Plastic Waste Fuel, Colds Got Worse?, Trees and Mushrooms

Curiosity Weekly

Warner Bros. Discovery

Self-improvement, Science, Astronomy, Education

4.6 • 935 Ratings

🗓️ 7 June 2023

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today you’ll learn about a new process that could turn plastic waste and CO2 into lipstick, how cold and flu season isn’t different, you are, and a way to turn the forest into farmland without cutting down trees.

Plastic Waste Fuel

“Could waste plastic become a useful fuel source?” by Katherine Latham. 2023.
- https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64703976
“Our planet is choking on plastic.” n.a. N.d.
- https://www.unep.org/interactives/beat-plastic-pollution/

Colds Got Worse?

“Colds Haven’t Changed. So Why Do They Suddenly Feel So Bad?” by Katherine J. Wu. 2023.
- https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2023/02/common-cold-virus-symptoms-immunity/673193/
“The National Respiratory and Enteric Virus Surveillance System.” CDC. 2023.
- https://www.cdc.gov/surveillance/nrevss/index.html
“BIOFORE Syndromic Trends.” n.a. 2023.
- https://syndromictrends.com/

Trees and Mushrooms

“Growing mushrooms alongside trees could feed millions and mitigate effects of climate change, research finds.” n.a. 2023.
- https://www.stir.ac.uk/news/2023/march-2023-news/growing-mushrooms-alongside-trees-could-feed-millions-and-mitigate-effects-of-climate-change-research-finds/
“Edible fungi crops through mycoforestry, potential for carbon negative food production and mitigation of food and forestry conflicts.” by Paul W. Thomas & Alistair S. Jump. 2023.
- https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2220079120
“Edible mycorrhizal fungi of the world: What is their role in forest sustainability, food security, biocultural conservation and climate change?” by Jesus Perez-Moreno, et al. 2021.
- https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ppp3.10199#:~:text=Edible%20mycorrhizal%20fungi%3A%20This%20name,different%20cultures%20around%20the%20world.

Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to get smarter with Calli and Nate — for free! Still curious? Get exclusive science shows, nature documentaries, and more real-life entertainment on discovery+! Go to https://discoveryplus.com/curiosity to start your 7-day free trial. discovery+ is currently only available for US subscribers.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi, you're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from Discovery.
0:09.0	Time flies when you're learning super cool stuff.
0:11.0	I'm Nate.
0:12.0	And I'm Callie. If you're dropping in for the first time, welcome to Curiosity
0:15.2	where we aim to blow your mind by helping you to grow your mind. If you're a loyal
0:18.6	listener, welcome back. Today you'll learn about a new process that could turn
0:22.1	plastic waste and CO2 into lipstick,
0:25.2	how cold and flu season is indifferent you are, and a way to turn the forest into farmland
0:30.8	without cutting down trees.
0:32.8	Without further ado, let's satisfy some curiosity.
0:36.4	If I were to ask you about the best way to reduce the 400 million tons of plastic we create
0:41.6	every year, what would you say?
0:44.0	I'd say that's a lot, but reduce, reuse, recycle?
0:48.6	Well, according to a team out of the University of Cambridge, there might be a different solution but let's talk about that
0:55.0	older frame for a minute. It turns out that we've produced such a small amount of plastics
0:59.4	between the 1950s and the 1970s that it was pretty easy to manage it all. But between the 70s and the 90s
1:06.4	we more than tripled production and everyone started to notice plastic waste hanging out
1:11.8	kind of everywhere you looked and then in the 2000s plastic waste
1:14.0	hanging out kind of everywhere you looked. And then in the 2000s, plastic waste rose more in a single decade than it had in 40 years.
1:20.0	I guess you're trying to say that reducing isn't working. It's really not even close.
1:26.0	All right, but recycling programs have worked right? You'd think, but no. Of that 7 billion tons we've made since we've started
1:35.7	producing plastic only about 10% has been recycled and recycling is
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

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

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