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EarthDate

EarthDate

By: Switch Energy Alliance
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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.Copyright 2026 EarthDate Biological Sciences Earth Sciences Science
Episodes
  • Making the Invisible Visible

    Making the Invisible Visible
    Mar 26 2026
    In a previous EarthDate, we told you about the accidental discovery of X-rays in the late 1800s. Scientists around the world began to experiment with them. Thinking them no more harmful than visible light, they did so without protection… sometimes with disastrous results. Early researchers would place the emitter in the center of the room, hold up their hands, and—using special lenses to examine their bones—looking directly into the beam. One of Edison’s scientists absorbed enough X-rays to develop severe skin cancer, which killed him. Non-scientists around the world went to demonstrations and submitted themselves to high doses. In the 1930’s, shoe stores used X-rays to fit their customers’ feet, a practice that endured, remarkably, till 1950. By then, X-rays were more completely understood, both for their incredible potential and their potential danger. Since then, their medical use has safely expanded to include sophisticated 3D imaging and highly targeted beams to destroy cancer cells. Beyond airport scanners, X-rays are now used to examine concrete structures for defects, to authenticate rare paintings, and to study the atomic structure of mineral crystals. NASA used similar technology on its rovers to analyze Martian soil and gathers X-ray data from space using orbiting telescopes. Revealing the inner secrets of celestial bodies and our own, this accidental discovery continues to make the invisible visible.
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    2 mins
  • 125 Years of X-Rays

    125 Years of X-Rays
    Mar 26 2026
    X-rays are common today, but their accidental discovery 125 years ago was celebrated around the world as a scientific miracle and earned Wilhelm Röntgen the first Nobel Prize in physics. Röntgen was working in his lab in Germany, trying to replicate the experiments of other scientists with an electrified cathode tube, when he noticed some barium-painted cardboard nearby fluorescing. Puzzled, he turned off the lights, but it continued to glow. He realized the cathode tube was emitting something other than light. When he went to move the barium board, he noticed a lead plate cast a shadow on it. He began to try to create images, placing objects between the tube and the cardboard. He realized the mysterious rays were penetrating soft objects but not hard, and was shocked to see, in one image, what looked like the bones of his hand! Recognizing the potential, he tried to capture a clearer image of bones. He finally produced one of his wife’s hand and published it in an article. Not knowing what the rays were, he named them after the mathematical unknown, “x.” Worldwide acclaim was swift. Within a month, he was called in front of Kaiser Wilhelm to demonstrate and awarded a prestigious medal on the spot. Within a year, doctors in the Balkan war were using X-rays to find bullets and broken bones, and scientists the world over were experimenting with them… without understanding their risks. But that’s a story for another EarthDate.
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    2 mins
  • Creepy Corpse Flowers

    Creepy Corpse Flowers
    Mar 25 2026
    Wondering what to get that special someone for Halloween? How about a bouquet of corpse flowers? Of course, you’ll have to go all the way to Indonesia to get them. And it would be a very, very large arrangement. There are two types of corpse flowers, and both emit a strong odor of rotting meat to attract flies and beetles to pollinate them. Titan arum lives up to its name, with flowers topping 10 feet in height. To produce a bloom of such staggering proportions, it spends a few years as a small tree with wide sun-gathering leaves, storing energy in a giant tuber that could weigh 200 pounds. When the tuber is ready, the tree dies to the ground. Then, rising as if from a grave, a large, solitary shoot breaks the earth, growing 3 inches a day, then finally unfolding its petals like a cloak to reveal the largest, stinkiest flower in the world. The other, very different corpse flower, fittingly, is a parasite. It attaches itself to vines in the jungle, where the body of the plant lives within them, drawing all its water and nutrients from the host. Then, once in a blue moon, it will produce a huge, red, stinky, platter-shaped bloom on the forest floor—the widest and heaviest flower in the world, at nearly 4 feet across and more than 25 pounds. These denizens of the botanical underworld may not smell very good, but their spectacular appearances are a frightfully memorable sight.
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    2 mins
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