Serengeti’s Conservation Battles, Whiskey Biofuel, Bacteria in Space

This week: We’re visiting Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park to hear about a battle between conservation and development. A Scottish researcher tells us how to make biofuel from the byproducts of single malts. We have two stories about bacteria—one about microbes that survived outer space, and the second about methane-eating bacteria in peat bogs. Also in today’s show, plastic in the Atlantic ocean and helping the blind see, with sound.

Conservation vs. Development in Tanzania: Can wildebeest and trucks coexist? That’s the question at the heart of a controversy in Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park. The Serengeti is home to some of the last great herds of migrating animals… including hundreds of thousands of wildebeest. That’s great for nature lovers and tour operators, but there’s a downside: most of the region has no roads, which is bad news for some remote communities. Now the Tanzanian government has a controversial plan to build a road through the park.
Report by: Benedict Moran
Wildebeest facts from National Geographic.
Serengeti official site.
Serengeti information from UNESCO.

Microbes Survive Outer Space: Bacteria from an English village have survived more than a year in space. The microbes were taken from cliffs in the village of Beer and placed in experimental boxes outside the International Space Station. Scientists were conducting the research to find microbes that could be used as life-support systems for humans traveling in space. The surviving bacteria are now back in a laboratory at the Open University in Milton Keynes.
Guest: Charles Cockell
See a video of Charles Cockell in his laboratory talking about his space-traveling microbes.
Cockell also studies microbes that live in Icelandic volcanoes.
Planetary and Space Sciences Research Institute

Elsa’s Favorite Science Stories:

• Methane-Eating Bacteria: One-third of the Earth’s terrestrial carbon is tied up in peat bogs, where it’s stored as frozen and partially decayed plant matter. Global warming could thaw the bogs, accelerating decay and pumping tons of carbon into the atmosphere. Now researchers have found that methane-eating bacteria living inside sphagnum moss could help sop up the greenhouse gas as its released from rotting plant matter.
  The study.
  Photo gallery of sphagnum mosses.
  More about permafrost, peat bogs, and climate.
• Plastic in the Atlantic: Researchers have released 22 years’ worth of data on the location and quantity of plastic crumbs floating in the Atlantic Ocean. Much as in the Pacific Garbage Patch, ocean currents in the Atlantic concentrate the plastic soup in a giant slow-moving whirlpool hundreds of miles from shore. The amount of plastic in the Atlantic didn’t increase over the 22 years of the study–but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we’ve been keeping our garbage out of the ocean.
  The study.
  The Sea Education Association led the new research.
  Our previous coverage of plastic in the Atlantic, in the Pacific, and in albatross bellies.
  Slate article on plastic beads in exfoliants.
• Seeing with Sound: A Dutch inventor came up with a way to translate camera images into soundscapes. Blind people can train their brains to interpret these sounds as visual scenes in their minds. New Scientist looked into how the system works.
  The New Scientist article (preview only).
  More about the technology from the inventor’s website. (To hear soundscapes and the images to which they correspond, follow the link next to “No Surgery” at the top of the page, then scroll down to “Example Sounds.”)

Biofuel from Single Malts: A team from Edinburgh Napier University has come up with a way to produce a biofuel from the byproducts of whiskey. They say the fuel could soon be mixed with gasoline or diesel to power cars. Not only would that be a boon to Scotland, but the new process could save a lot of fuel.
Guest: Martin Tangney
Edinburgh Napier University’s Biofuel Research Team.
Watch a video about the discovery from Edinburgh Napier University here.

Tags: Atlantic Ocean, bacteria, bio-fuel, blindness, brain, climate change, conservation, neuroscience, plastic, Serengeti, space, Tanzania, whiskey, wildebeest