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March 24, 2020
Et tu, Etna?
In 44 BCE, a momentous event occurred. Somewhere on Earth, a volcano erupted—one of the largest of last 2,500 years terms of climate impact. Traces of the eruption can be found in ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica, in signs of cold weather in the growth rings of trees around the world, and records of famine and agricultural disaster from Egypt to China. The eruption caused global climate effects lasting several years.
February 19, 2020
Exhuming a Buried Piece of American History
In 1991, the United States government unearthed a staggering archaeological find during construction of a federal office building in lower Manhattan. While digging the building’s foundations, construction crews stumbled upon skeletal remains from the “Negroes Burial Ground,” the largest and oldest burial site of free and enslaved Africans in what would become the United States.
January 27, 2020
Discovering Europe’s History Through its Timbers
An analysis of timber used to construct buildings in Europe hundreds of years ago is giving scientists and historians new insights into the region’s history from the 13th to 17th centuries. Using samples of wood taken from old buildings in Europe, Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist, a historian and paleoclimatologist at Stockholm University, and Andrea Seim, a dendrochronologist at the University of Freiburg, figured out when the trees used in the buildings …
December 4, 2019
E24 Part 2- A Walk in the Vault with Jeff Post
Mineralogist Jeff Post has a one-of-a-kind job: he’s curator of the National Gem and Mineral Collection, a collection of over 375,000 rock and mineral specimens housed at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. In this episode, Jeff takes Third Pod producers on a tour of the vault, where the collection’s most valuable and rare specimens are kept. Jeff
December 2, 2019
E24 Part 1- (Hope) Diamonds are Forever
Mineralogist Jeff Post has a one-of-a-kind job: he’s curator of the National Gem and Mineral Collection, a collection of over 375,000 rock and mineral specimens housed at the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) in Washington, D.C. In this episode, Jeff describes his day-to-day work of maintaining and growing this invaluable collection, which includes being personally responsible for the Hope Diamond and countless other treasures.
November 18, 2019
CE12 – A Nuclear Legacy Buried in Ice
Earlier this year, scientists reported that radioactive fallout from nuclear accidents and weapons testing is present in ice sediments on the surface of glaciers in the Arctic, Iceland, the Alps, the Caucasus, British Columbia and Antarctica.
October 28, 2019
Third Pod Presents: Sci & Tell – Jim Green on Space Exploration
We’re trying something new with Third Pod. In addition to your regularly scheduled programming, we’re going to showcase short stories from scientists in a new series we’re dubbing Sci & Tell. Like show & tell, but with science (and audio)!
September 23, 2019
Centennial E10 – Volcano Disaster Prepping
Many people have emergency kits packed to flee or survive forces of nature like floods, hurricanes, or wildfire. But what do you throw in your bag when you expect to rush toward a natural hazard? Geologist John Ewert has his go-kit packed with portable seismometers and gas-monitoring equipment, ready to mobilize when a volcano starts to rumble.
August 19, 2019
Centennial E9 – The Sun and the Exploding Sea
In 1972, in the waning years of the Vietnam War, U.S. military pilots flying south of Haiphong harbor in North Vietnam saw something unexpected. Without explanation, and without warning, over two dozen sea mines suddenly exploded. While the phenomenon was never officially explained, it piqued the interest of space scientist Delores Knipp.
May 20, 2019
Centennial E6 – A Tale of Two Journeys
In 1911, two competing groups of explorers attempted to be the first to reach the South Pole. In this episode, atmospheric scientist Ryan Fogt recounts the journeys of Robert Falcon Scott and Roald Amundsen and discusses how extraordinary weather that year affected the two polar parties in vastly different ways.
Third Pod from the Sun is the American Geophysical Union’s podcast about the scientists and methods behind the science. These are stories that you won’t read in a manuscript or hear in a lecture.
