and human rights violation. Also, my personal journey to learn about the science of earworms (that’s the word scientists use to describe tunes that get stuck in our heads).
Introduce Rhinos and Elephants in Australia? Australia has witnessed a growing problem with deadly wildfires in recent years. Scientists say there are many causes. Global warming may be one. Another is a kind of exotic grass that provides fuel for the fires. Its an exotic species that was first brought to Australia several decades ago. Now, its spreading rapidly through Northern Territory and Queensland. Ecologist David Bowman has put forward a radical proposal to reduce the spread of the grass.
Read more here.
David Bowman’s article in the journal Nature.
Read the BBC’s story about Bowman’s proposed solutions for Africa’s environmental problems.
Humans Increase Plant Diversity We’re familiar with stories about how humans are destroying biological diversity and driving species to extinction. Rapid deforestation, agriculture, and development have changed ecosystems around the world. But a new study finds that that’s not always the case. When it comes to the diversity of plant species, humans have helped increase the diversity of species in many parts of the world. We’ll hear from one of the authors of the study, geographer Erle Ellis of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
Read Ellis’s blog about his new study and its findings.
Apple’s Environmental and Human Rights Record:The concerns have been mounting for years, but suddenly, with last week’s blockbuster NY Times series on Apple’s supply chain, the question is on everyone’s lips: have the defining consumer products of our time been created at an intolerable human and environmental cost?
Click here to read The World’s environment editor Peter Thomson’s blog.
Earworms: Tunes That Stick in Our Heads:How often does a tune intrude on your thoughts and plays and replays in never-ending loops? Scientists call these intrusive musical thoughts “earworms.” I explore what happens in our brains when these earworms appear.
‘Earworms….eeewww!!’ Read my blog post about earworms.
This podcast took me back 15 years to when I was stationed on submarines! No outside influences lead one of our “shipmates” to make up a game he called song virus.
While waiting in line for chow before standing watch, he would sing a song to himself, loudly, over and over again. After watch was over and the same group was waiting in line for chow again he would listen. Anyone singing, or humming the same song got called out for having his “song virus”. He knew that he had planted that song, because there are no external inputs when you’re under the water on board a submarine.
Love the show, keep up the good work!