Episodit
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It's 1968 and a Soviet sub carrying nuclear warheads has gone missing – lost, with all hands. The Soviets never found it – but the Americans did – in nearly 5000 meters of water.
What follows is the strange tale of Project Azorian, an ultra-secret mission by the US Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA, that played on national fervor over deep sea mining to create an elaborate cover story to raise the sub. This strange tale involved Howard Hughes, a journey around the tip of South America, the 1973 Chilean coup and a 1974 burglary. This last resulted in an expose of what has been called one of the greatest covert operations in the CIA's history.
I stumbled onto this story in the course of reporting the episode on Norway's decision to open its seabed to exploration and mining, and couldn't resist making a little podcast extra about it since it's such a bizarre tale. Fortunately, my guest on today's show, Mats Ingulstad, a professor at NTNU's Department of Modern History and Society, was equally fascinated by this little sidebar to the history of deep sea mining, so here you have it.
Here are some links to relevant documents:
The declassified CIA document (heavily excised) about Project Azorian, with lots of amazing details
The US National Security Archive's webpage describing the declassification of the CIA's Project Azorian
The US Department of State, Office of the Historian's extremely detailed description of The Hughes Glomar Explorer’s Secret Mission to Recover a Sunken Soviet Submarine
For the definitive account of the whole affair, check out the book Project Azorian: The CIA and the Raising of the K-129.
A New York Times article about the 1974 burglary that first exposed Project Azorian: https://www.nytimes.com/1975/03/27/archives/an-easy-burglary-led-to-the-disclosure-of-hughescia-plan-to-salvage.html
The Wikipedia page on Project Azorian
The Kennedy speech came from a 28-minute film made on behalf of the US Air Force, called Oceanography: Science for Survival. It's available from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.
I don't talk about it, but the part of the sub that was raised also contained the bodies of six submariners, who were subsequently given a proper burial at sea. There's a video of the ceremony here.
If you've read this far, I'd be interested in feedback on the sound design of this podcast. I had access to a different music library and decided to use a lot of music to see how it would sound. So let me know: was it too loud, too much, not enough? If you do send a note, make sure to tell me what kind of headphones you're using. Other comments? Questions? Fan mail? email me at [email protected]
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Norway's Mid-Arctic Ocean Ridge is alive with underwater volcanic activity – where big towers called black smokers spew mineral-laden boiling hot water into the ocean. The minerals precipitate out, and have accumulated over millions of years. At the same time, this extreme environment is home to lots of weird creatures mostly unknown to science. This week, a look at the pros and cons of Norway's decision to open an area the size of Italy to extract minerals. Today's guests are Mats Ingulstad, Egil Tjåland, Kurt Aasly and Torkild Bakken.
Here are links to some of the articles and opinion pieces mentioned in the show:
Norway needs to know much more before actually mining the deep sea Opinion piece written by Mats Ingulstad and his colleagues at Triple Deep, first published Dagens Næringsliv, a national newspaper.This link takes you to the 17 Jan. EU Parliament hearing on Norway's decision.Norway will be the first in the world to approve seabed mining. Is it a good idea? A piece from Norwegian SciTech News with a roundup of coverage on seabed mining.A report summary from Rystad Energy, commissioned in part by the Norwegian Forum for Marine Minerals, which estimates the economic potential of the seabed minerals in the area opened by the Norwegian government.The European Academies' Science Advisory Council report assessing future needs and environmental impacts of deep sea mining. This editorial from the academic journal Nature argues that Norway's decision undermines efforts to protect the ocean.The scientific article about new species discovered around Loki's Castle: Eilertsen, Mari Heggernes; Kongsrud, Jon Anders; Tandberg, Anne Helene S.; Alvestad, Tom; Budaeva, Nataliya; Martell, Luis. (2024) Diversity, habitat endemicity and trophic ecology of the fauna of Loki’s Castle vent field on the Arctic Mid-Ocean Ridge.Here's a link to the press release from the University of Bergen on the discovery of Loki's Castle.Find the transcript here
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Puuttuva jakso?
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Our guest on today's show is Anders Hammer Strømman, one of the lead authors for the last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report on mitigation of climate change, released in April 2022. He was invited to Dubai to the COP 28 climate talks to talk to the shipping industry about how they can reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. He also shares his experience – not from the negotiating rooms – but from the perspective of a scientist seeing his work being taken up by policy makers.
Here's a link to the IPCC report for which Anders was one of the lead authors:
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/chapter/chapter-10/
You can read more about other NTNU researchers, including Helene Muri and Edgar Hertwich, who participated in the conference here:
https://norwegianscitechnews.com/2023/12/climate-talks-and-the-way-forward/
https://norwegianscitechnews.com/2023/12/the-energy-footprint-of-architecture-built-by-oil/
https://norwegianscitechnews.com/2021/09/blocking-the-sun-to-control-global-warming/
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In their careful records of climate change over the centuries — and millennia — trees offer a kind of crystal ball on the past. But they can also help researchers figure out everything from what happened in Norway during the Black Death to how Nazis hid an enormous battleship from the Allies during WWII to how much it rained in Norway during millennia past, when it was much warmer than today.
Our guests on today's show are Helene Svarva and Claudia Hartl. You can see a transcript of the show here.
Here's a selection of academic articles discussed in today's show:
Ljungqvist, Fredrik Charpentier; Seim, Andrea; Tegel, Willy; Krusic, Paul J.; Baittinger, Claudia; Belingard, Christelle. (2022) Regional Patterns of Late Medieval and Early Modern European Building Activity Revealed by Felling Dates. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution
Thun, Terje; Svarva, Helene Løvstrand. (2018) Tree-ring growth shows that the significant population decline in Norway began before the Black Death. Dendrochronologia
Svarva, Helene Løvstrand; Thun, Terje; Kirchhefer, Andreas; Nesje, Atle. (2018) Little Ice Age summer temperatures in Western Norway from a 700-year tree-ring chronology. The Holocene
Thun, Terje. (2009) Norwegian dendrochronology; almost a victim of the Black Death. AmS-Varia
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When Hitler's troops stormed into Norway on April 9, 1940, Germany's goal was to secure the country’s 1200 km long coastline so iron ore from Swedish mines could continue to flow to the northern Norwegian port of Narvik — and eventually to the German war machine.
But that wasn't all that Hitler and his followers hoped for, as Norwegian teachers would come to learn.
Vidkun Quisling, a Nazi collaborator who nominally headed the Norwegian government during the occupation, wanted Norway to embrace Nazi ideology. He decided the best way to do this was through teachers and schoolchildren. In February 1942, he ordered all teachers to join a new union that would require them to introduce Nazi doctrine to their students. Students were also ordered to join the Norwegian equivalent of the Hitler Youth.
But the teachers refused.
They organized using tactics right out of a spy movie to resist — scribbling messages in invisible ink, meeting secretly in basements and train stations, and printing newsletters to coordinate efforts across the country. For their efforts, 1100 were arrested — and subjected to months of starvation, torture and hard labour.
This week, the story of what happened when the teachers defied Hitler — and won!
My guests on today's show are Martin Øystese and Unni Eikeseth.
Learn more about the teachers' battle:
The Teacher's Protest tells the full story of the teachers' resistance, in a 2020 video by Jon Seal and available for rental from Vimeo."Tyranny could not quell them," by Gene Sharp, a 24-page booklet published in 1958 by the International Pacifist Weekly that describes the teachers' rebellion, and how the tactics they used could help other groups that are interested in non-violent resistance.Lærarkrigen mot Quisling, the Norwegian three-part podcast about the teacher's rebellion (in Norwegian)Ø. Hetland, N. Karcher & K. B. Simonsen (2021) Navigating troubled waters: collaboration and resistance in state institutions in Nazi-occupied Norway, Scandinavian Journal of History, 46:1, 84-104, DOI: 10.1080/03468755.2020.1846075Norwegian Teachers Stand Firm (1942) 32-page booklet published by the Royal Norwegian Government Press Representatives, Washington, DC.Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Up on the Arctic tundra, a young man in chest waders is wandering around a peat bod, burying tea bags — Lipton tea bags, green tea and rooibos, to be exact. This week, I head to Iskoras mountain, a low peak in far northern Norway, outside of the town of Karasjok to find out what burying tea bags in the tundra — and doing sophisticated measurements in a peat bog —can tell us about the future of permafrost and its effects on the climate.
This week's guests are Hanna Lee, Anja Greschkowiak, Lisa van Solt and Daniel Angulo Serrano.
Here are some videos that explain the research and show the field site in more detail:
A brief description of the project, by Inge Althuizen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz4argYGIb8An artistic video about the project fieldwork by Sasha Azanova. https://vimeo.com/457877275You can read more about the research in this episode here:
Jiao, Yi; Davie-Martin, Cleo L.; Kramshøj, Magnus; Christiansen, Casper Tai; Lee, Hanna; Althuizen, Inge. (2023) Volatile organic compound release across a permafrost-affected peatland. Geoderma
Lee, H., Christiansen, C., Althuizen, I., Michelsen, A., Dörsch, P., Westermann, S., and Risk, D.: Long lasting greenhouse gas emissions beyond abrupt permafrost thaw event in permafrost peatlands, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-4211, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-4211, 2022.
Rixen, Christian; Høye, Toke Thomas; Macek, Petr; Aerts, Rien; Alatalo, Juha M.; Andeson, Jill T.. (2022) Winters are changing: snow effects on Arctic and alpine tundra ecosystems. Arctic Science
Cai, Lei; Lee, Hanna; Aas, Kjetil Schanke; Westermann, Sebastian. (2020) Projecting circum-Arctic excess-ground-ice melt with a sub-grid representation in the Community Land Model. The Cryosphere
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Sierra Leone used to be the most dangerous place in the world to give birth. Without enough doctors to do C-sections, women and babies were dying. But what if you didn't need a doctor?
This week, the story of two determined surgeons and a no-so radical idea that is saving lives in Sierra Leone — one emergency operation at a time.
You can read more about the non-profit organization the doctors created to fund their training programme at capacare.org
Our guests on today's show are Håkon Bolkan, Alex van Duinen and Emmanuel Tommy.
Here are some of the academic articles discussed in the show:
Bolkan, Håkon Angell; Schreeb, Johan; Samai, Mohamed; Bash-Taqi, Donald Alpha; Kamara, T. B.; Salvesen, Øyvind. (2015) Met and unmet need for surgery in Sierra Leone: a comprehensive retrospective countrywide survey from all healthcare facilities performing surgery in 2012. SurgeryBrolin, Kim; van Duinen, Aalke Johan; Nordenstedt, Helena; Hoijer, J; Molnes, Ragnhild; Frøseth, Torunn Wigum. (2016) The Impact of the West Africa Ebola Outbreak on Obstetric Health Care in Sierra Leone. PLOS ONEBolkan, Håkon Angell; van Duinen, Aalke Johan; Waalewijn, Bart; Elhassein, Mohamed; Kamara, T. B.; Deen, G F. (2017) Safety, productivity and predicted contribution of a surgical task-sharing programme in Sierra Leone. British Journal of SurgeryTreacy, Laura; Bolkan, Håkon Angell; Sagbakken, Mette. (2018) Distance, accessibility and costs. Decision-making During Childbirth in Rural Sierra Leone: a Qualitative Study. PLOS ONEDrevin, Gustaf; Alvesson, Helle Mölsted; van Duinen, Aalke Johan; Bolkan, Håkon Angell; Koroma, Alimamy philip; von Schreeb, Johan. (2019) ”For this one, let me take the risk”: why surgical staff continued to perform caesarean sections during the 2014–2016 Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone. BMJ Global Healthvan Duinen, Aalke Johan; Kamara, Michael M.; Hagander, Lars; Ashley, Thomas; Koroma, Alimamy Philip; Leather, Andy J.M.. (2019) Caesarean section performed by medical doctors and associate clinicians in Sierra Leone. British Journal of Surgeryvan Duinen, Aalke Johan; Westendorp, Josien; Kamara, Michael M; Forna, Fatu; Hagander, Lars; Rijken, Marcus J.. (2020) Perinatal outcomes of cesarean deliveries in Sierra Leone: A prospective multicenter observational study. International Journal of Gynecology & ObstetricsHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Norwegian technology, courtesy of the 19th-century whaler Svend Foyn, played a critical role in establishing the modern era of industrial whaling.By the time the 1960s rolled around, most large whale populations hovered on the brink of extinction. Now, Norwegian researchers are testing new technologies so they can track and study these marine giants — and help protect them. This week, tapping into fibre-optic cables to eavesdrop on whales in a way that's never been done before— and how deploying a comprehensive library of whale dialects can help prevent ship-whale collisions in busy California shipping ports. This week's guests are Jennifer Bailey, a professor at NTNU's Department of Sociology and Political Science; Martin Landrø, a professor at NTNU's Department of Electronic Systems; Léa Bouffaut, a postdoc at the Cornell University K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics; and Ana Širović, an associate professor at NTNU's Department of Biology. Ana's work with whale dialects and ship strikes is part of the Whale Safe Project.
You can read more about the fibre-optic research in these articles from Norwegian SciTech News:
Tracking whales as they cruise the Arctic
Eavesdropping on the Earth itself
Eavesdropping on whales in the High Arctic
Here are some of the academic articles related to the research discussed in the episode.
Landrø, M., Bouffaut, L., Kriesell, H.J. et al. Sensing whales, storms, ships and earthquakes using an Arctic fibre optic cable. Sci Rep 12, 19226 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-23606-xLéa Bouffaut, Kittinat Taweesintananon, Hannah Kriesell, Robin A Rørstadbotnen, John R Potter, Martin Landrø, Ståle E Johansen, Jan K Brenne, Aksel Haukanes, Olaf Schjelderup and Frode Storvik. Eavesdropping at the speed of light: distributed acoustic sensing of baleen whales in the Arctic. Frontiers in Marine Science. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2022.901348Rørstadbotnen RA, Eidsvik J, Bouffaut L, Landrø M, Potter J, Taweesintananon K, Johansen S, Storevik F, Jacobsen J, Schjelderup O, Wienecke S, Johansen TA, Ruud BO, Wuestefeld A and Oye V (2023) Simultaneous tracking of multiple whales using two fiber-optic cables in the Arctic. Front. Mar. Sci. 10:1130898. DOI=10.3389/fmars.2023.1130898Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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In 1998, a young Norwegian exercise physiologist found that a technique he had used to help Olympic athletes could help heart patients too. But his idea made doctors sweat. One famous cardiologist told him that if he used his technique in human heart attack patients, he "would kill them."
Today's show looks at what happened when our researcher, Ulrik Wisløff, defied the experts — and built a career learning how high intensity interval training can help everyone from heart patients and ageing Baby Boomers, and possibly even Alzheimer's patients — but not in the way you might think!
Our guests on today's show are Ulrik Wisløff, Dorthe Stensvold and Atefe Tari.
Here's a link to a rat on a treadmill photo.
Here's a list of some of the research mentioned in the podcast, with links:
Wisløff U, Helgerud J, Kemi OJ, Ellingsen O. Intensity-controlled treadmill running in rats: VO(2 max) and cardiac hypertrophy. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol. 2001 Mar;280(3):H1301-10.Wisløff U, Støylen A, Loennechen JP, Bruvold M, Rognmo Ø, Haram PM, Tjønna AE, Helgerud J, Slørdahl SA, Lee SJ, Videm V, Bye A, Smith GL, Najjar SM, Ellingsen Ø, Skjaerpe T. Superior cardiovascular effect of aerobic interval training versus moderate continuous training in heart failure patients: a randomized study. Circulation. 2007 Jun 19;115(24):3086-94. doi: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.106.675041. Epub 2007 Jun 4.Øivind Rognmo, Trine Moholdt, Hilde Bakken, Torstein Hole, Per Mølstad, Nils Erling Myhr, Jostein Grimsmo and Ulrik Wisløff. Cardiovascular Risk of High- Versus Moderate-Intensity Aerobic Exercise in Coronary Heart Disease Patients Circulation. 2012;126:1436-1440. doi: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.112.123117Stensvold D, Viken H, Steinshamn S L, Dalen H, Støylen A, Loennechen J P et al. Effect of exercise training for five years on all cause mortality in older adults—the Generation 100 study: randomised controlled trial BMJ 2020; 371 :m3485 Tari AR, Nauman J, Zisko N, Skjellegrind HK, Bosnes I, Bergh S, Stensvold D, Selbæk G, Wisløff U. Temporal changes in cardiorespiratory fitness and risk of dementia incidence and mortality: a population-based prospective cohort study. Lancet Public Health. 2019 Nov;4(11):e565-e574.Tari AR, Berg HH, Videm V, Bråthen G, White LR, Røsbjørgen RN, Scheffler K, Dalen H, Holte E, Haberg AK, Selbaek G, Lydersen S, Duezel E, Bergh S, Logan-Halvorsrud KR, Sando SB, Wisløff U. Safety and efficacy of plasma transfusion from exercise-trained donors in patients with early Alzheimer's disease: protocol for the ExPlas study. BMJ Open. 2022 Sep 6;12(9):e056964.Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Three tons of wax. A 4-story office building made almost entirely of wood. And putting CO2 to work instead of letting it heat up the planet: Scientists and engineers across the globe are harnessing unlikely materials to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Today's show looks at how a zero-emissions office building combines integrated solar panels, heat pumps and a huge vat of wax to heat and power the structure, with enough left over to sell. We'll also look at highly efficient heat pumps using CO2 as the stuff inside that makes it work. They're spreading worldwide, and can be found everywhere from inside your Volkswagen ID electric car to the Large Hadron Collider. And also — at a hotel in Hell, Norway, where electricity use was cut by 70 per cent — without making a pact with the devil!
Our guests on today's show are Tore Kvande and Armin Hafner.
There's a video on Professor Hafner's work at CERN here, and more about CoolCERN, here.
Find a related podcast episode here.
Read more:
Nocente, A, Time, B, Mathisen, H.M, Kvande, T & Gustavsen, A: The ZEB Laboratory: the development of a research tool for future climate adapted zero emission buildings. 8th International Building Physics Conference. J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 2021, Vol 2069, Article no. 012109Sevault A., Næss E., Active latent heat storage using biowax in a central heating system of a ZEB living lab; Proc. of the 14th IIR-Gustav Lorentzen Conf. on Natural Refrigerants - GL2020. Internat. Inst. of Refrig. 2020 ISBN 978-2-36215-040-1. s.493-498, doi.org/10.18462/iir.gl.2020.1146 (Published online 7 December 2020)Pardiñas, Ángel Á.; Jokiel, Michael; Schlemminger, Christian; Selvnes, Håkon; Hafner, Armin. (2021) Modeling of a CO2‐based integrated refrigeration system for supermarkets. Energies. vol. 14:6926 (21).Barroca, Pierre, Armin Hafner, Bart Verlaat, Paolo Petagna, Wojciech Hulek, Lukasz Zwalinski, Pierre Hanf, Michele Battistin, Loic Davoine, and Daniella Teixeira. 2021. "An Ultra-Low Temperature Transcritical R744 Refrigeration System for Future Detectors at CERN LHC" Applied Sciences 11, no. 16: 7399. https://doi.org/10.3390/app11167399Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Earlier this year, tremendous floods in Pakistan forced 600,000 pregnant women to leave their homes for safer ground. It was among the latest in a series of nearly unthinkable happenings caused by climate change."Can you imagine if you are about to give birth to a child, and you have to leave your home and flee? These are very traumatic experiences that people have now in all continents, and increasing frequency," says NNTU Professor Edgar Hertwich. He says we all know now that climate change is no longer an abstraction — it's here, and humankind has to act.
Hertwich — one of the top 100 climate researchers on the planet — is in a unique position to push the international agenda: he's one of just 15 members on the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change, which is advising the EU on implementing its new climate law. That matters because the EU is the largest political entity in the world to commit to such ambitious goals.
The 27 nations in the EU have committed to cutting their carbon emissions by at least 55% in just 8 years — by 2030. By 2050, the EU law commits its member nations to a net-zero emissions balance — meaning that they will reduce its greenhouse gas emissions as much as they can and find ways of compensating for the remaining and unavoidable emissions so that the net emissions are zero.
This is an aggressive plan, Hertwich says, but it doesn't go nearly far enough. And he's been vocal in telling EU leaders just that. Listen to what he had to say to a recent EU Strategy Summit on Climate in Brussels, hosted by NTNU and SINTEF, Scandinavia's largest independent research institution.
You can read a collection of popular science articles about Professor Hertwich's research here.
Here's a selection of his recent academic publications:
Berrill, Peter; Wilson, Eric J.H.; Janet L., Reyna; Antyony D., Fontanini; Hertwich, Edgar G.. (2022) Decarbonization pathways for the residential sector in the United States. Nature Climate Change. vol. 12.Carattini, Stefano; Hertwich, Edgar G.; Melkadze, Givi; Shrader, Jeffrey G.. (2022) Mandatory disclosure is key to address climate risks. Science. vol. 378 (6618)Huang, Yuqiao; Wolfram, Paul; Miller, Reed; Azarijafari, Hessam; Guo, Fengdi; An, Kangxin; Li, Jin; Hertwich, Edgar G.; Gregory, Jeremy; Wang, Can. (2022) Mitigating life cycle GHG emissions of roads to be built through 2030: Case study of a Chinese province. Journal of Environmental Management. vol. 319.Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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We all know that climate change is real and that we have to do something about it. In today's podcast extra episode, we go behind the scenes at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and talk to Anders Hammer Strømman, who was one of the lead authors for their latest report, released in April this year. Anders is a professor at NTNU's Industrial Ecology Programme where he has specialized in Life Cycle Assessment and Environmental input-output analysis, which are tools that enable us to understand the real environmental costs of the goods and materials we use in everyday life.
We talk about why cutting carbon emissions quickly is a little like skiing up a big mountain, how battery companies need to come clean when it comes to how they make their products, why some version of a home office could be good for the planet, and why your individual choices can actually make a difference. And we talk about why Anders is optimistic and thinks we can make this shift — even though the governments of the world have been slow to act.
Anders encouraged me (and by extension, you, my listeners) to look at the entire report (nearly 3000 pages — not 3675 as I say in the podcast!) but that's probably more than most of us have time for. You can look at the chapter that Anders was lead author on, on Transport, here (the link will start a pdf download). You can read an even more condensed version of the WG III report and its major findings here.
The bottom line is that we CAN make this happen!
Thanks this week for help from Ole Marius Ringstad, who did the sound design for the episode. Stay tuned for an update about next season, coming in the autumn.
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The secrets behind how Norwegian scientists and engineers harnessed the country’s wild waterfalls by developing super efficient turbines — and how advances in turbine technology being developed now may be the future in a zero-carbon world. They include an engineer who figured out how to take advantage of national fervour and build the 1900s equivalent of a super computer, a WWII resistance fighter who saw something special in tiny temperature differences, and researchers today, who are finding ways to cut environmental impacts from current hydropower plants and craft the designs we need to confront climate change.
The guests on today's show were Ole Gunnar Dahlhaug, Vera Gütle and Johannes Kverno, with cameo appearances by Hans Otto Frøland and Svein Richard Brandtzæg.
You can read an article written to accompany the podcast, with photographs from the lab here There's also an online photo gallery with a brief history of the Waterpower Laboratory here.
You can read more about some of the research being done at the lab here:
HydroFlex: The HydroFlex project is a four year long, € 5.4 million research project financed through EU’s Horizon 2020 programme, coordinated by Ole Gunnar Dahlhaug and based at NTNU’s Waterpower Laboratory. The aim of the project is to increase the value of hydro power through increased flexibility in operations.
Stojkovski, Filip; Lazarevikj, Marija; Markov, Zoran; Iliev, Igor; Dahlhaug, Ole Gunnar. (2021) Constraints of Parametrically Defined Guide Vanes for a High-Head Francis Turbine. Energies. vol. 14 (9).
Gütle, Vera. (2021) How to avoid gas supersaturation in the river downstream from a hydropower plant. MSc thesis.
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Baby grey seals. Polar bears. Zooplankton on painkillers. How do toxic chemicals and substances end up in Arctic animals — and as it happens, native people, too?
Our guests on today's show are Bjørn Munro Jenssen, an ecotoxicologist at NTNU, Jon Øyvind Odland, a professor of global health at NTNU and a professor of international health at UiT —The Arctic University of Norway, and Ida Beathe Øverjordet, a researcher at SINTEF.
One of the most useful websites on arctic pollution is the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme, AMAP. Rachel Carson's book is Silent Spring.
Here's a selection of articles from today's episode:
Sørmo, E.G., Salmer, M.P., Jenssen, B.M., Hop, H., Bæk, K., Kovacs, K.M., Lydersen, C., Falk-Petersen, S., Gabrielsen, G.W., Lie, E. and Skaare, J.U. (2006), Biomagnification of polybrominated diphenyl ether and hexabromocyclododecane flame retardants in the polar bear food chain in Svalbard, Norway. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, 25: 2502-2511. https://doi.org/10.1897/05-591R
Bourgeon, Sophie; Riemer, Astrid Kolind; Tartu, Sabrina; Aars, Jon; Polder, Anuschka; Jenssen, Bjørn Munro; Routti, Heli Anna Irmeli. (2017) Potentiation of ecological factors on the disruption of thyroid hormones by organo-halogenated contaminants in female polar bears (Ursus maritimus) from the Barents Sea. Environmental Research. vol. 15
Nuijten, RJM; Hendriks, AJ; Jenssen, Bjørn Munro; Schipper, AM. (2016) Circumpolar contaminant concentrations in polar bears (Ursus maritimus) and potential population-level effects. Environmental Research. vol. 151.
Chashchin, Valery; Kovshov, Aleksandr A.; Thomassen, Yngvar; Sorokina, Tatiana; Gorbanev, Sergey A.; Morgunov, Boris; Gudkov, Andrey B.; Chashchin, Maxim; Sturlis, Natalia V.; Trofimova, Anna; Odland, Jon Øyvind; Nieboer, Evert. (2020) Health risk modifiers of exposure to persistent pollutants among indigenous peoples of Chukotka. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (IJERPH). vol. 17 (1).
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How the unlikely combination of WWII Germany, a modest English engineer who created a worker’s paradise, an ambitious industrialist prosecuted as a traitor and a hardworking PhD helped build modern Norway, one aluminium ingot at a time.
Today's guests are Hans Otto Frøland, Svein Richard Brandtzæg and Randi Holmestad. Frøland is one of the researchers working in the Fate of Nations project, which is based at NTNU and focused on the global history and political economy of natural resources. To see archival photographs related to the episode, check out this companion article in Norwegian SciTech News.
You can read more about the history of aluminium in Norway here:
From Warfare to Welfare: Business-Government Relations in the Aluminium Industry (2012) Frøland, Hans Otto; Ingulstad, Mats
Akademika Forlag
Frøland, Hans Otto; Kobberrød, Jan Thomas. (2009) The Norwegian Contribution to Göring's Megalomania. Norway's Aluminium Industry during World War II. Cahiers d'histoire de l'aluminium. vol. 42-43.
Frøland, Hans Otto. (2007) The Norwegian Aluminium Expansion Program in the Context of European integration, 1955-1975. Cahiers d'histoire de l'aluminium.
Gendron, Robin S.; Ingulstad, Mats; Storli, Espen. (2013) Aluminum Ore: The Political Economy of the Global Bauxite Industry. University of British Columbia Press. 2013. ISBN 978-0-7748-2533-7.
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Why does Norway always rank among the top countries on the planet when it comes to gender equality? It didn't happen by accident. Instead, it took powerful medieval noblewomen, 19th century farmers’ wives, an early 20th century activist on a bicycle, and the feminists who emerged from the postwar baby boom. And yes, there is one Viking woman — but she’s not quite what you might think.
Our guests on today's show are Randi Bjørshol Wærdahl, Kari Melby and Marie-Laure Olivier.
You can read more about Gunnhild the Viking woman on this Wikipedia page about her.
There's also a comprehensive entry about Fredrikke Marie Qvam on Wikipedia.
Read more:
Wærdahl, Randi Bjørshol.2019: "Manndtz Nature vdj hindis hiertte" - Kvinner i krig og konflikt i nordisk senmiddelalder (Women in war and conflict in the Nordic late Middle Ages (in Norwegian). Collegium Medievale 2019 (2) s. 95-111
Kari Melby, Anna-Birte Ravn, Christina Carlsson Wetterberg (eds.), Gender equality and welfare politics in Scandinavia. The limits of political ambition? The Policy Press, Bristol, 2008
Melby, Kari. (2006) Niels Finn Christiansen, Klaus Petersen, Nils Edling & Per Haave (eds.): The Nordic Model of Welfare - a Historical Reappraisal. Historisk Tidsskrift (Norge). vol. 85 (4).
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Trondheim, Norway’s first religious and national capital, has a rich history that has been revealed over decades of archaeological excavations. One question archaeologists are working on right now has a lot of relevance in during a pandemic: Can insight into the health conditions of the past shed light on pandemics in our own time? Now, with the help of old bones, latrine wastes and dental plaque, researchers are learning about how diseases evolved in medieval populations, and what society did to stem them — and how that might help us in the future.
Our guests for this episode were Axel Christophersen, a professor of historical archaeology at the NTNU University Museum; Tom Gilbert, a professor at the NTNU University Museum and head of the Center for Evolutionarly Hologenomics based at the University of Copenhagen; and Elisabeth Forrestad Swensen, a PhD candidate at the NTNU University Museum.
You can read more about the MedHeal research project on the project’s home page.
Here are some of the academic articles on medieval Trondheim related to the podcast:
Zhou Z, Lundstrøm I, Tran-Dien A, Duchêne S, Alikhan NF, Sergeant MJ, Langridge G, Fotakis AK, Nair S, Stenøien HK, Hamre SS, Casjens S, Christophersen A, Quince C, Thomson NR, Weill FX, Ho SYW, Gilbert MTP, Achtman M. Pan-genome Analysis of Ancient and Modern Salmonella enterica Demonstrates Genomic Stability of the Invasive Para C Lineage for Millennia. Curr Biol. 2018 Aug 6;28(15):2420-2428.
Stian Suppersberger Hamre, Valérie Daux- Stable oxygen isotope evidence for mobility in medieval and post-medieval Trondheim, Norway,
Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, Vol. 8, 2016, pp 416-425,
A transcript of the show is available here.
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The different species of Galapagos finches, with their specially evolved beaks that allow them to eat specific foods, helped Charles Darwin understand that organisms can evolve over time to better survive in their environment.
Now, nearly 200 years later and thousands of miles away, biologists are learning some surprising lessons about evolution from northern Norwegian populations of the humble house sparrow (Passer domesticus).
Darwin’s finches evolved on the exotic, volcanic Galapagos Islands. NTNU’s house sparrows are dispersed over a group of 18 islands in Helgeland, in an archipelago that straddles the Arctic Circle.
Every summer since 1993, when NTNU Professor Bernt-Erik Sæther initiated the House Sparrow Project, a group of biologists has travelled to the islands collect data on the sparrows. They capture baby birds, measure different parts of their bodies, take a tiny blood sample, and then put a unique combination of coloured rings on their legs that help researchers identify the birds throughout their lifetime.
Those decades of research have given researchers information that can be helpful in managing threatened and endangered species. They have also done some experiments where they made evolution happen in real time — and then watched what happened when they let nature run its course.
And then there was the series of experiments where they learned more than you might want to know about sparrow dating preferences, and about rogue sparrow fathers who court exhausted sparrow mothers — and then fathered children with the cute little she-bird next door.
Our guests for today’s show were Henrik Jensen, Thor Harald Ringsby and Stefanie Muff.
You can find a transcript of the show here.
Selected academic and popular science articles:
From NTNU’s online research magazine, Norwegian SciTech News:
Why aren’t house sparrows as big as geese?
Inbreeding detrimental for survival
Why house sparrows lay big and small eggs
On Darwin
Darwin, Charles (1859) On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. London: J. Murray.
Weiner, J. (2014). The beak of the finch: A story of evolution in our time. Random House.
Sulloway, F. J. (1982). Darwin and his finches: The evolution of a legend. Journal of the History of Biology, 15, 1-53.
Sulloway, F. J. (1982). Darwin's conversion: the Beagle voyage and its aftermath. Journal of the History of Biology, 15, 325-396.
Academic articles from the House Sparrow Project:
Araya-Ajoy, Yimen; Ranke, Peter Sjolte; Kvalnes, Thomas; Rønning, Bernt; Holand, Håkon; Myhre, Ane Marlene; Pärn, Henrik; Jensen, Henrik; Ringsby, Thor Harald; Sæther, Bernt-Erik; Wright, Jonathan. (2019) Characterizing morphological (co)variation using structural equation models: Body size, allometric relationships and evolvability in a house sparrow metapopulation. Evolution. vol. 73 (3).Kvalnes, Thomas; Ringsby, Thor Harald; Jensen, Henrik; Hagen, Ingerid Julie; Rønning, Bernt; Pärn, Henrik; Holand, Håkon; Engen, Steinar; Sæther, Bernt-Erik. (2017) Reversal of response to artificial selection on body size in a wild passerine bird. Evolution. vol. 71 (8).Ringsby, Thor Harald; Jensen, Henrik; Pärn, Henrik; Kvalnes, Thomas; Boner, Winnie; Gillespie, Robert; Holand, Håkon; Hagen, Ingerid Julie; Rønning, Bernt; Sæther, Bernt-Erik; Monaghan, Pat. (2015) On being the right size: Increased body size is associated with reduced telomere length under natural conditions. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences. vol. 282 (1820).Ranke, Peter Sjolte; Skjelseth, Sigrun; Pärn, Henrik; Herfindal, Ivar; Borg Pedersen, Åsa Alexandra; Stokke, Bård Gunnar; Kvalnes, Thomas; Ringsby, Thor Harald; Sæther, Bernt-Erik; Jensen, Henrik. (2017) Demographic influences of translocated individuals on a resident population of house sparrows. Oikos. vol. 126 (10).Jensen, Henrik; Steinsland, Ingelin; Ringsby, Thor Harald; Sæther, Bernt-Erik. (2006) Indirect selection as a constraint on the evolution of sexual ornaments and other morphological traits in the House Sparrow. Journal of Ornithology = Journal fur Ornithologie. vol. 147.Jensen, Henrik; Svorkmo-Lundberg, Torkild; Ringsby, Thor Harald; Sæther, Bernt-Erik. (2006) Environmental influence and cohort effects in a sexual ornament in the house sparrow, Passer domesticus. Oikos. vol. 114.Ringsby, Thor Harald; Sæther, Bernt-Erik; Jensen, Henrik; Engen, Steinar. (2006) Demographic characteristics of extinction in a small, insular population of house sparrows in Northern Norway. Conservation Biology. vol. 20.Skjelseth, Sigrun; Ringsby, Thor Harald; Jensen, Henrik; Tufto, Jarle; Sæther, Bernt-Erik. (2006) Dispersal patterns within a meta-population of House Sparrows after an introduction experiment. Journal of Ornithology = Journal fur Ornithologie. vol. 147.Hoset, Katrine S.; Espmark, Yngve; Fossøy, Frode; Stokke, Bård Gunnar; Jensen, Henrik; Wedege, Morten I; Moksnes, Arne. (2014) Extra-pair paternity in relation to regional and local climate in an Arctic-breeding passerine. Polar Biology. vol. 37 (1).Ranke, Peter Sjolte; Skjelseth, Sigrun; Pärn, Henrik; Herfindal, Ivar; Borg Pedersen, Åsa Alexandra; Stokke, Bård Gunnar; Kvalnes, Thomas; Ringsby, Thor Harald; Sæther, Bernt-Erik; Jensen, Henrik. (2017) Demographic influences of translocated individuals on a resident population of house sparrows. Oikos. vol. 126 (10).Hagen, Ingerid Julie; Lien, Sigbjørn; Billing, Anna Maria; Elgvin, Tore Oldeide; Trier, Cassandra Nicole; Niskanen, Alina Katariina; Tarka, Maja; Slate, Jon; Sætre, Glenn-Peter; Jensen, Henrik. (2020) A genome-wide linkage map for the house sparrow (Passer domesticus) provides insights into the evolutionary history of the avian genome. Molecular Ecology Resources. vol. 20 (2).Holand, Håkon; Jensen, Henrik; Kvalnes, Thomas; Tufto, Jarle; Pärn, Henrik; Sæther, Bernt-Erik; Ringsby, Thor Harald. (2019) Parasite prevalence increases with temperature in an avian metapopulation in northern Norway. Parasitology. vol. 146 (8).Kvalnes, Thomas; Røberg, Anja Ås; Jensen, Henrik; Holand, Håkon; Pärn, Henrik; Sæther, Bernt-Erik; Ringsby, Thor Harald. (2018) Offspring fitness and the optimal propagule size in a fluctuating environment. Journal of Avian Biology. vol. 49 (7).Lundregan, Sarah; Hagen, Ingerid Julie; Gohli, Jostein; Niskanen, Alina Katariina; Kemppainen, Petri; Ringsby, Thor Harald; Kvalnes, Thomas; Pärn, Henrik; Rønning, Bernt; Holand, Håkon; Ranke, Peter Sjolte; Båtnes, Anna Solvang; Selvik, Linn-Karina M.; Lien, Sigbjørn; Sæther, Bernt-Erik; Husby, Arild; Jensen, Henrik. (2018) Inferences of genetic architecture of bill morphology in house sparrow using a high-density SNP array point to a polygenic basis. Molecular Ecology. vol. 27 (17).Silva, Catarina; McFarlane, S. Eryn; Hagen, Ingerid Julie; Rönnegård, Lars; Billing, Anna Maria; Kvalnes, Thomas; Kemppainen, Petri; Rønning, Bernt; Ringsby, Thor Harald; Sæther, Bernt-Erik; Qvarnström, Anna; Ellegren, Hans; Jensen, Henrik; Husby, Arild. (2017) Insights into the genetic architecture of morphological and sexually selected traits in two passerine bird species. Heredity. vol. 119 (3).Stubberud, Marlene Wæge; Myhre, Ane Marlene; Holand, Håkon; Kvalnes, Thomas; Ringsby, Thor Harald; Sæther, Bernt-Erik; Jensen, Henrik. (2017) Sensitivity analysis of effective population size to demographic parameters in house sparrow populations. Molecular Ecology. vol. 26 (9).Holand, Håkon; Kvalnes, Thomas; Gamelon, Marlène; Tufto, Jarle; Jensen, Henrik; Pärn, Henrik; Ringsby, Thor Harald; Sæther, Bernt-Erik. (2016) Spatial variation in senescence rates in a bird metapopulation. Oecologia. vol. 181 (3).Rønning, Bernt; Broggi, Juli; Bech, Claus; Moe, Børge; Ringsby, Thor Harald; Pärn, Henrik; Hagen, Ingerid Julie; Sæther, Bernt-Erik; Jensen, Henrik; Grindstaff, Jennifer. (2016) Is basal metabolic rate associated with recruit production and survival in free-living house sparrows?. Functional Ecology. vol. 30 (7).Holand, Håkon; Jensen, Henrik; Tufto, Jarle; Pärn, Henrik; Sæther, Bernt-Erik; Ringsby, Thor Harald. (2015) Endoparasite infection has both short- and long-term negative effects on reproductive success of female house sparrows, as revealed by faecal parasitic egg counts. PLOS ONE. vol. 10 (5).Ringsby, Thor Harald; Jensen, Henrik; Pärn, Henrik; Kvalnes, Thomas; Boner, Winnie; Gillespie, Robert; Holand, Håkon; Hagen, Ingerid Julie; Rønning, Bernt; Sæther, Bernt-Erik; Monaghan, Pat. (2015) On being the right size: Increased body size is associated with reduced telomere length under natural conditions. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences. vol. 282 (1820).Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Not enough COVID-19 tests? No problem, we’ll make some!
When the coronavirus first transformed from a weird respiratory disease centered in Wuhan, China to a global pandemic, no one was really prepared. Worldwide, no one had enough masks, personal protective gear and definitely — not enough tests.
The problem was especially acute in places like Norway, a small country that had to compete on a global market to get anything and everything.
What happened when a molecular biologist, some engineers and a couple of PhDs and postdocs put their heads together to design a completely different kind of coronavirus test — and how it changed lives in India, Denmark and Nepal. This last country was given coronavirus tests as NTNU’s annual Christmas gift, in coordination with a volunteer organization called NepalimedNorway.
Our guests on today’s show are Magnar Bjørås, Sulalit Bandyopadhyay, Vegar Ottesen, Anuvansh Sharma and Tonje Steigedal.
There's a transcript for today's show here.
You can read more in detail about the tests here: https://www.ntnu.edu/ntnu-covid-19-test
And here is a list of articles from NTNU and SINTEF’s online research magazine, Norwegian SciTech News:
NTNU’s new COVID-19 test to be used in India and Denmark
NTNU establishes a factory to produce coronavirus tests
From thousands of tiny balls to 150,000 tests per week
This episode was written, recorded, edited and produced by Nancy Bazilchuk. Sound design and editorial assistance from Randi Lillealtern at Historiebruket.
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Everyone knows there’s just too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere — and we’re heating up the planet at an unprecedented pace.
More than 20 years ago, Norwegians helped pioneer an approach to dealing with CO2 that’s still ongoing today— they captured it and pumped it into a rock formation deep under the sea.
Now the Norwegian government is building on those decades of experience with a large-scale carbon capture and storage project called Longship.
Will it work? Is it safe? And is it something that other countries can benefit from, too?
Our guests for this episode were Olav Bolland, Philip Ringrose and Mona Mølnvik.
You can find the transcript of the episode here.
More resources/reading:
Olav Bolland’s book:
Nord, Lars O.; Bolland, Olav. (2020) Carbon Dioxide Emission Management in Power Generation. Wiley-VCH Verlagsgesellschaft. 2020. ISBN 978-3-527-34753-7.
You can read the White Paper from the Norwegian government about the Longship project here.
Here’s a press release from 15 December 2020 that reports on the Norwegian Storting’s funding approval for the Longship project.
This link takes you to a transcript, in English, from the press conference from 21 September 2020 in which Norwegian officials announce the Longship plan.
Here’s the official website for the Longship CCS project.
You can read about the Norwegian CCS Research Centre that Mona Mølnvik is head of here.
An older, but still good video about Sleipner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG5_WSXj1pI&t=271s
Philip Ringrose’s group’s most recent video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAAb1S4bqks&t=28s
A e-lecture by Philip Ringrose about CCS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eozVdrvejDs&t=400s
Selected popular science and scientific articles
If the world can capture carbon, there’s capacity to store it. Norwegian SciTech News, 13 December 2019
The world doesn’t realise how much we need CO2 storage. Norwegian SciTech News, 5 December 2016
Carbon capture and storage essential to reach climate target. Norwegian SciTech News, 7 April 2014
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-09-20/norway-drops-moon-landing-as-mongstad-carbon-capture-scrapped
Ringrose, Philip; Meckel, T A. (2019) Maturing global CO2 storage resources on offshore continental margins to achieve 2DS emissions reductions. Scientific Reports. 9 (1).
Grethe Tangen, Erik G.B. Lindeberg, Arvid Nøttvedt, Svein Eggen. (2014)
Large-scale Storage of CO2 on the Norwegian Shelf Enabling CCS Readiness in Europe, Energy Procedia, vol. 51, pp.326-333
Mai Bui, Claire S. Adjiman, Andre Bardow et al. (2018) Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS): the way forward. Energy Environ. Sci . 11, 1062
From the summary for policymakers, IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5C (2018):
“All pathways that limit global warming to 1.5°C with limited or no overshoot project the use of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) on the order of 100–1000 GtCO2 over the 21st century. CDR would be used to compensate for residual emissions and, in most cases, achieve net negative emissions to return global warming to 1.5°C following a peak (high confidence). CDR deployment of several hundreds of GtCO2 is subject to multiple feasibility and sustainability constraints (high confidence). Significant near-term emissions reductions and measures to lower energy and land demand can limit CDR deployment to a few hundred GtCO2 without reliance on bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) (high confidence).”
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