True Grit

Big Picture Science

Science, Technology

4.5 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 19 August 2019

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Without sand, engineering would be stuck in the Middle Ages. Wooden houses would line mud-packed streets, and Silicon Valley would be, well, just a valley. Sand is the building material of modern cities, and we use more of this resource than any other except water and air. Now we’re running out of it. Hear why the Roman recipe for making concrete was lost until the 19th century, and about the super-secret mine in North Carolina that makes your smartphone possible. Plus, engineered sand turns stormwater into drinking water, and why you might think twice about running barefoot on some tropical beaches once you learn about their biological source. And, a special report from the coast of Louisiana where livelihoods and ecosystems depend on the successful release of Mississippi sand from levees into sediment-starved wetlands. Guests: Vince Beiser – Journalist and author of “The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How it Transformed Civilization” Joe Charbonnet – Science and policy associate at the Green Science Policy Institute in Berkeley, California Pupa Gilbert – Biophysicist and geobiologist, University of Wisconsin, Madison Rudy Simoneaux – Engineer manager, Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, Baton Rouge, Louisiana Elizabeth Chamberlain – Post-doctoral researcher in Earth and Environmental Sciences, Vanderbilt University Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast.
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0:51.0	Sign up for a one pound per month trial period at shopify.co dek slash special offer,
0:56.4	or lowercase. That's Shopify dot co-deekk slash special offer. Okay, summers when I was a kid, my parents would inevitably ask, you want to go to the mountains or you want to go to the beach?
1:16.5	I always wanted to go to the beach because at the beach I would build these ramps out of sand, you know, so you could roll a tennis ball down them and they would, you know, run
1:24.5	down this beach to the surf. I would bury my buddy in the sand. I would build a giant sandcastle.
1:30.1	Frankly, it was a no-brainer for me. I preferred the beach. But I'm not the only one who likes to build things out of sand.
1:36.4	I'm Seth Shostak. I'm Molly Bentley. Welcome to Big Picture Science produced at the
1:40.9	SETI Institute where researchers investigate the nature and origin of life.
1:44.8	In this episode, the world in a grain or many grains of sand.
1:49.4	When you break it down, you'll find that whatever you're breaking down is probably composed of sand.
	...

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