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This week: The World’s Technology Correspondent Clark Boyd is back, with five stories about environmental change. Climate scientists show that, if it weren’t for greenhouse gases, the Arctic would be getting colder rather than warmer. Senegal struggles to maintain its once bountiful fish stocks. Indonesian communities nurture mangroves. Two scientists check in from research vessels–one in a slurry of swirling garbage, one off the shore of a recovering volcanic island. Plus, neuroscientists follow up on China’s Sichuan earthquake, and geologists expose a fake moon rock.

Elsa’s favorite science stories:

• Earthquake Trauma: Neuroscientists have detected the earliest known signs of psychological trauma in the brain. Researchers examined survivors of China’s 2008 Sichuan earthquake just a few weeks after the disaster. (The study.)

• Fake Moon Rock: Under a geologist’s microscope, a Dutch museum’s prized “moon rock” turns out to be common petrified wood. (Here’s a news story. We got the scientific details from geologist Frank Beunk.)

Arctic Ice: A new study provides the most detailed record yet of past Arctic temperatures–and confirms that recent warming is linked to greenhouse gases. Researchers used lake sediments, ice cores, and tree rings to reconstruct 2,000 years of Arctic temperatures. Only in the 1990′s did the enhanced greenhouse effect reverse a long-term cooling trend caused by a wobble in Earth’s orbit.
Report: By The World’s Katy Clark.

Senegalese Fisheries: In the 1970’s, thousands of Senegalese workers turned from mining and farming to fishing, and large foreign trawlers began to ply the same waters. Decades later, the fish are in trouble. The Senegalese government and local councils are now struggling to cut back on fishing and preserve what’s left of their marine resources.
Report: By Jori Lewis in Senegal. (See photographs here.)

Restoring Mangroves: In the past three decades, Indonesia has cleared more than half its mangroves for charcoal, firewood, and fish or shrimp farms. The destruction of these coastal habitats left the Asian nation more vulnerable to damage from the deadly 2004 tsunami. Now Indonesia is working to restore its mangrove forests.
Report: By Ari Daniel Shapiro in Indonesia. (See photos here.)

Life after Eruption: Alaska’s volcanic island Kasatochi erupted last year, burying the island in a thick layer of ash. It seemed that nothing could survive the scorching onslaught, but researchers have found some surprises as they document the gradual rebirth of Kasatochi’s ecosystem.
Guest: Entomologist Derek Sikes, University of Alaska’s Museum of the North.

Pacific Plastic: Garbage from the west coast of North America and the east coast of Asia ends up swirling in a giant, slow whirlpool known as the North Pacific Gyre. Scientists on a research ship near the gyre are trying to understand how marine organisms—from bacteria to whales—are interacting with the vast slurry of disintegrating plastic.
Guest: Oceanographer Miriam Goldstein, Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

This week: The simian version of HIV is more lethal than scientists knew. The 40th anniversary of the first moon landing, from a Russian perspective. A Chinese take on the solar eclipse. Plus: a Neanderthal murder mystery, tracking a huge dust storm as it travels the globe, and a close analysis of a click language.

Chimp AIDS: Scientists believe that the human AIDS virus, HIV, evolved from a virus called SIV, which infects monkeys and chimpanzees. Researchers had thought that SIV was relatively harmless, but a new study has found that SIV-infected chimpanzees in Tanzania are dying of an AIDS-like illness. The finding could change approaches to AIDS treatment in people.

Guest: Dr. Beatrice Hahn of the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Moon Landing: For almost two decades, the U.S. and the Soviet Union raced to be the first to the moon. The race obsessed both countries, and cost tens of billions of dollars (and rubles). Russians therefore have a different perspective than Americans on this 40th anniversary of the first lunar landing.
Report: By Jessica Golloher in Moscow.
Guest: Roald Sagdeev, former director of the Soviet Space Institute.

Solar Eclipse: The longest total solar eclipse of the 21st Century took place this week in Asia. It lasted more than six minutes. In China, the eclipse held deep cultural meaning.

Report: By Bill Marcus in Shanghai.

Elsa’s favorite science stories of the week:

• Scientists implicate an anatomically modern human in a Neanderthal murder attempt. (The study.) Here’s that novel we mentioned on the podcast.
• Researchers track a Chinese dust cloud as it circles the globe. (The study.)
• Linguists unpack the multiplicity of click consonants in an endangered language, N|uu. (The study and the press release.) At this site, you can hear more N|uu words, recorded by linguist Amanda Miller and colleagues.

Music:

• Moonwalk, by Pee Wee Ellis
• Total Eclipse of the Heart, by Bonnie Tyler