On this week’s show: Whether biofuels for planes will become a reality, mitigating climate change by working with nature, and the second installment of our book series on the science of food and agriculture
First this week, Science Staff Writer Robert F. Service talks with producer Meagan Cantwell about sustainable aviation fuel, a story included in Science’s special issue on climate change. Researchers have been able to develop this green gas from materials such as municipal garbage and corn stalks. Will it power air travel in the future?
Also in the special issue this week, Nathalie Seddon, a professor of biodiversity at the University of Oxford, chats with host Sarah Crespi about the value of working with nature to support the biodiversity and resilience of our ecosystems. Seddon emphasizes that nature-based solutions alone cannot stop climate change—technological approaches and behavioral changes will also need to be implemented.
Finally, we have the second installment of our series of author interviews on the science of food and agriculture. Host and science journalist Angela Saini talks to Jessica Hernandez, an Indigenous environmental scientist and author of Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes Through Indigenous Science. Hernandez’s book explores the failures of Western conservationism—and what we can learn about land management from Indigenous people.
This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.
[Image: USDA NCRS Texas; Music: Jeffrey Cook]
[alt: cows in a forest]
Authors: Meagan Cantwell; Robert Service, Sarah Crespi, Angela Saini
Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.add6320
About the Science Podcast: https://www.science.org/content/page/about-science-podcast
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Fecal transplants in pill form, and gut bacteria that nourish hibernating squirrels
A window into live brains, and what saliva tells babies about human relationships
Cloning for conservation, and divining dynamos on super-Earths
Setting up a permafrost observatory, and regulating transmissible vaccines
Top online stories, the state of marijuana research, and Afrofuturism
The Breakthrough of the year show, and the best of science books
Tapping fiber optic cables for science, and what really happens when oil meets water
The ethics of small COVID-19 trials, and visiting an erupting volcano
Why trees are making extra nuts this year, human genetics and viral infections, and a seminal book on racism and identity
Wildfires could threaten ozone layer, and vaccinating against tick bites
The long road to launching the James Webb Space Telescope, and genes for a longer life span
The folate debate, and rewriting the radiocarbon curve
Sleeping without a brain, tracking alien invasions, and algorithms of oppression
Soil science goes deep, and making moldable wood
The ripple effects of mass incarceration, and how much is a dog’s nose really worth?
Swarms of satellites could crowd out the stars, and the evolution of hepatitis B over 10 millennia
Whole-genome screening for newborns, and the importance of active learning for STEM
Earliest human footprints in North America, dating violins with tree rings, and the social life of DNA
Potty training cows, and sardines swimming into an ecological trap
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