This week: An update on a story we aired on The World in 2005 – a water pump built into a merry-go-round that many hoped would provide drinking water for impoverished African villages. Also, we visit one Norwegian town that remains enthusiastic about offshore oil drilling. We look at the genetic basis of Tibetans’ adaptation to high altitudes. Elsa brings news about dinosaur eggs and organic agriculture.

Problems with the Playpump: A water pump built into a children’s merry-go-round. The idea was simple: harness the energy of children at play to draw well water up from the ground. It was meant to provide clean water for thousands of African villages. Philanthropists loved the PlayPump project. Until it fell apart.
Guest: Amy Costello.
Watch the video of Amy’s documentary, “Troubled Waters.”
Watch the original 2005 video about the PlayPump.
More about technological failures in developing countries, in Podcast 39.
Our Science Forum discussion about fixing technology fixes.

The Evolution of High Altitude Tolerance in Tibetans: Tibet is known for its mountain peaks and high altitudes. It is also known for its people who can tolerate those high altitudes. It turns out there are real genetic differences between Tibetans and those of us who live closer to sea level. According to a newly published study, those genetic changes occurred over a relatively brief period of evolutionary time.
Guest: Rhitu Chatterjee.
The study.

Mixed Support for Oil Drilling in Norway: Most Norwegians seem to support their government’s moratorium on deepwater drilling, especially after the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. But not all Norwegians feel that way. We visit one Norwegian town where just about everyone says the environmental risks are worth it.
Report by: The World’s Gerry Hadden.
Other countries are rethinking their drilling plans as well. Learn more in an interview with author Michael Klare.
Oil spill coverage from the BBC.
What else is going on in Hammerfest? (The town’s tourist information site.)

Elsa’s Favorite Science Stories:

• Dinosaurs Steamed Their Eggs: Giant herbivorous dinosaurs kept their eggs cozy and warm–but not by sitting on them. A fossil find in Argentina reveals the eggs nestled near geysers and hydrothermal vents.
  The study.
  National Geographic‘s virtual museum of dinosaur eggs and hatchlings.
• Organic Farming–Good News and Bad News: First, the good news. In Washington potato fields, leaving off the synthetic pesticides promotes a higher diversity of predatory insects, which, in turn, provide better protection against the problematic Colorado potato beetle. On the other hand, some natural organic pesticides can actually be harder on the environment than well-chosen synthetic ones. That’s the finding of a new study on chemicals for controlling soybean aphid.
  The potato study.
  The soy study.
  Nature News article.
  More about the organic food industry in Podcast #71.

This week: You’ll hear a story on the controversy over U.S. imports of oil extracted from the Canadian oil sand reserves. We have a story about agricultural failures in Nigeria, told by a reporter who first visited the country twenty-five years ago. Then some good news about  U.S fisheries, the first venomous dinosaur find and an inter-continental concert with the synthesized sounds of an ancient Greek instrument. And we launch our new Music in Science segment. (Credit for photo on left: Mike Blyth)

Canadian Oil Sands: Three weeks ago, we brought you new findings about the environmental impacts of extracting and refining the bitumen that lies deep underground in northern Alberta. Canada is under fire for the ongoing extraction of oil from those reserves. But it’s the United States that buys much of that oil. New pipelines are under construction to bring even more of it south.
Report by: The World’s Jeb Sharp.
Environmental hazards of oil sand extraction on Podcast44.
Canada’s ‘dirty oil challenge’ on the BBC .

Farming Failures in Nigeria: A few decades ago, Nigeria launched a plan to embrace modern farming. But today the country is more dependent than ever on imported food. To find out what went wrong with these agricultural efforts, a reporter travels to a Nigerian village he first visited in the 1980s.
Report by: David Hecht
Africa’s Food Challenge, a paper by the U.N Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Elsa’s Favorite Science Stories:

• Saving Fisheries from Decline: Rampant overfishing has caused some fisheries to collapse. Individual fishing quotas called catch shares could help conserve fish stocks. A new analysis of catch share fisheries in the U.S. shows that the mechanism yields more stable fish stocks.
  The study.
  FAO report on climate’s impact on global fisheries.
  The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on catch-shares.
• Fanged Dinosaurs:  Scientists have found the first evidence of venom glands in dinosaurs. Sinornithosaurus, a feathered dinosaur that lived some 128 million years ago, had grooved teeth and facial features much like today’s rear-fanged snakes. The researchers think these raptors used venom to stun and kill their prey.
  The study.
  More on the BBC.
• Finding Lost Sounds: European researchers are reconstructing the sounds of ancient musical instruments. They’re using equations that describe sounds based on the shape and material of an instrument. They recently reconstructed the sounds of the barbiton, an ancient Greek stringed instrument. The sounds of the barbiton were recently used in a concert in Stockholm.  See video below.
  More about the ancient instruments project.
  More about the powerful grid-computingnetowrks used by the researchers.
  Video credit: Ancient Instrument Sound/Timbre Reconstruction Application.

Music in Science: This is a new segment on the podcast.  This week, we spoke to evolutionary biologist Tim White, one of the researchers who discovered and studied the remains of our oldest known ancestor, Ardipithecus ramidus, or Ardi. White works in a remote desert region in Ethiopia with an international team of researchers. Listen to the podcast to find out what he and his team listened to as they dug out the remains of Ardi.
Tim White.
Ardi on The World Science Podcast 34.

This week: Four stories on efforts to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. French President Nicholas Sarkozy wants to impose a carbon tax on French citizens to lower their carbon emissions. A Londoner takes off on a world tour in his green mobile home.  International entrepreneurs and government officials visit North Dakota to show people how to make money while shrinking their carbon footprint. And scientists are pumping carbon dioxide into rocks in Iceland, with hopes of keeping it there for the foreseeable future. But first, a new dinosaur fossil from Inner Mongolia.

Tiny T. Rex: Scientists have discovered a tiny version of Tyrannosaurus rex – the monster star of Jurassic Park. This new dinosaur, called Raptorex, was only about one percent as big as T. rex, but you still wouldn’t want to run into it. It had powerful jaws and strong legs suited for running down its prey. It roamed the earth about 125 million years ago, and its fossil was unearthed from a land of vast grasslands — Inner Mongolia.
Guest: Paul Sereno, University of Chicago.
Video: “Bizarre Dinos,” which features this discovery, premieres Sunday, October 11 at 8 pm on the National Geographic Channel
Video: Paleontologist Paul Sereno discusses his new findings.

French Carbon Tax: French President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to impose a carbon tax on households and businesses that emit greenhouse gases. But the French say they feel too taxed already.
Guest: Guillaume Debre, Washington correspondent, French TV Channel TF-1.

Climate Talks in North Dakota: Fighting climate change need not mean higher taxes and job losses. Many environmentalists argue it’s possible to make money by reducing one’s carbon footprint. Last month, a group of entrepreneurs and government representatives from around the world brought that message to an unlikely venue.
Report: By The World’s Jason Margolis in Bismarck, North Dakota.

Green Adventures: A former journalist turned eco-adventurer sets out on an ambitious world tour on a low-carbon budget.
Report: By The World’s Laura Lynch in London.
Follow the bio truck expedition online.

Burying CO2: One way to deal with excess carbon emissions could be to store CO2 underground. Many countries are investing in so-called carbon sequestration technologies. One of the most promising projects is based in Iceland.
Report: By Ashley Ahearn, outside Reykjavik, Iceland.

Music: Iceland, by The Faceless Orchestra.

This week, we look at the global outbreak of H1N1 swine flu. First stop: a Mexican hospital, where new patients are showing up every day with what may be symptoms of the disease. Doctors are puzzled by the apparent high rate of death in Mexico while the virus causes much milder symptoms elsewhere.

China is also cautious about the outbreak. Authorities are watching for foreign visitors with symptoms, and the government has banned pork from Mexico and three American states. But eating pork doesn’t spread the disease, and as we hear from Michael Osterholm of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, closing borders could make the problem worse.

We conclude our swine flu tour with some time travel. In 1976 there was a swine flu outbreak at the U.S. Army’s Fort Dix in New Jersey. Public health officials feared a repeat of the deadly flu pandemic of 1918, so the response was quick and massive. It was also mistaken. Dr. Richard Wenzel, who diagnosed some of the first cases of the 1976 outbreak, talks about what happened.

Finally, we take a break from swine flu to look at other science news: The short history of HIV’s ancestors, an asteroid that may not have killed off the dinosaurs after all, and what dancing birds tell us about the origin of musicality.

Some Useful Links:

All you need to know about swine flu from the BBC and the CDC.

The SIV study, and more on the evolution of HIV.

More on the asteroid that may have wiped out the dinosaurs, and why some researchers think the asteroid couldn’t have caused the extinction. The Geological Society is publishing this latest study.

Video of dancing parrots from YouTube and Current Biology. Elephants can also dance and mimic sounds. The dancing animal studies are avaiable here and here.

Music:

The Meters, Ease Back

Huey Smith, Rock and Roll Pneumonia, Boogie Woogie Flu

Researchers and surgeons in London are helping the blind to see.  They have devised an artificial retina—a crude bionic eye—that operates wirelessly.

Can evolutionary principles be applied to language?  Some biologists say yes. They have studied how English is evolving and have identified what they believe are the most ancient words.

In environmental news, a group of Belgian scientists in Antarctica just opened the first polar research base powered entirely by wind and sun. We talk with project manager Alain Hubert. We also hear about dramatic changes in U.S. environmental policy. Mark Hertsgaard, who writes about the environment for The Nation, says the Obama administration has taken a new approach to renewable energy. The administration has also changed America’s position on a global treaty to combat mercury pollution.

There’s a newly discovered creature in the sea (hopefully not ingesting too much mercury). Biologists have found a very colorful fish in Indonesia. They suspect the species has been around for tens of millions of years.

You know those drawings of Tyrannosaurus rex chasing after prey, with arms hanging loosely down? It turns out this image is incorrect. In reality, the dinsosaur’s palms faced inward, toward one another, just like their descendants, birds. Scientists have long suspected this, but they now have proof. Paleontologists have found fossilized handprints and footprints made by a large meat-eating dinosaur from 198-million-year-old rocks in Utah.

Music:
The Six Million Dollar Man Theme

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