Pod Insights Short Wave The plight of penguins in Antarctica About this episode A new study shows penguins are breeding earlier than ever https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2656.70201 in the Antarctic Peninsula. This region is one of the fastest-warming areas of the world due to climate change, and penguins time their breeding period to environmental conditions. That’s everything from the temperature outside and whether there’s ice on the ground to what food is available. Changes in those conditions could contribute to mating changes. Plus, answers to a debate about how ice melts and how dirty diapers train parents in the art of disgust.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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0:18 Speaker 00 You're listening to Short Wave from NPR.
0:23 Regina Barber? Hey, Short Wavers. Regina Barber here. And Emily Kwong. With our biweekly science news roundup, featuring the hosts of All Things Considered. And today, we have the glamorous, the brilliant Elsa Chang.
0:34 Speaker 02 Aw, thank you, guys.
0:36 Regina Barber? Hi, Elsa.
0:37 Speaker 02 So glad to be here. Okay, so I heard that we are talking about penguins adapting to climate change in the Antarctic today?
0:44 Regina Barber? Yes. And we're going to get into a debate about ice skating that may now have an answer.
0:49 Speaker 02 Huh.
0:50 Regina Barber? And how dirty diapers train parents in the art of disgust.
0:53 Speaker 02 Oh, interesting. Can't wait.
0:57 Regina Barber? All of that on this episode of Short Wave, the science podcast from NPR.
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2:28 Speaker 02 Okay, kick us off with the Antarctic penguins. What's going on with these guys?
2:33 Regina Barber? So, a new study in the Journal of Animal Ecology found that they're breeding earlier than ever in the Antarctic spring. Adelie and chinstrap penguins are breeding an average of 10 days earlier. And gentoo penguins, almost 2 weeks earlier. Over the decade, the researchers observed them.
2:50 Emily Kwong? And while 2 weeks may not seem like a lot of time, researchers say it's actually a radical shift in the penguins' breeding season.
2:57 Speaker 02 Wait, so what's causing this shift?
2:58 Regina Barber? So, penguins time their breeding period to environmental conditions, like temperature outside, or whether there's ice on the ground, or what food is available. And with climate change, the Antarctic Peninsula is one of the fastest-warming areas of the world, and that could be a driver.
3:13 Speaker 02 Interesting. So, how did they collect all of this data? Like, 10 years feels like a very long time to be in Antarctica.
3:21 Regina Barber? Yeah. So, one of the study's authors, Tom Hart, says they set up 77 cameras across 37 penguin colonies, and each camera took photos every hour for a decade.
3:32 Speaker 02 Surveillance system.
3:34 Emily Kwong? Yes. It was very clever methodology. We spoke to another penguin researcher who wasn't involved in the paper, Bill Fraser, and he said this camera method is a great way to get long-term data in Antarctica, because a lot of work in this region is restricted to human observations.
3:49 Speaker 02 Huh. Okay, so then what does all of this mean for the future of Antarctic penguins, you think?
3:54 Regina Barber? Well, Tom says that's something they're trying to figure out for future work. Some penguins might thrive. For example, the gentoo penguins are suited for warmer climates and eat a wider variety of fish. So, it seems that gentoos are doing better than the other species, which could struggle with warmer temperatures.
4:10 Speaker 02 Okay, going from Antarctic penguins to the Winter Olympics, which are just a few weeks away.
4:16 Emily Kwong? Yes.
4:17 Regina Barber? Yeah.
4:17 Speaker 02 And I think, like, this would be a great time, then, to talk about ice science. Tell us, Emily, what is new about ice?
4:24 Emily Kwong? Well, since Victorian times, there's been this idea that ice has a thin layer of water on top, which makes it slippery, and physicists have been arguing about it ever since. Is there a thin film of water, even at temps below 0 degrees Celsius? And like, how thick is this layer of water?
4:41 Regina Barber? And there might be an answer now, published in the Journal of Chemical Physics this week. Luis Gonzalez-McDowell, a chemist at Complutense, University of Madrid, looked at research all the way back to the 1930s to address this debate. He also ran computer simulations to see how ice freezes or melts, really looking at what happens to that surface.
4:59 Speaker 02 Hmm, and what did he find? Like, is that thin film of water there?
5:04 Emily Kwong? Uh, drum roll. There is a very, very thin layer of water on the ice, even though the ice itself is frozen. And this is true down to negative 10 degrees Celsius. That layer of water is about a nanometer thick. And to put that in perspective, a sheet of paper is 100,000 times thicker than that layer of water.
5:23 Speaker 02 Wow.
5:24 Emily Kwong? Uh, here's Luis.
5:25 Speaker 05 The surface of ice, which is solid, is always lubricated. You have always, before you start sliding, already a lubrication layer.
5:34 Regina Barber? And this is interesting because some past theories thought that maybe the pressure from like, let's say, an ice skate, maybe the thing creating that layer of water on the ice. And he says it's always there, down to negative 10 degrees Celsius.
5:46 Speaker 02 Okay, so then to apply this to the Winter Olympics, say, what does this mean for winter sports like ice skating or hockey?
5:54 Emily Kwong? Yeah, well, ice skates, they put pressure on the ice. And when that happens, the water layer actually gets thicker because the friction of the skate blades causes more melting.
6:02 Speaker 02 Interesting.
6:03 Emily Kwong? Yeah.
6:04 Regina Barber? And Luis's computer models also took into account humidity and found that humidity levels can also affect the formation and thickness of that water layer. Looking ahead to the Winter Olympics in Italy, there's already been some concern about the ice rinks and whether the ice is smooth enough to skate on. And according to Luis's work, if the humidity isn't quite right, that could also affect the slipperiness.
6:24 Speaker 02 Hmm, okay, going from the pristiness of ice surfaces to dirty diapers.
6:30 Emily Kwong? What a pivot.
6:33 Speaker 02 I am so glad to be child-free. What do we got here on this front? Dirty diapers, talk to me.
6:37 Regina Barber? This is inspired by the psychology of disgust. So disgust is really important to our survival as humans because it helps us avoid all kinds of substances that would otherwise make us, like, sick. Remember, disgust was one of the five basic emotions in that movie Inside Out?
6:52 Speaker 02 Yeah.
6:53 Regina Barber? Caution, there is a dangerous smell, people. Yucky!
6:57 Speaker 06 I just saved our lives. Yeah, you're welcome.
6:59 Speaker 02 I love disgust.
7:02 Emily Kwong? She's an icon. However, there are some kinds of disgusting things that people can get used to, like the contents of their kids' diapers.
7:10 Speaker 02 No.
7:11 Emily Kwong? Scientists call this habituation. When you're repeatedly exposed to something, you're less sensitive to it.
7:16 Regina Barber? Especially if you're a parent, which I am. And scientists at the University of Bristol and Whitman College wanted to know, how long do parents hold on to their tolerance for these gross things?
7:27 Speaker 02 OK, I can't help but feel a parallel to owning a dog, because the amount of times I have gotten stuff on my hands, like, I just don't even care anymore, you know?
7:37 Emily Kwong? Yeah.
7:37 Speaker 02 So I am curious.
7:38 Emily Kwong? Do it for love.
7:39 Speaker 02 Yeah, exactly. But if I were a human parent, I mean, a parent of a human, like, even after my kids have grown up, would I retain this superpower, this resistance to disgust?
7:51 Emily Kwong? Yeah. So to study that very question, the research team recruited 99 parents and 50 non-parents. And they showed them two photos at once on a computer screen. On one side, a photo of something neutral, like a stack of towels or a clean sink. And on the other side, photos of gross things, like vomit on a sidewalk and, of course, dirty diapers.
8:11 Speaker 07 They're all produced by my children, by the way, so big shout out to my kids.
8:15 Speaker 02 Aww.
8:16 Emily Kwong? This is the study's lead author, Edwin Dahlmeier, who published these results in the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology.
8:22 Regina Barber? By tracking the volunteers' attention as they, like, looked at these photos, his team found out that the non-parents tend to avoid the disgusting photos, whereas the parents showed little to no avoidance. They would look at those pictures of soiled diapers with little aversion, including parents who hadn't changed a dirty diaper in decades, which is, like, similar to me. I am not bothered.
8:41 Speaker 02 Oh, wow. So you're, like, habituated for life once you have a child?
8:46 Regina Barber? Maybe.
8:46 Emily Kwong? This superpower does seem to last a while, according to this work.
8:50 Speaker 02 I mean, if I had to pick my superpower, this is probably not the one I would pick. But, big picture, why does this work matter? What would you say?
8:58 Regina Barber? Yeah, I mean, disgust habituation is actually a good thing in all kinds of jobs. Think about nurses or surgeons or custodians. Edwin would love to see his work be used in those professions.
9:10 Speaker 07 Even if we can reassure people, hey, it feels a bit gross now, but you'll get used to it over time. Hopefully, that ultimately either helps or can lead to things that do help.
9:21 Speaker 02 This is fascinating. I wonder if it applies to people who are annoying. You just get used to them over time and they stop bothering you.
9:27 Regina Barber? I don't know, but you, Elsa, are always welcome and not annoying us. So thank you so much for coming on the show.
9:34 Emily Kwong? You're so welcome.
9:39 Regina Barber? You can hear Elsa on Consider This, NPR's afternoon podcast about what the news means for you.
9:44 Emily Kwong? And for more science stories just like this one, follow Short Wave on whatever app you are listening to. I'm Emily Kwong.
9:52 Regina Barber? And I'm Regina Barber. Thank you for listening to Short Wave, the science podcast from NPR.
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