KGNU - How On Earth

Lake Mead’s “bathtub ring” (July 2022)
Photo credit: Tom Yulsman

This week on How On Earth:
Colorado River Basin Crisis (start time: 5:31–scroll down for arrow)
The Colorado River is the life blood for about 40 million inhabitants. And it’s in dire straights. The river’s two reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, are at historically low levels, due primarily to climate change and overuse. The water-supply crisis is affecting Colorado and six other states, as well as some 30 tribes, that rely on the Colorado River for water and electricity. Last month the federal government ordered the seven states to jointly come up with a plan to dramatically cut their consumption from the river. They have until mid-August to deliver–or they’ll face mandatory cuts. Host Susan Moran discusses with two guests the underlying causes of the water crisis, what’s at stake, and potential solutions. Jennifer Gimbel is a senior water policy scholar at the Colorado Water Center, located at Colorado State University. Formerly she was an undersecretary of the Department of Interior, and executive director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board. Tom Yulsman is a science journalist focusing on climate change. He runs the ImaGeo visual blog for Discover magazine, and he is director of the Center for Environmental Journalism at CU Boulder.
Some relevant resources for more info and the basin’s water crisis:
* 2022 Science paper, What Will It Take To Stabilize the Colorado River?
* Fresh Water News (Water Education Colorado)
* The Water Desk

Show Host & Producer: Susan Moran
Executive Producer: Beth Bennett
Headline Contributors: Beth Bennett, Shelley Schlender

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Colorado Cafe Sci (starts 1:00) happens monthly, in Denver.

cc Wikimedia

Alcohol and Alcoholism Recent News (starts 2:49) We look at recent science about alcohol consumption, including a study that indicates as little as 3 glasses of wine a week is associated with buildups of iron in the brain — a risk factor for brain disease, increased binge drinking among pregnant women, and a new study about genetic characteristics associated with alcoholism.

Beth Bennett Discusses the Biology of Alcoholism, Homeostasis and Allostasis (starts 5:35) Discussion includes a reference to the studies about yeast and entropy with Matthias Heinemann. Go here to listen to the entire extended interview (45 minutes long) and go here for an extended version transcript

Executive Producer: Beth Bennett
Show Producer: Shelley Schlender
Additional Contributions : Joel Parker & Benita Lee

Rick Johnson – CU School of Medicine

Nature Wants Us to be Fat: The Surprising Science Behind Why we Gain Weight and How We Can Prevent and Reverse it. University of Colorado Medical School Professor Rick Johnson shares why he thinks eating lots of fructose sugars can trigger a Survival Switch that helps bears put on weight before they hibernate . . . . and also why whales, which don’t eat any sugar, carry a lot of f to why whales are fat, and how foods affect our hunger and satiety.

GO HERE for extended interview (1 hour) and transcript.

Host/ Producer: Shelley Schlender
Executive Producer: Beth Bennett

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Photo credit: Chris Canipe

Today’s show features:
Employing Beavers (start time: 11:12): Some consider them pests. Others praise them as saviors of the environment. Whatever your impression of these furry swimming rodents, beavers are gaining more proponents for their ability to make landscapes, and thus humans, more resilient to climate change. Through their dams and lodges, beavers raise water levels, moisten fire-prone forest soil, slow water speed, and thus prevent flooding while storing more water. Host Susan Moran talks with Jessica Doran, a wildlife biologist with EcoMetrics Colorado; and Aaron Hall, senior aquatic biologist with Defenders of Wildlife, about the promises and complexities of employing beavers as ecosystem engineers.
Beaver resources:
iBeaver (crowdsourcing App from Defenders of Wildlife)
How On Earth 2018 interview with Eager author Ben Goldfarb
Rewilding the American West (Ripple et al, BioScience, 2022)

Hosts: Susan Moran, Joel Parker
Show Producer: Susan Moran
Executive Producer: Beth Bennett
Headline contributors: Beth Bennett, Shelley Schlender, Tom Yulsman

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Tabernath Iboga Plant – courtesy Marco Schmidt, Wiki Commons

Ibogaine for Traumatic Brain Injury – The Science journal Nature has published a small case study about Special Forces veterans who suffer from traumatic brain injury . . . they report good results from one single dose of the illegal psychedelic Ibogaine . . . with careful supervision.

Andrew Linares – Boulder Therapist

Ibogaine – Huberman Lab discussion with Nolan Williams (Starts 3:45) Stanford scientists discuss therapeutic use of Ibogaine.

Ibogaine – Boulder Therapist Andrew Linares (Starts 7:00) shares his experiences working with special forces veterans who are taking Ibogaine at a clinic in Mexico, where it is a legal drug.

Lynx – from Endangered Species.org

Lynx Habitat battle this Wednesday (starts 1:00) Denver’s US 10th District Court of Appeals will hear a case about U.S. Forest Service plans for environmental rollbacks in southern Colorado’s Rio Grande National Forest. They plan to log beetle-killed trees -which may disrupt old growth forest that the endangered lynx needs. Environmentalists are pushing for more study about the impact of these plans.

Ibogaine Song by Lord Ekomy Ndong

Host/Producer/Engineer: Shelley Schlender
Executive Producer: Joel Parker
Contributors: Beth Bennett

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