The Fellowship of the Tree Rings

At a tree ring conference in the relatively treeless city of Tucson, Arizona, three scientists walk into a bar. The trio gets to talking, trying to explain a mysterious set of core samples from the Florida Keys. At some point, they come up with a harebrained idea: put the tree rings next to a seemingly unrelated dataset. Once they do, they notice something that no one has ever noticed before, a force of nature that helped shape modern human history and that is eerily similar to what’s happening on our planet right now. With help from pirates, astronomers and an 80-year-old bartender, this episode will change the way you look at the sun. (Warning: Do not look at the sun.) 

Special thanks to Scott St George, Nathaniel Millett, Michael Charles Stambaugh, Justin Maxwell, Clay Tucker, Willem Klooster, Kevin Anchukaitis

EPISODE CREDITS

Reported by - Latif Nasser
with help from - Ekedi Fausther-Keeys and Maria Paz Gutierrez
Produced by - Maria Paz Gutierrez and Pat Walters
with help from - Ekedi Fausther-Keeys and Sachi Mulkey
Original music and sound design contributed by - Dylan Keefe
with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloom and Arianne Wack
Fact-checking by - Natalie Middleton
and Edited by  - Pat Walters

CITATIONS:

Books: 

Tree Story (https://zpr.io/ULX279uzgW9q) by Valerie Trouet
Sweetness and Power (https://zpr.io/cUEGqGGWMSaQ) by Sidney Mintz

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Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.