MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

And it’s time for this week’s science roundup with our pals at NPR’s Brief Wave podcast – Regina Barber and Maria Godoy – within the studio. Whats up there, you two.

MARIA GODOY, BYLINE: Whats up.

REGINA BARBER, BYLINE: Whats up.

KELLY: So you will have introduced us 3 science tales – 3 that stuck your eye this week. What have you were given?

GODOY: Smartly, we have now were given a virulent disease of the Nipah virus in Kerala, India…

BARBER: What mysterious crimson diamonds in Australia lately let us know about what came about on Earth loads of hundreds of thousands of years in the past…

GODOY: And the way cockatoos woo their fans by way of moonlighting as drummers.

KELLY: (Laughter) OK, so virus, crimson diamonds and romantic cockatoos. I were given to move for the 3rd one first. Maria, inform me in regards to the wild palm cockatoos. They are drumming out love songs?

GODOY: Yeah. That is as fabulous because it sounds. So those palm cockatoos most effective reside in far off portions of northern Australia and lowland New Guinea, some offshore islands. Feminine cockatoos most effective lay one egg each two years.

BARBER: Because of this they should be tremendous choosy about opting for a male mate.

GODOY: Proper. And as TLC taught us all within the ’90s, they are not looking for no scrubs, this means that…

BARBER: (Laughter).

GODOY: …The male palm cockatoos have to move all-out to persuade the women to mate with them. Rob Heinsohn has been finding out those birds for many years. He is a conservation biologist at Australian Nationwide College, and he says the men placed on a gorgeous unbelievable display. They begin off by way of whistling and making a lot of calls and noises to catch her eye.

ROB HEINSOHN: And on the identical time, he is erecting his large crest. And he is blushing his crimson cheeks, and he is bobbing and dancing at the department, twirling, doing the whole thing he can to get her consideration.

KELLY: OK. I’ve crimson cheeks imagining him erecting his large crest…

(LAUGHTER)

KELLY: …On his head, proper?

GODOY: On his head.

KELLY: Oh his head.

GODOY: Sure, on his head.

KELLY: OK.

GODOY: This can be a circle of relatives display.

KELLY: So fast-forward to the drumming – what occurs?

BARBER: Smartly, that is the large finale, proper? After he is been whistling and bobbing, the male cockatoo is going out on a limb and makes a large display of chopping off the most important tree department. And he does it together with his invoice to principally display how sturdy he’s.

GODOY: After which he whittles that department down together with his beak and begins drumming. And in a brand new find out about printed by way of the Royal Society, researchers file that each and every chook in reality has his personal most well-liked taste of drumstick. Some like them quick and fats. Others desire lengthy and thin. Occasionally they use seed pods, too. However they each and every have their very own signature device taste.

BARBER: Now not most effective that – each and every chook has its personal signature drumming taste, too. Heinsohn says he can acknowledge which male palm cockatoo is drumming simply by listening – kind of like other people say you’ll inform when Keith Moon is drumming on a Who album.

(SOUNDBITE OF PALM COCKATOO DRUMMING)

KELLY: OK, I am not positive The Who’re dropping any sleep over that, however, Maria, inform me what the feminine cockatoos are doing whilst all this is happening.

GODOY: Yeah. Smartly, so Heinsohn says this complete elaborate musical mating show is how male palm cockatoos display they have got the brains and creativity to be worthy as associates. So the women watch this intently the entire time, and the men do those presentations time and again till they in the end get the woman.

KELLY: Till they get the woman – so a contented finishing. This is pleasant.

Talking of pleasant – crimson diamonds. That is our subsequent matter – crimson diamonds in Australia – Regina.

BARBER: Yeah. So for a very long time, the Argyle Diamond Mine in Western Australia loved a bounty of crimson diamonds. Till they closed in 2020, they had been the main provider of them. However the entire time, geologists had been stumped by way of how the diamonds were given there and when.

GODOY: Yeah. See, crimson diamonds are gorgeous, however they are very uncommon. Like, for those who scooped up 500 random diamonds from Argyle…

KELLY: As you do.

GODOY: Yeah, precisely – just one could be crimson. And they are much more uncommon at different mines, which makes them lovely coveted stones. If you can take note, Ben Affleck gave J.Lo a crimson diamond all the way through their first engagement within the early aughts.

KELLY: Such a lot of engagements in the past. OK, so crimson diamonds – you mentioned they are very uncommon. Why?

BARBER: This is because they require a special more or less physics to be made. So you will have your vintage, colorless diamond, and that’s the reason made out of natural carbon put below excessive power. However probably the most researchers, geologist Hugo Olierook, says crimson diamonds are broken diamonds.

HUGO OLIEROOK: You’ll injury a diamond. You’ll in reality take that diamond and twist it and bend it somewhat. And for those who bend it and twist it simply the correct quantity, it turns crimson.

BARBER: And the buildings within a diamond get compressed, and the sunshine touring during the crimson diamond makes it that colour.

GODOY: So geologists have lengthy identified that diamonds are in most cases shaped deep down.

BARBER: Greater than 90 miles deep down.

GODOY: Throughout the Earth’s crust. They usually tended to shape again when there have been supercontinents at the floor of the earth.

KELLY: OK, cling on, ‘motive I am seeking to stay up right here. Supercontinents – that is after they had been all smushed in combination, like a gazillion years in the past?

GODOY: Yeah, precisely. So Pangea is the latest one. There used to be every other supercontinent known as Nuna, and scientists assume that those crimson diamonds had been created all the way through the formation of the Nuna supercontinent some 1.8 billion years in the past.

BARBER: Yeah. And Hugo and his colleagues wrote about this within the magazine Nature Communications this week. And thru extra exact courting, they had been ready to determine that once Nuna broke aside 500 million years later, the diamonds spewed out. The subcontinents banged in combination and stretched, which brought about a volcanic eruption of diamonds.

KELLY: A volcano of diamonds.

BARBER: Sure.

KELLY: Superb.

GODOY: Signal me up.

KELLY: OK, now our ultimate tale that you’ve dropped at us – it is a little bit extra of a downer, however it is an engaging detective story.

BARBER: Yeah.

KELLY: That is an epidemiological thriller. It’s in southern India. It is a virulent disease of a pandemic known as the Nipah virus. Inform me extra.

GODOY: Proper. Smartly, so Kamala Thiagarajan wrote in regards to the outbreak for NPR’s Goats and Soda weblog. It is the fourth outbreak within the state of Kerala since 2018. There is been two deaths – the primary one used to be on the finish of August – and 6 instances up to now.

KELLY: Six instances up to now – and what does it do to you?

GODOY: Smartly, it is a virus that jumps from animals to other people. Fruit bats are the principle hosts, and it is at the International Well being Group’s checklist of viruses with pandemic attainable. And the standard signs can come with critical breathing issues like pneumonia, even encephalitis, which is mind swelling, and that may convey fevers, complications, occasionally disorientation and even result in coma.

BARBER: And the virus will also be fatal, too. There used to be a large outbreak in Malaysia within the overdue ’90s that killed over 100 other people.

KELLY: Ugh. OK, this sounds terrible. Can we know the way this present outbreak – the only in India – started?

GODOY: Smartly, scientists know that Nipah can unfold from bats to people when bats contaminate issues other people consume or drink. In some previous outbreaks in Bangladesh, that is been during the sap of date palm bushes. And when other people drank the palm sap, they were given ill. Researchers are checking out bats in Kerala for the virus to peer if that may well be the case right here, however they have not found out but precisely how this outbreak began.

BARBER: However they do know that when this actual pressure of Nipah virus jumps from animals to other people, it might unfold from human to human thru physically fluids or inflamed meals.

GODOY: And several other instances on this outbreak are related to a health center the place the primary one that died used to be getting handled. So it sort of feels that the inflamed individual went to the health center, and it all started to unfold from there. Now, containment measures had been installed position, and medical doctors in Kerala are constructive.

KELLY: Me too – very a lot wishing them success in containing that individual outbreak. Maria Godoy and Regina Barber from NPR’s science podcast, Brief Wave, which is the place you’ll find out about new discoveries and on a regular basis mysteries and all of the science at the back of the headlines. Regina, Maria, thanks.

GODOY: Oh, thanks.

BARBER: Thanks.

(SOUNDBITE OF SLVR SONG, “BACK N FORTH”)

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