Big Picture Science for Nov. 24, 2025: Flu the Coop

Big Picture Science: Flu the Coop

The worry about whether H5N1 will trigger a human pandemic has concealed a startling reality. Avian influenza has already taken an enormous toll on the lives of other animals. Since 2005, the number of wild and domesticated birds killed is greater than the combined human populations of the United States and Russia. Bird flu is burning through wild flocks, poultry farms, and mammal populations, including those of sea mammals. We look at the places where the virus can recombine and mutate, and why this version is not simply dying out as it has in years past. At a squawking live poultry market in Brooklyn, and on a Long Island duck farm, we hear about the difficult experience of euthanizing 100,000 birds and whether a farm can recover from such a devastating loss. And finally, we ask, why poultry vaccines that could curb the spread of H5N1 aren’t being used. But we begin our episode with descriptions of the soaring global migrations of birds whose feats of endurance help us understand why H5N1 is widespread in birds worldwide.

Guests:

• Scott Weidensaul – Ornithologist, bird migration researcher, and author of "A World on the Wing: The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds"
• David Swayne – Bird flu veterinarian
• Doug Corwin – Farmer and owner of Crescent Duck Farm, Aquebogue, New York
• Jon Cohen – Senior correspondent with Science Magazine, where you can find his recent article, “The Pandemic Next Time,” and author of "Planning Miracles: How to Prevent Future Pandemics"

Download podcast at - https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/flu-the-coop

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://bigpicturescience.org/

Get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!

Big Picture Science for Nov. 17, 2025: Skeptic Check: String Theory

 

Big Picture Science: Skeptic Check: String Theory

REPEAT
The idea that the universe is made of tiny vibrating strings was once the science theory du jour. String theory promised to unite the disparate theories describing particles and gravity, and many people, not just scientists, were optimistic that a theory of everything might be within our grasp. But here we are, many years later, and string theory doesn’t seem to have delivered on its initial promise. What happened? We consider the science around string theory in this episode of Skeptic Check

Guest:

• Brian Greene – Physicist and mathematician at Columbia University, and author of The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory.

Originally aired October 14, 2024

Download podcast at - https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/skeptic-check-string-theory

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://bigpicturescience.org/

Get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!

Big Picture Science for Nov. 10, 2025: Solar Good

Big Picture Science: Solar Good

In Brazil, leaders from across the globe are gathering for COP30, the premier climate summit in the world. For the first time, the U.S. is sitting it out, after exiting the Paris Agreement. There is, however, a ray of hope in the global efforts to reduce fossil fuel emissions. Bill McKibben, an environmentalist and journalist who describes himself as a “professional bummer-out-of-people,” has good news about the solar energy industry, after years of his repeated, and alarming, reports about our failure to address climate change. For the first time ever, solar energy production is outpacing the fossil fuel industry. Momentum is gathering in surprising places. The state with the fastest growing clean energy sector is the oil and gas country, Texas. And, when energy analysts investigated Pakistan’s sudden drop in energy demand, they saw “solar panels spreading across rooftops like mushrooms after a rainstorm.”

Guests:

• Bill McKibben – environmentalist, journalist and author of “Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization”
• Jon Gertner – journalist, editor, and author of “The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation”

Download podcast at - https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/solar-good

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://bigpicturescience.org/

Get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!

Big Picture Science for Nov. 03, 2025: Katrina and the River

Big Picture Science: Katrina and the River

REPEAT
“The Mississippi River will always have its own way; no engineering skill can persuade it to do otherwise,” said Mark Twain. In this, our final episode marking the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, we consider how efforts to control the Mighty Mississippi – a river engineered from its Minnesota headwaters to its Gulf Coast outlet – have responded to the devastating storm, and how New Orleans’ relationship to the river has changed. Can the city keep up with the pressure that climate change is putting on this engineered system, or is retreat the only viable response?

Plus, a wetland recovery project that aims to bolster protection from hurricanes and flooding in the Lower Ninth Ward.

Guests:

• Boyce Upholt – Journalist and author of “The Great River: The Making and Unmaking of the Mississippi River”
• Nathaniel Rich – Author of “Second Nature: Scenes From a World Remade” and the New York Times Op-Ed, “New Orleans’ Striking Advantage in the Age of Climate Change”
• Harriet Swift – New Orleans resident
• Andrew Horowitz – Historian, University of Connecticut, author of "Katrina: A History, 1915-2015"
• Rashida Ferdinand – Founder and Executive Director of Sankofa Community Development Corporation, overseeing the Sankofa Wetland Park and Nature Trail in New Orleans
• Jason Day – Biologist, wetland Scientist, Comite Resources in Louisiana

 Originally aired August 18, 2025

Download podcast at - https://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/katrina-and-the-river

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://bigpicturescience.org/