Baby harp seal

[player] Download MP3

This week: We present you with an all-animal podcast. We have stories about seals in Canada, crocs in Cambodia, Tasmanian devils in Australia, and jaguars in Panama.

Crocs at Risk: The Siamese crocodile was once a key part of Southeast Asia’s wetland ecosystems. Today, it is close to extinction. A new project in Cambodia is trying to bring them back. (You can see researchers wrestling Siamese crocs in this video from the BBC.)

Report: By the World’s Mary Kay Magistad in Cambodia.

Jaguar Corridors: National parks around the world provide important refuge for wildlife, but parks rarely provide enough space to ensure the survival of an entire species. This is especially true for large animals like jaguars. In Central America, scientists are trying to protect jaguars by identifying corridors the cats use to roam from park to park.

Report: By Julia Kumari Drapkin in Panama.

Tasmanian Devils in Trouble: The Tasmanian devil, known to many as a character in Bugs Bunny cartoons, is actually the world’s largest carnivorous marsupial.  Already an endangered species, the creatures are now threatened by a killer disease. (For more on why Australia’s giant kangaroo, marsupial lion, and other megafauna went extinct about 50,000 years ago, try these links about overhunting, climate change, and fires.)
Report: By Jake Warga in Tasmania.

Harp Seals on the Ice: Millions of harp seals live in the Magdalen Islands in the Gulf of St Lawrence, off the coast of Quebec, Canada. They’re being affected by global warming, and they’re still being hunted.
Report: By The World’s Jeb Sharp in Quebec.

Music:
Every Beat of My Heart, by Booker T. and the MG’s

This week we focus on malaria, which sickens hundreds of millions of people a year, mostly in developing countries in Africa and Asia. The disease is caused by a parasite that is spread by mosquitoes. The World Health Organization says a key anti-malaria drug may be losing its power. We travel to Cambodia, where the malaria parasite seems to be developing resistance to the drug.

We also have a malaria story from the United States, which eradicated the disease in the 1940s. We take a historical look at how the U.S. accomplished that feat. The story originally ran as part of a fantastic series in 2005.

We check in on the Mosquito Barcode Initiative. It is trying to catalogue the DNA of every mosquito species in the world. Researcher Yvonne-Marie Linton is leading the project. It’s a rough job—often, researchers catch the mosquitoes by using themselves as bait.

In astronomy news, last October scientists spotted an asteroid hurtling through space on a collision course with earth. It wasn’t big enough to cause mass extinction, but it offered a rare opportunity for scientists. Peter Jenniskens, an astronomer at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California, tells us about his effort to recover pieces of the meteoroid from Sudan.

For years there’s been a debate over which animal is the closest living relative to whales. The top two contestants have been hippos and pigs. New research out this week from the University of Calgary and Georgia Southern University gives the edge to hippos. This rebuts a study of prehistoric bones done two years ago by another group of researchers. The latest work focused on DNA.

Music:
Ros Serey Sothea, I’m Sixteen

This week, psychologist David Matsumoto explains why there are fewer smiles in Russia or Korea than in the U.S.—and why many people think Americans are a bunch of cheerful dopes. Take this test: Can you tell the real smiles from the fake?

In Panama, two American ecologists, Joe Wright and Bill Laurance, are having a debate: When it comes to preserving tropical ecosystems, are recent forests a good substitute for old-growth forests?

Also from Panama, we have a story about the HPV vaccine, which protects against cervical cancer. Panama recently started offering the shots free to girls, but the government has failed to mention a basic fact: the vaccine protects against a sexually transmitted disease. In the U.S., the vaccine has been controversial, with political conservatives saying that it encourages teen sexual activity. Panama has sidestepped that issue by referring to the vaccine as a “cancer” vaccine.

In Kenya and Uganda, there’s also a vaccine drive—this one against polio. Chris Maher of the World Health Organization hopes the effort will suppress the outbreak.

And climate researcher Glen Peters says the West plays a key role in China’s booming greenhouse gas emissions.