Raising the pH of the ocean to reduce carbon in the air, and robots that can landscape
First up on this week’s show, Contributing Correspondent Warren Cornwall discusses research into making oceans more alkaline as a way to increase carbon capture and slow climate change. But there are a few open questions with this strategy: Could enough material be dumped in the ocean to slow climate change? Would mining that material release a lot of carbon? And, would either the mining or ocean changes have big impacts on ecosystems or human health?
Next, we hear from Ryan Luke Johns, a recent Ph.D. graduate from ETH Zürich, about why we want robots building big rocky structures from found materials: It reduces energy costs and waste associated with construction, and it would allow us to build things remotely on Mars.
This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.
About the Science Podcast
Authors: Sarah Crespi; Warren Cornwall
Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.z66mytn
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Kurt Vonnegut’s contribution to science, and tunas and sharks as ecosystem indicators
Cities as biodiversity havens, and gene therapy for epilepsy
Space-based solar power gets serious, AI helps optimize chemistry, and a book on food extinction
Snakes living the high-altitude life, and sending computing power to the edges of the internet
Climate change threatens supercomputing, and collecting spider silks
Linking violence in Myanmar to fossil amber research, and waking up bacterial spores
Giving a lagoon personhood, measuring methane flaring, and a book about eating high on the hog
Can wolves form close bonds with humans, and termites degrade wood faster as the world warms
Testing planetary defenses against asteroids, and building a giant ‘water machine’
Why the fight against malaria has stalled in southern Africa, and how to look for signs of life on Mars
Using free-floating DNA to find soldiers’ remains, and how people contribute to indoor air chemistry
Chasing Arctic cyclones, brain coordination in REM sleep, and a book on seafood in the information age
Monitoring a nearby star’s midlife crisis, and the energetic cost of chewing
Cougars caught killing donkeys in Death Valley, and decoding the nose
Invasive grasses get help from fire, and a global map of ant diversity
Probing beyond our Solar System, sea pollinators, and a book on the future of nutrition
Possible fabrications in Alzheimer’s research, and bad news for life on Enceladus
The Webb Space Telescope’s first images, and why scratching sometimes makes you itchy
Running out of fuel for fusion, and addressing gender-based violence in India
Former pirates help study the seas, and waves in the atmosphere can drive global tsunamis
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
DNA Today: A Genetics Podcast
Museum of the Missing
Strange by Nature Podcast
Sasquatch Chronicles
Hidden Brain