1
00:00:01,160 --> 00:00:03,920
Speaker 1: Welcome to How Stuff Works. Now. I'm your host, Lauren Vogelbaum,

2
00:00:04,040 --> 00:00:10,640
Speaker 1: a researcher and writer. Here at How Stuff Works. Every week,

3
00:00:10,680 --> 00:00:12,880
Speaker 1: I'm bringing you three stories from her team about the

4
00:00:12,920 --> 00:00:17,000
Speaker 1: weird and wondrous advances we've seen in science, technology, and culture.

5
00:00:17,600 --> 00:00:19,759
Speaker 1: This week, we looked into answers for a couple of

6
00:00:19,920 --> 00:00:23,239
Speaker 1: very serious questions. Our gun violence and police violence on

7
00:00:23,280 --> 00:00:27,280
Speaker 1: the rise, or are we just more aware of that violence. Also,

8
00:00:27,480 --> 00:00:30,720
Speaker 1: we saw a story about making high performance airspace materials

9
00:00:30,720 --> 00:00:33,919
Speaker 1: out of bread. It's a wide world out there. First up, though,

10
00:00:34,000 --> 00:00:36,640
Speaker 1: senior writer Robert Lamb brings us some research in the

11
00:00:36,680 --> 00:00:41,000
Speaker 1: field of conservation biology. Could painting two crude eyes on

12
00:00:41,040 --> 00:00:44,760
Speaker 1: a cow's rump helped protect it from lion attacks? One

13
00:00:44,840 --> 00:00:48,479
Speaker 1: doctor Neil Jordan, thinks so, and he's putting, in Robert's words,

14
00:00:48,760 --> 00:00:55,720
Speaker 1: this butt painting technique to the scientific test. Here's the reality.

15
00:00:55,880 --> 00:00:59,400
Speaker 1: The African line is a threatened species and human expansion

16
00:00:59,400 --> 00:01:02,480
Speaker 1: it puts cow all grazing lands in ever closer proximity

17
00:01:02,560 --> 00:01:06,360
Speaker 1: to the wildlife areas that lions call home. Lion attacks

18
00:01:06,360 --> 00:01:10,440
Speaker 1: on livestock hurt hard working farmers, and retaliatory attacks cut

19
00:01:10,480 --> 00:01:13,959
Speaker 1: into lion populations. If only there was a non violent

20
00:01:14,080 --> 00:01:17,040
Speaker 1: way to protect the cattle. That's where the eyes come

21
00:01:17,080 --> 00:01:20,880
Speaker 1: into play. Just a crude pair of fingerpaint peepers one

22
00:01:20,959 --> 00:01:24,240
Speaker 1: day either side of the cow's tail nose. Since lions

23
00:01:24,240 --> 00:01:27,840
Speaker 1: are ambush hunters, they depend on surprise attacks. If they

24
00:01:27,840 --> 00:01:30,240
Speaker 1: think they've been had, the labandon the hunt, or at

25
00:01:30,319 --> 00:01:33,440
Speaker 1: least that's the theory. Jordan, who holds a post with

26
00:01:33,480 --> 00:01:37,520
Speaker 1: the Botswana Predator Conservation Trust, recently held a ten week

27
00:01:37,600 --> 00:01:40,600
Speaker 1: trial of the strategy painting eyes on one third of

28
00:01:40,600 --> 00:01:44,200
Speaker 1: a sixty two cattle herd. Three unpainted cows wound up

29
00:01:44,200 --> 00:01:47,120
Speaker 1: his lion chow, but none of the eye cows fell

30
00:01:47,200 --> 00:01:50,400
Speaker 1: to predation. That's a small study size, though, so Jordan

31
00:01:50,560 --> 00:01:54,120
Speaker 1: is currently rolling out an eight thousand dollar crowdfunded study

32
00:01:54,280 --> 00:01:58,280
Speaker 1: that entails more cows, tin GPS cattle trackers, and one

33
00:01:58,320 --> 00:02:01,800
Speaker 1: GPS collar for a lucky ion. If the findings proved

34
00:02:01,880 --> 00:02:04,840
Speaker 1: that the eyes have it, then farmers in Botswana and

35
00:02:04,880 --> 00:02:08,600
Speaker 1: beyond could benefit from a super low cost and sustainable

36
00:02:08,639 --> 00:02:13,119
Speaker 1: tool to protect both species in an unbalanced environment. Hey,

37
00:02:13,200 --> 00:02:15,959
Speaker 1: and there's reason to hope Indians who happen to work

38
00:02:15,960 --> 00:02:19,840
Speaker 1: in Bengal tiger country have long reported success with backwards

39
00:02:19,840 --> 00:02:23,840
Speaker 1: wooden mask to ward off ambushes. Plus, various animal species

40
00:02:23,880 --> 00:02:26,800
Speaker 1: evolved eyespots that in many cases may serve to protect

41
00:02:26,880 --> 00:02:30,320
Speaker 1: them from creeping predators. But hey, hold off on your

42
00:02:30,320 --> 00:02:33,720
Speaker 1: own anti lion butt tattoos tell the study results actually

43
00:02:33,800 --> 00:02:40,960
Speaker 1: roll in. Next, Senior writer Jonathan Strickland explains how scientists

44
00:02:41,000 --> 00:02:45,120
Speaker 1: in China are manufacturing an inexpensive new type of carbon

45
00:02:45,240 --> 00:02:49,079
Speaker 1: foam that may just be the best thing since sliced bread.

46
00:02:52,639 --> 00:02:55,560
Speaker 1: A group of researchers at the Harbor Institute of Technology

47
00:02:55,560 --> 00:02:58,600
Speaker 1: in China have published a paper and Applied Materials and

48
00:02:58,680 --> 00:03:02,239
Speaker 1: Interfaces demons raating a new way to make carbon foam.

49
00:03:02,560 --> 00:03:06,760
Speaker 1: It involves subjecting freshly baked bread to pyrolysis, which is

50
00:03:06,760 --> 00:03:09,680
Speaker 1: when you heat a substance up to intense levels in

51
00:03:09,720 --> 00:03:12,880
Speaker 1: a chamber with no oxygen in it. So what exactly

52
00:03:13,240 --> 00:03:16,679
Speaker 1: is carbon foam? In general, it's a lightweight material made

53
00:03:16,720 --> 00:03:20,320
Speaker 1: up of almost pure carbon and is extremely porous. There

54
00:03:20,320 --> 00:03:25,000
Speaker 1: are two broad categories, graphitic and non graphitic. Each type

55
00:03:25,000 --> 00:03:28,760
Speaker 1: has its own properties. Graphic carbon foams are highly conductive

56
00:03:28,800 --> 00:03:32,600
Speaker 1: both for electricity and thermal energy. Also known as heat.

57
00:03:33,120 --> 00:03:36,560
Speaker 1: Non graphic carbon foams have greater mechanical strength than their

58
00:03:36,600 --> 00:03:41,360
Speaker 1: graphic counterparts, and they act as thermal insulators. Heat doesn't

59
00:03:41,400 --> 00:03:44,800
Speaker 1: pass through them as easily. Both types are chemically inert.

60
00:03:45,240 --> 00:03:48,840
Speaker 1: Dr Even Lee, head of the research lab, realized that

61
00:03:48,960 --> 00:03:52,640
Speaker 1: bread has the right structure to produce non graphic carbon foam.

62
00:03:53,040 --> 00:03:55,760
Speaker 1: Like the foam, bread has open pores, and so his

63
00:03:55,840 --> 00:03:59,800
Speaker 1: team subjected freshly baked bread to pyrolysis as a bread

64
00:03:59,840 --> 00:04:03,200
Speaker 1: of aconado. This makes me sad, but it's all in

65
00:04:03,240 --> 00:04:06,200
Speaker 1: the name of science. The team heated the bread to

66
00:04:06,280 --> 00:04:10,040
Speaker 1: more than five hundred degrees celsius that's nine two degrees

67
00:04:10,080 --> 00:04:13,400
Speaker 1: fahrenheit without oxygen to allow the bread to catch fire.

68
00:04:13,680 --> 00:04:17,960
Speaker 1: The material carbonized. The result was a lightweight, strong material

69
00:04:18,120 --> 00:04:22,120
Speaker 1: with thermal insulation properties. The big breakthrough here is that

70
00:04:22,200 --> 00:04:26,960
Speaker 1: bread isn't expensive to manufacture. Typically, scientists must first manufacture

71
00:04:27,040 --> 00:04:29,760
Speaker 1: one type of foam and subjected to pyrolysis to make

72
00:04:29,800 --> 00:04:33,599
Speaker 1: carbon foam. Some of these carbon foam precursors are expensive

73
00:04:33,640 --> 00:04:37,840
Speaker 1: to produce, but bread doesn't cost a lot of bread

74
00:04:38,480 --> 00:04:40,880
Speaker 1: And what can you do with this carbon foam stuff?

75
00:04:40,920 --> 00:04:45,159
Speaker 1: Once you make it? Well, it's lightweight, relatively strong, fire resistant,

76
00:04:45,240 --> 00:04:47,920
Speaker 1: and a thermal insulator. Sounds like it would be right

77
00:04:47,960 --> 00:04:50,960
Speaker 1: at home in the aerospace industry, where you need superior

78
00:04:51,040 --> 00:04:54,320
Speaker 1: thermal insulation that can withstand the stresses of a launch,

79
00:04:54,480 --> 00:04:57,000
Speaker 1: and if you're going to send stuff up into space,

80
00:04:57,320 --> 00:05:06,200
Speaker 1: you want to be lightweight. Finally, this week, I dug

81
00:05:06,200 --> 00:05:09,920
Speaker 1: into some frankly upsetting research on the rates of gun

82
00:05:10,000 --> 00:05:13,280
Speaker 1: violence and police violence in the United States. Reading our

83
00:05:13,320 --> 00:05:15,599
Speaker 1: news feeds these days, it can feel like the world

84
00:05:15,680 --> 00:05:18,640
Speaker 1: is crumbling around us. Are these rates really on the

85
00:05:18,720 --> 00:05:20,760
Speaker 1: rise or is it just that we're more aware of

86
00:05:20,800 --> 00:05:28,760
Speaker 1: these insidents than we used to be. Racially motivated local

87
00:05:28,800 --> 00:05:31,679
Speaker 1: and national violence have been all over our news feeds lately,

88
00:05:31,880 --> 00:05:34,359
Speaker 1: and there are three major factors at work here. The

89
00:05:34,400 --> 00:05:38,039
Speaker 1: actual incidents of violence and particularly gun violence, the reporting

90
00:05:38,120 --> 00:05:41,080
Speaker 1: of that violence to authorities by authorities and in the media,

91
00:05:41,480 --> 00:05:44,760
Speaker 1: and the perception of that violence by everyone involved. First,

92
00:05:44,839 --> 00:05:48,600
Speaker 1: let's look at the actual violence happening in The Pew

93
00:05:48,640 --> 00:05:51,440
Speaker 1: Research Center published an analysis of the data collected by

94
00:05:51,440 --> 00:05:55,080
Speaker 1: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention through death certificates

95
00:05:55,120 --> 00:05:58,479
Speaker 1: over the past few decades. This data indicates that per

96
00:05:58,520 --> 00:06:01,880
Speaker 1: capita America's gun homicide rate has remained more or less

97
00:06:01,880 --> 00:06:05,400
Speaker 1: flat between the years two thousand and two thousand fourteen. Further,

98
00:06:05,520 --> 00:06:09,360
Speaker 1: that rate has decreased by over fifty since its peak.

99
00:06:09,480 --> 00:06:14,960
Speaker 1: In However, gallop poles consistently indicate that Americans believe violent

100
00:06:15,000 --> 00:06:18,719
Speaker 1: crime is on the rise. Psychologists have drawn correlations between

101
00:06:18,720 --> 00:06:22,640
Speaker 1: homicide reportage and fear levels among populations, and a trend

102
00:06:22,680 --> 00:06:25,360
Speaker 1: analysis out of the Columbia Journalism School found that since

103
00:06:25,360 --> 00:06:29,599
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties, news media have been sweepingly misrepresenting violent

104
00:06:29,600 --> 00:06:34,880
Speaker 1: crime incidents in their coverage. Just one example, zero point

105
00:06:35,000 --> 00:06:38,200
Speaker 1: four percent of the crimes committed in New Orleans were homicides,

106
00:06:38,520 --> 00:06:41,560
Speaker 1: but about half of crime news focused on that subject,

107
00:06:42,000 --> 00:06:45,080
Speaker 1: and that was in one The news media has changed

108
00:06:45,200 --> 00:06:48,160
Speaker 1: a bit since then. News Room employment is down over

109
00:06:49,240 --> 00:06:52,240
Speaker 1: from its all time high in nineteen due to changes

110
00:06:52,240 --> 00:06:54,960
Speaker 1: in the economy and the funding upset created by the

111
00:06:55,040 --> 00:06:57,679
Speaker 1: rise of digital media. That means that we have about

112
00:06:57,680 --> 00:07:01,000
Speaker 1: thirty three thousand news journalists left in the United States.

113
00:07:01,440 --> 00:07:03,839
Speaker 1: Compare that to the fact that, by the most recent numbers,

114
00:07:03,920 --> 00:07:07,240
Speaker 1: we have about a hundred and fifty eight million smartphone users,

115
00:07:07,520 --> 00:07:10,120
Speaker 1: all of whom have instant access to publishing tools via

116
00:07:10,200 --> 00:07:13,280
Speaker 1: social media, and some of whom are using that access

117
00:07:13,280 --> 00:07:15,560
Speaker 1: to share stories that may have not been reported in

118
00:07:15,600 --> 00:07:18,640
Speaker 1: the past. The decreasing gun homicide rate that I mentioned

119
00:07:18,680 --> 00:07:22,400
Speaker 1: earlier does include fatal police shootings. However, when you break

120
00:07:22,440 --> 00:07:24,960
Speaker 1: the statistic out on its own, the story is different.

121
00:07:25,400 --> 00:07:28,600
Speaker 1: According to Pew, fatal police shootings rose from three hundred

122
00:07:28,640 --> 00:07:30,960
Speaker 1: and thirty three incidents in two thousand nine to four

123
00:07:31,040 --> 00:07:35,320
Speaker 1: hundred sixty four, and according to The Washington Post that

124
00:07:35,440 --> 00:07:37,560
Speaker 1: number was up to nine hundred and ninety and t

125
00:07:38,960 --> 00:07:41,880
Speaker 1: Black people and black men ages fifteen to thirty four

126
00:07:41,920 --> 00:07:45,400
Speaker 1: in particular, are disproportionately the victims of this deadly force.

127
00:07:45,880 --> 00:07:48,360
Speaker 1: Young black men make up two percent of the population

128
00:07:48,600 --> 00:07:50,960
Speaker 1: but account for fifteen percent of the deaths and are

129
00:07:51,040 --> 00:07:53,560
Speaker 1: nine times more likely to die in police incidents than

130
00:07:53,600 --> 00:07:57,160
Speaker 1: any other demographic. According to The Guardian, it's unclear whether

131
00:07:57,160 --> 00:08:01,560
Speaker 1: these dramatic increases indicate actual increases an incidence, or whether

132
00:08:01,560 --> 00:08:04,040
Speaker 1: there are artifacts of how the data was gathered and

133
00:08:04,040 --> 00:08:07,560
Speaker 1: whether these incidents have been under reported by law enforcement agencies.

134
00:08:07,960 --> 00:08:11,520
Speaker 1: An analysis by The Wall Street Journal found hundreds of

135
00:08:11,560 --> 00:08:14,480
Speaker 1: police killings missing from the FBI's official files over the

136
00:08:14,480 --> 00:08:18,960
Speaker 1: past several years. So our gun violence and police violence

137
00:08:18,960 --> 00:08:21,480
Speaker 1: on the rise in America. We don't have the answer,

138
00:08:21,640 --> 00:08:24,160
Speaker 1: because no one does, but we're certainly more aware of it.

139
00:08:24,640 --> 00:08:27,400
Speaker 1: Hopefully that awareness will help drive changes to make our

140
00:08:27,440 --> 00:08:35,080
Speaker 1: most vulnerable populations safer. That's our show for this week.

141
00:08:35,240 --> 00:08:38,040
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for tuning in. Subscribe now for

142
00:08:38,120 --> 00:08:40,360
Speaker 1: more of the latest science news, and send us links

143
00:08:40,360 --> 00:08:42,920
Speaker 1: to anything you'd like to hear is cover plus. Any

144
00:08:42,920 --> 00:08:45,319
Speaker 1: feedback you have or anything you'd like to say about

145
00:08:45,320 --> 00:08:47,560
Speaker 1: any of the stories you've heard today, you can send

146
00:08:47,640 --> 00:08:50,160
Speaker 1: us an email at Now podcast at house, to works

147
00:08:50,160 --> 00:08:53,120
Speaker 1: dot com and for lots more stories like these, plus

148
00:08:53,200 --> 00:08:56,080
Speaker 1: articles filling out these stories, head over to our home

149
00:08:56,200 --> 00:09:00,559
Speaker 1: planet Now dot house to works dot com s