0:01

Listener

0:03

supported WNYC

0:06

Studios.

0:09

This week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, Spike Lee

0:11

will talk about making independent films and

0:14

his collaboration with his late father, the

0:16

composer Bill Lee. Spike

0:18

Lee on the New Yorker Radio Hour. Listen

0:20

wherever you get your podcasts.

0:27

There's a new tree disease and it's spreading

0:29

across the country from the Midwest to

0:31

the Northeast. When you stand underneath

0:34

a tree with the reflection of the

0:36

light going through the leaf, you can see these kind of

0:38

little rectangular patches. It's

0:41

Friday, October 27th and

0:43

today is

0:44

Science Friday. I'm

0:50

Sci-fi producer Shoshana Buxbaum.

0:53

Each trees are facing a new threat

0:55

to their survival, beech leaf disease.

0:58

It was originally found in the Midwest

1:00

a decade ago, but now it's traveled

1:02

to the Northeast. It's caused by a

1:04

microscopic nematode. Scientists

1:07

are still trying to figure out the basic questions

1:10

about the disease and how to treat it. But

1:12

first, we check in on some of the week's top

1:15

science news with guest host,

1:16

Flora Lichtman. RSV. It's

1:19

a common virus, but can be dangerous,

1:21

especially for infants. So many

1:23

parents breathed a sigh of relief back

1:25

in July when an RSV shot for infants

1:28

was approved. But here we are

1:30

with RSV season upon us and many babies

1:33

still haven't gotten it. In part because

1:35

the shot is hard to find. Demand

1:37

has outpaced supply. And this week,

1:39

the CDC issued an alert about the drug's

1:42

limited availability. Here to tell

1:44

us about this and other science news from the week

1:46

is my guest, Katherine Wu, staff writer

1:48

for The Atlantic, based in Boston, Massachusetts.

1:52

Welcome back to Science Friday. Always good

1:54

to be here. OK, so tell me

1:56

about this RSV shot for infants. And I guess,

1:58

first of all, I've heard some hedging. changing around

2:00

the language for what this shot

2:02

is, is it technically a vaccine? Great

2:05

question. Love this question. It

2:08

is technically not a vaccine,

2:10

not in the traditional sense. It is a monoclonal

2:12

antibody shot. We got used to this idea

2:15

during the height of the COVID pandemic, but

2:17

basically this is another way to deliver

2:19

protective antibodies to your body, except

2:22

they are not made in house as a vaccine

2:24

would do. So wouldn't call this a vaccine,

2:26

but totally fair to call it a shot.

2:29

What kind of rationing is the CDC

2:31

recommending for it?

2:33

Right. So this is basically a prioritization

2:36

recommendation. The CDC is saying

2:38

that because supply is low, the

2:41

infants at highest risk should be prioritized

2:43

for this shot, which is called a forus. And

2:46

basically that means infants under the age

2:49

of six months or older infants who

2:51

have health conditions that would

2:53

predispose them to a very severe case

2:55

of RSV. The CDC is also

2:57

saying that infants who are American

2:59

Indian or Alaskan native should still be

3:02

prioritized for the shot because rates of RSV

3:04

are especially high in those communities. Why

3:07

is the supply so limited? It frankly

3:10

seems like the typical market situation

3:12

where demand was just not anticipated.

3:15

Essentially, Sanofi, which is one of the companies

3:17

that is behind Bay Fortis, is saying they

3:20

didn't really see it coming and they're currently

3:22

ramping up production. But given

3:24

what you just said, RSV season is already upon

3:27

us. It's unclear whether they will

3:29

be able to meet demand anytime soon. Let's

3:32

move on to another big story from the week. Forecasters

3:35

said that Hurricane Otis

3:37

would be a category one before

3:40

it made landfall in Mexico. And then

3:42

it intensified way past

3:44

what people predicted. What happened

3:47

there? Another great question.

3:49

The big issue here is, as you

3:52

just alluded to, a serious miss

3:54

by forecasters. And it is absolutely

3:57

insane how quickly Otis intensified

3:59

with an abominable 24 hours it went

4:01

from a tropical storm all the way to

4:03

a category 5. I mean that is

4:05

kind of the hurricane equivalent of striking

4:08

a match in your kitchen and seconds later seeing

4:10

your entire neighborhood on fire. There

4:13

was just no way I think forecasters

4:15

were really able to predict that sort

4:17

of intensification on such a short

4:19

time span. For more perspective this hurricane

4:22

gathered more than a hundred miles per hour

4:24

of wind speed within just 24 hours and so of course

4:28

when forecasters were looking just a day

4:31

out they weren't that worried

4:33

and so when Otis made landfall it was

4:35

absolutely devastating. It wasn't just that

4:38

the prediction had been miscalibrated but locals

4:41

had no time to prepare or

4:43

evacuate. Is this an example

4:45

of the storm just being like a total

4:47

fluke and strange or is this

4:50

an indication that the forecasting system really

4:53

doesn't work or needs some tweaks?

4:56

Well maybe a little bit of both. This

4:58

is certainly a rare occasion. This kind

5:00

of intensification absolutely is not

5:02

typical but it might be getting

5:05

more typical. The current

5:07

understanding is that the intensification happened

5:09

in part because the oceans have just been so

5:12

warm this year. Remember that heat is

5:14

energy and that is energy that a hurricane

5:16

can feed off of. It's basically drawing heat

5:19

from the ocean to fuel its own winds

5:22

and so the more heat is packed into an ocean

5:24

the more fodder there is going to be for a hurricane

5:27

like this and if oceans are expected

5:29

to be warmer in future years as climate

5:31

change suggests they certainly will that

5:33

probably means a lot more intensification

5:37

of this magnitude is in our future. At

5:39

the same time it definitely would help to have more monitoring

5:42

but when things are this unpredictable it's

5:45

hard to completely solve for that problem. Let's

5:48

move on to a story you reported for the Atlantic.

5:51

It's about your complicated relationship

5:53

with happy hour. That

5:56

is a great way of putting it so I

5:58

will out myself here. I am not

6:00

at all a habitual drinker. Whenever

6:03

I do imbibe alcohol, my

6:05

face goes insanely red. I get

6:07

really flushed. I look like I'm just

6:10

either very embarrassed or about

6:12

to make myself sick. There is no way

6:14

for me to drink without advertising it to

6:16

the entire world. I am

6:18

one of the 500 million people around

6:20

the world who experiences what's

6:22

called either Asian glow or alcohol

6:25

flush. And there's always

6:27

been this huge question. Why are there

6:29

so many of us? It is no fun

6:31

for us to drink and we have a

6:33

bunch of other health risks. We

6:36

are at higher risk of esophageal cancer

6:38

and heart disease and a bunch of other things.

6:41

This is just not a great genetic mutation

6:43

to have. So it's a genetic mutation

6:45

that causes it. Right, so

6:48

basically we don't produce

6:50

functional copies of an enzyme

6:52

called aldehyde dehydrogenase. And

6:55

this is necessary to break down the toxic

6:57

components of alcohol. Without it,

6:59

alcohol basically allows poison to

7:02

build up a ton in our bodies, causing

7:04

all of these side effects when we drink. And then of course

7:07

the health risks because aldehydes can

7:09

also appear in our body just through normal

7:11

metabolism. What was the new finding

7:13

this week? Right, so maybe

7:16

there is actually an explanation for why

7:18

this genetic mutation is so

7:20

prevalent. And the possibility

7:22

here is that infectious disease may

7:25

be to blame. Maybe when

7:27

infectious diseases were even more

7:29

prevalent than they are today and plagues

7:31

were wiping up populations around the world,

7:34

having this mutation was actually protective.

7:37

It's actually not that big of a logical leap. Remember

7:39

that this mutation allows poison to build up

7:41

in the body. That's certainly potentially

7:44

bad for ourselves, but it could be

7:46

pretty harmful to any microbe that's trying

7:48

to invade us as well. And so scientists

7:50

now know that these aldehydes that build

7:52

up in the body can actually be quite harmful

7:55

to bacteria such as tuberculosis.

7:58

So if you don't break them down, maybe.

7:59

these aldehydes that are in the body can

8:02

do some of this antimicrobial work for you?

8:04

Right, so basically it's this idea

8:07

of leveraging poison that already happens

8:09

to be hanging around in the body and leveraging

8:11

it for self-defense. And I should

8:13

quickly caveat here that this is not an endorsement

8:16

of drinking to cure your diseases.

8:19

It's actually just the idea that having

8:22

the mutation at all could be beneficial.

8:25

Let's go to our next story. It's about tiny

8:28

furry mummies. Tell me more. Yes,

8:31

so let me take you

8:34

to one of the highest, most extreme environments

8:36

on planet Earth. So high up

8:38

in the Andes Mountains, it is a

8:41

very, very, very harsh place to survive.

8:44

It's, you know, tens of thousands of

8:46

feet above sea level. The temperatures

8:48

are always freezing. It's super dry

8:50

and the oxygen content in the air

8:53

is about half what it is at sea level.

8:55

It's just not anywhere that I would want

8:57

to be for a long period of time. And frankly,

8:59

I would probably die if I tried to

9:01

do that without a lot of equipment with

9:04

me. But the reason that this

9:06

place has become so interesting to scientists

9:09

is because it's actually a decent simulation

9:11

of conditions on Mars. You

9:14

know, a super harsh environment without much oxygen

9:16

certainly sounds extraterrestrial

9:19

to us. And what is fascinating

9:22

is now scientists have found exactly

9:24

as you said, some tiny furry mummies

9:27

up there. These are dead bodies of

9:29

leaf-eared mice, which is

9:31

a possible indication that there are

9:34

mammals happily living up there

9:36

in this ultra harsh Mars-like

9:38

environment. Do the scientists have a sense

9:40

of how these mice survived up there? That

9:43

is the next big question, you know, so all

9:46

they have done so far is provide a

9:48

decent bit of evidence that these mice aren't

9:50

just tourists or passers-by

9:52

or that, you know, maybe humans were dropping them off

9:54

up there. They're finding mice of all ages,

9:57

multiple sexes. It

9:59

seems that they... actually can happily

10:01

live up there. But they don't yet

10:03

know how. Just finding evidence

10:05

that it's possible though really opens up

10:08

a bunch of questions. You know, if we're able

10:10

to figure out how the mice are managing this, it could

10:13

help us better understand how to colonize

10:15

other planets potentially and just

10:17

maybe opens up new questions about what

10:20

has been in Mars past, what might

10:22

have survived up there, what sort of life

10:24

has a dead living. Let's

10:27

go to our last story. New research

10:29

suggests that wild chimpanzees go

10:31

through menopause. Just like us.

10:34

Why is this news? Is this unusual? This

10:37

is definitely weird and

10:39

I think let's take a step back and just

10:41

think about how weird menopause

10:43

is, at least from an evolutionary perspective.

10:46

I mean it does seem like a little bit of

10:48

a waste in a sense. Why

10:51

not stay fertile for your entire

10:53

lifetime? You know, why give up your fertility early?

10:55

Or you know flip that question around, what

10:58

is keeping animals alive past

11:00

their prime reproductive years? You know,

11:02

it can be super important

11:05

for cultural things for humans, but technically

11:07

it's not adding on to future generations.

11:10

And so this has been a huge pressing question

11:12

for scientists for a very long time. And

11:15

humans are very clearly so

11:17

the only mammals that do undergo

11:19

menopause. For us there were

11:21

some ideas about you know maybe this is important

11:24

for humans in particular. Our

11:26

babies have these big brains. They're so vulnerable

11:29

for such a long time. Maybe it's useful

11:31

to have older generations around

11:33

to care for these infants.

11:36

Keep teaching them. Provide whatever

11:39

extra supplementary care they can. This

11:41

whole idea of it takes a village and grandmothers

11:44

are awesome. But

11:46

the weird thing is now that scientists

11:48

have found potentially several other

11:51

mammals including these chimpanzees that seem

11:53

to undergo menopause as well, that

11:56

theory might be breaking down. Champs

11:58

are of course are closest primate

12:01

relatives, and if they're undergoing menopause,

12:03

that suggests, well, what if we had a common

12:05

ancestor that was undergoing this, and

12:08

what if it's not because of giant

12:10

brains and needing grandmothers around? Could

12:12

it be something else? What could it be?

12:15

So that is the next question. This is

12:17

another case in which, you know, they have sort of documented

12:19

the phenomenon, but the big question

12:21

of why is still unanswered. What's

12:24

really intriguing is scientists are now

12:26

possibly looking to some evidence in

12:28

whales to answer the why question with

12:30

chimpanzees. So there are a few species of

12:33

whales that also undergo menopause, but

12:35

for them it doesn't seem to be necessarily a benefit

12:37

of having grandmothers around to raise their children.

12:40

And I actually love this

12:42

other reason because it is

12:44

just about benefits of having older

12:47

individuals around. Older females

12:49

aren't just useful because they can contribute to the

12:51

raising of children. Women are more than

12:53

their childbearing capacity, in other words.

12:56

Maybe these older individuals are around because

12:58

they just help their species survive.

13:00

They have more life experience. They can teach

13:03

others around them to just be better at being

13:05

chimps or whales or humans. Yes,

13:07

that is the kind of older woman I want to be. Same.

13:11

That's all the time we have for now. I'd like to thank my

13:13

guest, Catherine Wu, staff writer for The Atlantic

13:16

based in Boston, Massachusetts. Thank

13:18

you for joining us. Thanks so much for having

13:20

me. Support for Science Friday comes from

13:22

the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation,

13:24

working to enhance public understanding of science,

13:27

technology, and economics in the modern world.

13:33

You've probably heard about the emerald ash borer,

13:36

or maybe Dutch elm disease? Well,

13:38

let me add another to the list. Beach leaf

13:40

disease is also felling trees. It

13:43

was first identified in 2012 in

13:45

Ohio, and now the disease is popping

13:47

up in beach trees across the country, and

13:50

scientists are still trying to figure out how

13:52

to treat it. Joining me now to talk more

13:54

about her reporting on beach leaf disease and

13:57

how it's affected Massachusetts' beach trees.

14:00

is my guest, Paola Mara, Climate

14:02

and Environment Reporter at WBUR,

14:04

based in Boston, Massachusetts. Paola,

14:07

welcome to Science Friday.

14:09

Thanks for having me.

14:10

So I just introduced you with your official

14:13

title, but I heard you have another

14:15

job these days. Yeah, today

14:17

my job

14:17

is beach. For

14:21

beech trees? Yes, for beech trees.

14:24

Just like naturalist Ken Doll.

14:26

Yes. So what

14:28

causes beech leaf disease?

14:30

Yeah, so it's caused by a

14:32

microscopic nematode, which

14:35

is a worm. When you think of a worm,

14:37

you think they live in the soil, right? But

14:39

this one lives in the leaf and leaf

14:42

buds. Scientists believe it may be

14:44

spread by birds, insect, and wind.

14:47

What does it look like when a tree is infected

14:49

with the disease? The leaves can get a

14:51

dark stripe or become curled.

14:54

The leaves also fall off. So

14:56

the canopy, you can see it doesn't provide

14:58

shadow as it used to do. I

15:01

joined a group of volunteers that spotted

15:03

a tree with beech leaf

15:04

disease in the park here in Massachusetts

15:07

near Boston. And I spoke

15:09

with Claire O'Neill, who is with the

15:11

conservation nonprofit Earthwise

15:13

Aware. When you stand

15:16

underneath a tree with the reflection

15:18

of the light going through the leaf, you can see these kind

15:20

of little rectangular patches of

15:23

very dark color. This is

15:25

what is a sign of the leaf disease.

15:28

How long does it take for this to do really

15:31

serious damage to the tree or to kill the tree?

15:34

The trees usually die in a few years.

15:38

Wow.

15:39

How fast is it spreading? Yeah,

15:41

it was first identified in Ohio

15:43

in 2012. And now it

15:45

has spread over a dozen states.

15:48

It was identified in Massachusetts for

15:50

the first time in 2020. It

15:53

was identified in three communities and

15:56

now it has spread over 90 communities.

15:59

Yeah, very fast. Is

16:02

there a way to treat trees infected

16:04

with the disease? So researchers

16:06

say finding treatments will take more

16:08

time. They've just begun

16:11

studying this disease. For

16:13

example, it took five years just

16:15

to confirm that the infection was caused by

16:17

anematone. But the most promising

16:19

treatment so far comes from a chemical

16:22

typically used as a fertilizer. When

16:25

they've treated trees with the fertilizer,

16:28

they found that those trees seem to be

16:30

healthier. More of the buds

16:32

survive and thrive with

16:34

anematone on it and the leaves too. And

16:37

some trees seem to be resistant on

16:39

their own. Researchers

16:42

in Ohio are studying these specimens in

16:44

hopes that they could breed them and use

16:46

them in referestation. But

16:49

the study is still ongoing, so they

16:51

don't know if the trees have some genetic

16:53

resistance or if there are other

16:55

factors that are helping the trees. How

16:59

does climate change factor into

17:01

all of this? There might be some

17:03

good news here. In

17:06

general, beech trees have been more resilient

17:08

to extreme weather exacerbated

17:11

by climate change, like heat and drought,

17:13

in comparison to other trees here in the

17:16

Northeast. I spoke to Pamela D'Amplar,

17:18

a professor at Boston University. She

17:21

says it's too early to know the impact

17:23

of climate change in relation to the disease.

17:26

A really important thing to understand is how

17:28

climate

17:28

change might be making

17:29

these trees vulnerable to this pest, but

17:31

I think it's too early to say.

17:34

It took five years just to confirm the infection

17:36

was caused by anematode, so

17:39

finding a treatment will take more time.

17:42

The researchers you talked to, do

17:44

you get the sense that they're concerned about

17:47

this?

17:48

Here in Massachusetts, beech leaf disease

17:50

raised to one of

17:51

the top concerns for the state

17:54

forest health program, and

17:56

I

17:57

spoke to the director, Nicole Gattan.

18:00

tell her and she said she

18:02

expects to see a lot of tree deaths

18:04

and I could tell like everyone

18:07

is concerned and really want

18:09

to find the treatment that would help.

18:12

Thank

18:12

you for sharing your reporting with us Paola.

18:14

Thank you for having me. Paola

18:17

Mara, climate and environment reporter at

18:19

WBUR based in Boston, Massachusetts.

18:23

If you want to learn more about how to tell if

18:25

a tree is infected by beech leaf disease

18:27

and how scientists are trying to treat it, go to

18:29

sciencefriday.com slash

18:32

leaf.

18:33

And that's it for today. Lots of folks help

18:35

put the show together including Beth

18:37

Ramey,

18:38

Santiago Flores, Diana Plasker,

18:40

John Demkoski, Robin

18:43

Kazmer. On Monday a conversation

18:45

with writer Walter Isaacson about his biography

18:48

of the controversial tech entrepreneur

18:50

Elon Musk. Thanks for listening.

18:53

I'm Shoshana Buxbaum. We'll see you next week

18:55

on Science Friday.

18:59

you