An Off Day on Uranus, a Wildfire in Prospect Park and Dispatches from COP29

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.3 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 18 November 2024

⏱️ 11 minutes

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Summary

A wildfire in Brooklyn, N.Y.’s Prospect Park was in part linked to drought conditions nationally. Plastic waste is set to grow with our expanding economy, but potential solutions look promising. Drops in gonorrhea and early-stage syphilis point to the first decline in sexually transmitted infections in 20 years. Voyager 2’s fly-by of Uranus in the 1980s collected data that led scientists to believe the planet’s moons were inactive. A reassessment of those data shows that Uranus could have just been having an off day. Plus, Alec Luhn reports from the 29th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) in Azerbaijan. Recommended reading: Melting Glaciers Are Causing Billions of Dollars of Damage The U.S. Has Its First Plan for Plastic Pollution. This Is What’s in It This Astoundingly Simple Ancient Technique Is Helping to Beat Back Drought E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest associate editor Andrea Thompson. Our show is edited by Madison Goldberg with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	129 at McDonald's gets you a mini-Orio McFlurry.
0:04.7	129 on a big night out gets you...
0:07.5	Sorry, no trainers.
0:10.3	McDonald's save a menu.
0:12.1	Actually get your money's worth.
0:14.9	From 11 a.m. price and participation may vary.
0:17.7	Price varies on delivery.
0:19.0	Subjects to availability.
0:20.4	Happy Monday listeners. For Scientific American Science Quickly, I'm Rachel Feldman.
0:25.7	Let's get the week started by catching up on a few science stories you might have missed.
0:36.1	First, you might remember that last week I mentioned that an unprecedented number of U.S. states
0:41.1	were experiencing drought.
0:43.0	Those dry conditions have helped wildfires take hold, including in surprising spots like
0:47.8	Brooklyn's Prospect Park.
0:49.6	Here to tell us a little bit more about that situation is Andrea Thompson, a scientific American
0:54.6	associate editor who covers the environment, energy, and earth sciences.
0:58.7	So a lot of us are used to wildfires out west, especially in places like California
1:03.3	in recent years, but there's been more than 500 fires since October 1st in New Jersey.
1:08.9	There's been about 200 brush fires in Massachusetts in October, which is a 1,200% increase
1:15.9	over the average.
1:17.2	So, you know, it's clear that this is really unusual.
1:20.0	And the reason it's happening is because of the drought conditions there.
	...

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