Air Date: Week of February 8, 2008

We dip into the LOE mailbag to hear kudos and criticisms from our listeners.

Transcript

GELLERMAN: It’s Living on Earth, I’m Bruce Gellerman.

[LISTENER LETTERS THEME]

GELLERMAN: You hear from us every week—today we hear from you.

Francis Rengers hears us on KCFR in Denver, Colorado. He has kind words for our series Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape, where writers who contributed to the book by that title describe features of our physical geography.

Mr. Rengers writes, “there’s an entire branch of science dedicated to describing landscape form and process. It’s called geomorphology.”

James Biddle listens to our podcast from his home in Annapolis, Maryland. He writes, “You're show is amazing! I’m 12 years old and I am very concerned about climate change and excited about its solutions. I think Living on Earth is the best eco show ever. Keep it up!”

Well, from kudos to coconuts and our story about a South African warning system for sharks. In my introduction, I cited the International Shark Attack File as claiming falling coconuts kill 150 people each year—two and a half times more fatalities than from sharks.

Well I got it on the noggin from a number of listeners, including Amy from Oakland, California who tunes in to KQED. Amy has it from a higher authority, Cecil Adams in his column “The Straight Dope,” that the stat is just an urban—or should we say tropical island—myth. “But,” she writes, “you did at least spark my curiosity.”

And this correction in our story about recycling water – we mistakenly said that Las Vegas discharges 200,000 gallons of waste water into Lake Mead every day – it’s more like 200 MILLION gallons.

[STAR TREK SOUND EFFFECTS]

GELLERMAN: My interview with Sydney Perkowitz, author of “Hollywood Science,” drew a lot of fire from Star Trek fans

[STAR TREK SOUND OF A “HIT”]

GELLERMAN: Ah, ya got me. I mistakenly compared mobile phones to transponders. “Transponders on Star Trek?” asks WUNC listener David Jennings incredulously. “NO, they were called communicators and were the inspiration for cell phones.”

[SFX—“Scotty, beam me up.”]

GELLERMAN: Well, wherever in the cosmos you’re receiving us, we living on earthlings pay attention to your feedback, so use the communication device of your choice. Our email address is letters@loe.org. That’s letters at L-O-E dot O-R-G. Our listener line is 800 218 99 88.