Ancient warmth in Greenland
Unexpected Elements
BBC
4.4 • 568 Ratings
🗓️ 11 December 2022
⏱️ 63 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Two-million-year-old molecular fossils reveal flourishing woodlands and widespread animals in Greenland's pre-Ice-Age past, and give hints to the Arctic’s future under global warming. We hear from a molecular palaeontologist and a climate modeller.
DNA also reveals the enduring genetic influence of our extinct Denisovan cousins on disease immunity in modern Island Southeast Asians.
And the art and science of 3D-printing violins
If your home is drafty, filling in holes and cracks can help tackle rising energy bills, and lower your carbon footprint. But is there a limit to how airtight we should make our homes? That’s what CrowdScience listeners Jeff and Angie wondered when weatherproofing their doors and sealing up cracks for the winter. Once every last gap is blocked, will enough air get in for them to breathe properly? How would they know if they’ve gone too far?
With Covid-19 making us more aware than ever of the importance of good ventilation, CrowdScience investigates how to make your home cosy and energy-efficient without sacrificing fresh air in the process. And we find out how, in hotter climates, you can carefully tap into your drafts, to reduce energy-intensive air conditioning.
With contributions from Kimble Smith, Professor Nicola Carslaw, Dr Iain Walker, Marion Baeli and Dr Yashkumar Shukla.
(Image credit: Beth Zaiken/bethzaiken.com)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Oh, hello. You have chosen a BBC podcast, but before you listen to it, we thought you might |
| 0:04.7 | like our podcast too. You might. You might. It is called Sightracked with me, Nick Grimshaw. |
| 0:09.2 | And me, Annie Mack. And we talk about the week in music. All the news, all the cultural |
| 0:14.0 | happenings in the UK and beyond. And great guests. And it's on BBC Sounds. Yes, where you can |
| 0:19.7 | also enjoy lots of playlists, music mixes and |
| 0:22.6 | live radio, everything from my six music breakfast show to Radio 3 Unwind. But obviously start |
| 0:29.2 | with our podcast sidetrack. Obviously. Obviously. So if you like music, listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:34.3 | Thank you for downloading the Sartour from the BBC World Service with me, |
| 0:38.1 | Roland Pease. Later in the podcast, sealing the perfectly sealed, low-energy house. |
| 0:44.4 | The beauty about this house is once you've done all the hard work, and it is a bit of hard work |
| 0:49.1 | to make it airtight, super-insulated, and to fit the M NVHR with all the ducts. |
| 0:58.0 | Forever, your house is a very low-energy building. |
| 1:05.0 | Cozy. You'll have to keep listening to hear what the NVHR is on crowd science later on. |
| 1:13.2 | Before that, on Science and Action, we have the long-lasting genetic legacy bestowed on South Ocean Islanders by our extinct Siberian cousins, the Denisovans. If it's made it this long, it's making some |
| 1:18.9 | sort of contribution. It might not be a massive contribution and might just be a tiny small tweak, |
| 1:23.9 | but even that is enough to keep it around for 60,000, 50,000 years. |
| 1:27.7 | And we've a Spot the Difference Challenge. |
| 1:42.4 | I switched in the middle there. One was lovingly crafted by an Italian master. The other, printed with polylactic plastic. But which was which? We start with the news, widely talked about already, about how different Greenland was two million years ago when greenhouse gas levels were higher |
| 2:02.9 | and global temperatures warmer than today. The forgotten landscape was discovered not with conventional |
| 2:09.6 | fossils, bone fragments of ancient animals or traces of plants, but from the DNA they had soaked |
| 2:16.2 | into the dirt over decades. |
| 2:19.3 | Esker Willislev is the geneticist who's been working the territory since 2086 |
... |
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