5.22.25

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Radioized Diary of Science and Nature. Your reader's
Kelly Taylor. I have some articles on the topics of
science and nature, but first a reminder that RADIOI is
a reading service intended for people who are blind or
have other disabilities that make it difficult to read printed material.
Our first article today is going to come from Mother Jones.

(00:25):
Bird populations are declining across North America. Dated May sixth.
Bird populations across North America are falling most quickly in
areas where they are most abundant, according to new research,
prompting fears of ecological collapse in previously protected areas. Analysis

(00:46):
of nearly five hundred bird species across North America has
found that three quarters are declining across their ranges, with
two thirds of the total shrinking significantly. The study, published
in the Journal's Science, indicates that former strongholds for bird
species are no longer safe, particularly in grasslands, dry lands,

(01:07):
and the Arctic. In one of the most ambitious uses
of citizen science data so far, scientists at the Cornell
Lab of Ornithology used observations from e bird, a popular
application used by bird watchers to record sightings, to model
changes between twenty seven and twenty twenty one. The granularity

(01:31):
of the data allowed researchers to track the rate of
change in ten square miles segments across North America, showing
dramatic declines in areas where less than two decades ago
bird species had thrived. We've known for several years that
a lot of bird species in North America have been declining.
With this study, we were aiming to understand in much

(01:54):
finer spatial resolution where birds were declining and where they
might be increasing. Than having a range wide trend to
see if a species is going up or down, we
want to know where it is going up and down,
says Alison Johnston, director of the Center for Research into
Ecological and Environmental Modeling at the University of Saint Andrew's,

(02:17):
United Kingdom, who led the study, quote, the main ecological
finding is that the locations where these species were thriving
in the past, where the environments were really well suited
to birds, are now the places where they are suffering
the most, she said. The researchers said further studies were
needed to explain the reasons behind the changes, many of

(02:39):
which were dramatic, with populations falling by more than ten
percent a year in some areas. Global heating and habitat
change were put forward as the main theories behind the shifts,
but Johnston said they ultimately did not know. Quote. The
way I interpret this result is that it's indicative of

(03:00):
major changes in our world. She said. The fact that
where birds used to have strongholds, where there used to
be a lot of resources, where the environments were really suitable,
are now the places where they are declining most That
suggests to me that we are just seeing fundamental changes
to the environments around us. The birds are like the

(03:23):
canary in the coal mine, she said. The research adds
to a recent series of studies that have documented severe
declines of birds in nature reserves and protected areas. Despite
the worrying overall picture, the researchers found pockets of stability
in bird populations in their analysis, such as the Appellachians

(03:45):
and Western Mountains. In addition, ninety seven percent of all
bird species said some pockets where their populations were increasing.
The team at Cornell University has previously developed methods for
reliably converting cinsis in science observations in apps such as
e Bird into data that can be used to monitor

(04:07):
population changes in a single species. The study author's only
included results that had passed strict reliability checks. Amanda Roodewald
from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, a professor and co
author on the study, said the methods would allow conservationists
to target their efforts. Quote it is this kind of

(04:31):
small scale information across broad geo geographies that has been lacking,
and it's exactly what we need to make smart conservation decisions.
She said. These data products give us a new lens
to detect and diagnose population declines and to respond to
them in a way that strategic, precise, and flexible. That's

(04:53):
a game changer for conservation. Ian Burfield, global science coordinator
with BirdLife, who was not involved in this study, welcomed
the research and set it highlighted areas for further investigation. Quote,
Northern American birds are one of very few taxonomic groups

(05:15):
and regions where such data exists to facilitate this approach.
This emphasizes the vital need for more field data collection,
both through formal monitoring schemes and citizen science efforts in
many other parts of the world, especially in the biodiversity
rich tropics, he said. Next up from popular mechanics. We

(05:42):
have an article from May the fifteenth that's headlined twenty
eight American cities are literally sinking into the Earth. It's
a well known fact that sea levels around the world
are slowly rising. According to the US National Oceanic and
Atmosphere Administration, sea levels have risen some eight to nine

(06:03):
inches around the world since eighteen eighty and show no
sign of stopping. That's concerning enough on its own, considering
that forty percent of the United States population lives near coastlines.
But American cities, along with cities around the world, are
facing yet another problem that's only exacerbating this concerning side

(06:24):
effect of climate change. They're sinking. In a new study
led by scientists at Virginia Tech, a research team tracked
the subsidence the subsidence rate of twenty eight major US
cities across the country and found that at least twenty
percent of the urban area of all of the cities

(06:45):
was sinking to some degree. In twenty five of those
twenty eight cities, more than sixty five percent of the
land area was sinking to varying degrees. The most extreme
example is Houston, Texas, where scientists discovered that some areas
of the city we're sinking as much as ten millimeters
per year. The results of the study were published in

(07:07):
the journal Nature Cities. Obviously, the image of cities slowly
sinking paints a picture of places like Houston, New York,
and la simply slipping into the sea. But the implications
of this higher than expected subsidence rate comes with the
much more complex list of nearer term practical problems for

(07:27):
both city planners and average homeowners. Quote, even slight downward
shifts in land can significantly compromise the structural integrity of buildings, roads, bridges,
and railways over time. This is Lenard Ohhenhen, a former
Virginia Tech graduate student and the lead author of the study.

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The cause of the sinking varies from city to city.
The leading cause of subsidence is groundwater extraction, which eventually
leads to compaction of soil and sediments, and you guessed it,
the net result of slowly sinking land. However, other causes
can also be pretty impactful. Some parts of the country,

(08:13):
for example, are still experiencing the extraordinary sea sawing of
bed rock caused by the retreat of glaciers during the
tail of the Pleistocene epoch. Meanwhile, out west, in cities
like Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco, plate tectonics can claim
some of the blame. Quote Sustained groundwater extraction lowers poor

(08:36):
pressure in aquifer systems, leading to compaction of fine grained sediments,
which results in land subsidence that can be detected from satellites,
says Susannah Worth, a co author of the study. Quote.
Such land subsidence has been observed across the US for

(08:56):
many decades, but its increasing relevance in urban areas is
especially hazardous. Ohhenian and his team are part of that
observational history. Just last year, they published a study in
the journal Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences about
the rapid subsidence of cities along the East Coast. However,

(09:20):
this new study shows that not only is the phenomenon
more widespread than originally understood, it's also not contained to
coastal cities. Las Vegas, Denver, Oklahoma City, Nashville, Indianapolis, and
many landlocked metropolitan areas also show signs of sinking. While

(09:42):
this study only focused on the contiguous United States, the
country's two most far flown states Alaska and Hawaii are
also struggling with increased subsidence. For Alaska, the main culprit
is permafrost degradation, and regarding Hawai, a study published earlier
this year showed that some areas of OAHUU are sinking

(10:06):
as much as twenty five millimeters per year due to
some industrial sectors having been built a top artificial fill.
None of this means that the US is about to
become some legendary water filled Atlantis, but understanding the rate
at which cities are sinking and the rate at which
sea levels are rising can help city planners, water resource managers,

(10:30):
and average homeowners prepare for the slowly sinking future ahead
of us. Now we'll go to Popular Science, and this
article from May the twentieth is headlined thirty one million
tons of seaweed ready to stink up Florida's beaches. A smelly,

(10:54):
sometimes toxic killer belt of seaweed might put a damper
on floridian End's Memorial Day weekend plans. Sargassum is back
just in time for the unofficial start of summer, and
this year's influx of the brown algae would be a
record breaking at thirty one million tons. Sargassum is a

(11:18):
genus of large brown seaweed. As a seaweed is also
a type of algae. It floats along the ocean in
island like masses and does not attach to the seafloor
the way that kelp does. According to Noah, this brown
algae is abundant in the world's oceans. It has many

(11:40):
leafy appendages, branches, and its signature berry like structures. These
round quote unquote berries are actually gas filled structures called pneumneumaticysts.
They are primarily filled with oxygen and add buoyancy to
the plant structure and allow it to float on the

(12:02):
surface of the water, similar to a life jacket. Importantly,
sargassum provides food and a floating habitat for several marine species,
including various fishes, sea turtles, marine birds, crabs, and shrimp.
Some animals, like the sargassum fish, will spend their whole
lives around sargassum's gas filled floats, and the seaweed is

(12:26):
a nursery area for some commercially important fishes, including mahi
mahi jacks and amberjacks. When sargassm washes up on shore,
it begins to rot That rotting triggers the production of
hydrogen sulfide gas, which smells like rotten eggs. These odours

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themselves are not harmful to humans when inhaled in well
ventilated areas like the beach, but the gases can't accumulate
enough to cause harm if they are breeded in within
enclosed spaces. Quote. Hydrogen sulfide can irritate the eyes, nose,
and throat, writes Florida's Department of Health in Saint John's County. Quote,

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if you have asthma or other breathing illnesses, you will
be more sensitive to hydrogen sulfide. You may have trouble
breeding after you inhale ituote come into contact with jellyfish
or other stinging organisms embedded in the writing. Seaweed can
cause rashes on the skin. Any workers for volunteers collecting

(13:32):
and transporting the seaweed should wear gloves, boots, and gas
filter half masks for protection. In Florida and the Caribbean,
sargassum season runs from April to August, with June and
July as the peak months for setting in along the shoreline. However,
the blobs have been spotted along shorelines since March this year,

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the bloom has already broken its own size records set
in June twenty twenty five too, by forty percent, and
is still growing. The annual bloom now stretches over five thousand,
five hundred miles of ocean between Africa and the Caribbean
and weighs and estimated thirty one million tons. Quote sargassm

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goes from being a very beneficial resource of the North
Atlantic to becoming what we referred to as a harmful
algal bloom when it comes ashore, an excessive biomass end,
quote says Brian Lapointe, a research professor at Florida Atlantic
University's Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute. Quote. What we have seen

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since twenty eleven are excessive inundation events all around the
Caribbean region, the Gulf as well as the South Florida region.
Increasing ocean temperatures due to climate change is one of
the reasons for such a large bloom the Atlantic. The
waters around Florida has record breaking high temperatures in recent years,

(15:03):
creating ideal conditions for the seaweed to thrive. The excess
nitrogen in the water from the burning of fossil fuels
or dust from the Sahara is believed to be one
of the forces behind this supercharged bloom. Scientists use satellites
to track the seaweed and issue warnings if needed. The
Carricos sargassum map and that is carry Coos sargassum map,

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shows that the bulk of the bloom is currently east
of Puerto Rico, but it has already been spotted along
Florida's Atlantic coast. Noah encourages anyone who encounters sargassum on
the beach to report it with a form and now
from Popular Mechanics. This article's dated May nineteenth. An apocalypse

(15:57):
of toxic fungi could threaten million of lives within fifteen years.
When writing about climate lots of ink or pixels in
the twenty first century context is spent talking about the
potential devastating impacts that climate change will have on plant
and animal life. However, little is mentioned about the Kingdom fungi.

(16:22):
Hundreds of thousands of species of fungi have been described,
but that's likely only ten percent of the total number
of fungal species that exist on Earth. These species include
everyone's delicious favorites, but also some more dangerous species that
can cause toxic infections in animals and agricultural crops. So

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In a new study from the University of Manchester, scientists
asked the question of what rising global temperatures could mean
for the proliferation of some of these meaner mycelia. In
a paper published on the preprint platform Research Square, Norman
Van rinn, the lead author of the study, and his

(17:05):
team describe what our fungal future has in store. Quote.
Changes in environmental factors such as humidity and extreme weather
events will change habitats and drive fungal adaptation and spread.
Van Rhynd said in a press statement, quote, We've already

(17:25):
seen the emergence of the fungus Candida aurus due to
rising temperatures, but until now we had little information of
how other fungi might respond to this change in the environment.
The researchers analyze the effects of rising temperatures on infection
causing fungi using different climate scenarios up to the year

(17:46):
twenty one hundred. The study showed that within fifteen years,
if the world still relies on mostly fossil fuels instead
of clean energy, fungi like Aspergillus Flavus, a cause of
agri cultural rot that also produces mycotoxins that are harmful
to mammals, will spread by sixteen percent, which would put

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an additional one million people at risk of infection in
Europe alone. This is largely because A. Flavus is more
thermotolerant than other fungi, meaning that it can thrive in hot,
humid climates where other fungi simply could not. Unfortunately, this

(18:28):
proliferation is relatively tame compared to Aspergillus fumagadis, which would
increase its range by seventy seven percent and put an
additional nine million people in Europe at risk under this
worst case scenario. While described as a weak pathogen in
previous studies, a Fumigatus can cause a severe, even fatal

(18:53):
infection for people with immune deficiencies. Quote. Fungi relatively under
researched compared to viruses and parasites, but these maps show
that fungal pathogens will likely impact most areas of the
world in the future, than Rhine said in a press statement. Quote,
Raising awareness and developing effective interventions for fungal pathogens will

(19:16):
be essential to mitigate the consequences of this quote. While
the spread of these toxic fungi, whose infections are hard
to avoid as they mostly travel in the air we breathe,
the inverse may also be caused for concern Some life
sustaining fungi responsible for breaking down plant and animal matter

(19:38):
may not be able to survive in some of the
hottest parts of the world. It's basically a one to
two punch of bad news. Additionally, the study only examined
the roughly ten percent of the fungi we know about,
so even more infections or health concerns could arise from
surprising sources currently unknown to us. Though it has yet

(19:58):
to be peer reviewed, the paper details compelling evidence that
our fungal future is a dismal one unless we seriously
curtail carbon emissions in the coming years. Transitioning to a
clean energy future is the best path forward for all
of the plants, animals and overlooked fungus among us. Now

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we turn to the Guardian and the headline for this
article is bees face new threats from wars, street lights
and microplastics. Scientists warn this is dated May nineteenth. War zones,
microplastics and street lights are among the emerging threats to

(20:43):
the bee population, according to scientists. B experts have drawn
up a list of the twelve most pressing threats to
the pollinator over the next decade, published in a report
Emerging Threats and Opportunities for Conservation of Global Pollinators from
the University of Reading. Increasing war and conflict around the

(21:04):
world as harming bees. The scientists worn this includes the
war in Ukraine, which has forced countries to grow fewer
crop types, leaving pollinators without diverse food throughout the season.
The researchers found microplastic particles were contaminating beehives across Europe,
with testing from three hundred and fifteen honeybee colonies revealing

(21:26):
synthetic materials such as pet plastic in most hives. Artificial
light from street lamps has been found to reduce flower
visits by nocturnal pollinators by sixty two percent, and air
pollution has been found to affect their survival, reproduction, and growth.

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Antibiotics used in agriculture have made their way into beehives
and honey They have also been found to affect the
behavior of pollinators, including reducing their foraging and visits to flowers.
Pesticide cocktails also play a significant and emerging role. Although

(22:08):
some pesticides are now regulated to be kept below safe
limits for bees and other wildlife, research is found they
can interact with other chemicals and cause dangerous effects. Professor
Simon Potts of Reading University, the lead author of the report,
said identifying new threats and finding ways to protect pollinators
early is key to preventing further major declines. This is

(22:32):
not just a conservation issue. Pollinators are central to our
food systems, climate resilience, and economic security. Protecting pollinators means
protecting ourselves. The authors have called for a number of
measures to protect bees, including stronger laws limiting antibiotic pollution

(22:54):
that harms bee health, transitioning to electric vehicles to reduce
air pollution effects pollinators, creating flower rich habitats within solar parks,
and breeding crops with enhanced pollen and nectar for better
pollinator nutrition. The report's co author, Doctornpa Cinapathi, also from

(23:17):
the University of Reading, added quote it will take effort
from everyone to address these efforts these threats. We need
to maintain, manage, and improve our natural habitats to create
save spaces for pollinators. Individual actions like providing food and
nesting areas and our own back gardens can help in
a big way, but policy changes and individual actions must

(23:42):
work together, so everything from gardens and farms to public
spaces and wider landscapes can all become pollinator friendly habitats.
Quote and Now from USA Today, dated May the seventeen.
The headline is forecasters note an unusual pattern ahead of

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hurricane season. An unusual pattern has emerged ahead of Atlantic
hurricane season. No tropical cyclones have formed anywhere in the
Northern Hemisphere in twenty twenty five as of May sixteenth.
This includes all tropical storms, hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones north

(24:26):
of the equator in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans.
The dry spell is not unprecedented. In fact, something similar
happened last year ahead of a devastating hurricane season in
the United States. The slow start has been matched five
other times nineteen seventy three, nineteen eighty three, nineteen eighty four,

(24:51):
nineteen ninety eight, and twenty twenty four in the last
seventy five years. According to Colorado State University meteorologist Phil
klotts Back, most of those years ended with below average
seasons for the Northern Hemisphere. Overall, on average, he said,
three and a half storms typically would have formed by now.

(25:13):
Typically the Atlantic, Eastern North Pacific, and North Indian Ocean
are pretty quiet through mid May, Klotzbach said, so when
the western North Pacific tends to be the primary contributor
to named storm activity this time a year. He told
USA Today the quiet in the Western Pacific is due

(25:36):
to unusual wind patterns near the Philippines. Quote. This wind
pattern creates anti cyclonic flow, which is not supportive for
storm formations, he said. Klotzbach said that it's hard to
say if this means anything for the rest of the season.
Quote for example, the number average number of Northern Hemisphere

(25:58):
named storms in a season of sixty two. Here are
the final Northern Hemisphere named storm totals for the other
years that had no named storms through May sixteenth. In
nineteen seventy five, there were nineteen seventy three. Rather, there
were forty five, in nineteen eighty three, fifty one, nineteen
eighty four, sixty five, nineteen ninety eight, fifty three, and

(26:21):
in twenty twenty four fifty eight. Four of the five
years ended up with below average Northern Hemisphere named storms,
but twenty twenty four were just slightly below normal. He said.
Nineteen seventy three was an unusually quiet year for storms
in the Northern Hemisphere. That year set a record for
the latest first storm. Klotzback said, Ava formed in the

(26:45):
eastern North Pacific on June tewid that year. What about
Southern Hemisphere storms? Unlike the Northern Hemisphere, the Southern Hemisphere
has been quite busy during the twenty twenty four to
twenty five season. Southern Hemisphere storms include those that threaten
locations such as Australia. Thirty one Southern Hemisphere named storms

(27:10):
have formed so far, while the average is twenty five
named storms. What's the forecast for the rest of May.
Meteorologist Ryan Maui, also on X said that while an
early season tropical storm is possible in the Eastern Pacific
through the end of May, top weather models show a

(27:32):
quiet pattern for the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. Well
that'll be all for today's Diary of Science and Nature.
Your reader was Kelly Taylor. Thanks for listening, and I
invite you to stay tuned for the Health Corner on

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