Science Friday - The Cat’s Meow, Chumash Marine Sanctuary, EV Tires. July 28, 2023, Part 2

Episode Date: July 28, 2023

We have a new podcast! It’s called Universe Of Art, and it’s all about artists who use science to bring their creations to the next level. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.   What Is Your Cat’s Meow Trying To Tell You? Cats have formed bonds with humans for thousands of years. But what exactly is going on in our furry friends’ brains? What are they trying to tell us with their meows? And why did humans start keeping cats as pets anyway? To help answer those questions and more, John Dankosky talks with Jonathan Losos, professor of biology at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and author of the new book, The Cat’s Meow: How Cats Evolved from the Savanna to Your Sofa.   Read an excerpt of the book at sciencefriday.com.   Researchers Quantify The Navajo Nation’s Water Crisis In Fort Defiance, one of five main communities situated on the Arizona-New Mexico border in the Navajo Nation, Taishiana Tsosie and Kimberly Belone are standing in a mobile office’s cramped bathroom. The two researchers from the Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health turn off the lights and hold up plastic bags filled with water from the bathroom sink. Each bag has five small compartments, filled with the same sink water. Where they differ is in the chemicals added to each compartment. “This is our compartment bag, and we use this and several other chemicals and tablets to test for E. coli in the water,” Tsosie said. Today, the researchers are testing for harmful bacteria, but they also run separate tests for dangerous metals in drinking water. To read the rest, visit sciencefriday.com.   Chumash Tribe Champions National Marine Sanctuary For generations, the Chumash tribal nation have been stewards of a vital marine ecosystem along the central coast of California, bordering St. Louis Obispo County and Santa Barbara County. The area is home to species like blue whales, black abalone, and snowy plovers. And it’s also an important part of the Chumash tribe’s rich traditions and culture. Tribal leaders have pushed for decades to designate the area as a national marine sanctuary. Now, the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary is in the final stages of the approval process, which would make it the first tribally nominated national marine sanctuary in the country. John Dankosky talks with Stephen Palumbi, professor of marine sciences at Stanford University and Violet Sage Walker, chairwoman of the Northern Chumash Tribal Council, about the importance of this region and their collaborative research project.   Where The Rubber Meets The Road For Electric Cars You might not give your car’s tires a lot of thought unless you get a flat, or you live somewhere you need to swap in snow tires. But as more people in the US make the switch to electric vehicles, some are finding they have to think about their tires more often. Some EV drivers are finding that their tires wear out more rapidly than they had with traditional internal combustion-driven vehicles—in some cases, 20 percent faster. The problem has multiple causes. Many EVs are heavier than regular cars of a similar size, which puts more load on the tires. When combined with the almost instant torque provided by electric motors, that can lead to leaving rubber on the road—even when a driver isn’t attempting to burn rubber. Ryan Pszczolkowski, tire testing program manager at Consumer Reports, joins Diana Plasker to talk about the special engineering that comes into play when the rubber meets the road in an electric car.   Is The Plastic In Your Old Barbie Toxic? ‘Barbie’ is going gangbusters at the box office, and it’s prompted a whole new interest in the iconic, if occasionally problematic, toy doll. If you’ve been moved by the movie to dig your old Barbie out from the attic, don’t be surprised if she looks…different. The PVC (polyvinyl chloride) toy dolls of the 1950s—and for the next 50 years after that—contained plasticizers that, over time, can degrade, discolor, and even become sticky. And the chemical compounds being released by an old PVC toy might be toxic to your toddler. Science Friday’s AAAS Mass Media Fellow Chelsie Boodoo is a big Barbie fan. She wanted to find out more about what these old Barbies are made of, and whether we should be worried. So, she turned to Dr. Yvonne Shashoua, a research professor from the National Museum of Denmark. She explains what happens to plastic dolls over time, how museums like hers preserve vintage toys, and even some tips to keep Barbie looking like new. (Hint: make room in the freezer!)   To stay updated on all-things-science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters. Transcripts for each segment will be available the week 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.

Listener supported, WNYC Studios. This is Science Friday. I'm John Dankoski. And I'm Diana Plasker. Later in the hour, a conversation about water quality in Navajo Nation. Plus a research collaboration between the Shoamash Tribal Nation and Stanford scientists, how they're working together to monitor a vital ecosystem off the coast of Central California. And what's Barbie made of?

We're talking plastics and toxicity. But first, one of my favorite topics, cats. Oh, hey, buddy. That's my friend Loki. He's the most vocal of my three cats. And when you've been working from home for the past few years like I have, you get to know their preferred method of getting attention when trying to, you know, record an interview about cats. Now, Helga is the most likely to jump in front of the camera. Sven is most likely to jump on my head. But what exactly is happening in any of our furry friend's brains? What are they trying to tell us? with their meows. And why did humans, I don't know, start keeping cats as pets anyway? Joining me now to help answer some of those questions and more is my guest, Jonathan Lossis.

He's author of a new book, The Cats Meow, How Cats Evoled from the Savannah to Your Sofa. He's professor of biology at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Dr. Lossis, welcome to Science Friday. Thanks so much, John. I'm delighted to be here. So what exactly got you interested in writing about cats? Because you are a biologist, but you actually study lizards? That's true. I've spent my career studying lizards, how they evolve, how they adapt to their particular environments. But I've always loved cats ever since I was five and we adopted one from a local shelter. But I never thought there was much interesting research being done on

cats, domestic cats, much less considered doing that research myself. And then a few years ago, I realized I was wrong. There actually is a remarkable amount of research people studying cats in the same way that I study lizards, and people study elephants and rhinos, and so on. And so I got the idea that it would be first to teach a class called the Science of Cats, in which I would lure students into the class by their love of cats, and then we would teach them how we study nature using cats as the vehicle. And that class went really well, and so then I had the idea, there are lots of people out there who like cats.

Maybe they'd like to know what science has to say about where they came from, why they do what they do, and so on. Well, let's start with actually what you talk about in the title of your book, The Cat's Meow. Anyone who lives with a cat is really familiar with the sound, of course. Is there a kind of universal meow language? I mean, what have scientists figured out about what meows really mean? The short answer is no. There is no universal cat language where one sort of meow means I'm hungry,

and another sort means let me out of the room or whatever. But anyone who's lived with a cat knows that they have done. different meows that they use in different contexts. And so the question is, are they trying to tell us something by these different meows? And if so, what? Well, researchers looked at this question. What they did is they recorded particular cats meowing in different contexts when they were about to be fed, when they were being petted nicely, and so on. And then they played those meows to just random people. Ask those people, what was the cat's context? Was it about to be fed? And people basically did no better than guessing, except for the person who lived with that cat,

that person was very good at saying, that cat's hungry or that cat wants to get out. And so what that means is that although there is no universal language, cats and the people they live with kind of negotiate their own understanding, this meow means this, this meao means that. And so that ability of the cats to do that, to come up with this understanding, that is one of the features that evolved as cats were domesticated. You also write that cats really don't meow at each other. And living with lots of cats throughout my entire life, I'd never thought about this before. But yeah, cats meow at me, but they make other noises at each other, but not that noise.

That's absolutely true. I too was surprised when I realized that. I thought that cats meowed to each other to communicate and that by meowing to us, they were essentially including us in their social circle. But people have studied cats living in colonies outside, and they find that the cats rarely meow to each other. And so the fact that they meow to us is another feature that evolved during domestication. Maybe you can give us a little short crash course here on cat evolution. I mean, how did we end up with wild cats living in our living rooms? Well, that's a great question. It turns out that there are lots of species, wild species of felines.

There are 42 species in the wild. lions and tigers and leopards, of course, but also a lot of small species, assolots, margays, many that people have never heard of. But there's one species called the African wildcat. And the African wildcat looks pretty much like a domestic cat. If you saw one in your backyard, you would not say, what's an African wildcat doing in my backyard? You would probably say, well, that's a cool looking cat.

I've never seen one quite like it. So they are very similar to domestic cats. And it turns out that that is the ancestor of the domestic cat. What happened is that when humans first settled down and started living in villages and growing crops, this occurred in the area we now call the Middle East or sometimes called the fertile crescent. And that's where the African wildcat naturally occurs. And as people were growing crops, of course, farmers store the extra crops in places,

you know, for the lean times. and those stores of crops attract pests. They attract rodents, rats and mice, and so on. In turn, this bounty of rodents attracted some of the African wildcats, those individuals that were most willing to enter a village and be around people to take advantage of all the food. Now, in turn, people saw the African wildcats catching the rodents, realized that was a good thing, and probably were friendly to them.

They perhaps put out some extra food or let them come into the house into a nice warm, sheltered place. And again, the cat's most willing to be around people took advantage of that. And so there was this back and forth where people were benefiting from and allowing the cats to be nearby, eventually petting them and so on. And the cat's most willing to take advantage of that hung around people. And basically that led then to the domestic cat, that it evolved from the African wildcat. You've used the word domestic several times, but in your book, you talk about how

cats being semi-domesticated, not in the same way that some livestock are domesticated or the way dogs even are. What's the differentiation there? Well, I have to say it's not a scientific term, semi-versus fully domesticated. But, I mean, think about the dog and how different it is from the wolf that's anatomically very different, behaviorally very different. They have changed greatly during the domestication process. And this is true of most domesticated animals, cows, pigs, and so on. But cats, as I mentioned a moment ago, are barely different from the African wildcat. They look very similar. There are almost no anatomical differences that always can distinguish the two. And there are only a few behavioral differences. I've mentioned some of them already,

living in social groups, meowing to people, and so on. So domestic cats are only very slightly different from their ancestors. And that's why they can so successfully revert to living in the wild that feral cats basically adopt the lifestyle of their ancestors because it's not that big of a leap in the first place. And in part, that's because the genetic pool hasn't really changed that much. I mean, since we brought in cats and domesticated them, a lot of people in the world have decided that just cats having tons of litters of babies isn't a good idea. And so more and more cats are spayed and neutered. And so therefore, it seems like we're not really extending into new different types of cats, the cat evolution tree is sort of almost at an end.

Well, now, that's half true, that many, particularly in the United States, most of the pet cats that people get come from these colonies of stray cats where people go out and rescue them and they take the kittens who are very socializable and become good pets, or some of the adults that have been around people can become pets. So most of our pets are coming straight from the wild, so they're not from the wild, if you will, from outdoor unknown cats. And so they're not changing very much. On the other hand, there are different breeds of cats, and some of those breeds are quite different from your typical domestic cat, just as with dogs, where dogs are so different from wolves, there are some cats, some breeds that are quite different from your typical

domestic cat. There's so much that we still don't know about cats, because as you say, there hasn't been the type of research into domestic house cats that there has been into dogs or other species. What are some questions you're still really curious about? Well, I think we'd need to know a lot more about what they're doing when they're out and about, both pet cats and also the unknown cats that are quite common in many places around the world. And so much more detailed study of their natural history, of their behavior in the wild would tell us a lot more about their lifestyle, it would also inform us about the threat that they pose to the environment. There are many people concerned about outdoor cats catching birds and mammals and so on,

but we need to know a lot more, especially in the United States. We know in some places for sure there are a big problem, such as Australia. That is one question. Another question is something we talked about already. How cats communicate with each other. As I mentioned, there has been research that suggests that cats don't meow to each other. So it's very widely said in the scientific literature. Cats don't meow to each other, but for the most part, that all traces back to one very good study in England 30 years ago. We need a lot more detailed study of how cats communicate with each other to understand their social lives and to see how similar or different they are to lions. And I think one other interesting piece of the future of the house cat is whether or not

through science we could figure out a way to actually breed a house cat that could go outside but just doesn't have the same instinct to kill birds or rodents or snakes or any of the other things that obviously people are so concerned about when their cats venture out of doors. Absolutely. We've seen in cats and in dogs that breeders are capable of changing a breed into something very different. And think about all the breeds of dogs and also some of the breeds of cats that are quite different from your typical cat. Well, this is often done on their physical appearance, but it's also a selection on their behavior. And you can create cats that are very placid

or cats that are very active or so on. And there is variation in cats in their desire to go outside or what they do outside. And if breeders put their mind to it and selected only those cats that seem to have no interest in chasing birds, I'm quite confident we could create a breed of cats that was much more environmentally friendly.

We've never had a conversation on Science Friday about cats in which We didn't hear from a lot of listeners saying it would be really good if cats didn't kill so many birds. So I'm glad that it's something that at least we can think about for a potential future. Yeah, I agree completely. Jonathan Lossis is author of the new book The Cats Meow, How Cats Evoled from the Savannah to Your Sofa. He's a professor of biology at Washington University based in St. Louis, Missouri. Thanks so much for your time.

Well, you're very welcome. It's been a pleasure. If you'd like to read an excerpt of the book, you can go to ScienceFriiday.com slash Meow. We've got to take a short break, and when we come back, we'll talk about making water quality better and more reliable in Navajo Nation. This is Science Friday. I'm John Dankoski. And I'm Diana Plasker. Now it's time to check in on the state of science. This is KERNO. St. Louis Public Radio News. Iowa Public Radio News.

Local science stories of national significance. We talk a lot on this show about how the Western U.S. is dealing with drought. Water scarcity is becoming a larger issue for many communities. This is especially true in Navajo Nation, the largest reservation in the country. It's estimated that nearly a third of residents don't have access to consistently clean drinking water. Joining me to talk about work that's being done to make drinking water safer is my guest. Emma Vanda 90, Mountain West Reporter for KUNC in Greeley, Colorado. Welcome to Science Friday.

Yeah, thank you, Diana. I'm happy to be here. So tell us, why is clean water so sparse in Navajo Nation? So the Navajo Nation doesn't have clean water because there's a lack of infrastructure there. I mean, you said it yourself. Roughly a third of the nation's population doesn't have reliable access to clean drinking water. And that's according to the Navajo Nation's Department of Water Resources. And honestly, those numbers don't always tell the whole story since that's just drinking water. I mean, that's not even piped water or plumbing.

But saying a lack of infrastructure isn't entirely true. either, as this lack of infrastructure has been caused by a legacy of neglect by the federal government. The Navajo people were forced onto these resource poor reservations, and were not given the rights to do much with the land. So there are health problems associated with bad water quality, but you've reported on one that may not be top of mind, reliance on soda and sugary drinks. Explain to us how big of an issue this is in Navajo Nation. So as I mentioned, clean water isn't easily accessible on the Navajo Nation. We're talking to talking like driving one to two hours to get to a public watering hole or a department store to get water.

But there are restaurants or gas stations that are closer and have soda for sale. They're often cheaper than a bottle of water. And when you have a young child that's crying for something, it can be an easy choice for families. But it's become a major issue on the Navajo Nation. The New Mexico Department of Health found that childhood obesity for American Indian third graders increased to more than 42% in 2021. The Noda Begay the Third Foundation, a native children's health group, found that more than 85% of Navajo kids have at least one sugary beverage a day.

And because of this, some researchers are finding data that these children might not outlive their parents. Wow. So you just mentioned the researchers. What kind of work is being done to replace soda with more reliable water access and tribal communities? Yeah, there's actually several groups working on solutions. The Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health in Fort DeVos. defiance, they launched a study to see if delivering water to mothers' homes and teaching the mothers some health tips for raising their child would make a difference. And it did. The kids that were part of the experimental group had a lower body mass index and drank less sugar-sweetened beverages.

The other group I spoke with for my story was Notabagay the Third Foundation. It received $100,000 to help eight native organizations encourage water consumption in their communities. And they got creative. Some of them did like a school water challenge. to see how many kids would drink fruit-infused water. And there was another group that put up signs that designated no sugar zones at a wellness center in their community. It's clear that this is a concern. It's amazing.

It's kind of like the gamification of drinking water. That's great. You reported on a study that's going home to home in Navajo Nation to try and get detailed data on the state of water quality in communities. What challenges have the researchers found? Well, it really all comes back to infrastructure. What Johns Hopkins is finding in this study is not surprising that many people don't have access to running water in their home. But when it comes to solutions, they're not as simple as one might think.

Here's Reese Cuddy, a research associate at the Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health. It takes, in some cases, millions of dollars to get a pipe out to a really remote home. And they're most likely always going to fall off the funding list due to that high expense and the geographic constraints. Cutty added that the geography is not in their favor, as the Navajo Nation is on top of really hard rock, which makes it difficult to dig underground. And while there's a lot of grants out there, most of these people don't have access to a computer to even send forward an application. And even if they do receive these grants, usually the funds aren't sufficient to build something that substantial. Wow. So what's next for this project? What can we sort of look forward to in the future?

Yeah. So right now, the Johns Hopkins researchers, are in the process of surveying more than 1,150 homes over the next two years of the project just in the Fort Defiance area. And 100 of those homes will be selected for water testing. Basically, what they do is take a sample of the water that these families do have, and they will add chemicals to it

and look under black light to see if there's E. coli or other contaminants in the water. Ideally, with some more funding, they plan to expand the project to the rest of the Navajo Nation once the pilot finishes in November. Amazing. Thank you for this reporting. Emma, and that's all the time we have, so I'd like to thank you for being here.

Thank you, Diana. Emma Vanda 90, Mountain West Reporter for KUNC in Greeley, Colorado. For generations, the Shumash Tribal Nation have been stewards of a vital marine ecosystem along the central coast of California. This area which borders San Luis Obispo County in Santa Barbara County is home to species like blue whales, black abalone, snowy plovers, and is an important part of the tribe's rich traditions and culture. That's why tribal leaders have pushed for decades to designate this area as a National Marine Sanctuary. Now it's in the final stages of the approval process, which would make it the first tribally nominated National Marine Sanctuary in the country. Joining me now to talk more about the importance of this region and the collaborative research

they're doing there are my guest, Stephen Palombie, Professor of Marine Sciences at Stanford University, based in Monterey, California, and Violet Sage Walker, Chairwoman of of the Northern Shumash Tribal Council. Welcome to Science Friday. Wonderful to be here. Thank you. Thank you for having us. And Violet, I'd like to start with you, and maybe you can talk about the significance of this area

receiving a Marine Sanctuary designation. I know it's not quite there yet, but this is pretty important, right? It's vital to our community and our culture in the coast of California that this area receives special protection. My father was the original nominator for the Shumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary proposal. and since then has passed away and has told me to make sure that I see this campaign and designation completed because this area is, for lack of better words, just a magical place.

It's one of a kind in the world. And with all the animals and species that you had mentioned earlier, it also is the home to the Shumash people. We have no other homeland. This is a critically important time that we protect the coast of California from all that dangers we're experiencing with climate change, but also offshore industrialization of the coast, too. So this would protect against offshore development? Most people think of offshore development as offshore oil, but this goes further.

It would also protect the coastline from the intrusion of offshore wind on our coastline. So we would have this continuum of marine sanctuaries from the Channel Islands all the way up the coast of California that provides safe passage for the migratory whales and fish species like the salmon and halibut and tuna, the southern protected sea otters, and all of the smaller fish species that we think of like the squid and anchovies and sardines. And so we would create this essentially this corridor of protection, keeping all industrialization off of the coastline and out potentially 35 miles offshore. So Steve, as a marine biologist, this is obviously important to you as well. Violet was talking about this corridor that would be created going from one designated area to another.

What else is so special about this area? Well, you know, it's an incredibly diverse area. Marine life just abounds in it. One of my colleagues here at the Hopkins Marine Station, Barbara Block, is called this the blue Serengeti, where there's just migrating huge animals to whales and huge tunas, but also an incredible diversity of fish. part of which are in fisheries, but also part of which is in the kelp forest, which just kind of goes along the coast. And that is one of the longest forests in North America.

It stretches all the way from Canada down into Mexico along the coast. It has thousands of species in it that are a vibrant part of that ecosystem. Wow. And we're talking about a huge area here. It's about 7,000 miles. Yet 7,000 square miles. You know, I think of it as six times the size. of Yosemite or 156 miles of coastline. Wow. So Steve, one of the things you're working on with the

tribe is to collect eDNA or environmental DNA in the region. Can you first of all start by just telling us what exactly is E DNA? Yeah, exactly. What is that? Well, in a lot of places, marine life, lakes, oceans, forest, soil, organisms kind of leave little bits and pieces of themselves behind. And in our case, It scales, its little legs from crustaceans, stuff from snails. It floats around in the little bits in water, and it carries the DNA of those organisms in it, those little pieces. So you can collect that, filter out those little pieces, extract the DNA, sequence them, and then you can get a reading for the species that were there. So it helps you understand the diversity of the species in this area?

It helps you see that diversity, which is really important because there's thousands of species, and we're talking, like Violet said, across an incredible area. So the ability to monitor it and look at it and track it over time, particularly in the face of climate change, is one of the important aspects of the research that the Chumash community and we are putting together. I'd like to talk more about the collaboration, Violet. How did Steve and his team build trust with you and the rest of your community to successfully work together on this huge research project. Well, that's a great question because that is the key to a successful relationship with the tribes. And what Steve did is he just, he just kept showing up. At first, we're like,

what is EDNA? And who is Steve? And then he just kept showing up and calling us, and emailing us and writing to us. And I'll tell you what tip the scale was when I was invited to go to our ocean conference in Palau, the local people there. They knew Steve, and they spoke highly of him. And I'm like, okay, well, we're going to, we're going to, you know, reach out to Steve. And it ended up, we just basically adopted him into, you know, our community. And it's worked out really well. You know, the best vouching for his character and what we could do together happened was with other indigenous people first.

So, Steve, what has this experience with the tribe been like for you? Oh, it's just been amazing. And I really appreciate those words from Violet. And the flip side has been that, you know, I did kind of call and text and show up and be there and listen and kind of be present. And this group of amazing people just slowly just folded me in. It was so lovely. And then we got to talk. And when we realized that we had different things to talk about, but we could actually talk back and forth about things that we could actually talk back and forth about things that we,

all cared about. It's not going to be agenda driven. It's going to be conversation driven. And that was just a great way to begin this talking about things that the science that we do can explain and the things that the traditional ecological knowledge that the tribe has can come together with. Yeah, and you've relied on that historical knowledge from tribal members, right? You know, we have relied on it and we have talked about it and we've explored, in ways that really just open up these vistas of really interesting, like, I don't know, nerdy little biology facts sometimes. And then in these broad things of like, oh, yes, there's this understanding of the oceanography

and the wind patterns of that whole coastline. Yeah. And there's some specific examples, too, some various species that you've been able to locate with help from tribal members. One of our first set of samples, we had a comment. of species, we had sardines in this sample. We also had pelicans in this sample because the pelicans dive in and out of the water all the time. We had sea lions in the sample. And then we had a whole set of little tiny things that are the basic food of the ecosystem. And we can kind of bring those

to the tribal members and we can talk about, you know, how do you see this? And one of those was grunion. And so we've been having this great conversation about the grunion, a little, little silvery fish that spawns in the inner tidal and the beach and just talk back and forth about, well, how does this fit into into your knowledge and your culture and where do we find it? This is Science Friday from WNYC Studios. And community members, Violet, have been research assistants and they've been helping to collect samples too. That's right.

That's been one of the fun parts of this project is we've been training some of our younger community members and tribal members how to do the sampling. we've even taken that to the next step, and we've decided to make traditional watercraft that is outfitted in rig to do the sampling. So if you imagine a very ancient way of traveling, like with the hookalea or some of these ancient voyaging canoes set up to do modern scientific research and sampling, it's gotten some of the young people really interested in what we're doing. That's one of the coolest parts about this whole thing, is using some of these traditional vessels and in part violet, and it's not just for getting the young people to learn,

but they can sometimes go places that bigger research vessels can't. This is one of the pitches that I've been made to this project is that we can use these traditional watercraft to sample in places that we're not going to be disturbing the wildlife, like inside kelp beds. We're reducing carbon emissions. We're also reducing the cost of doing the research and sampling because hiring a vessel and chartering vessels and having an entire team go out is sometimes cost prohibitive. So using traditional wirecraft and using indigenous people to do the sampling allows us to do more

sampling at a lower cost. Before we run out of time, I'd like to ask you both if you feel as though this can be a model that can be used elsewhere. Steve, I know that you've done this sort of work elsewhere in the world. Do you think that there are other spots in the U.S. where tribal communities can work with university researchers in this way. Absolutely. And that's one of the really exciting and fun things about this. This new sanctuary is kind of sandwiched between two other sanctuaries that have been there for a while. And the idea that this collaboration with the Chumash can result in new

techniques, streamlined efforts, more cost-effective efforts that can be done in a bigger spatial fashion, that that knowledge and development can come from the Chumash community. in us and then spread to the other sanctuaries is really fun to think about. Yeah. Tell me what you're thinking about this, Violet. Well, I'd like to think of this as like a pilot program for what we could help with around the world. And we call all the other marine sanctuaries and marine protected areas, like sister sanctuaries

around the world. So I'd like to think of this as a pilot to show what can be done and also to show how to incorporate indigenous communities into meaningful aspects. of the blue economy by providing them with training and jobs and meaningful engagement with research and science. Is there anything that you really hope to learn in the future through this project? Well, I really think that this is an opportunity for the Shumash people to highlight how our culture and our heritage, we can help reverse and help identify the most drastic effects of climate change on the coast here. And so I really like our people to be at the forefront of

new discoveries and solutions for addressing our climate problems. Violet Sage Walker is chairwoman of the Northern Shumash Tribal Council, and Stephen Palombie is Professor of Marine Sciences at Stanford University, based in Monterey, California. I'd like to thank you both for sharing the story with us, and best of luck on this federal designation. Thank you. Fabulous to be here. Thank you very much.

We've got to take a break now, and when we come back, where the rubber meets the road, why EV owners might need to give some special thought to their tires. This is Science Friday. I'm John Dengkowski. And I'm Diana Plasker. There's an expression, where the rubber meets the road. It's that important point at which an idea gets put to a practical test. Your tires certainly are an important practical point, but you might not give them much thought until you get a flat. But as more people in the U.S. make the switch to electric vehicles, some are finding they have to think about their tires more seriously, and more often. Some EV

drivers are finding their tires are wearing out more rapidly than when they were driving traditional internal combustion vehicles. So what's going on? Joining me now to talk about where the rubber meets the road is Ryan Pizzolkowski. He is the tire testing program manager at Consumer Reports. Welcome to Science Friday. Thank you, Diana. All right, first off, I don't think all that much about tires living in New York City, but there's a lot more to tires than getting the right size and pressure. Is that right? You're not alone. A lot of people don't think about their tires much. But yeah, tires are highly engineered. Pretty amazing products, actually. And you said it earlier, where the rubber meets the road, I mean, a vehicle goes down the road and there's only four things

touching the road. And those are the four tires underneath that car. So they are very important in keeping that car safe and getting you where you need to go. And with electric vehicles, some people are finding that their tires are wearing out faster than they'd expected. What's going on there? Yeah, it's a real thing. And it's kind of taken the car world by storm right now. Your electric vehicles are heavier than your regular internal combustion engine cars. In some cases, 10, 20, even up to 30 percent heavier than an internal combustion engine that we're used to. So that's considerable. And what we're seeing is roughly tires wearing out 20 percent faster than they would on those regular vehicles, those internal combustion cars. And that's kind of frustrating because tires in general are

expensive, right? But a lot of these EVs that, you know, they're putting them on a bigger wheel, lower aspect ratios, sidewalls. And tires like that are more expensive in general anyway. These tires are expensive, and now you have to replace them in some cases almost twice as much, maybe, depending on how you drive, where you drive, and what you drive. So it's becoming a glaring obstacle for people with EVs. So you said they're wearing out about 20% faster than traditional car tires. How does that shake out in terms of numbers of miles? What are we talking here? Yeah, so just some anecdotes here from the track.

We have a whole fleet of cars, and we've got about 22, 23 EVs here. And we wear tires a little quicker because we are testing them. We're putting them through their paces here at the track. But we're seeing some tires on a traditional car might last us 25,000 miles. Some of these EVs, we're wearing them out in 12,000 miles. Wow. And so why are they wearing out faster? What's special about EBs?

There's two major factors. The number one factor is the load, the weight. As you put more weight on a tire, it's going to wear out faster. And as I mentioned before, you know, some of these EVs are almost 30%. heavier than their counterparts. So that's a lot of extra weight. That combined with the torque, an electric motor has almost instant torque. And different manufacturers are designed the vehicles in different ways where they apply it at a different rate, if you will. Some of these cars will basically snap your neck as you accelerate. And that's fun. But you're literally leaving a strip of

rubber behind the car without actually spinning the tire, if you will. So it's kind of a neat phenomenon. If you watch one of these EVs take off on a road quickly, not doing a burnout, if you will, but you can actually see the rubber scrubbing off onto the asphalt. Another phenomenon with the EVs is they have what we call regenerative braking. Basically, as you lift off the gas pedal and the car will slow down right with that, so you're not even reaching for the brake pedal. So what's happening is you're now, now you're creating a force back in the other direction and you're scrubbing rubber again, as if you were accelerating, but in the reverse, if you will. So, and that happening all the time as you're driving, it adds up. So it sounds like you're saying that the problem isn't necessarily

the tires themselves, but really the conditions they're being subjected to. So if I, for instance, made a lighter electric car that didn't accelerate as fast, would at least part of this problem go away? Sure. That would certainly help. And still, tires are compromised. If you want to make a tire last longer, treadwear-wise, you might be pulling away from its wet grip or snow traction. It's all a compromise, and you can't have it all, if you will. So there's a balance of where where do you draw the line in terms of performance in what direction? So, for instance, we have a Tesla plaid and it has these ultra-high performance summer tires on it, basically. These tires in general, even not on a Tesla or an electric vehicle, or wear out quicker because they're designed to grip

the road and dry and wet conditions and handle. So they wear out as it is quickly. They have a soft compound. Now you put them on a Tesla and add all that weight and the power and you're just going to melt them off even quicker, if you will. So besides having done, hold more weight. Are there other specific properties you want in an EV tire? Yeah, absolutely. So the other big thing, in some cases, people are even more concerned about it is rolling resistance, which is the tire's ability to roll along the ground. So a tire with lower rolling resistance requires less energy to roll. Now, an internal combustion engine car, the vehicle itself is only about 25% efficient, and only 5% of that efficiency is affected by the tires. An EV,

Drive train is about 80% efficient, which now makes the tires a much greater part of that pie, 16% of the efficiency of the vehicle comes from the tires now. So the tires are now more in the spotlight, if you will, because they need to keep up with those ranges that they're claiming that these vehicles get. The other one that people don't quite think about, but if you've been in an EV, you'll realize right away how quiet the car is because there's no mechanical sounds. You really only hear wind and some road noise. So what they're finding is they're actually building tires for EVs that have acoustic foam inside of them to keep cavity noise down.

So as you drive across rough surfaces, the tire can create a noise that can come into the cabin. So they're combating that as well. But again, that's not a performance or an efficiency thing. So it's a little bit less thought about, if you will. But it is something that they're considering. So as the tires wear down, the rubber doesn't simply go away. It sticks around on our surfaces, our air, even our oceans as microplastics. So what about the environmental factors?

Yeah. I recently was at a tire conference, and there was a lot of talk about tire particulate. And this has been happening even before EVs, but as a tire wears out, the rubber goes somewhere, right? It comes off and maybe a very small dust or a particle, or even in some cases, bigger chunks, right? It goes somewhere. It's on the sides of the roads. It's in the air.

It's everywhere, right? But as EVs come out, and now these tires are literally, I keep saying, melting, they're wearing these tires out so fast, it's kind of come into the spotlight like, hey, where is this rubber going? And is it bad? Does it go away eventually? What does it do? There's not a whole lot of information on it yet. This is sort of a new thing that we're really starting to focus on. Europe's a little bit ahead of us. They are proposing some testing to figure out how can we measure this stuff and how can we test it to see how bad it is, right? A tire is a rubber compound has a lot of different polymers and lots of things in it. So I can't imagine it's wonderful for you. Yeah. So what's the solution here? Is this something that EV owners are just going to have to accept that they might not have to take their car in for oil changes, but they're just going to have to replace tires more often? Or is there another solution that you're hoping we might see?

Well, right now they're going to wear out tires faster. You can drive a little more gently, if you will, but you can't get really. rid of the load. You know, the battery is the battery, the vehicle is the vehicle. You've got to put people in it, and you've got to put stuff in it and go. So you can't really change the load, but you can drive a little bit more gently, accelerate and break a little easier that can help. But I foresee some technology coming along where they're going to be able to make these tires last longer, still provide you with the grip you need for all seasons. Tires have come a long way in the last 18 years I've been here, and it just keeps getting better and better. It's just going to take time.

Ryan Pizzikowski is the Tire Testing Program Manager at Consumer Reports. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you very much. This is Science Friday from WNYC Studios. Last week in the show, we talked about one of the summer's big movie blockbusters, Oppenheimer. This week we're turning our attention to Barbie. So have you seen the movie yet, Diana? I actually have.

I saw it last weekend. Overall, it was pretty fun and thought-provoking, and I even got a little emotional. about a movie about a toy. So that was fun. Yeah, it is an actual toy. So did you grow up with Barbies? Yeah, I did. My family even bought me one of those giant dream houses, big enough for me to crawl inside the bottom floor with my dolls on a sleepy afternoon. That sounds kind of cool. Well, I'm not sure where your Barbies are now, Diana, but there's something collectors of vintage Barbie dolls may have noticed over time Barbie's plastic skin can get a little discolored or even sticky. It's something that toy preservationists have actually been thinking a lot about. SciFri's AAAS fellow Chelsea Boodoo is a big

Barbie fan, and she wanted to learn a bit more about the science of Barbie's chemical composition. So she turned to Dr. Yvonne Shoshua. She's a research professor from the National Museum of Denmark. Welcome to Science Friday, Yvonne. Thank you, Chelsea. Thanks for the invitation. So Barbie came out in 1959. Could you tell us what the first Barbie doll was made of? We don't exactly know what the formulation was for Barbie because, that's a trade secret that Mattel keep. But we do know that she's made out of PVC and she must have plasticiser in her because PVC can't be made into a flexible material without a lot of plasticiser. Plasticiser is a kind of softener and it needs up to half of its weight in plasticiser to make it

into a flexible, mouldable plastic. The very first plasticiser that was used from the 50s until, well, around 2000 were phallates, and these are esters which soften the plastic very well are quite low cost, but unfortunately they have also some toxic properties because they're very similar in chemical structure to the female hormone estrogen. The plasticizers are just mixed in. They're not chemically bonded to the polymer. So the polymer is the main part, the huge, the macro molecule, the main part of any plastic. And normally it feels. fills about 98 to 99% of the plastics formulation. In PVC, there's a bit of an exception because we have so much plasticiser. But the plasticiser doesn't bond chemically. It just is mixed in. So it's kind of like

if you were mixing in a colouring to icing for a cake. If you wanted to, you could wash out that colouring. And that's the problem that the plastic migrates out of the plastic once it's made. So I imagine that's how they also add the colors to it because when I think of PVC, I picture a white PVC pipe. Right. Well, just to tell you, Chelsea, that PVC pipe is a bit different because PVC guttering and pipes and window frames are just about the only thing that can be made out of PVC with no plasticiser. Everything else that we have that's made out of PVC has plasticizer in it. But to add the colouring, I mean the colourings that are used in plastics are very strong. So again, a bit like icing, you just need a tiny amount of a colouring to colour a whole batch of plastic. And so how they do it is, they're not sure which kind of colouring.

And maybe this PVC is going to be used. One batch is going to be for Barbie's face. Another batch is going to be made for a Star Wars elephant that's blue, for example. So what they do is they make up different batches by adding a little tiny amount. of colouring material to a batch of transparent or white PVC. And then they add a tiny amount of the colouring to another batch. So they're diluting and diluting the colouring until it makes the right colouring agent. So you're telling me that other toys, not just Barbies, are made like this too. Yeah, exactly the same way. Maybe the difference with Barbie is because she's a doll,

she's got different components. And today, unlike in 1958, the different components, the different components were made out of one plastic, but today the head is almost always made out of PVC, but the body and the arms and the legs can be made out of different plastics. I'm concerned because you said the phallates can have some toxic properties. For example, my cat used to take all my Barbie shoes and hide them for me when I was a kid. So I'm concerned, are the materials toxic to people or pets or the environment? And if we don't know the specific composition of Barbies because it's a trade secret, how would we even know if they're safe for us? There's been a a long, long discussion about whether the thalic plasticiser is safe for us or safe for the environment.

But there was enough evidence in around 2000 for EU, and I know also in the States, to ban the most toxic thallates. I mean, phallates are family of esters of plasticizers. And so they range in molecular weight from those that are so small, such small molecules that they evaporates at room temperature to those that need something like 350 Celsius to evaporate. And so the lower the temperature they evaporate, the more of them potentially can be in the air because, you know, a room temperature, which is 25 centigrade, those low molecular weight materials are easily present in the air. But from 2007, anything that's toys or any changing mats or any accessories that are meant for children under the age of three cannot be made with plasticiser that has a very high volatility.

When I think of plastics, I think about recycling them and how they break down. How long does it take for Barbies or these toys to degrade? Do you know what it looks like when they break down? The length of time that it takes for PVC to degrade or deteriorate is controlled by the environment the doll is played with or stored in the case of the museum. So if you play with your doll in sunny window or take her to the beach with you, then she will be exposed to sunlight and that speeds up the reaction with oxygen, which is the main degradation reaction very much. We're talking about it could be two years to five years if the doll was constantly exposed to sunlight. But if she was kept, for example, as we do in the museum, if we kept the dolls in a freezer, or we could be

talking about 50 years because there's less heat and no sunlight. and less oxygen in the freezer, so it slows the whole process right down. So that means that in the museum, we try to keep the doll at low temperatures and in the dark so that it doesn't start losing its plasticizer and oxidised. Now, of course, that's totally ridiculous if you have a toy at home. So we can't do that. We can be aware that if our doll is sticky or if she begins to discolor, then it's time maybe to think about not playing with her anymore,

at least giving her a good wash so that plasticiser doesn't come into contact with our fingers so that we could end up eating the plasticiser. Yeah, I definitely don't want to be eating those chemicals. What materials could be used to improve Barbie production that are safe and environmentally friendly so we don't have sticky Barbies everywhere? Well, something that's happening more and more is that PVC is being replaced with other plastics that are also flexible but don't need plasticiser to make them flexible. For example, a carry a bag from the store is made up polyethy its chemical structure is flexible, so it means that it doesn't need plasticiser to make it flexible. The challenge is that PVC is a very good mimic of skin, and so it's used a lot in films to make

masks and in research projects where they want to make a dummy that looks just like a person. It's difficult to replace PVC everywhere, but by replacing the plasticiser with either a higher molecularate phthalate or something that isn't a palate, there's plenty of other plasticizers around like citrates and antipates that could replace the thallates, but they cost a little more. And so we're going to have to pay more for Barbie if she's completely made out a different kind of plastic or in a different kind of plasticiser. So I'm going to ask the question, I think many people are wondering at this point, should we get rid of our old Barbies?

And is there a proper way that we should be disposing of them? I don't think we should get rid of our old Barbies. I think we should look after them and wash them if they're sticky. and we can put them in the freezer if they're special barbies and take them out to play with. But we should keep them out of the hands of young people that maybe want to chew because the plasticise, as I said, is me physically bound up with the polymer. And that means that mechanical action, like chewing or pressing, can release it to the surface. That's Dr. Yvonne Shoshua.

She's a research professor from the National Museum of Denmark, speaking with SciFRI's AAAS fellow Chelsea Boudou. If you missed any part of this program or you'd like to hear it again, subscribe to our podcasts, or ask your smart speaker to play Science Friday. Say hi to us on social media or email us. The address is SciFri at ScienceFri.com. You can send feedback and tell us what you'd like us to cover to. I'm Sean Dankoski.

And I'm Diana Plasker. It's good to have you here, Diana. Ira is back next week. Please have a great weekend.