SoT 249: Snail Tinder

December 11, 2016

Hosts: Ed Brown, Penny Dumsday, Lucas Randall

[00:00:51] Scientists have drilled into the impact site of the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs. The core samples have revealed the impact caused a temporary mountain range the size of the Himalayas.

[00:11:16] At a time when the coconut market is booming, the world’s coconut trees could be facing extinction. And saving them presents a number of difficult challenges.

[00:14:58] Researchers using NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have determined that frozen beneath a particular region of Mars’s surface lies about as much water as what’s in Lake Superior, largest of the Great Lakes in North America.

[00:19:56] Most snail shells coil on the right-hand side of the snail. But Jeremy the Snail is 1 in 100,000 – his shell coils to the left. For snails, it’s hard to find love when you’re a lefty.

 

This episode contains archive material of astronaut John Glenn’s historic first orbit around the Earth.