Om denne podcast
EarthDate is a short-format weekly audio program delivering concise, science-based stories about the Earth: its geology, environments, and the processes that shape our planet over deep time and today. Beginning in 2026, EarthDate is managed by Switch Energy Alliance and hosted by SEA's founder Dr. Scott W. Tinker. Together, we explore earth systems, natural resources, and their relevance to everyday life, with a focus on clear, accessible science education for broad audiences. EarthDate is written and directed by Emmy-winning filmmaker Harry Lynch, and researched by Lynn Kistler. We search for captivating stories to remind listeners that science can enlighten, educate and entertain.
Episoder
De nyeste 50 af 300 episoder
- Secrets of Roman Scrolls · 2 min. · Episode 497Imagine you could step into a library of ancient Rome and read the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Or Homer’s Odyssey. Perhaps the first translations of the Gospels. One day soon…
- Urban Bats · 2 min. · Episode 496Forty years ago, bridge renovations in Austin, Texas attracted an unwelcome visitor – in fact over a million of them. Engineers had run support beams under the entire length of…
- Importing Trash · 2 min. · Episode 495In America, we’re number one! In many things. Some are not so good. Like garbage. Each American makes 1500 pounds of it a year. Two-thirds could be recycled, but isn’t. Most…
- Where Did I Put That Acorn? · 2 min. · Episode 494Have you ever wondered how squirrels find the nuts they hid months before? A typical squirrel can store 3,000 of them in a fall season, in dozens of locations. It seems almost…
- Lighting More With Less · 2 min. · Episode 493LEDs are everywhere today. But what does L. E. D. stand for anyway? Luminous Efficiency Device? Less Electricity Demanded? Not quite – though both correctly describe Light…
- Where Rust Shouldn't Be · 2 min.Rust is common on Earth. It shouldn’t exist on the moon. But somehow, it does. Rust is just the common name for iron oxide. Iron that has bonded to oxygen. The moon, however…
- Sole Survivors · 2 min.Imagine there was not one species of human…but many. One stronger. One smaller. All different, but closely related. Around 40,000 years ago, that’s exactly how it was. Homo…
- Gold is Abundant · 2 min.Gold is rare. Except in one place on Earth that it’s incredibly plentiful. But we’ll probably never get to it. Over the course of human civilization, people have searched for…
- Life on Mars? · 2 min.Is there life on Mars? That’s the question NASA wanted its first Mars mission to answer – in 1976. They designed their remarkable Viking rover -- well before modern computers…
- Warm Springs for Winter Manatees · 2 min.A large manatee can top 1000 pounds and eat 15% of its weight in seagrass each day. That may sound hardy, but manatees are actually very sensitive. There are three species, all…
- Mapping a Killer · 2 min.In the mid-1800s, London’s SoHo neighborhood was a terrible smelling place to live, as raw sewage ran through the gutters into open cesspools. When a cholera epidemic broke out…
- Ocean Cleanup · 2 min.Plastic has remarkable value to humans. But it’s also a major source of ocean plastic pollution. Most of it is nets and rope from fishing boats, or municipal garbage that’s…
- The Right Kind of Sand · 2 min.Sand is incredibly common. There are oceans of it – in oceans, and deserts too. But, for our purposes, that’s not the right kind of sand. We use sand in concrete, to make…
- Dangerous Downbursts · 2 min.In 1985, a passenger jet landing at DFW airport was forced to the ground by an unusual downward blast of wind called a downburst. The plane struck cars on the highway and a water…
- Beating the Heat · 2 min.Before modern energy gave us modern air conditioning, we had sweat to keep us cool. And shade. And maybe a jump in a lake. Animals still rely on those today to beat the heat…
- Mangrove Mayhem · 2 min.If you’ve been on a boat, pretty much anywhere in the tropics, you’ve seen mangrove forests. There are at least 75 species of these small trees, evolved to live in harsh tidal…
- Turning Up the Urban Heat · 2 min.On another episode, we told you about urban heat islands. Buildings and asphalt absorb summer heat -- from sun and air, cars and trucks, power plants and air conditioning -- and…
- Urban Heat Islands · 2 min.Summer in the city. It’s sweltering. The sun beats down all day. Its heat is absorbed by concrete buildings and blacktop, which hold that heat at night -- and into the next day…
- Urban Mining · 2 min.On another episode, we talk about how mines have a large environmental footprint. Think of a giant pit, with huge machines digging out ore. By contrast, think of your old smart…
- Mining, The Future · 2 min.In another EarthDate, we talk about how mining provides the materials to build the modern world. But new technology is changing that world. We’re building huge new data centers…
- Mining, Past and Present · 2 min.Today we make stuff in three ways. Plants and animals make our food, wood and fiber. Oil and gas make plastic, fuels, chemicals and clothing. And rocks, dug out of a mine…
- Lakes of Life · 2 min.Charles Darwin proposed that life on Earth may have started in bodies of highly alkaline water called soda lakes. New research suggests he may have been right. You might…
- The Water and Energy Link · 2 min.Our modern supplies of water and energy are miraculous – and tightly interlinked. Only 3% of Earth’s water is fresh. And 99% of that is frozen in glaciers or stuck underground…
- Light Speed Under the Sea · 2 min.In 1858, Queen Victoria sent a telegraph to U.S. President Buchanan, via the first undersea cable. The cable worked for just a few weeks, but it launched an international cable…
- The Crystal Eye of Ninevek · 2 min.During World War 2, an American pilot flying over the Canadian arctic saw something extraordinary. A midnight blue lake, 2 miles across, shaped in a perfect circle. The Allies…
- We Changed Horses · 2 min.Horses changed human history. But first we had to change horses. The horse evolved in North America 50 million years ago, and migrated across the Bering land bridge into…
- The Moth with Two Maps · 2 min.The giant bogong moth has a brain one-tenth the size of a grain of rice. And eyes the diameter of a human hair. Yet it can navigate by sensing the magnetic field of Earth. Or by…
- Chernobyl: Rebirth · 2 min.After the Chernobyl nuclear accident, the Russian government declared a thousand square miles around it an exclusion zone. The hundred thousand people evacuated could never…
- Ginkgo, Stinko · 2 min.Two hundred million years ago, the ginkgo tree evolved to be very stinky, because there was a creature that loved it. The ginkgo is unlike any other tree; not a conifer, not a…
- Chernobly: Destined for Disaster · 2 min.The Chernobyl nuclear powerplant, in Ukraine, was designed and operated so badly, it was practically destined for disaster. First, the Soviet plant design was fatally flawed. It…
- Birth of The Scientist · 2 min.Famous early scientists, like Leonardo da Vinci, would not have called themselves scientists, or practiced science as we do today. They were then more commonly called ‘natural…
- Almost Atlantis · 2 min.In 2024, Spanish oceanographers studying the deep seafloor west of the Canary Islands discovered an enormous seamount -- A mile-high, 70-mile long mountain on the bottom of the…
- Listening to Soil · 2 min.Just eight percent of Earth’s surface is covered in topsoil -- but that grows 95 percent of our crops. And healthy plant growth depends on healthy soil. Which depends on a…
- Flash Floods · 2 min.There are many kinds of floods. River floods develop slowly, water gradually rising over days, providing ample time to evacuate. Coastal floods come mostly from storm surges…
- Greenhouse Gang · 2 min.Greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere and keep Earth warm. Without them it would be a frozen iceball – as it once was before. There are many greenhouse gases. Water vapor…
- Dynamic Dunes · 2 min.Sand dunes are dynamic, always changing. They occur wherever there’s sand, even thousands of miles from the sea. Even on the shores of freshwater lakes. And the largest…
- Slowing Down to Breath · 2 min.Billions of years ago, the globe spun twice as fast as today; a complete rotation took just 6 hours. Then Earth’s rotation slowed, and that’s why you’re here listening to this…
- Wildlife Crossings · 2 min.Each year, U.S. drivers collide with 1 to 2 million large animals, often killing them and endangering the drivers. Add in smaller creatures, and studies estimate up to 300…
- Radon, A Silent Threat · 2 min.In 1984, an engineer walked into a nuclear power plant under construction and set off radiation alarms. But there was no nuclear material yet on site. Where was the radiation…
- Shape of Water · 2 min.We often think of rivers as mostly straight or gently bending waterways. If they are, it’s because we’ve made them that way, guiding them with levees or dredging them for…
- Really Cool Libraries · 2 min.Around the world, a small group of secluded libraries contain some of the rarest and most fragile objects on Earth. They’re staffed by scientists, equipped with redundant power…
- Drink of the Emperors · 2 min.Five centuries ago, the last emperor of the Aztecs drank a full gallon each day of a coveted beverage, rich in vitamins and caffeine. The Aztec word for it: xocolatl Chocolate…
- Geologic Hotspots · 2 min.Volcanoes often form where tectonic plates collide or pull apart. But sometimes they’ll form in the middle of plates, due to geologic hotspots. A hotspot is a plume of hot…
- To Beard or Not to Beard · 2 min.Humans have lost most of our body hair, but the beard has stubbornly remained – though anthropologists can find no function for it. Perhaps that’s why men have been grooming it…
- Geothermal Anywhere · 2 min.Geothermal energy, the heat of the earth, can be found under our feet everywhere on Earth. Historically, we’ve only been able to access it in a few places, commonly in hot…
- Sprites and Elves · 2 min.You may remember that opposite electrical charges attract. If a positive charge builds up, it seeks to connect to a negative charge, to reach equilibrium. This is what creates…
- Hey, Bird Brain! · 2 min.Birds have very large brains for their body size. New research is helping scientists understand how they work, and came to be. One part of a bird’s brain, the cerebellum…
- Rare Earth Recovery · 2 min.Rare Earth Elements, or REEs, are a group of 17 trace metals that play important roles in the electronics we rely on daily. Their properties are so unique, they’re not…
- Return of the Mammoth · 2 min.If you believe the old cartoons, elephants are afraid of mice. But would a woolly mammoth be afraid of a woolly mouse? We may soon find out. That’s because scientists have…
- Super Sponges · 2 min.You may remember from a prior episode that some sponges can creep, very slowly, across the ocean floor. But most are stationary, or sessile, which make them seem less…
