A novel coronavirus—the type of virus that causes SARS, Middle East
Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), and common cold symptoms—has killed 18 people,
and sickened more than 600. In response,
https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/china-
coronavirus/" target="new">Chinese officials have quarantined
several huge cities, where some 20 million people live. In this segment, Ira talks
with epidemiologists Saskia Popescu and Ian Lipkin about what we know about
the virus, how it appears to spread, and whether efforts to contain it are
effective—or ethical.
* * *
Do you know where your drinking water comes from? For more than 40 million
people in the Great Lakes Basin, the answer is the abundant waters of Lake
Michigan, Ontario, Erie, Huron, or Superior.
This winter, the Science Friday Book Club has been reading Dan Egan’s
The
Death And Life of the Great Lakes , and unpacking the drastic ecological
changes facing these bodies of water in the last century and beyond. But what
about the changes to the water that might affect people who drink it? And does
everyone who lives on the lakes actually have equal access? Great Lakes Now
reporter Gary Wilson
https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/great-lakes-clean-drinking-
water/" target="new">unpacks some of the threats to clean drinking water
faced by the region’s residents, from Flint’s lead pipes to Lake Erie’s algae
blooms to shutoffs for those who can’t afford to
pay.
And Kristi Pullen Fedinick of the Natural Resources Defense Council explains a
recent report that connected disproportionate levels of drinking water
contamination to communities that are poorer or dominated by people of
color—all over the country.
Finally, Science Diction host Johanna Mayer explains the origins of the word
“mercury,” another pollutant that has plagued the Great Lakes.
* * *
This week business leaders, celebrities, and government officials from around
the world met in Davos, Switzerland—and one of the topics was trees. The
Trillion Tree campaign, a collaboration between several of the world’s largest
environmental organizations, wants to combat global deforestation around the
world But at the same time, work published in the journal
Global Change
Biology indicates that tree planting can lead to unintended consequences.
The researchers found that
increased levels of forest can reduce the
available water in nearby rivers dramatically, cutting river flow by as much
as 23% after five years and 38% after 25
years. The effect of
trees on river flow is smaller in drier years than wetter ones. The type of
soil conditions also have an effect—trees planted on healthy grassland have a
larger impact on river flow than forests on former degraded agricultural land.
David Coomes, Director of the University of Cambridge Conservation Research
Institute and one of the authors of the paper, joins Ira to talk about the
pros and cons of reforestation.
Read more
A novel coronavirus—the type of virus that causes SARS, Middle East
Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), and common cold symptoms—has killed 18 people,
and sickened more than 600. In response,
https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/china-
coronavirus/" target="new">Chinese officials have quarantined
several huge cities, where some 20 million people live. In this segment, Ira talks
with epidemiologists Saskia Popescu and Ian Lipkin about what we know about
the virus, how it appears to spread, and whether efforts to contain it are
effective—or ethical.
* * *
Do you know where your drinking water comes from? For more than 40 million
people in the Great Lakes Basin, the answer is the abundant waters of Lake
Michigan, Ontario, Erie, Huron, or Superior.
This winter, the Science Friday Book Club has been reading Dan Egan’s
The
Death And Life of the Great Lakes , and unpacking the drastic ecological
changes facing these bodies of water in the last century and beyond. But what
about the changes to the water that might affect people who drink it? And does
everyone who lives on the lakes actually have equal access? Great Lakes Now
reporter Gary Wilson
https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/great-lakes-clean-drinking-
water/" target="new">unpacks some of the threats to clean drinking water
faced by the region’s residents, from Flint’s lead pipes to Lake Erie’s algae
blooms to shutoffs for those who can’t afford to
pay.
And Kristi Pullen Fedinick of the Natural Resources Defense Council explains a
recent report that connected disproportionate levels of drinking water
contamination to communities that are poorer or dominated by people of
color—all over the country.
Finally, Science Diction host Johanna Mayer explains the origins of the word
“mercury,” another pollutant that has plagued the Great Lakes.
* * *
This week business leaders, celebrities, and government officials from around
the world met in Davos, Switzerland—and one of the topics was trees. The
Trillion Tree campaign, a collaboration between several of the world’s largest
environmental organizations, wants to combat global deforestation around the
world But at the same time, work published in the journal
Global Change
Biology indicates that tree planting can lead to unintended consequences.
The researchers found that
increased levels of forest can reduce the
available water in nearby rivers dramatically, cutting river flow by as much
as 23% after five years and 38% after 25
years. The effect of
trees on river flow is smaller in drier years than wetter ones. The type of
soil conditions also have an effect—trees planted on healthy grassland have a
larger impact on river flow than forests on former degraded agricultural land.
David Coomes, Director of the University of Cambridge Conservation Research
Institute and one of the authors of the paper, joins Ira to talk about the
pros and cons of reforestation.
Read less