Science Friday - Odysseus Lander Heads To The Moon | Ohio Chemical Spill, One Year Later

Episode Date: February 16, 2024

If successful, Odysseus will be the first U.S. spacecraft to land on the moon since the Apollo mission. And, in East Palestine, Ohio, the stream that flows under residents’ houses is still polluted following a train derailment and chemical spill.Odysseus Lander Is On Its Way To The MoonJust after 1:00 a.m. on Thursday, February 15, SpaceX successfully launched a commercial spacecraft from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Its destination? The moon. If the lander—named Odysseus—makes it all the way there, it’ll be the first U.S. spacecraft to land on the moon since the Apollo mission, more than 50 years ago.If successful, this mission will also mark another historic milestone: the first commercial spacecraft to touch down on the moon.Ira talks with Casey Crownhart, climate reporter at MIT Technology Review, about this latest lunar mission and other science news of the week, including: a satellite to detect methane leaks from space, the development of lithium-sulfur batteries, the first treatment for frostbite, the development of “heart-on-a-chip” devices, a frog with a mushroom growing out of its leg, and how eavesdropping on the love songs of Skywalker gibbons helped scientists estimate their population size.A Year After Chemical Spill, Ohio Community Is Still RecoveringChristina Siceloff and Randy DeHaven walk down a short bank to Sulphur Run, a creek that winds between houses in East Palestine, Ohio. They make their way to a section of the stream about three-quarters of a mile from where the Norfolk Southern train derailed last February 3rd. Siceloff has brought a shovel, but she doesn’t even need one to show the condition of the stream. She just pushes her rubber boot into the sandy streambed, and an oily sheen erupts out of the muddy bottom, spreading on the top of the brownish-grey water.“Kind of like what you would see in a puddle at a gas station,” Siceloff said.Siceloff has brought a mask because the creek water still gives her headaches. For much of the past year, she’s been helping DeHaven and a group of volunteers document the condition of the stream. Siceloff lives a few miles away in Darlington, Pennsylvania, and could see smoke from the 2023 derailment and subsequent fire from her bedroom window. She was sick for five and a half months, as were her father and son.“I had migraines, congestion, runny nose. I had pressure in my ears, burning in my nose, eyes and throat,” Siceloff said. She now has tremors in her hands, and her eyes twitch. She sneezes in the laundry soap aisle at Walmart and can’t stand the chlorine smell at a swimming pool.In the days after the derailment and subsequent chemical spill, over 40,000 fish and other species died. DeHaven, who lives in town and has been filming the stream for much of the past year, saw it firsthand. “Most of the frogs were belly up,” DeHaven says. “There was a few fish floating, but a lot of them were just laying on the bottom.”Now, a year after the derailment, regulators say they have cleaned up the site, and that the air in town is clear.But the stream running through the middle of town is still contaminated and some in the area still worry about whether the chemicals sitting at the bottom of the stream are going to make their way into peoples’ bodies.Read more at sciencefriday.com.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Around a year ago in East Palestine, Ohio, a freight train derailed, spilling thousands of gallons of the chemical vinyl chloride into the environment. I don't want those waters to come in and make my family sick. And those creeks are not clean. It's Friday, February 16th. Happy Science Friday. I'm sci-fi producer Charles Burgquist. Later today, we'll get an un-perienced. update from East Palestine, Ohio, and hear how the disaster is unfolded over the last year,

including how residents remain frustrated with cleanup efforts. But first, let's join Ira Flato for a roundup of this week's top science news, which includes a mission to the moon, apes who belt love songs, and a mushroom growing out of a frog. Slightly after 1 a.m. on Thursday, SpaceX successfully launched a commercial spacecraft from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Its destination, the moon. Yo, on board is a lander nicknamed Odie. And if it makes its way safely to the surface, it'll be the first U.S. spacecraft to land on the moon since the Apollo era more than 50 years ago.

Here with the details and more science news of the week is Casey Crownhart, climber reporter at the MIT Technology Review based in New York City. Casey, welcome back. Thanks so much for having me back. Excited to be here. Nice to have you. Okay. So this mission is really a team effort, isn't it?

Absolutely. So like you said, we've got SpaceX. They're the ones that kind of launched the Falcon Rocket that's carrying all this stuff up into space. But they're definitely not the only ones involved. So intuitive machines is a company based in Texas. They built the robotic lunar lander. That's kind of the center of attention of this mission. And then the mission is also carrying equipment from NASA and also kind of other organizations as well.

And what's the main goal here? So the main goal is to get this lunar lander to land gently on the moon. This would be, like you said, the first landing on the moon in a very long time. But it would also be the first private mission to reach the moon and land gently if all goes well. This is not the first time that a company has attempted this sort of mission. So they're trying to land this lander, which is about the size of a phone booth near the south pole of the moon. This area is really interesting to NASA and a lot of other people because there's ice in that region. explain to some people what a phone booth is. Are we that old? Oh, no. And the lander Odie is on a week-long, like a solo flight, right? Yep, like you said, it launched early on Thursday. It'll take a little bit to get up to the moon and then it'll orbit, I think about a dozen times before it finally goes in and tries to land.

And this marks a turning point in lunar space exploration because this is a commercial mission, right? Yeah. So this could really open up a new kind of era of space exploration. You know, we've seen obviously kind of national space organizations do a lot of the kind of exploration of space and particularly of the moon. But if private companies get involved, it could mean that we see costs come down. It could really change how we start to do exploration a lot more trial and error, more low cost missions. And one of many missions coming up, I imagine. I feel like we're hearing about space launches. and every time I come back, I'm bringing news of another one launching off. Yeah, so we had another SpaceX launched more satellites.

I think yesterday. China is looking to launch a lunar sample return mission in May. We've, of course, got the Artemis missions coming up sometime next year. So lots of exciting space news. Wow, that's cool. Speaking of space, scientists are trying to use satellites to measure methane leaks on Earth. Yeah? Yeah.

This is really interesting news that we heard this week. and the Environmental Defense Fund are launching a satellite to measure methane, like you said. Methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas, so it's really important to kind of understand where leaks and releases of this gas are coming from. And so this satellite is going to kind of give us a bird's eye view of what's going on on Earth. And what would it be looking at? Yeah, so it's mostly kind of focused on oil and gas operations. So that's kind of one of the primary goals of this satellite. It's carrying a bunch of spectrometers, which look at different wavelengths of light that can kind of pinpoint where methane is coming from. But then there's also

visual mapping equipment on the satellite as well that'll try to figure out, you know, where are these leaks coming from? What kind of equipment is most likely to kind of leak methane? So it'll be a really big step in our understanding of methane emissions. And in other climate solutions news. Casey, I know you're on the battery beat again, this time looking into the use of lithium sulfur batteries. What are they? Always on the battery beat. I'm with you on this one. I love the battery beat. Great. So lithium sulfur batteries are a new kind of potential alternative battery chemistry. We use mostly lithium ion batteries today and everything from like laptops and phones to electric vehicles. But researchers are looking for ways to add new options to the

table for batteries, including chemistries that could eventually be cheaper and also have a higher performance, you know, packing more energy into a smaller space, which could be a really big help to extend the range of electric vehicles. So lithium sulfur batteries switch out some of the materials that we use in kind of that standard chemistry for more abundant and available ones. Sulfur, that's the reason you'd be using sulfur. It's more abundant available. Yep. It's cheap. It's very, very cheap. People like to say it's, it's, it's, not quite a waste product, but it's like almost literally as cheap as dirt. So it would be a big boon to be able to use it in batteries. Yeah. You know, and engineers will tell you, because they've

told me over the years, there's always a tradeoff when you do something like this, right? There's always, always something that may be, like you said, always a tradeoff. For lithium sulfur, that is lifetime. So lithium ion batteries, researchers have been working on those for a long time. So now those can go 800 or even a thousand cycles, meaning you can use it and recharge it up to a thousand times. Lithium sulfur cells today, that number is somewhere more like a hundred times, so a tenth as long as lithium ion batteries last. So that's what researchers are really trying to focus on getting that number a little bit up. Because I know that batteries are your passion. I mean, you follow the news. Is there any possibility in the future of doing away

with lithium, too? There are alternatives that don't use lithium. I think there are batteries called sodium ion batteries that are being developed, might even make their way into some low-cost electric vehicles. A lot of the interesting work is going on in China with that chemistry right now. But lithium is really just a great material to use for batteries. So I think it'll be interesting to see, but it's really tough to get away from that particular material. Yeah, I get it. Okay, let's move on to some health news. And this one's very interesting. It's that the FDA just approved the first treatment for severe frostbite. Yeah. Wow. I guess I didn't know that we didn't have a treatment for it, but yes, the FDA just approved a drug called illiprost. It's an injection that can treat severe frostbite. So this is the first treatment for that condition approved in the U.S. Basically, in severe frostbite, you know, your skin and the underlying tissue kind of freezes, which limits blood flow to the area. This drug is what's called a vasodilator, which means it opens up the blood vessels and can get blood flowing to the area.

So it's not a new drug, it's just a new use for another drug. Yes, that is true. So this same drug has been used in the past as an inhaled medication to treat high blood pressure in the lungs. So it's in a different form and a different dose and yeah, for a different purpose. And it has been tried out, I'm sure. So we know that it works. Yes. This has actually been used in other countries for a while, but there was a clinical trial that showed that this drug kind of reduced the risk for amputation. Well, that's very good news then. There is news of a heart on a chip. Nevermore, as I have to say. Yes, it is a little po-esque. So researchers developed what's called a heart on a chip. So this is a small device that mimics the

interactions of cells in a human heart. There are cells growing inside this device with tiny channels that move fluids around. And this is kind of one of a growing body of these sort of organ models that researchers want to use to help, you know, test drugs, better understand the organs in our body. It's really interesting. And yes, definitely sounds a little bit like science fiction. Yeah, because we've heard about lungs on a chip. As you say, no pun intended, the growing body of uses. Yes. Yeah. And it's kind of interesting researchers say that they're interested in taking these kind of either organoids or organ models and stringing them together maybe to understand how drugs would impact, you know, different organs in the body. They're still.

a lot of work to do before these models can be used effectively, you know, getting the cells to kind of act in a way that they would act in the body using materials that researchers are sure wouldn't affect the experiment results. But it's really, really fascinating to follow. It is fascinating. And speaking of something fascinating, I heard about this. I didn't believe it. Actually, scientists found a mushroom growing out of a fraud. Yes. They just happened to be walking through the forest and found this or something like that? Yes. Really? I would highly recommend everybody go look at this picture. It's adorable and also very confusing. So there was a group of friends exploring in India looking for reptiles and amphibians and they found a bunch of these little frogs. They're called

Rouse Intermediate Goldenback Frogs. They were in this roadside pond and one of the frogs had what looks like a little tiny mushroom sprouting out of it. You know, they took pictures. They published at kind of a note in an academic journal. Experts are all very confused about what is going on here. I mean, we don't know how a mushroom ever ended up growing on a frog, right? No, there are so many questions, particularly because, you know, we think of like mushrooms as being kind of what we think about when we think about fungi. But there's always kind of the root-like structure called mycelium.

So is there mycelium that was growing inside this frog that allowed the mushroom to pop out? Yeah. What was going on? We don't know because unfortunately this team didn't collect the frog. It wasn't dissected. They let it hop along. They never picked it up and took it with them. That's as astounding as the finding of the frog is, I think.

Yeah, I mean, I'm glad that this frog got to go live its life. But yeah, so experts are kind of going to have to keep their eyes out to understand more about, you know, what this relationship between frogs and fungus might look like. We don't really know. Let's wrap up this Valentine's Day week with a story about scientists tracking a population of Gibbons by listening to them serenade each other? Yes, I love this story. So like you said, scientists in Myanmar were eavesdropping on the love skongs from these

primates called Skywalker Gibbons, which, yes, they are named after like that Skywalker. They were named by Star Wars fans. So these primates, they wake up every morning and the couples they sing to each other. And so researchers were able to set up all this acoustic monitoring equipment and identify 44 new groups of these gibbons in Myanmar, which is really exciting because these animals are on the endangered species list. And we actually have a clip. Let's eavesdrop on their love songs. Yes. I guess if you're a gibbon, that is a sweetheart call. Yes, the height of romance. I love it. And how did scientists use that to estimate the population? Yeah. So it was a combination of that

to kind of help them figure out where to look. And then they were able to collect, these chewed up plants and fruits to confirm with DNA testing that it was actually this particular kind of gibbon in the area, take photos. So it was kind of a multi-pronged effort to figure this out. Casey, always bringing good stuff for us. Thank you for taking time to view with us today and have a good weekend. Thanks, you too. Happy to be here. Casey Crownheart, climate reporter at the MIT Technology Review based in New York. It's been one year since the town of East Palestine, Ohio was thrown into the middle of an environmental disaster. A Norfolk Southern train carrying 900,000 pounds of vinyl chloride, derailed, spilling its contents into the environment

and catching fire. Well, in the 12 months since the disaster, local reporters have been on the case, tracking everything from the government response to the lasting environmental impact. Unsurprisingly, the residents of East Palestine remain frustrated, and the story, Stream running below people's homes, well, it is still polluted. Joining me to give us an update is my guest, Reid Frazier, energy reporter for the Allegheny Front, based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Welcome to Science Friday. Hi, Ira. Okay, tell us, Phyllis, what has happened over the past year?

What did the cleanup effort look like and who was responsible for it? Well, what it's looked like for the past year is just like a massive work zone in the middle of, a neighborhood, basically. You've had dozens of workers digging up soil, removing material, removing track, putting new material in its place, putting in temporary pipes to divert water away from the site. There are these two huge million gallon temporary water tanks. People in the community like to call them the Shamu tanks like the SeaWorld Killer Whales tank. And those tanks are used for contaminated liquids, and that liquid is then taken away to facilities that are authorized to take it. The EPA basically used its authority under the Superfund Act. Technically, it's CERCLA, Comprehensive,

Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act to direct Norfolk Southern to clean up the site. The company issued work plans. EPA authorized it, and then Norfolk Southern hired out contractors to do the work. Is it possible to tell just how successful this cleanup effort was? Well, the EPA says that it's been very successful. Most of the soil and material has been removed from the area, sort of all of the heavy lifting to kind of clean up the immediate derailment area where a bunch of chemicals spilled and were burned and leaked into the ground.

Like that soil has been taken away. Are the townspeople happy? Then that it's going well? Good question. Some of them are ready to move on. Some of them are really angry that this happened and that parts of the cleanup aren't really done a year later and that they, you know, they've gotten sick. Possibly hundreds of people have gotten sick.

Headaches, nosebleeds, irritated eyes, rashes. Many of those symptoms have started to go away for people. people are worried that, you know, chemicals got absorbed into their homes on surfaces, et cetera, and the EPA is refusing to do indoor testing right now. So some of those people are really upset and frustrated by that. You know, so it's a mixed bag. They're convinced the town is really not safe to live in, then I would imagine. I mean, a lot of people I've talked to would like to move away because of this,

but they cannot afford to. And I spoke with one person who this applies to, Chrissy Ferguson. She has a house right over the stream that runs through town, which is still polluted. And she doesn't want to move back to her house because she's afraid of the contamination from the stream getting into her home. I don't want those waters to come in and make my family sick. and those creeks are not clean. Now she says those creeks are not clean. Well, you've been down to the stream.

Tell us what it looks like. Well, from a distance, it looks like any normal stream in Pennsylvania or Ohio. But when you get down there and you step in the sediment or stir it up with a shovel, immediately this rainbow sheen sort of explodes onto the surface of the water and disperses. as the stream flows down. So it's like there's oil at the bottom of this creek. And the creek is only, you know, a few inches deep in the part where I was at, which is very close to the derailment, about three quarters of a mile down from where the train derailed.

Do people really know has there been sort of a census of what kinds of chemicals are in the sediment? Yes, we know what chemicals are in the sediment. So when the derailment first happened, there were a variety of chemicals that spilled out of the train. Some of them like butylacrylate and vinyl chloride, which you might have heard about, are volatile organic compounds. Volatile being the key word, they have a tendency to vaporize or turn into a gas at lower temperatures. So they are largely gone, either through aeration that the work crews did, where they basically pump the water, through these artificial fountains and just expose all these chemicals to oxygen, or just the natural process where these things break down.

What's left are these polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, P-A-Hs. I feel like I can get away with that on Science Friday. Yeah, we like to go into the weeds here, yes. Yeah, yeah, okay. And these are heavier, stickier compounds, kind of like oil. In fact, a lot of them are in oil and gasoline. And some of these are hazardous chemicals. Some are suspected carcinogens.

And they're harder to get out of the water. And these are the chemicals that people are reporting or are making them sick, right? That's an interesting question. So, I mean, I think a lot of the regulators would say there were problems with fumes coming off of the creeks in the early days after the spill. And those would be these volatile organic compounds that I just talked about. but that these heavier compounds are less likely to volatilize, less likely to get into the air, get into people's homes. And so they pose less of a health threat, according to the regulators. Okay. Let's talk about what might happen next. What are you going to look for over the next year following this story?

Well, I'm going to be looking to see if they can clean up this stream, what they do to clean up the stream, I need to stress goes right through the middle of town. It goes underneath buildings, people's houses, the municipal building, where municipal workers work, et cetera. So I'm going to be looking for if that stream can get cleaned up. Also this summer, there's going to be a full report from the National Transportation Safety Board about what caused this derailment. I'd like to see if there's any details about things that Norfolk Southern could have done to prevent this from happening. I mean, also there will be, you know, public health studies possibly coming out. The EPA could be looking at its own response to the cleanup and spill. Also lawsuits. So there's a lot of things that are

going to be coming out about this spill that will be paying attention to. Read Frazier, energy reporter for the Allegheny Front based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Thank you. Lots of folks helped make the show this week, including Jason Rosenberg. George Harper. Kathleen Davis. Shoshana Bucksbaum. On Monday, we'll hear from climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann about a defamation lawsuit he just won against climate-denying right-wing bloggers. I'm SciFRI producer Charles Berkwist.

Thanks for listening. Have a great weekend.