How On Earth

2017 Look Back – 2018 Look Forward

For this end-of-the-year/start-of-the-year How on Earth show, we look back to 2017 with clips from some of our features from the past year: selections about tracking methane leaks, ketogenic diets, using MDMA to treat PTSD, gravitational waves, the solar eclipse, space missions, and the politicization of science. Those are just a few of the topics we covered in 2017, which also included: the continuation of the Our Microbes, Ourselves series, global warming and climate change, research about aging, mutant proteins, how humans have altered nature, future technologies, nuclear tests and the Van Allen belts, biofuels, extinctions following an asteroid impact, monorails, life expectancy in America, observing stellar occultations by objects in the distant solar system, space shields for satellites, virtual colonoscopies, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), chronic fatigue syndrome, protecting pollinators, testing our drinking water, cancer, the Long Now foundation, citizen science, fracking, and more!

Hosts: Joel Parker, Susan Moran
Producer, Engineer: Joel Parker
Additional Contributions: Beth Bennett, Shelley Schlender
Executive Producer: Susan Moran

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:19 — 34.8MB)

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Keto for Cancer, part 2

This week on How on Earth, Beth finishes the interview with Miriam Kalamian, author of Keto for Cancer. This encyclopedic volume lays out the groundwork for using a ketogenic diet to treat cancer. But, as the author points out, the diet, which starves cancer cells, should be used in conjunction with other therapies. To see the book, go to https://www.chelseagreen.com/keto-for-cancer; to see Miriam’s website go to https://www.dietarytherapies.com/

Hosts: Beth Bennett & Chip Grandits
Producer: Beth Bennett
Engineer: Chip Grandits
Additional contributions: Joel Parker
Executive Producer: Beth Bennett

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:30 — 27.9MB)

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Healthy . . . But Missing Gut Microbes

Toby Hammer says initially, he, too, was surprised about the missing microbes. — ***Toby Hammer says initially, he was surprised about the missing microbes.***

Healthy . . . But Missing Gut Microbes (Starts 3:25) Practically everyone on the planet now knows that animals have microbes in their guts. This is a new field of exploration, and top researchers emphasize that we need to learn much more before making any blanket statements about the total effect of the gut microbiome. Nevertheless, it’s become politically correct to advocate specific diets to eat, for the sake of healthy gut microbes, and to assume that all animals “need” gut microbes. That’s one reason the research from CU-Boulder evolutionary biologist Toby Hammer is so fascinating. Hammer has discovered a number of animals that probably don’t need microbes in their guts – ranging from some insects to some animals as large as, well, a panda bear. It all began with Hammer’s research into caterpillars . . .

Host: Chip Grandits
Producer: Shelley Schlender
Engineer: Chip Grandits
Executive Producer: Beth Bennett

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:06 — 23.9MB)

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Ketogenic Diet for Treatment of Cancer//BBC Science in Action

This week on How on Earth, we started speaking with Miriam Kalamian, author of the newly released Keto for Cancer. The interview starts at 11′ 30″, but unfortunately we lost the connection after only 5 minutes. You can link to her book at http://www.chelseagreen.com/keto-for-cancer and we will have her back to hear the full story! For the remainder of the show we linked to the BBC Science in Action segment on building proteins from novel DNA sequences.

Hosts: Beth Bennett and Chip Grandis
Producer: Beth Bennett
Engineer: Maeve Conran
Executive Producer: Beth Bennett

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:43 — 23.5MB)

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The Unnatural World

The Unnatural World (start time: 6:58): It’s an audacious topic for a book: the planet, and audacious individuals who are working to save — actually, to remake — human civilization and our home on Earth. David Biello is the science curator at TED and a contributing editor at Scientific American. His debut book, The Unnatural World: The Race to Remake Civilization in Earth’s Newest Age (Scribner), will be out in paperback next month. It explores how we have altered “nature” in so many ways, from burning fossil fuels and warming the oceans and atmosphere, to tearing down tropical rain forests, to killing off so many species. In this newest epoch, dubbed by many the Anthropocene, humans are not just messing things up; they are also inventing solutions, as Biello notes. Daring optimists in his book include Elon Musk and his Tesla electric cars and trucks.

Hosts: Chip Grantis, Susan Moran
Producer: Susan Moran
Engineer: Chip Grantis
Executive Producer: Beth Bennett
Additional Contributions: Joel Parker

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:42 — 24.4MB)

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Lancet Countdown on Climate Change

Lancet Countdown on Climate Change (starts 3:45) Respectable science journals no longer debate whether human activity causes climate change, or even if it can be reversed to prevent human suffering. They now scramble to figure out what will be the cost and who will pay. The bill will be payable in lost lives and livelihoods. The British Medical Journal, The Lancet has assembled an interdisciplinary team of scientists to help tally this enormous global bill. On October 30th they released their 2017 Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change. The report concludes that the delayed response to climate change over the past 25 years has already jeopardized human lives and livelihoods, and the impacts must be assessed in terms of global public health. One of the contributors to that report is local climate scientist, Max Boykoff, a fellow at CIRES in Boulder, where he directs the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research.

Hosts: Shelley Schlender and Chip Grandits
Producer: Shelley Schlender and Chip Grandits
Engineer: Shelley Schlender
Additional Contributions: Beth Bennett
Executive Producer:Beth Bennett

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:14 — 31.2MB)

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Tamed and Untamed: Essays on the Animal Kingdom

This week on How on Earth, Beth interviews Sy Montgomery and Liz Thomas, co-authors of Tamed and Untamed: Close Encounters of the Animal Kind: Some amazing stories of their experiences with animals throughout the animal kingdom, ranging from domestic animals (chickens are smarter than we thought!) to wild animals to invertebrates. the 2-3 page format of their book makes for easy reading! See their book at http://www.chelseagreen.com/tamed-and-untamed

Host: Beth Bennett
Producer: Beth Bennett
Engineer: Maeve Conran
Additional Contributions: Joel Parker
Executive Producer:Beth Bennett

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:41 — 24.4MB)

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Mutant Proteins // Future Technologies

Mutant Proteins and Protein Evolution (starts 4:42) CU School of Medicine professor David Pollock explains why he has devised a new way to identify and predict both the evolution of proteins and disease causing protein mutations. Pollock’s highly technical model uses an analogy about a physical model called the Stokes Shift to help explain the biochemical properties of how proteins change, for better or worse. Pollock’s study has just been published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution. Its title is “Sequence entropy of folding and the absolute rate of amino acid substitutions.” Additionally, he has written a “behind the paper” explanation for a more general audience to explain the concepts being explored in his ground-breaking research.

Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That’ll Improve and/or Ruin Everything (starts 15:00) Dr. Kelly Weinersmith is an adjunct assistant professor in the BioSciences Department at Rice University. She specializes in the study of parasites. But her curiosity has taken her well beyond parasites to ask all-encompassing questions, such as, what will the future will look like – the future of space research, medicine, robots, and, well, humans. These topics are all part of Weinersmith’s new funny-serious book. It’s called Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That’ll Improve and/or Ruin Everything. Weinersmith co-authored the book with her husband, Zach. They’ll be at book signings this week Denver and Boulder.

Hosts: Shelley Schlender, Susan Moran
Producer, Engineer: Shelley
Additional Contributions: Beth Bennett
Executive Producer: Beth Bennett

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:09 — 24.0MB)

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Nuclear Tests and the Van Allen Belts

In 1963, the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty, agreeing to not test nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, underwater, or in outer space. France continued atmospheric testing until 1974, and the last atmospheric test was done by China on October 16, 1980. Over 500 atmospheric nuclear tests have been performed before then, but none since.

That could soon change. North Korea has threatened to do an atmospheric nuclear test. Even if that test doesn’t lead to a chain of more dangerous events, and considering the potential health impacts of the dispersed radiation, it turns out that simply testing a missile in the atmosphere could lead to highly charged electrons that would tend to fry the electronics of Earth-orbiting satellites.

It’s a complex issue, and one that ties in with the huge magnetic fields that protect the Earth and the satellites orbiting around it. Those magnetic fields include some areas that attract highly charged particles, called the Van Allen belts. Earlier this year, we reported on a discovery from the Laboratory of Atmospheric Space Physics in Boulder, about how very low frequency radio transmissions sent to military submarines deep under that water, accidentally help satellites high above the Earth by reducing the impact of the Van Allen belts’ highly charged particles. So, could those very low frequency waves also protect us from the satellite-frying effects of an atmospheric nuclear weapons test? If things get too crazy here on Earth, could a spacecraft with a well-designed magnetic field help people escape? Those are questions that come to mind for How on Earth’s Shelley Schlender. Now here’s Shelley’s investigation about the Van Allen belts, whether cell phones would work after a nuclear explosion, and escaping to outer space.

Hosts: Joel Parker, Chip Grandits
Producer, Engineer: Joel Parker
Additional Contributions: Beth Bennett, Alejandro Soto
Executive Producer: Beth Bennett

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:04 — 25.7MB)

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Antibiotics & Your Microbiome

This week on How on Earth, Beth interviews Dr Martin Blaser of New York University who challenges the assumption that antibiotics are harmless drugs targeting only harmful pathogens. In his recent book, Missing Microbes, Blaser presents the evidence that antibiotics are causing the extinction of important bacteria in our microbiome. These microbes have co-evolved with us, so losing them puts us at risk of many of the rising diseases of our society: asthma, allergies, eczema and obesity. Check out his book: https://books.google.com/books/about/Missing_Microbes.html?id=RJucAwAAQBAJ

Host: Beth Bennett
Producer: Beth Bennett
Engineer: Maeve Conran
Executive Producer: Beth Bennett

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:24 — 23.3MB)

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