meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
Science Quickly

Drought News Might Help Cut Water Waste

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.2639 Ratings

🗓️ 27 October 2017

⏱️ 2 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

As news coverage of California's most recent drought intensified, water use trends went down—suggesting news might inspire consumers to conserve. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Understanding the human body is a team effort. That's where the Yachtel group comes in.

0:05.8

Researchers at Yachtolt have been delving into the secrets of probiotics for 90 years.

0:11.0

Yacold also partners with nature portfolio to advance gut microbiome science through the global grants for gut health, an investigator-led research program.

0:19.6

To learn more about Yachtolt, visit yawcult.co.

0:22.7

.jp.j. That's y-A-K-U-Lt.c-O.jp. When it comes to a guide for your gut, count on Yacolt.

0:33.5

This is Scientific American's 60-second science. I'm Christopher in Taliatta.

0:39.3

California's most recent drought, which officially ended this spring, made national, even international news.

0:46.0

We're in an historic drought.

0:48.0

The driest on record.

0:49.4

One of the worst droughts in recent history.

0:51.8

California is in big trouble.

0:53.4

And that saturated coverage may have

0:55.4

actually influenced Californians to conserve more water, compared to an earlier drought from 2007 to

1:01.6

2009, which snagged far fewer headlines. Researchers tallied all drought-related stories from nine

1:08.6

major newspapers from 2005 to 2015. They also counted Google queries and saw drought-related stories from nine major newspapers from 2005 to 2015. They also counted

1:12.9

Google queries and saw drought-related searches spike as more news appeared. Then they analyzed

1:18.7

water use in the San Francisco Bay area, and after controlling for other factors like

1:23.1

weather and unemployment, they found that drought news was significantly linked to a cut in water

1:28.4

waste, up to an 18% drop per 100 news articles in the two-month period. The results are in the

1:34.7

journal Science Advances. Study author Nusha Ajami, a hydrologist at Stanford University, says

1:41.3

more water news, from any source, is good for consumers. Obviously, it's great that the

1:46.1

media was covering the drought, but on a non-drought or non-emergency situation, the water

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Scientific American, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Scientific American and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.