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Soundings |
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| A look into how the natural world works, and how we interact with it. | ||||||||||||||
| With Alan Stahler | Every other Tuesday at 12:00 PM | |||||||||||||
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If you'd like to get in touch, drop me a line at soundings @ kvmr.org |
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Soundings, Ore-Forming Processes 
I spoke recently with Prof Laurence Robb of the University of Witwatersrand about ore-forming processes. Granite is the salt-and-pepper rock that's common here in the foothills. Pick up a chunk and you’re holding a rock with some gold in it … though not enough gold to make it worth the effort to get it out. To make it worthwhile to pull metal out of rock, it's first got to be concentrated, by natural processes, into ore. Click on the links to hear the conversation, or learn more about his book. |
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Dreamwalk: Upload, 11 September 2008: Drilling in the Arctic Following up our talk on Dreamwalk with Evon Peter (former chief, Neetsaii Gwich'in, Arctic Village, Alaska), you might want to contact congress to express your feelings about drilling in the Arctic, and our countyr's energy policy in general. Click here for more information and |
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Soundings, 9 September 2008: Bioelectromagnetics 
Recently I spoke with Prof. Henry Lai, of the Bioelectromagnetics Research Lab of the University of Washington, about a report issued by the National Research Council of the Natianl Academy of Sciences: "Identification of Research Needs Relating to Potential Biological or Adverse Health Effects of Wireless Communication" A summary of the workshop on what we don't know about wireless radiation, convened by a committee of the National Academy of Sciences can be found on-line by clicking on the link below. |
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Soundings, 12 August 2008: The American West at Risk 
Tuesday, Aug. 12th Alan spoke with Howard G. Wilshire, Jane E. Nielson and Richard W. Hazlett, the geologist-authors of The American West at Risk: Science, Myths, and Politics of Land Abuse and Recovery – an encyclopedic, scientific look at the challenges to maintaining – or restoring – the ecological health of the western part of our country. |
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California Burning, 6 July 2008: Satellite Image  
Dozens of uncontained fires continued to burn in California in the first week of July 2008. The fires, most of them started by an intense lightning storm in the first week of summer, were threatening residences, cultural resources, and utility infrastructure, such as power lines. This image of the state was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite on July 6, 2008. Places where MODIS detected active fires are marked in red. Click here for a larger image of California Burning, Click here for a larger image of California Burning, |
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Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, Bekoff is the co-founder, with Jane Goodall, of the organization Ethologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (ethology is the study of animal behavior). |
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| Soundings' Table of Contents | ||||||||||||||
| Recent Guests | Past Programs | |||||||||||||
| Helpful Links | Getting Involved | |||||||||||||
| Astronomy | Chemistry | |||||||||||||
| Climate | Energy | |||||||||||||
| Environment | Geology | |||||||||||||
| Life Sciences | Physics | |||||||||||||
| Skywatch | Space Technology | |||||||||||||
| Recent Guests | ||||||||||||||
Banderas de Esperanza - Flags of Hope Banderas de Esperanza - Flags of Hope, an organization that runs a children's shelter and aids poverty-level families living in Banderas Bay, Mexico. |
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| Past Programs | ||||||||||||||
 Soundings, 29 July 2008: My Stroke of Insight When neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor suffered a stroke at the age of 37, she got a proverbial ring-side seat to observe the damage, and the process of recovery. I spoke with her about what is was like to lose most of her left brain, and how she worked to get it back. Click here to listen as Alan Stahler interviews Jill Bolte Taylor, author of My Stroke of Insight Click here for more about Jill Bolte Taylor, Click here for a video Jill Bolte Taylor's talk at |
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 Dreamwalk, 27 March 2008: Chumash Ethnobotany On March 27, 2008, Skip Allen Smith and Alan Stahler spoke with Jan Timbrook, anthropologist and ethnobiologist with the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, on Dreamwalk, about her new book, Chumash Ethnobotany, published by Heyday Books. |
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 Soundings, 01 January 2007: Cougars On January 1, 2008, I spoke with Marc Benoff, professor emeritus (ecology and evolutionary biology) at the University of Colorado, and writer-photographer Cara Blessley Lowe, co-founder of the Cougar Fund, about their book, Listening to Cougar (University Press of Colorado). Click here to listen with Alan Stahler and Listening to Cougar |
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Soundings, 23 October 2007: A Field Guide to Butterflys Alan visits with Arthur Shapiro, author of a "Field Guide to Butterflies of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento Valley Regions" on UC Press, about how butterflies and moths evolve, mutate and populate new regions, and some of the obstacles imposed by civilization. |
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Soundings with Alan Stahler, Tuesday, July, 03 2007
Part 1: A conversation with ecologist Prof. Nicholas J. Gotelli, of the University of Vermont, author of A Primer of Ecology, about making mathematical models of nature. Part 2: A conversation with astronomer Prof. Roger Freedman, of the University of California at Santa Barbara, co-author of the textbook, Universe, about the solar system. Click here to listen to the Jul. 3rd, 2007 Soundings program Right click here to download to the Jul. 3rd, 2007 Soundings program |
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| Helpful Links | ||||||||||||||
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Banderas de Esperanza - Flags of Hope, an organization that runs a children's shelter and aids poverty-level families living in Banderas Bay, Mexico. Sequoia ForestKeeper protects trees by protecting their ecosystem. Even though giant sequoia in Sequoia National Monument are not being cut, the trees around them are. The Nanoparticale Product List, compiled by the Wilson Center: consumer products incorporating nanoparticles. The Fiji Crested Iguana Project is studying what might be the last healthy population of these rare reptiles. Microwave News, covers research into the biological effects of electromagnetic fields Congress.org lets you locate contact information for your state and federal legislators, as well as information about pending legislation. Firework Sanity looks at the issue of lighting fireworks in a fire-prone ecosystem. The latest DoE environmental documents for Yucca Mountain, proposed site of a national high-level nuclear waste repository in Nevada. |
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| Getting Involved | ||||||||||||||
Item of Concern: The Navy plans to illuminate the oceans with high-intensity sound, intense enough to endanger whales. Click here to go to the NRDC site at; http://www.nrdconline.org/campaign/biogems_whales_0707, for a public form which will send your comment to the National Marine Fisheries Service permitting officer. For more information about the specifics of this issue, please click here to visit http://www.savebiogems.org/whales/. |
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Alan's Concerns: Desert Rock Power Plant Click here to learn about the proposed Desert Rock Power Plant Click here for the response from the San Juan Citizens Campaign |
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Alan's Concerns: Oaxaxa Listeners are probably aware that I've been speaking periodically with Oaxacan anthopologist Rene Bustamante, and putting our conversations about the situation there over the air. It's important that the government(s) of Mexico realize that we're paying attention. If you share my concerns, you can contact any or all of those below to let them know that "The whole world is watching." Secretary of Government: Carlos Abascal:
DR. JOSÉ LUIS SOBERANES
DANIEL CABEZA DE VACA
Vicente Fox Quesada
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| The National Academy of Sciences has a new web site with resources for anyone looking for an intelligent discussion of evolution. Click here to visit the National Academy's web site about evolution. | ||||||||||||||
| Concerned about the effects of High Intensity Sonars on whales and other marine life? Click here to contact NATO about the effects of its sonar on marine mammals. | ||||||||||||||
| Concerned about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Are we so poor that we've got to develop some of our last remaining wilderness? Click here to sign the petition to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. | ||||||||||||||
| Astronomy | ||||||||||||||
Rings in Space, Supernova 1987a
Rings in space, painted by the explosion of supernova 1987a, the subject of a recent Soundings convesrsation with Roger Freedman
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Mariner 10's 1970s Mercury Flyby |
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A third of a century ago, Mariner 10 became the first spacecraft to fly by the planet Mercury. It saw a planet that seemed, on the surface, very much like the moon, but was also very different. Original Caption Released with Image:After passing on the darkside of the planet, Mariner 10 photographed the other, somewhat more illuminated hemisphere of Mercury. The north pole is at the top, two-thirds down from which is the equator.... |
Photo credit: Image Credit: NASA/JPL |
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Cosmic Rain This Tuesday, 8 May, I'll speak with Nigel Calder, co-author of The Chilling Stars, an exposition Cosmic rays are atomic nuclei, blasted out of exploding stars and accelerated by magnetic shocks to velocities close to the speed of light. When they hit Earth's atmosphere, they bust up atoms of air. Cloud droplets can form on those busted-up atoms (ions), and cool the Earth. Some millions of years ago, galaxy M82 suffered a near-miss collision with galaxy M81. The gravitational disruption triggered a burst of star formation in M82, lighting it up with bright, new-born stars and spewing hydrogen gas (red) out of its core. Large, bright, new-born stars don't "live" very long - they tend to explode, the first step in the creation of cosmic rays. M82 and M81 are fun targets when we're observing out at the old Nevada City airport.
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Giant Cluster of Galaxies Bends, Breaks Images
The blue galaxies that seem to circle the galaxy cluster in the center are actually images of just one galaxy lying beyond the cluster. The distant galaxy's light, moving past the cluster, is re-directed toward our eyes as it travels through the space bent by the gravity of the cluster.
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Starbirth
Giant clouds of gas and dust collapse in on themselves, creating baby stars ... and baby planets.
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Stardeath
When a supergiant star runs out of fuel, it first collapses on itself, then explodes in a supernova.
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Spiral Galaxy
Billions of stars, moving together through space. But their gravity, calculated from the number of stars we see, is not enough to hold the galaxy together - the stars should fly apart. Something else must be holding them together - "dark matter," perhaps - matter that doesn't interact with light.
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Hyperion Closeup
Saturn's moon Hyperion would float in water, if we could find a 150-mile-wide bathtub in which to float it. It seems to be made mostly of ice, with a little rock, and lots of empty space - an orbiting pile of rubble. The "craters," with their dark centers, look a lot like the suncups found in springtime Sierran snowfields, when rocks, absorbing sunlight, melt holes into the snow. |
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Martian dust devil
As the desert floor is warmed by the sun, it heats the air above, which rises, and, swirling, creates a dust devil. The desert over which this dust devil swirls is on Mars. For a QuickTime movie of the dust devil click here.
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First extra-solar planet to be directly imaged:
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| Chemistry | ||||||||||||||
| Climate | ||||||||||||||
An Anomaly Is Something Unusual
 Click here to bring up a larger map of anomalous ocean temperatures - |
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yellow denotes regions that are warmer than usual; blue, colder. Notice the unusually cold water off the coasts of both North and South America, indicative of La Niña. Cold water, and other effects of La Niña, stabilize the atmosphere, preventing air from rising, cooling, and (like blowing into a freezer) forming clouds - the sort of weather we've been having a lot of, this fall and winter. |
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| Energy | ||||||||||||||
New International Radioactivity Symbol
A third symbol, incorporating both of the older two, has recently been adopted by the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) to alert people to extremely high levels of radioactivity ... and the need to put some distance between yourself and the source as quickly as possible. |
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| Environment | ||||||||||||||
| Our Changing World: Data Made Visible | ||||||||||||||
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Measuring the thickness of the dust by how much light it absorbs as it blows off the Chinese interior, across the Pacific and over the west coast: Red shows where the dust is thickest, yellow a bit thinner, green the thinnest. |
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| Radiation Health: The Healthy from the Start Campaign | ||||||||||||||
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When calculating permissible doses to protect the public from radiation, the government uses a "Reference Man," defined as a Caucasian male who is 20 to 30 years old, weighs 154 pounds, is five feet seven inches tall, and is "Western European or North American in habitat and custom." Click here to listen to Right click here to download Click here to learn about "Healthy from the Start" – the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research’s Campaign to Include Women, Children, and Future Generationsin Environmental Health Standards. |
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SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA FIRES OF 2007
 Satellite images of the October 2007 fires in southern California: Click here for a larger image. |
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| Photo Credit: NASA, MODIS Rapid Response Team at GSFC. Further information: http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/ | ||||||||||||||
NORWAY ALGAE BLOOM
 Algae bloom, fed by nutrient-rich runoff, off the coast of Norway. Click here for a larger image. |
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Algae bloom, fed by nutrient-rich runoff, off the coast of Norway.
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| Photo Credit: NASA, MODIS Rapid Response Team at GSFC. Further information: http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/ | ||||||||||||||
| Geology | ||||||||||||||
Earthquake "colors"
 The "colors" of radar waves of the Hector Mine quake in California’s Mojave Desert. |
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We can calculate the thickness of a soap bubble by looking at what colors make it through its skin. We can measure the motions along an earthquake fault (here, the motion due to the Hector Mine quake in California’s Mojave Desert) by studying the "colors" of radar waves that reflect off the surface. |
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2004 Jones Tract Levee "Blue-Sky" Failure
Agriculture in and along the San Joaquin Valley depends, to a great extent, on water shipped from the north state via the California Aqueduct. Before water can enter the aqueduct, however, it must traverse the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, guided by the Delta's ancient levee system. While many worry about how the levee system might respond to an earthquake, the system could collapse all by itself. These are images of the aftermath of the 2004 Jones Tract levee failure - a "blue-sky" levee collapse that occurred on a bright, sun-shiny summer's day.
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| Life Sciences | ||||||||||||||
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The Great Backyard Bird Count Interested in participating in the Great Backyard Bird Count, 16-19 February or if you're just interested in seeing some great bird images click here. |
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Pronghorn
The pronghorn is the fastest mammal on the North American continent. At noon on Tuesday, 9 May, I'll be speaking with Prof. John Byers, Ph.D. (University of Idaho), author of Built For Speed. |
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AMBULOCETUS
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Ambulocetus ("Walking Whale") lived along the edge of the sea some 45 million years ago - a "non-missing link" in the evolutionary path that led to today's whales. |
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| Painting by Carl Buell. Used by permission. | ||||||||||||||
| Physics | ||||||||||||||
Apollo 15 Drops the Hammer Drop a hammer and a feather and they race to the ground. The hammer beats the feather ... on Earth, where air resistance slows the feather. On the airless moon, we get a different result. Click here to see the experiment performed during the 1971 Apollo 15 mission. |
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| Skywatch | ||||||||||||||
| Space Technology | ||||||||||||||
Mars Red Dirt: A Closeup 
Soil scientists carry large knives, which they use to cut samples out of the ground. The first thing you do with a sample is hold it close and inspect it with your hand lens, to see color and texture. This image shows a magnified view of Martian soil collected by the Phoenix lander. It's red and fluffy. Click here to view a larger image. |
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A conversation with Marc Bekoff, author of
The skull-and-crossbones has long been used as an "alert symbol" to warn of chemical toxicity. Similarly, a trefoil design was adopted in the twentieth century as an alert symbol for radioactivity.
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