EarthDate

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EarthDate is a short-format weekly audio program delivering concise, science-based stories about the Earth: its geology, environments, and the processes that shape our planet over deep time and today. Beginning in 2026, EarthDate is managed by Switch Energy Alliance and hosted by SEA's founder Dr. Scott W. Tinker. Together, we explore earth systems, natural resources, and their relevance to everyday life, with a focus on clear, accessible science education for broad audiences. EarthDate is written and directed by Emmy-winning filmmaker Harry Lynch, and researched by Lynn Kistler. We search for captivating stories to remind listeners that science can enlighten, educate and entertain.

  1. 8H AGO

    Nickel Farming

    Nickel is in demand because it’s used in lithium ion batteries, common alloys such as stainless steel, and new super alloys for the aerospace and wind turbine industry. But mining and smelting nickel is energy intensive, using a great deal of diesel fuel and coal. And the after-products are environmentally dangerous. Luckily, we’ve found that nickel can grow on trees. Or more specifically, shrubs. Metals are toxic to most plants, which don’t grow in metal-rich soils. But some 700 species are hyperaccumulators—they actually pull metal from the ground and concentrate it in their tissues. It’s thought they do this to ward off pests or to help absorb potassium from poor soil. Of these species, over 400 accumulate nickel. Their blue-green sap can be up to 25% nickel—a concentration twenty times greater than the nickel ore mined for smelting. These shrubs can be farmed and the metal harvested in a technique called phytomining. Farmers cut back the shrubs once or twice a year and either squeeze sap from the foliage or burn it and gather the ash. The farms can be sited on nickel-rich soils that have been corrupted with mine tailings or are otherwise unfit for agriculture. After a couple decades, the plants will deplete the nickel in the soil through a process called bioremediation, and the land can grow food crops. Nickel farming will never replace large-scale mining, but it can help small farmers earn a living in areas with toxic soils.

    2 min

  2. 8H AGO

    Honeybee Blight

    On another EarthDate you heard that bees are dying. While it’s common for a hive to lose 15% of its bees each winter, rates since 2007 have sometimes hit 40%. This has scientists concerned, and after a decade of research, they’ve traced the bees’ troubles to several factors. First, stress. A decrease in wild acreage means fewer wild bees, so that more commercial bees are needed for pollination. This has the hives traveling farther and more frequently. Rising temperatures also have an impact, making it harder for bees to maintain the constant temperature needed in the hive. Second, pesticides. A recent study of honey samples found most of them were contaminated. While the concentrations were too low to affect humans, they impacted the bees’ ability to navigate and find nectar. Finally, pests. The Asian Varroa mite has infested some U.S. and European bee colonies. They feed on larvae and bees, weakening their immunity systems and making them more susceptible to disease, like the viruses the mite carries—including one that renders bees flightless. But there is some good news on the horizon. Scientists are working on new bacteria for the bees’ microbiome that would kill the Varroa mite. And, since mites, disease, pesticides, and stress work synergistically, eliminating one or more of them may allow the colony to better manage the others. Humans need to get on the bee team so bees can continue to pollinate our global food supply.

    2 min

  3. 1D AGO

    The Business of Bees

    Bees make over $300 million worth of honey, beeswax, propolis, and other products each year in the U.S., which we eat and use in medicines, cosmetics, even varnishes. But the real big business of bees is the billions of dollars keepers earn pollinating crops. Bee colonies are treated, and valued, like livestock. The keepers move the hives to the best positions for most effective pollination on a strict schedule, following the flowering of crops across the country. They start in February, in California, where almond growers need 2 million hives to pollinate their trees. A typical farmer could pay several hundred thousand dollars for this service. In March, keepers transport their colonies to pollinate plums, cherries, and apples in the Pacific Northwest and Midwest. In early April, the hives go to Maine to pollinate blueberries. And in late April, down to Florida to work the citrus crop. Finally, in May, bee colonies retire to the Dakotas, where they’ll spend the quiet rest of the year on fields of clover and sunflower. Here, the bees make most of their honey. North Dakota produces twice as much honey as any other state. Honeybees and other insects are the only pollinators for all these and many other crops—about a third of our agricultural harvest—putting food on the table around the world. But bees have come under threat recently from pesticides, pests, and disease. We’ll look at these dangers and possible solutions in our final episode on honeybees.

    2 min

  4. 1D AGO

    How Bees Make Honey

    Honey is a miraculous substance, containing enzymes, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. But it’s not the only amazing thing bees make in the hive. Honey starts as nectar that bees gather from thousands of flowers on foraging flights. The bees store the nectar in a special sac next to the stomach. On returning to the hive, they transfer it to the mouths of waiting worker bees. Workers ingest and regurgitate the nectar over and over for several minutes. Their digestive enzymes convert the sucrose in the nectar to other forms of sugar and add gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide that act as preservatives. Finally, they deposit the liquid in storage cells where other workers fan it with their wings to reduce its water content, till it takes on the thick consistency of honey. Honey provides the carbohydrate energy that powers the colony. But the hive requires other products too. Some bees gather water, which will be used for evaporative cooling. They’ll fan air across it to maintain a constant 93 degrees Fahrenheit within the hive. Others gather pollen, which is mixed with honey to ferment and create “bee bread,” the hive’s main source of protein. Still others gather tree resin, which they mix with wax and saliva to produce “bee glue,” or propolis. It’s used to mend the hive and line the brood area to keep it clean, since it has antibiotic qualities.

    2 min

  5. 1D AGO

    The Buzzy Life of HoneyBees

    Even if you’ve watched documentaries about honeybees, you may know little of their remarkable life within the hive. A queen will lay a million eggs in her 5-year lifetime, which she places in wax brood cells. Fertilized eggs grow into sterile female workers. Unfertilized eggs become male drones. When the queen gets old, nurse bees bathe regular female larvae in royal jelly, which turns them into queen larvae. The queen that emerges first will kill the other larvae to become sole heir to the throne. Her first duty is to fly away and mate with up to a dozen drones, to ensure genetic diversity. She’ll store their sperm in her abdomen for the rest of her life, to fertilize eggs. When she returns to the hive, she takes the place of the old queen. Worker bees go through an apprenticeship of sorts. Their first job is to clean the nursery. Once they develop the glands that produce royal jelly, they become nurse bees, feeding and caring for larvae. When they develop wax glands, they become engineers, building and repairing the hive. Finally, they graduate to gathering nectar, and that’s when the work really begins. A field bee never sleeps and will work herself to death flying hundreds of miles in a thousand trips to and from the hive, carrying the precious cargo that will sustain the colony. We’ll have more on the fascinating process of how bees make honey—and how essential they are to our lives—on future EarthDates.

    2 min

  6. 2D AGO

    The Oldest Story Ever Told

    You’re about to hear what may be the oldest story ever told. In another EarthDate, we talked about how Australian Aboriginals remember star maps using songs. But their oral history has preserved much more in stories that corroborate ancient geological events. For instance, they tell of a dramatic sea-level rise long ago that inundated areas of the coast. Many tribes, separated by great distance and different languages, tell the same story. And the details match the geological record of 7,000 years ago. But there’s a far older tale. A tribe in South Australia tells the creation myth of Budj Bim, a god who took the form of a volcano. His teeth became lava that spat from his mouth and flowed to the sea, creating the land that has sustained the tribe since the beginning of time. The hill they call Budj Bim is in fact a long-extinct volcano. And its lava did flow to the sea, forming the coastal wetlands that the Aboriginals have used to practice aquaculture for thousands of years. But the last time it erupted was 37,000 years ago. And no other volcanoes have erupted there since. Archaeological and DNA testing have confirmed that this tribe has lived in the area for 40,000 years. It seems likely they witnessed the ancient eruption and preserved it in a legend that’s very much alive today. So, the next time you’re asked for a good story, tell them the 37,000-year-old tale of Budj Bim, the volcano god.

    2 min

  7. 2D AGO

    Aboriginal Star Maps

    It seems that Australia’s modern highways may have been laid out according to the stars. Australian Aboriginals, like many ancient cultures, have an elaborate oral history passed down through generations to help them navigate and find food and water in their desert environment. This knowledge base uses visual memory aids from the land… and the sky. When ancient aboriginal navigators found a successful path through the desert, they looked for a path in the stars that mimicked it. They’d use stars to represent water holes and hilltops and gave them the same names. At night, they could point out the star patterns to others who had never made the trip, describing the path from one waypoint to the next. To help travelers remember the maps, First Nation clans preserved them in song, which they could sing along their journey to recall place names, orientations, and distances. In the process, they taught these songs—and the star maps they reflected—to younger generations. This navigation tool, used by First Nation tribes for millennia, was only disclosed to researchers a few years ago. Many of these so-called “songlines” are still used in Aboriginal treks today. And when researchers laid the songlines over a modern map of Australia, they found that many highways appeared to line up with the star patterns. These roads were set along cattle trails established by early immigrant ranchers who were probably following songlines shown to them by Aboriginal guides.

    2 min

  8. 3D AGO

    75 Years into the Atomic Age

    75 years ago, the U.S. exploded its first atomic bomb, in the New Mexico desert. It was the culmination of 5 years of hurried development. Throughout World War II, Germany hoped to use the incredible energy density of uranium and plutonium to build a devastating weapon. To beat them to the bomb, the U.S. assembled teams across the country—130,000 staff and scientists, many of whom had fled Europe to avoid Nazi persecution. In July 1945, team leaders gathered to watch that first detonation from 10 miles away. They were unsure whether it would detonate at all. The blast vaporized the 100-foot tower that held the bomb, turned the desert sand to glass for a mile around, and broke windows more than 100 miles away. It exceeded the force the scientists had expected by 2 to 4 times. To try to force Japan to surrender and end World War II, President Truman warned that the U.S. had created a weapon of “utter devastation.” The Japanese emperor was unmoved. Truman made the decision to drop a smaller uranium bomb, but Japan would still not capitulate. Three days later, the U.S. dropped a plutonium bomb like the one in the desert. Together they killed nearly 200,000 people, and Japan surrendered. Over the next 3 decades, America and other atomic powers developed more nuclear weapons. But they’ve never been used again in war, and let’s hope they never will. I’m Scott Tinker with a grim reminder of the power of science.

    2 min
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About

EarthDate is a short-format weekly audio program delivering concise, science-based stories about the Earth: its geology, environments, and the processes that shape our planet over deep time and today. Beginning in 2026, EarthDate is managed by Switch Energy Alliance and hosted by SEA's founder Dr. Scott W. Tinker. Together, we explore earth systems, natural resources, and their relevance to everyday life, with a focus on clear, accessible science education for broad audiences. EarthDate is written and directed by Emmy-winning filmmaker Harry Lynch, and researched by Lynn Kistler. We search for captivating stories to remind listeners that science can enlighten, educate and entertain.

Information

  • Creator
    Switch Energy Alliance
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    176
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2026 EarthDate
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    EarthDate