Solar Flares & Northern Lights, Life in Space, Malaria Misdiagnoses
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.
