Photo courtesy of Wildxplorer

This Week: A Phase 3 trial of a new malaria vaccine shows that it can halve the risk of disease. We explore whether that is significant development for controlling malaria in the future. The magnificent trees that line France’s ancient Canal du Midi are now dying. A story about waters wars in a different part of Australia. (Listen to Part I of Australia’s Water Wars in Podcast 135.)

Malaria Vaccine Trial Raises Hopes: The pharmaceutical company Glaxo SmithKline (GSK) published the results of a large scale field trial of a malaria vaccine. The results show that the vaccine can halve the risk of disease. Now, that may not seem like a big deal, (most other vaccines have an efficiency of 90% and above) but experts are hailing this as significant progress. It is also the first vaccine for a parasitic disease to be so effective. In this episode, we hear more about the vaccine from a GSK representative. Then, we get some perspective from infectious disease expert Bill Foege, who you heard in Podcast no. 125.
Read the study about the malaria vaccine trial here.
More about the vaccine on the BBC’s website.

The Dying Trees of France’s Canal du Midi:The banks along France’s Canal du Midi, are lined with trees so majestic that UNESCO called them “a work of art.” Sadly, those trees are dying. The World’s Gerry Hadden brings us this story.

Australia’s Water Wars Part II: Farmers in the great Australian Outback have never had much access to water. Now ranchers and environmentalists in the region have formed an unlikely alliance to avoid the water wars. The World’s Jason Margolis brings us this story.
Read more about Jason’s story here.

Photo credit: Jessica Cooney/Leslie Van Gelder

This Week: I posted this week’s podcast from Gothenburg, Sweden. However, the stories in this episode are from Canada and France. The one from Canada is about a public health expert who is helping his home town—Victoria, British Columbia—measure and promote happiness as public policy. He’s also the guest in our Science Forum discussion. You can stop by with your own thoughts here. And a French cave has revealed prehistoric finger drawings by children.

Measuring and Promoting Happiness: As countries around the world try to figure out ways to boost their economies, some countries and cities are looking beyond economic growth as a measure of societal progress. They’re trying to promote happiness and overall well being. One of the scientists pioneering that effort is Michael Pennock. He’s a public health expert in Victoria, British Columbia. In 2006, Pennock helped Bhutan develop its Gross National Happiness Index. He has since developed a survey to measure happiness in his home town. The survey is being used to develop a happiness index not just in Victoria, but also in other cities around the world. Listen to my story about Pennock’s work and join our online conversation with him in our latest Science Forum.

Prehistoric Cave Art by Kids: Archaeologists have long been studying the paintings and drawings on the walls of a famous cave complex in France. The stone age art dates back to the Paleolithic Age. Many of the drawings represent woolly mammoths. In fact the place is nicknamed the “Cave of a Hundred Mammoths.” Lately, researchers have been focusing on some finger drawings. They think children as young as three, four or five did some of the artwork. So, part of the cave complex may have served as a kind of prehistoric nursery where kids were encouraged to develop their creative skills in cave art – 13,000 years ago. The World’s Marco Werman spoke with Jessica Cooney at the University of Cambridge, which hosted a conference on the archaeology of childhood.

This week: It’s the 100th episode of The World Science Podcast!  We re-trace our steps since the beginning of the podcast and give you updates on stories we’ve covered before. You’ll hear about click languages, champagne bubbles and how the blind can see with sound. We’ll also give you a podcast-exclusive preview of stories to come later this year.  And don’t forget to stop by our online conversation about magic and the human mind with Macknik and Martinez-Conde in our  Science Forum.

Updates on Elsa’s Favorite Stories:

• Click Languages: In July, 2009, we brought you a story about an endangered click language from Africa. Elsa caught up with researcher Amanda Miller for an update. She has now documented a new kind of click, called a retroflex click, in a dialect of the !Xung language. It’s the most difficult click to execute, and is made by touching the bottom of the tongue to the roof of the mouth. Miller and her colleagues believe it is also the most ancestral click, which has morphed into other clicks in different dialects.
  Listen to the old story in Podcast no. 24.
  Amanda Miller’s website.
  Video tutorial for pronouncing the clicks in Khoekhoegowab, another click language.
• Champagne Bubbles: In podcasts 34 and 80, we brought you news about champagne bubbles and how best to pour your champagne so you don’t ruin the drink’s flavor. Elsa checked in with the authors of the studies and learned that they are now studying what happens to champagne as it ages.
  Listen to the original stories in podcasts 34 and 80.
  More on champagne bubbles in American Scientist.
  The researchers’ website (in French).
  The study on aged champagne.
  A champagne experiment in The World newsroom. Check out the results in this video!
  
• You Can’t Get Drunk Through Your Feet: Physicians in Denmark have disproved the Danish urban myth that you can get drunk by soaking your feet in a tub of vodka. The doctors tested the folklore by sticking their own feet in a bowl of “very cheap vodka,” says study author Peter Lommer Kristensen. And the British Medical Journal published their results in their Christmas 2010 issue.
  The study.
• Seeing With Sound: With a software program that converts images to sounds, blind people can navigate and even “see.” After just several hours of training, their brains begin to send the information from their ears to the visual cortex for interpretation.
  Listen to the original story in podcast 81.
  The inventor’s website. (To make and hear your own line drawings, click on the “demo” button at the very bottom of the page.)
  See and hear the rest of the walk around the yard.
  Check this NPR story for a completely different reason to convert information into sounds.
• Scary Sex for Water Striders: When it’s time to mate, some male water striders climb on top of the females and start tapping the surface of the water. This behavior attracts predators from below–the threat of which intimidates females into mating more quickly to stop the tapping.
  Listen to the original story in podcast 80.
  The study.
  Some crickets have taken the opposite route: The risk of being eaten has made males completely mute.
  More on how predators affect mating signals in other animals (a weighty pdf from the Quarterly Review of Biology).

Strawberry and Cacao Genomes Sequenced: Scientists have just sequenced the genomes of the cacao and strawberry plants. The World’s science and health editor David Baron tells us how the sequences could help scientists, crop breeders and farmers.
Guest: David Baron

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:  You’ll hear about the challenges faced by Arab women scientists. We talk about the limits of the international treaty to save endangered species. And Elsa brings some exciting, yet moldy, news. (Photo: Students Samah Majadla (left) and Sarah Tulimat. Photo by Katy Clark originally accompanied this story.)

Arab Women in Science: In the past year, the U.S. and the Arab Science and Technology Foundation have started several initiatives to train and mentor women scientists in Arab countries. The programs are aimed at increasing the number of women in science- and technology-related fields. I spoke with an Egyptian electrical engineer, Ghada Amer, about the challenges she faced in her career. She heads the Arab Women in Science & Technology program.
Guest: Ghada Amer
Arab Women in Science & Technology.
US women’s colleges appeal to Muslims.

Debating the Limits of Endangered Species Treaty: The only international treaty for protecting endangered species has recently revealed its limits. Critics say the treaty has flaws, but supporters argue it’s still a vital tool in the battle against extinction.
Report by: Gerry Hadden
Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
Read a transcript of the story.
“Tuna’s End,” an article from the New York Times Magazine.

Elsa’s Favorite Stories:

• French Cave Art: The prehistoric artwork in Lascaux cave was discovered in 1940. Since then it has been threatened with degradation due to condensation, lichens, algae, and fungi that have swept the cavern in the wake of modern exploration and management. A few years ago, the United Nations considered listing the cave as an endangered World Heritage Site–but France has appointed a new committee of scientists to solve the cave’s microbe problems.
  Virtual tour of Lascaux.
  Nature News coverage.
  Time magazine coverage (2006).
• Fungi Generate Wind: When it’s time to reproduce, the fungus Sclerotinia sclerotiorum ejects its spores at about 20 miles per hour. But that speed is insufficient to carry the spores far – individual spores would go about one tenth of an inch before being stopped by air resistance. But the fungus overcomes that hurdle by throwing its spores out in a rapid wave across the fungal fruiting body, causing thousands of spores to be released almost simultaneously. That’s enough to generate a small wind that carries spores 20 to 30 times farther than any one of them could go alone. The extra distance helps them pick up atmospheric air currents and reach their plant hosts.
  The study.
  

This week: We’re going to Lebanon for a story on threatened cedar trees. Then to Sweden and India to learn about a greenhouse pollutant that’s been making headlines lately – black carbon. This month seems to be one of astronomical discoveries – scientists have discovered a new magnetar. Also, Elsa is back from vacation and brings us news about birds and insect and tips on pouring Champagne. And we’re still talking online about volunteer computing projects in our Science Forum discussion. So please stop by with your comments and questions.

Saving Lebanon’s Legendary Cedars: Cedars have been an important part of life in Lebanon for at least 8,000 years, but they’re vanishing from the landscape. Ari Daniel Shapiro reports on efforts to preserve Lebanon’s legendary cedar trees.
Report by: Ari Daniel Shapiro
See a slide show of Ari’s trip to see Lebanon’s Cedars.

Elsa’s Favorite Science Stories:

• More on Urban Bird Songs: Some male songbirds sing higher-pitched tunes in the noisy city environment than in the quiet countryside. Researchers thought that the new pitch might help the songs to be heard over the urban racket. But two new studies suggest that high-pitched songs don’t help city birds very much after all.
  There are two new studies, here and here.
  Listen to our recent story about finch songs in Mexico city.
  More on urban birdsong from the BBC.
• Water Striders Coerce Females to Mate: Talk about pressuring a girl for sex! Male water striders (Gerris gracilicornis) climb on a female’s back and start tapping the water to draw in hungry predators. They don’t stop tapping until the female, under threat of death, consents to mate.
  The study.
  Here’s a video that shows what happens when the female doesn’t consent quickly enough.
  
• Romanians Make Butterfly DNA Library: Romania is now the first country to have barcoded its entire butterfly fauna–all 180 species. The project fits in with a global effort to generate DNA barcodes for every plant and animal. The barcodes provide an easy way to identify species for biodiversity monitoring, regulatory enforcement, and a host of other uses.
  The study.
  What is DNA barcoding?
  More about the international barcode of life project.
  Barcoding bushmeat.
• The Science of Pouring Champagne: Pouring Champagne straight into the bottom of the flute may look festive and fizzy, but it flattens the drink and could change its flavor. For a more sparkling toast, pour the bubbly down the side of the glass like beer. That’s the verdict of a new study, which shows that the traditional pour can rob Champagne of more than a quarter of its carbonation.
  The study.
  Here’s our previous story about Champagne bubbles (in which Elsa manages to spill alcohol all over her office).
  The chemistry of Champagne.
  More about Champagne bubbles.

Black Carbon from Cook Stoves: The leading pollutant blamed for climate change is carbon dioxide, but a new study says another form of carbon ranks a close second. So-called black carbon is a kind of soot produced by diesel engines, power plants, and the burning of wood. A major source of black carbon is cook stoves in the developing world, and scientists are now trying to clean those stoves up.
Report by: Rhitu Chatterjee
See a slide show of my pictures from rural India.
Controlling Soot Emissions Can Help Slow Climate Change, Wired
Black Carbon’s grey areas, by the Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media.
Black carbon and atmospheric warming, a recent paper by V. Ramanathan.
More about Ramanathan’s latest black carbon studies.

New Magnetar Discovered: Scientists have discovered a rare magnetic star, or magnetar. It’s about 16,000 light years away in a star cluster called Westerlund 1, in the Ara constellation. Magnetars, a type of neutron star, form when stars collapse following a supernova explosion. This magnetar was formed from a star 40 times the size the Sun. Stars that big typically form black holes. The new discovery has led scientists to re-evaluate their theories about what happens to stars when they die.
Read more on the BBC’s website.
More about the new discovery here.

Fly through the Westerland 1 star cluster to see an artist’s illustration of the newly found magnetar. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada.
Scientists recently discovered another kind of neutron star last week – a pulsar. Check out that story in last week’s podcast.

This week: In this week’s podcast you’ll hear how Egyptians are coping with environmental threats to the Nile Delta.  We have two stories on bears — one about humming bears (no, I’m not talking about Winnie the Pooh), the other about a shortage of females among French brown bears.  And then some potentially good — and bad — news about carbon nanotubes. Also: plastic in the diet of albatrosses, a Halloween story about a sea monster from millions of years ago, and a surprise visitor… in a biocontainment suit.

Nile Delta and Rising Seas: A few weeks ago, you heard how farmers in Bangladesh are fighting against rising seas. This week, we’ll take you to Egypt’s Nile Delta — one of the three areas on Earth most vulnerable to rising seas.  You’ll hear what some Egyptians are doing to prepare for the dramatic changes to come.
Report: By Christian Fraser in Egypt.
Egypt’s Ministry of Environmental Affairs
BBC story on threatened deltas around the world
Maps showing projected effects of rising sea levels in the Nile Delta region

Humming Black Bears: It turns out that Winnie the Pooh (the fictitious creation of British author A. A. Milne) isn’t the only bear that hums. An American researcher has discovered real humming bears. The researcher also claims — and I find this hard to believe — that real bears don’t like honey.
Guest: Lynn Rogers
BBC story, includes three videos of black bears
Is your curiosity about bears piqued? Find out more on them here.

Elsa’s Favorite Science Stories:

• French Brown Bears: France’s brown bear population is teetering on the verge of extinction, and a new study suggests one reason: there aren’t enough females to mate with the male bears. Should France import female bears to help the males — and the species?
  The study
  Story from the Telegraph on the French bear controversy
  World Wildlife Fund page on human-wildlife conflict
• Plastic-Eating Albatrosses:You’ve already heard about the giant patch of plastic accumulating in the Pacific. You might also have heard that sea birds are dying from eating the plastic. Now we learn that some Laysan albatrosses are eating diets especially rich in plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
  The study
  Altered Oceans Series from LA Times
  Video showing the assorted plastic junk that killed one albatross chick.
  By Paulo Maurin, University of Hawaii with narration by Cynthia Vanderlip, Hawaii Division of Forestry and Wildlife.
  
• Nanotubes in Tomatoes and Mouse Lungs: You’d expect to find nanotechnology in your iPod or computer, but what about nanotubes in tomatoes? Scientists have found that carbon nanotubes help tomato seeds germinate and grow faster. Meanwhile, another group of researchers has this cautionary note — not only do carbon nanotubes look like asbestos, they can also accumulate in the lining of mouse lungs.
  The tomato study
  The lung study
  Collection of nano stories from Scientific American

A Jurassic Sea Monster: It was gigantic, about the size of a sperm whale, and it was strong enough to bite your car in half and swallow you whole. It’s called a pliosaur, and scientists have just uncovered an intact skull along the coast of England.
Guest: Richard Forrest
BBC story about the pliosaur, includes a video of the fossil find
More on pliosaurs and other ocean-faring reptiles

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.

When you have an item on a pigeon named Winston (right) who is faster than the Internet (OK, the South African Internet), then you’re hard pressed to even care about the rest of the podcast. That’s why I put Winston at the end. That story is like the banana cream pie you get at the end of the meal. But first, you have to eat your broccoli. Luckily, we here at WTP believe in dressing up the broccoli in a delicious sauce that makes it go down a bit easier. We start with two items on trains. With the US Congress’ recent approval of eight million dollars in stimulus money for the creation of a high-speed rail network in the United States, we thought we’d look at international examples that may, or may not, prove to be models for America. We hear a report from Kathy Schalch, who looks at Europe’s high-speed rail. Hearing that piece jogged my memory of a report I put on WTP a couple of years ago. It was about Cambodia’s Bamboo Railway. So, I thought I’d dig out a classic from the WTP archives, just to help you keep the very notion of “high-speed rail” in perspective. Oh, and yes, there’s video!

We also have an update on a story we’ve been following for quite a while now: the mining of so-called “conflict minerals” in Congo. It’s not often a reporter gets to go into Congo to assess the situation. But the BBC’s Karen Allen did manage to do an incredible story on how the mining of coltan and cassiterite (important for your mobile phones!) is affecting local populations in Congo. In slightly that same vein, we also hear about how, and why, the push for hybrid vehicle technology might create a similar run on minerals in other parts of the world.

Winston aside, though, my favorite story from this week’s podcast is Briton Andy Pag and his Bio-Truck. Great stuff.

Remember, you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook and FriendFeed.

This week’s technology podcast begins with a tribute to Les Paul, who was not only a master guitarist, but a master craftsman. He’s the man who did the pioneering work behind the single-body electric guitar. If you’re a fan of rock-n-roll, you’d be hard pressed to think of a more important piece of technology. Mr. Paul, who died this week at the age of 94, also had a role to play in many other technological innovations that shaped the sound of the music we love today. Where would we be without multi-tracking, people?

The podcast rolls on with a look at some French builders who are getting positively medieval in their quest to build, from scratch, a castle. That’s right. They’re using only 13th century tools, technologies and techniques to bring to life the Guedelon Chateau in Burgundy, France. The World’s Gerry Hadden reports, and takes pictures! Seriously, follow that link and check out the squirrel cage. Not to be missed.

From old school, to new school, we then hear about Bertrand Piccard’s dream — which is called Solar Impulse. In short, he and his associates want to build a solar-powered airplane. And not just any solar-powered airplane, but rather one that can fly, non-stop, around the world. Thanks to the BBC’s Jonathan Fildes for sending in that interview from the recent TED conference in Oxford, England.

Then, a short item on an interesting little project unveiled in London this week: the driverless car…er, pod. Or something. They certainly can’t make getting into or out of Heathrow Airport any worse, right?

And we end the show with yet more proof that the show is as much yours as mine. Longtime WTP fan Vicente Montelongo wrote in to tell me about an interesting little art/technology/exercise project he and his buddies in San Francisco are doing. Call it GPS Art, or Geo-spatial drawing, or…something. They map out a route through the streets, then have their GPS app track them as they run the route on their bikes. The result? Well, to date, a lot of great geo-spatial pieces of art that look exceedingly like beloved Atari characters. Check it.

Also, see this article in the New York Times.

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