TheFieldTripPodcast

This week, correspondent Teresa Chin takes us on a tour beneath the Monterey Bay to explore the sights and creatures of the deep. Cruise a shipwreck, learn how to pilot an underwater research vessel and hear more than you ever wanted to know about jellyfish sex. This episode is rated PGI: Parental Guidance recommended for Invertebrates. That’s all for this season, folks! We’ll be back in early 2013 with new episodes for Series 4. Got an idea for a field trip you think we should take? Want us to come visit YOU? Drop us a line at: info [at] fieldtrippodcast [dot] com.

This week, Field Trip Correspondent Lo Benichou take us behind the scenes at The Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, California, where wounded seals, sea lions and sea elephants are nursed back to health with the help of dedicated surgeons, volunteers and medicine tablets hidden inside of fish guts. Tune in for a surprising look at what’s threatening the Pacific Coast’s sea mammals (hint: it’s not just sharks) plus a very special debate in which we pit the very idea of nature being red in tooth and claw (Eric) against the entire concept of medicine (Kara) and the fact that sea lions are just plain cute. It’s the Field Trip battle we always knew was coming: fish vs. pinniped!

This week Field Trip Correspondent Becky Palmstrom takes us to a festival in Taung Byone, Myanmar, where we learn how to run a ferris wheel … using people power. That’s right, if you haven’t got any electricity, and you MUST run a classic carnival attraction, you’ve got to hire a bunch of guys to launch themselves at it and spin the wheel using a process that can only be described as … terrifying. Throw everything you know about physics and biomechanics out the window, and come with us and Becky on our most wild ride yet!

This week we go to to the beach with Field Trip Correspondent Laura Hautala and her Science Mom. Yes, we said Science Mom. And don’t worry, it’s not in the least bit relaxing, as we learn about why the otherwise lovely gigantic basalt structures at Ecola State Park in Oregon are actually the result of millions of years of violent geologic history and the scene of a daily Darwinian struggle played out at the speed of … well, starfish.

We’re back with another installment of our “Summer Dispatches” series, this time starring Field Trip Correspondent Nicole Jones as she figures out how one plant in Arcata, California, is cleaning human wastewater … using a swamp. That’s right, you can clean the grossest thing you can imagine with the second-grossest thing you can imagine. Join her as she travels from toilet flush to treatment center to duck-covered pond, and learn about how wetlands work as nature’s water filtering system.

Here's the first episode in our “Summer Dispatches” series, in which reporter Megan Molteni braves the scarred landscape of Colorado Springs after this summer’s massive wildfires to learn about how the aftermath of a single fire can change the ecology of a region indefinitely. We'll be back with a new science audio adventure each Monday through early November.

In this episode, we investigate the awesome power of caffeine by letting the head of Funranium Labs dose us with Black Blood of the Earth, the most extreme coffee on the planet. Then we head to Ritual Roasters to learn about the science behind roasting the perfect bean.