058: Museum Wars, Snow Leopards, Ig Nobel Awards, and Environmental Justice

 

From the Mail Bag

Several listeners gave us props for our return and a great show last week. Many thanks to those listeners. You'll receive your bitcoin payments when Donald Trump releases his tax returns. You didn't read the fine print, did you?

Science News with Nevena Hristozova and Sophie McManus

These are summaries of our discussions on the podcast. For the full conversation please listen to this episode of the Blue Streak Science Podcast

Eulogy for Cassini
Nevena reflects on the great achievements by the teams who made the Cassini mission one of humankind's greatest leaps forward into the universe. LA Times - "OK. Let's do it!"

Museum Wars
Last week a Twitter user sparked a social media battle between two of London's greatest repositories of science, the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum. Sophie and JD make a silly attempt to re-create the battle of the nerds.

Snow Leopards Taken Off Endangered Species List
Is this good news for this beautiful ghostly cat of the south Asian highlands? Or are we putting this imperiled species in even greater danger?

The 2017 Ig Nobel Awards
The Peace Prize as given to a Swiss team who discovered that taking up the didgeridoo reduces snoring (perhaps by reducing sleeping?). Another research team found that contact with a live crocodile affects a person's willingness to gamble. They were awarded the Economics Prize. Of course they were.

Listen to the episode as Sophie gives you the full story of this most prestigious of science awards.

The Climate Lounge with Tom Di Liberto

Hurricanes, Climate, and Environmental Justice

As the world watches aghast as yet more hurricanes ravage the Caribbean, Tom Di Liberto talks about an issue that has been neglected for far too long. 

Environmental inequality and environmental justice.

From Houston to Barbuda low-income communities and communities of color have taken the brunt of these climate change fueled storms, and receive relatively little aid to put their lives back together.

My favorite site for diving deep into climate science is the one operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

It’s called climate.gov.

Our very own Tom Di Liberto writes on the blog there and you can find his posts at climate.gov/tom-di-liberto

To make it easier just visit the Blue Streak Science website and we’ll put a link to it in the show notes for this episode

That’s at bluestreakscience.com/58

Pub Quiz

The score stands at Sophie and Nevena tied for the lead with 7, and Tom trailing with 4. Will our climatologist extraordinaire surge ahead like high tide in a hurricane?

Join us and find out as we imbibe virtual pints of beer and actual bouts of fun!

In Closing

Tell your friends about Blue Streak Science. Tell your enemies. Tell your frenemies! And whatever you do, follow the science!

The Blue Streak Science Podcast comes to you from San Francisco; Cambridge; Sydney; Washington; and Brussels.