This Week: I’m back from vacation, and podcasting from Boston again. We have a story about a collaboration between an indigenous villagers in Guyana and international scientists. A new study finds a correlation between weather patterns and conflict in the tropics. Also, the creationists of Galapagos islands.

Customizes Atlases of the Amazon: In the Amazon, scientists have teamed up with indigenous communities to create atlases that show how hunting and other activities affect the forest. Elsa Youngsteadt has the story from Guyana.
Read Elsa’s blog post about this research from February, 2011.

Hot Weather and Conflict in the Tropics: A new study has found a strong correlation between extreme hot and dry weather and conflict in the tropics. Host Marco Werman speaks with the study’s lead author, Solomon Hsiang, who looked back over more than 50 years of data on climate and conflict.

Creationists on the Galapagos Islands:The Galapagos Islands may have inspired Charles Darwin to develop his theory of evolution, but today they are inhabited largely by creationists. Tony Azios has the story.

This week: Rapid changes in climate are altering the Antarctic ecosystem. Our Science Forum discussion about life and work at the South Pole continues through next week. Stop by with your questions for Freija Descamps. We hear about a thriving underground bushmeat trade in Paris. Japan’s nuclear catastrophe has led several countries to scrutinize their own nuclear safety.

Warming Climate Alters Antarctic Climate: Eric Niiler reports from McMurdo Sound in Antarctica on how rapid changes in the climate are affecting some of the continent’s species and changing its ecosystems.
Read more here.

Thriving Bushmeat Black Market in Paris: Genevieve Oger reports from Paris on the underground trade in bushmeat from West Africa. The illicit trade worries health officials and some, but not all, conservationists.
Read more here.
The scale of illegal meat importation from Africa to Europe via Paris.

Global Nuclear Safety up for Scrutiny: The World’s Clark Boyd reports on the ongoing debate over the future of nuclear energy in the wake of the crisis at the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan.
Read more here.
Update on Japan’s situation by The World’s environment editor, Peter Thomson.
Follow our continuing coverage of Japan here.

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This week: Last week’s earthquake triggered a meltdown at a nuclear power plant north of Tokyo. We hear about the risk of radiation exposure among workers at the power plant. Also, Tokyo’s residents are nervous about being exposed to radiation. Last Friday’s earthquake was the largest one in Japan’s recorded history. Geologist Brian Atwater talks about earthquakes and tsunamis preceding written records. Atwater is also the guest in our latest Science Forum discussion. Click here to join the conversation. Also, a booming bushmeat trade in an Ecuadorian rainforest.

Radiation Exposure at the Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant: The operators of the Japanese nuclear plant damaged in Friday’s earthquake and tsunami, say essential cooling functions are being restored following a number of explosions and a fire which released dangerous levels of radiation. But some experts believe that the workers are being exposed to potentially dangerous levels of radiation.
Guest: David Brenner.
Follow our coverage of Japan’s Nuclear Disaster on our website.
Great Interactive feature on what happens in a reactor meltdown by the New York Times.
Status of the six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant, also by the New York Times.
Watch helicopters dump water on the reactors.
“Fuskushima incident is out of control,” a column in the journal, Nature.
More on the Fukushima incident on Nature blogs.

Anxiety in Tokyo: The World’s Mary Kay Magistad reports on the anxiety felt by Tokyo residents about possible radiation exposure from Japan’s earthquake and tsunami damaged nuclear reactors. Many city residents are skeptical of official statements seeking to reassure them.
Follow Mary Kay Magistad on Twitter.

Unearthing AncientTsunamis: Last Friday’s earthquake was the largest on record to hit Japan. But there were huge quakes and tsunamis before records were kept. Anchor Marco Werman explores the history of quakes and tsunamis with Brian Atwater of the US Geological Survey. Atwater is also our guest in the latest Science Forum discussion. Join the discussion here.

Bushmeat Market in Ecuador’s rainforest:Daniel Grossman reports on how illegal commercial hunting is threatening the animal diversity and rainforest ecosystem of the Yasuni National Park in Ecuador.
Click here to read the story. Scroll down on the page for a slide show of the Pompeya bushmeat market.

The researchers recruited more than 300 members of Makushi and Wapishana groups to survey other members of their own communities about their religion, language, technology and other cultural practices. The participants also tallied the animals their communities hunted (such as the tapir at left), and monitored biodiversity in the surrounding forests.

The results revealed a fascinating connection between the communities’ spiritual beliefs and game animal abundance. Hunters from the most traditional groups refused to enter areas which they believed to house dangerous spirits or special powers, according to a study that Fragoso’s team published last year. These spiritual sites turned out to be important for the wildlife too. They served as refuges for game animals and averted over-hunting. Those results square with what other biologists and anthropologists are finding the world over: “Sacred groves” may serve as key conservation areas.

But not all indigenous hunters are traditional. Some communities have adopted the language, religion and technologies of the mainstream cultures in Brazil and Guyana, and others are somewhere in between. When I talked with Fragoso after the session, he said that the mainstream groups also seemed to have a healthy abundance of animals–perhaps because they have adopted western concepts of game management and conservation. It was the communities in cultural transition, somewhere between traditional and mainstream, that had over-hunted their forests. Fragoso thinks that might be because those groups lack either set of conservation rules.

Fragoso is still analyzing some of the results from the study, but he says some peer reviewers have taken issue with their methods, arguing that the data collected by the indigenous research assistants are unreliable. (This wouldn’t be the first time that combining elements of social and natural sciences has resulted in a complicated review process.) It’s true that the team caught some mistakes–as the data came in, they noticed that some workers were rounding off compass headings, for example. So they conducted additional training. Without the communities’ help, the group never could have conducted such an extensive study that included dozens of villages and thousands of square kilometers of forest. As with any result in science, time will tell whether further studies corroborate these conclusions.

I find it inspiring that researchers are making this kind of effort to understand the hard-to-study factors (such as cultural change) that affect the forest and its inhabitants. Indeed, Fragoso and his team plan to return the data, in atlas form, to the indigenous communities that participated in the study. He hopes the results will provide them and their countries’ governments with relevant information for planning land use and negotiating indigenous land rights.

I recorded an interview with Fragoso about this work, so you can look forward to hearing more about the project on a future podcast.

This week:  The story of a serial killer in 19th century France and the birth of modern forensic science. Growing coffee can endanger songbirds. What can you, as a consumer, do to help those birds? Also, our conversation about nuclear energy with M.V. Ramana and Alex Glaser continues through next week. Check it out, and join the conversation here.

Doug Starr and CSI in 19th Century France: Science writer Douglas Starr is the author of the new book The Killer of Little Shepherds: A True Crime Story and the Birth of Forensic Science. The book tells the grisly story of a serial killer in 19th century France and the criminologist who helped send him to the guillotine.

Guest: Douglas Starr

‘Bird-friendly’ Coffee: A recent study found that 13 percent of the world’s birds are either threatened or endangered. The problem has many causes, but one of them is – well – coffee. That’s right, your morning cup of joe may be harming songbirds, but there are efforts afoot to change that.

A Scarlet Tanager — one of the birds being hurt by coffee plantations. (Image: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
Report by: Diane Toomey
Read the story and listen to calls of birds that are being harmed by coffee plantations.
Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center.
Coffee and Conservation.
Rainforest Alliance.

How Coffee Consumers Affect Migratory Birds: Ornithologist Bridget Stutchbury talks about the problems confronting migratory birds and the role consumers can play in helping them.
Guest: Bridget Stutchbury

This week: We’re going to Africa where scientists have found what may be a giant impact crater. Then an update on the controversial plan to build a road through Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park.  And we take you to a country that has the highest percentage of rainforest cover on the planet. Thanks to everyone who stopped by our online discussion on tigers. We’d love to know what you think of us in this online survey!

A Potential Impact Crater in Africa: Thanks to deforestation, scientists have stumbled upon a giant ring structure in central Africa. It could be the remnant of a meteorite crash from millions of years ago.
Guest: John Spray
Check out the Earth Impact Database for potential impact craters around the world.
How can you tell you’re looking at an impact crater?
Credit for image: Terrametrics Inc.

Scientists Opposed to Proposed Serengeti Road: In podcast no. 81, we brought you a story about a controversial plan to build a road through Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park. This week, more than 20 leading ecologists and conservation biologists have expressed concerns over the proposed plan. In an opinion piece published in the journal Nature, they propose an alternate road south of the Serengeti that would connect the remote parts of Tanzania while keeping the national park intact.
Guest: Andrew Dobson.


According to Dobson and his colleagues, the alternate southern road (purple) proposed by the scientists would serve five times as many people as the currently planned road (black). Image credit: Nature.
The opinion piece in Nature.
An accompanying editorial in the journal.
If you missed it, check out the story about Serengeti’s conservation battles in Podcast 81.

Suriname’s Rainforests:We’re taking you to a tiny South American country. It may be the smallest independent nation in the subcontinent but it has the highest percentage of rainforest cover in the world. And parts of these forests are still pristine.
Guest: Russell Mittermeier
See pictures of Suriname and its forests from Conservation International.
More on Suriname from the BBC.

This week: You’ll hear the true story of a Siberian tiger that hunted a poacher. We’re also talking about tigers in our latest Science Forum discussion. Our guest is renowned tiger expert, John Seidensticker. He’s taking questions about efforts to save wild tigers. Check out what he has to say in the podcast then join the conversation.   Also in today’s show, U.K scientists release first drafts of the wheat genome sequence. And please tell us what you think in this online survey!

‘The Tiger’: That’s the name of a new book that tells the true story of a Siberian tiger that killed a poacher, for revenge. The drama takes place in the late 1990s, in far-eastern Russia, just across the border from China. We spoke with the author, John Vaillant.
Guest: John Vaillant
Read the first chapter of ‘The Tiger’.

More about the Siberian tiger on National Geographic.
John Vaillant’s previous book, The Golden Spruce.

Saving Wild Tigers: The tiger is facing extinction. There are some 3500 of the beasts left in the wild today. That’s barely half their number just a decade ago. Poaching and habitat loss are among the many threats facing tiger populations around the world. Several countries are gearing up to enforce stricter measures to protect the species as part of the new Global Tiger Recovery Program. But can we save the species? Or is it doomed to become extinct? Listen to our interview with tiger expert John Seidensticker. Then bring your questions for Seidensticker to the latest Science Forum discussion. He’ll be taking your thoughts and questions until September 13th.
Guest: John Seidensticker.
Join our online conversation about tigers.
Tiger facts from the World Wildlife Fund.

Wheat Genome Sequences: Scientists in the U.K have released draft sequences of the wheat genome. The discovery comes at a time when wheat crops around the world are threatened by disease and climate change. The findings provides scientists and crop breeders with genetic tools to help select for hardier varieties of wheat in the coming years.
Guest: Neil Hall
International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium.
FAO cuts outlook for global wheat harvests
More work needed to get the entire genome sequenced.
Stem rust and global wheat production on Podcast 62.

We Need Your Help! We want your feedback. Please take a minute to fill out this online survey.

Listen to our interview with journalist and author, John Vaillant about his new book, The Tiger, followed by our conversation with conservation biologist John Seidensticker.

Seidensticker then joins us as our guest in this Science Forum discussion. He is a conservation biologist at the Smithsonian Washington National Zoological Park in Washington D.C. He also advises countries that are part of the Global Tiger Initiative, a tiger conservation program supported by the World Bank.

The future for tigers looks dismal.  Today, there are some 3500 wild tigers in 13 countries. That’s barely half their number just a decade ago.
Poaching and habitat loss are the two biggest threats to wild tigers today. Tiger-human conflict, where tigers sometimes attack people and livestock and are in turn killed by people also threatens survival of the species. “If there isn’t an incentive to make live tigers worth more than dead tigers, we’ll lose tigers,” says Seidensticker.

China and Russia have just announced a plan to set up the first cross-border protection zone for the Siberian tiger. There are less than 500 Siberian tigers in the wild today, only about 20 of them in China.  This international tiger conservation effort will attempt to protect the remaining tigers from poaching and habitat loss.

Nepal runs a program that pays local communities to protect tigers and tiger habitats. Other countries that are still home to the wild tiger are also drafting plans to protect the species as part of a new Global Tiger Recovery Program.

Can such efforts save the tiger? Or is it facing inevitable extinction? Bring your thoughts and questions to our conversation with John Seidensticker. It’s just to the right. He is taking your comments till September 13th.

• Tiger poaching is driven by a global demand for tiger parts and products. Can we stop this illegal trade?
• How can ordinary citizens help protect wild tigers?
• Have you ever encountered a wild tiger? Tell us about your experience.

Additional Resources:

• Read Chapter 1 of John Vaillant’s book, The Tiger on The World’s website.
• Tiger facts from the World Wildlife Fund.
• Siberian tigers: photos, videos and facts from the National Geographic.

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.

Our guest in the Science Forum is marine biologist Stephen Palumbi of Stanford University. He uses genetics to study whale populations.

The International Whaling Commission is considering legalizing commercial whaling by some countries, but at a very limited scale. Palumbi says that the current proposal would fail to protect endangered whale species.
You can ask Palumbi your own questions. Join the conversation. It’s just to the right.

• Do you think all whaling should be banned? Why?
• What role can lay citizens play in conserving whales?
• How can modern genetic techniques be used to crack down on whale smuggling?

Additional Resources:

• Read a study by Stephen Palumbi about the antarctic minke whale. A lay summary of that study is here.
• A Must-See: The BBC’s humpback whale page. Includes video excerpts from documentaries.
• The International Whaling Commission.
• Watch this video (below) for the latest about the antarctic minke whale population. (Credit: Garthwait & Griffin Films)