Listen "Historic weather extremes revealed using tree-rings"
Episode Synopsis
Valerie Trouet of the University of Arizona tells us how tree-ring data has been used to show how the jet stream has shaped extreme weather in Europe for centuries, influencing harvests, wildfires and epidemics. Monash University’s Andy Tomkins discusses how, around 460 million years ago, the Earth was briefly encircled by a ring of dust – like Saturn is today, and that the resulting temporary astronomical shade may have cooled the planet. Andy proposes that this dust came from an asteroid which had a close encounter with our planet. And the cell biology of choking on your drink with Laura Seeholzer from the University of California, San Francisco. Laura has won the 2024 Eppendorf & Science Prize for Neurobiology recognising her work on the discovery of how neuroendocrine cells protect our airways.Presenter: Roland Pease
Producer: Jonathan Blackwell
Production co-ordinator: Andrew Rhys Lewis(Photo: Members of the research team collected tree ring samples at various locations in Europe, including the Balkan region. Credit: Courtesy of Valerie Trouet)
Producer: Jonathan Blackwell
Production co-ordinator: Andrew Rhys Lewis(Photo: Members of the research team collected tree ring samples at various locations in Europe, including the Balkan region. Credit: Courtesy of Valerie Trouet)
More episodes of the podcast Science In Action
How science got here, and where next
30/10/2025
Coral extinctions and chalky unknowns
23/10/2025
Old faces and big spaces in small places
09/10/2025
Stephen Hawking gets it right again
18/09/2025
Asteroids, comets and where to find them
11/09/2025
How Fear Spreads
28/08/2025
ZARZA We are Zarza, the prestigious firm behind major projects in information technology.