Ice Melt Impacts Polar Bears

Ice Melt Impacts Polar Bears

Top of Mind with Julie Rose - Radio Archive, Episode 739 , Segment 3

Episode: Trump's Immigration Plan, Starving Polar Bears, Cryonic Body Preservation

  • Feb 2, 2018
  • 13:37 mins

Guest: Blaine Griffen, Associate Professor of Life Sciences, BYU A few months ago a National Geographic video of a starving polar bear went viral and sparked a debate about the effects of climate change and melting Arctic ice. If you’ve seen that video, you remember it: that poor emaciated polar bear dragging a leg, rummaging through an empty trash can before collapsing on the ground. Before that video went viral, BYU biologist Blaine Griffen had a study already in the works on the challenge polar bears face getting enough food when seasonal ice melts faster than it used to.

Other Segments

How Self-Driving Cars Could Prevent Terror Attacks (Originally aired: Nov. 7, 2017)

9 MINS

Guest: Jeremy Straub, PhD, Professor of Computer Science, North Dakota State University In the last 18 months, terrorists pledging allegiance to ISIS have made trucks their preferred weapons. More than 100 people around the world have been killed in nearly a dozen such attacks, including eight fatalities in New York City last Halloween. When someone uses a gun to kill lots of people, we immediately start debating gun control. Debating “vehicle control” after a terror attack seems preposterous, but what if the focus weren’t on controlling who can drive one? What if we focus on technology that would let the vehicle take control away from the driver who tries to steer the truck into a crowd of people?

Guest: Jeremy Straub, PhD, Professor of Computer Science, North Dakota State University In the last 18 months, terrorists pledging allegiance to ISIS have made trucks their preferred weapons. More than 100 people around the world have been killed in nearly a dozen such attacks, including eight fatalities in New York City last Halloween. When someone uses a gun to kill lots of people, we immediately start debating gun control. Debating “vehicle control” after a terror attack seems preposterous, but what if the focus weren’t on controlling who can drive one? What if we focus on technology that would let the vehicle take control away from the driver who tries to steer the truck into a crowd of people?