In 1977 astronomers recorded a brief and strange radio transmission that looked like it perhaps had even come from an alien civilization. It was named the Wow! signal – because that’s what astronomer Jerry Ehman wrote on the computer printout upon its discovery. But now a team including Abel Méndez of the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo have come up with an astrophysical hypothesis. An oil tanker which was attacked by Yemen's Houthi rebels in the Red Sea last week is still on fire and may be leaking oil, the US Pentagon says. The talk now is of an agreement to salvage the tanker so a crisis may be avoided, but marine ecologist Carlos Duarte of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia explains how precious ecosystems are at risk. A meta-analysis of Mediterranean Sea marine species reveals the profound impact of the Messinian Salinity Crisis. Konstantina Agiadi of the University of Vienna tells us how this drastic environmental event resulted in the almost complete evaporation of the Mediterranean Sea roughly 5.5 million years ago and how the resulting changes still influence ecosystems today. Wildfires that swept across Canada last year are still burning in some parts. A new study has confirmed that they put into the atmosphere a vast amount of burned carbon, over half a billion tonnes. Only China, India and the USA emitted more fossil-fuel based carbon in that period. Brendan Byrne of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has been using satellite-based observations to track the carbon release. Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Jonathan Blackwell Production Coordinator: Andrew Rhys Lewis (Image: The Wow! signal represented as "6EQUJ5". Credit: NAAPO)
Before this BBC podcast kicks off, I'd like to tell you about some others you might enjoy.
My name's Will Wilkin and I commission music podcasts for the BBC.
It's a really cool job.
Every day we get to tell the incredible stories behind songs, moments and movements.
Stories of struggle and success, rises and falls, the funny, the ridiculous.
And the BBC's position at the heart of british music means we can tell those stories like no one else.
We were, are, and always will be right there at the centre of the narrative.
So whether you want an insightful take on music right now, or a nostalgic deep dive into some of the most famous and infamous moments in music, check out the music podcasts on BBC sounds.
Welcome to science in action from the BBC World Service with me, Roland Pease.
A little later in the program, the forest fires in Canada last year that outranked the greenhouse gas emissions of most other countries.
We're digging into the implications for global warming.
We've also the massive oil spill that's threatening the Red Sea.
Any release of oil in the Red Sea carries significant risks for life and ecological integrity, and actually comes at a time where, due to unusual high temperatures, coral reefs are already bleaching and a.
5 million year old environmental catastrophe caused by plate tectonics.
After the crisis, we had a restart with only species coming from the Atlantic.
So this is why we see that the fauna after the crisis is 70% different.
A nearly 50 year old mystery starts the program.
It's been solved, possibly, and possibly to the disappointment of fans of extraterrestrial intelligence.
It was an intense radio signal caught in 1977 by the big ear radio telescope as it scanned the sky.
A single frequency detected for just over a minute, a bit like the kind of radio beacon the experts had been saying a civilization might beam out as a hi there to the universe.