Science, Spoken

Nestled in the foothills of California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains is the quaint Gold Rush town of Nevada City. Surrounded by unkempt brush, the old, highly flammable city is in danger: with California’s wildfires raging with unprecedented ferocity in recent years, one spark could doom Nevada City to the same fate that neighboring Paradise met in November. But not if the goats get there first. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

This story originally appeared on CityLab and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. On January 3, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced the release of ShakeAlertLA, a new earthquake-warning app for residents of Los Angeles County. The app—the first of its kind in the United States—promises to “save lives by giving precious seconds to you and to your family to take action and to protect yourselves,” Garcetti told reporters at a launch event at City Hall. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Bad news from the high seas: the Ocean Cleanup’s 600-meter-long floating tube, which was supposed to catch plastic whilst somehow surviving the relentless forces of the ocean, has done neither. In November, the organization—which has raised $40 million from donors and companies—announced that the thing wasn’t really catching plastic, and last week it said the giant tube had snapped in two. It's now being towed to Hawaii for repairs and upgrades. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

It’s easy to watch a baby finally learn to walk after hours upon hours of trial and error and think, OK, good work, but do you want a medal or something? Well, maybe only a childless person like me would think that, so credit where credit is due: It’s supremely difficult for animals like ourselves to manage something as everyday as putting one foot in front of the other. It’s even more difficult to get robots to do the same. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Instead of figuring out how many Pacific hake fishermen can catch sustainably, as his job demands, scientist Ian Taylor is at home with his four-month old daughter, biding his time through the partial government shutdown. Taylor’s task is to assess the size and age of hake and other commercially harvested fish species in the productive grounds from Baja California to the Gulf of Alaska. These stock assessments are then used by federal managers to approve permits to West Coast fishing boats. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

You, like me, may sometimes (or all the time!) feel that the world is spiraling out of control—trade wars and political strife. And, oh right, climate change, arguably the greatest threat our species has ever faced. Or maybe artificial intelligence and robots will put us all out of work before the world actually ends. “A dirty little secret about autonomous vehicles,” says Edelman, “is there won't be enough people to service them because these are trade skill programs. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Researchers at the University of Maryland recently announced a potential breakthrough in the fight against "neuropathic" pain—that is, pain that results from malfunctioning or damaged nerves.Neuropathic pain afflicts 100 million Americans and costs the nation over half a trillion dollars every year. WIRED OPINION ABOUT KurtAmsler, Ph.D., is a professor of biomedical sciences at the New York Institute of Technology's College of Osteopathic Medicine. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The red imported fire ant is one of the world’s most invasive species. Its sting delivers a burning poison that kills living tissue. Together groups of ants devour deer fawns, baby birds, reptiles, and almost any other source of protein they can get their mandibles on. They form acres of crisscrossing tunnels with thousands of cooperative workers. And their territory has steadily been spreading. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

For the past 13 years, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has been bolting away from the sun at speeds in excess of 31,000 miles per hour, charting a course for the fringes of our solar system. In 2015, it made a close pass of Pluto, returning the highest resolution images of the erstwhile planet the world has ever seen. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Depending on your perspective, 2018 either brought us closer to salvation by way of robots, or closer to doom by way of robots: Where some see the end of meaningless work, others see the end of humanity, also meaningless. (We’re in the former camp, by the way. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices