Two decades after it disappeared in nature, the stunning blue Spix’s macaw will be reintroduced to its forest home, and lessons learned from Texas’s major power crisis in 2021
The Spix’s macaw was first described in scientific literature in 1819—200 years later it was basically poached to extinction in the wild. Now, collectors and conservationists are working together to reintroduce captive-bred birds into their natural habitat in northeastern Brazil. Contributing Correspondent Kai Kupferschmidt discusses the recovery of this highly coveted and endangered parrot with host Sarah Crespi.
Also this week, in an interview from the AAAS annual meeting, Meagan Cantwell talks with Varun Rai, Walt and Elspth Rostow professor in the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin, about how to prepare energy grids to weather extreme events and climate change.
This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.
[Image: PATRICK PLEUL/PICTURE ALLIANCE VIA GETTY IMAGES; Music: Jeffrey Cook]
[alt: two blue Spix’s macaws with podcast symbol overlay]
Authors: Sarah Crespi; Kai Kupferschmidt; Meagan Cantwell
Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.add3733
About the Science Podcast: https://www.science.org/content/page/about-science-podcast
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The environmental toll of war in Ukraine, and communications between mom and fetus during childbirth
The top online news from 2023, and using cough sounds to diagnose disease
The hunt for a quantum phantom, and making bitcoin legal tender
Science’s Breakthrough of the Year, and tracing poached pangolins
Farm animals show their smarts, and how honeyguide birds lead humans to hives
Basic geoengineering, and autonomous construction robots
Exascale supercomputers amp up science, finally growing dolomite in the lab, and origins of patriarchy
AI improves weather prediction, and cutting emissions from landfills
The state of Russian science, and improving implantable bioelectronics
Turning anemones into coral, and the future of psychiatric drugs
Making corn shorter, and a book on finding India’s women in science
The consequences of the world's largest dam removal, and building a quantum computer using sound waves
Mysterious objects beyond Neptune, and how wildfire pollution behaves indoors
How long can ancient DNA survive, and how much stuff do we need to escape poverty?
Visiting utopias, fighting heat death, and making mysterious ‘dark earth’
Reducing cartel violence in Mexico, and what to read and see this fall
Why cats love tuna, and powering robots with tiny explosions
Extreme ocean currents from a volcano, and why it’s taking so long to wire green energy into the U.S. grid
Reducing calculus trauma, and teaching AI to smell
The source of solar wind, hackers and salt halt research, and a book on how institutions decide gender
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