Business Planning For Climate Change,The Digital Afterlife. May 3, 2019, Part 1

Science Friday

Science Friday and WNYC Studios

Science, Life Sciences, Wnyc, Natural Sciences, Friday

4.4 • 6.3K Ratings

🗓️ 3 May 2019

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Scientists have built all sorts of models to predict the likelihood of extreme weather events. But it’s not just scientists who are interested in these models. Telecomm giant AT&T teamed up with scientists at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois to build a climate map of the Southeastern part of the country, overlaid with a map of AT&T’s infrastructure. Climate scientist Rao Kothamarthi from Argonne Labs discusses the process of creating hyperlocal climate change models, and Shannon Carroll, director of environmental sustainability at At&T, talks about how the company can use that information for making decisions on how to protect their infrastructure. Social media is, in many ways, the record keeper of our lives. It may be time to start thinking about how we preserve that record for the future. How should we think about the online profiles of the deceased? As the person’s property or as their remains? Should they be inherited or passed on? Preserved or deleted? We discuss planning for the digital afterlife.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there, Ira here. We know lead is a harmful neurotoxin, especially for young children.
0:06.1	And yet for much of the 20th century, it was used in a wide variety of everyday consumer products,
0:12.4	including gasoline and household paint. WNYC Studios' new podcast, The Stakes, tells the story of how the lead industry fooled the public
0:22.6	into thinking these products were safe.
0:24.6	Here's a hint.
0:25.6	It involved a marketing campaign aimed at children and their parents.
0:29.6	And how one pediatrician devised an elaborate study using kids' baby teeth to prove all of that lead was doing harm. That's the stakes from WNYC
0:40.4	studios. Check it out wherever you get your podcasts. This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. A bit later
0:47.5	in the hour, some digital estate planning and how one U.S. company is planning for the potential havoc wrought by climate change.
0:56.8	But first, back in 2008, paleoanthropologists exploring in a Siberian cave found a single hominided finger bone.
1:07.1	DNA analysis of that bone led researchers to say, the fine marked the discovery of a new kind of ancient human lineage separate from the antutals and Homo sapiens.
1:18.3	That lineage became known as denisivans after the cave where the finger bone was found.
1:24.2	This week, researchers announced another denisivovan find far away from the original site.
1:30.1	Joining me now to talk about why that is important and other stories from the week in science
1:34.8	is Maggie Kerth Baker, a senior science reporter at 538. Nice to have you back again, Maggie.
1:41.1	Thanks for having me. Tell us about this bone. What's important about this new bone find?
1:47.2	Well, so the interesting thing about the Denisovan species is that it's really been something
1:51.8	that we know primarily through DNA analysis.
1:54.9	So scientists can tell you a lot about this genome, but not about what Denisovans looked like.
2:00.7	So the available data really increased
2:02.6	significantly this week with this jawbone find. You know, it tells us a little bit more about
2:07.2	their appearance because it lacks a chin, for instance, and has these particularly big teeth that are
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