You daughter work it's 4 o'clock. Thank you this is an encore edition of living on Earth. Dirty air hangs around factories and manufacturing plants but some kinds of air pollutants can travel across continents and around the world the major areas at risk are major cities in parts of China and parts of India where the air quality now is you know certainly among the poorest in the world but I always like to say what goes around comes around so it drives home that idea that we're a connected atmosphere right and that what happens in one part of the world impacts other parts of the world also calling in farm animals to help war veterans deal with post-traumatic stress disorder animals don't care about your bad day they're going to come up and I want you to pick me you're like Ok I'm feeling really bad right now but I'm paying you and me and they don't know the amazing stuff that you're doing for I bet you come through those stories and more as we go. Live from n.p.r. News in Washington on trial Snyder president Trump's response to the violent clashes in Charlottesville Virginia drawing criticism from both Republicans and Democrats who say he should be denouncing hate groups by name the president is blaming many sides for the violence as N.P.R.'s Vanessa Romo reports Trump addressed the clashes that began late last night pitting members of the all right k.k.k. And meal Nazi groups against anti racism protesters we condemn in the strongest possible terms. This egregious display of hatred bigotry and violence on many shots trumps remarks were made at a bill signing in New Jersey shortly after a car in Charlottesville sped down a narrow city street and hit 2 other cars which mowed down several people marching at the time the police took the driver into custody Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe has declared a state of emergency and President Trump said federal authorities are also providing tremendous support the Nesa Romo n.p.r. News Washington authorities have charged the driver of the car with 2nd degree murder and other charges 3 others have also been arrested in connection with a violent rally 2 other tests linked to the clashes to produce new state troopers were killed when their helicopter crashed just south side of town to ministers with key roles in Britain's exit from the European Union have said the country will seek a time limited transition period to help businesses adjust but writing in The Sunday Telegraph the chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond and the trade secretary Liam Fox say the transition period cannot be indefinite the B.B.C.'s been right their intervention precedes the publication this week of a formal negotiating paper setting out the government's proposals for the Northern Ireland border that paper will be closely followed by documents setting out options for a future customs relationship between Britain and the e.u. And the government hopes that paper will encourage Brussels to discuss its future relationship with the u.k. At the same time as the terms of divorce but it is the e.u. That will decide probably in October whether enough progress has been made on the terms of separation including a financial settlement for talks to move on to trade. An explosion in a troubled city in Pakistan has killed more than 10 people the military says one of its vehicles was targeted the attack comes ahead of Independence Day when the Army puts on a parades to demonstrate its force and peers to deed reports from Islamabad the bomb detonated close to an Army truck in quest The city is the capital of an impoverished province where separatists The waging an insurgency they often target the military but it's also a place where all the militants upper right earlier this week quite a residents were remembering the one year anniversary of a suicide bombing in a hospital that killed over 70 people most of them a lawyer is do you have date n.p.r. News Islam about and you're listening to n.p.r. News. Moving now to India where the families of more than 60 m. Fence and children who died at a government hospital over the span of 6 days are blaming a shortage of oxygen a top of Ministre here for the state of our Pradesh denies that and has launched an investigation but N.P.R.'s Julie McCarthy reports from New Delhi There are records of nonpayment for the oxygen appear to undermine the claim that there was no shortage the Chief Minister of would have Pradesh Yogi Adichie not to deflect it accusations that low oxygen supplies had killed the children he said they died as a result of poor sanitation that has fuelled water borne diseases a deja knots hometown the site of the tragedy has been an epicenter of Japanese in several light as killing thousands of children over the years local media reports that the company supplying oxygen to the hospital sent at least a half a dozen notices asking authorities for payment government officials acknowledged that supplies had been disrupted but the during the hours of disruption no child had died 30 deaths were recorded between Thursday and Friday alone the hospital chief has been suspended and there are calls for a d.j. Not expulsion Julie McCarthy n.p.r. News New Delhi in northern India army soldiers and rescue workers are on the scene of a deadly landslide triggered by heavy monsoon rains officials say they have recovered at least 6 bodies from 2 buses that were caught in the slide using shovels and pick axes to remove the rocks boulders and mud to pull out the bodies a local official says it's not clear how many people were traveling in the busses on trial Snyder This is n.p.r. News from Washington support for n.p.r. Comes from n.p.r. Stations other contributors include the estate of John b. Kroc whose bequest serves as an enduring investment in the future of public radio and seeks to help n.p.r. Produce programming that meets the highest standards of public service and journalism and cultural expression. From p.r.i. And the Jennifer and had Stanley studios at the University of Massachusetts Boston this is an encore edition of living on earth I'm Steve her work polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons sound like some exotic fragrance but they're actually toxic air pollutants produced by fuel combustion that have been linked to lung cancer and other serious health problems apparently these compounds are treated as a local issue in places with smog and that air quality but recent findings suggest that these pollutants may actually travel long distances and affect people across the globe and according to a recently published paper The significantly increases the overall health risks associated with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons ph for short Stacy Simone It is a professor of chemistry in Oregon State University and co-author of this research and she joins us now to discuss these findings welcome to living on Earth thank you I'm happy to be here now you've done a great deal of research on these poly seqlock aromatic hydrocarbons please describe to our listeners with these compounds are and what we know about them well they've really been around since we had combustion so whenever there's been fire we've created these ph is and so we're still learning about these compounds we're still learning about how they move in the environment and what their effects on people in the environment are now you recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences how these compounds move and how people are exposed to them in rather surprising ways I think so please describe this research and what you did find well my own group here at Oregon State University we've been studying air pollution in ph is and how they move from source regions including Asia and China how people are exposed there and we've been studying how they transport across the Pacific Ocean to the u.s. West Coast so for about 16 years we've been studying this transport her. Much in the u.s. Is coming from other countries how much is from our own sources and part of the discrepancy in this was that the measurements we were making at high elevation remote areas were higher than the models predicted and so this piece of work really puts together experiments in the laboratory modeling and field measurements to come up with a new explanation for why these ph concentrations are higher so what did you suspect as the reason that these chemicals were being found in places that really didn't seem like that was a place you would find them well there was some unexplained reason in terms of the modeling side and what we found with our researchers at Pacific Northwest National Lab is that on particles these ph is are actually shielded or protected from reaction in the atmosphere and so we're talking about particles that are on the size of less than one micron meter in diameter so about 5 or 6 of these particles fitting across the with of a human hair because there's such fine particles they don't settle out near source regions so when you're let's say major urban areas they get pulled into the atmosphere and can undergo transport and high level of ation wins where they're intercepted in May ultimately come out of the atmosphere due to rain and snow part of your paper discusses what you call a shielding effect what do you mean by that so we mean that after ph is emitted a particle from the tail pipe that it can immediately be surrounded by atmospheric reactions that create a layer over these ph is and protect them from the reaction with accidents in the atmosphere so the end result is they travel long distances in don't degrade in the atmosphere where was the most surprising place that you found these cancer causing chemicals when you did this research so we find them in any place we look so of course whether. It's a major urban area or an island and also mountain tops at 2700 meters actually some of the places that surprised me the most and over the years we found them in Glacier National Park at relatively high concentrations and we were able to link them to an aluminum smelter outside of the park so our people exposed to poly aromatic hydrocarbons that have been transported a long distance in daily life the main sources are diet and smoking in indoor air exposure but through the long range transport it's just part of our outdoor air and outdoor air becomes indoor air so we know that Polly sick like aromatic hydrocarbons are considered percentage genic you know there's a lot of focus on lung cancer but what other cancers might they be connected with you're right this study focused on lung cancer and that's because we have most of the data available around lung cancer and atmospheric particulate matter but we're finding that ph is have other effects on humans and other organisms can include cardiovascular effects and even developmental of facts when a fetus is developing so there's a chart that comes with your study that shows that the level of risk is elevated on both coasts of the u.s. And much of sub-Saharan Africa why do you think that might be well it stays the u.s. As an example now we've understood that the concentrations are actually higher on the u.s. West coast than we had previously modeled so that's coming from emissions in Asia primarily China that are transported long distances and I on the East Coast of the u.s. We have our own sources of ph is and our modeling now suggests that those emissions within the u.s. Are transporting to the next state and other states downwind with the winds blowing primarily from west to east now there are some articles about your research that have mention that new models which consider this long range transportation of. Cyclical aromatic hydrocarbons are predicting a 4 times greater cancer risk than previously in fact the risks now exceed World Health Organization standards what implications does this have on how these missions should be regulated in the future do you think well I think we have to remember that the major areas of risk are major megacities in parts of China and parts of India where the air quality now is you know certainly among the poorest in the world but I always like to say what goes around comes around so it drives home that idea that we're a connected atmosphere right and that what happens in one part of the world impacts other parts of the world so we're all united in one atmosphere so tell me what are some of the ways that exposure to poly seqlock aromatic hydrocarbons might be reduced or considering these new findings Well I think in our own personal daily lives that smoking is a big one thinking about our diet and personally I love barbecue and I love grilling so I do it in moderation and I eat it with a balanced diet it's not something I've given up so we can think about our own personal exposures but then on a national and international scale we can think about technologies that help reduce emission of ph is from coal combustion from bio mass combustion so in China the main sources of ph is to the atmosphere are coal combustion and biomass combustion followed 3rd by automobiles so it's really controlling those sources of particulate matter that have ph is on them can play a large role in reducing global atmospheric concentrations and ph is Stacey Simone It is a professor in the department chemistry in Oregon State University thank you so much for taking the time with us today thank you. People close to the stock market like numbers and there's a new one that my catch their attention 2.5 That's the size in microns of the tiny particles of air pollution that researchers at Columbia University say seems to change investor behavior at least in New York City when $2.00 particulate matter pollution goes up the market goes down by a small but measurable amounts says Professor Matthew night though here's what his team is looking at and how levels of pm 2.5 pollution in Manhattan there could move the stock market in this research what we're doing is building on a lot of previous research that has been finding various effects of air pollution on wellbeing of humans beyond just health so in this study what we wanted to do was look at its impacts on investors at the New York Stock Exchange and relationship between fine particulate matter and returns on the s. And p. 500 now we talk about these particulates what exactly are we talking about so fine particulate matter are very small particulate less than 2.5 microns something that you can't see with the human high they come from natural sources such as far as fires and volcanoes but a lot of what we see in cities comes from combustion of fossil fuels even how small they are they're able to penetrate deep within our body they pass through our lung barrier and into our blood where they can have effects that way because they're so small that also makes them penetrate from outdoors to indoors and I understand that you looked at the time of day that people were exposed to the earth right so what we did was we had an air pollution monitor that was very close to the exchange through that monitor we had our early measures of air pollution and we were able to look at the particular hours at which air pollution was reaching a certain level and look at the returns on the s. And p. $500.00 on that day and wanted to find 1st of all we found when the entire day had a higher level of particulate matter we saw s. And p. $500.00 dropped but in particular we found that. Matter levels when they were higher in the morning and throughout the early afternoon had the biggest impact on the s. And p. 500 so what surprised you most about these results Well what surprised us the most was the fact that we found any relationship at all we had a small little inkling that there might be a relationship between these 2 but we were going a bit on a whim right there's a story for why there could be a relationship but it wasn't the strongest story in the world and we were surprised to find as robust of an effect as we found what's interesting about this is that in New York City the air quality is actually surprisingly good so if we're doing a study in Beijing or we're doing something in London where air quality is generally worse we might see much bigger changes what was the story the suggested that maybe there would be something to be found here so the main story we had in mind was that air pollution would be related to the mood and cognitive performance of traders there's evidence that suggests when people's mood drops or their cognition underperforms that they tend to become more risk averse in the decisions that they make they go away from from stocks and shift towards bonds bonds are kind of safer bets and stocks are risk your bets so if people are going away from stocks and going to bonds we would see the price of the s. And p. $500.00 drop it's not something that we definitively prove in the study what we do is we look at something called the volatility index which a lot of people use as a measure of trade or fear and what we find is that under 'd with higher fine particulate we also see a decrease in that index which is used to indicate that there's an increase in trade or fear and we think that's suggestive of risk aversion being what's driving the results how big a deal is this when you say that a lot of pm to 5 those 5 particular to the year would depress the return on the s. And p. 500 in at the New York Stock Exchange just how much of a how much of a depression that the effect isn't very. A big a very large change in particular matters is only leading to a pretty moderate to small size a fact under turns what we think is important about it is 2 things on the 1st is that there's a strong have belief that stock markets work efficiently something called the efficient market hypothesis that the price of a stock solely reflects the expected future profitability of a firm but our research shows which other research has shown before us is that there's more to it than just that there's a role for moods and emotions and things like that in affecting the stock price. The other thing that we think is interesting from a policy perspective is pollution is affecting the performance of workers in a sort of high skilled occupation where they're in a very knowledge base setting and we think that has important implications for effects on the economy and a broader level interesting now is my friend Dave nonkosher who's father saying let's do the numbers how big is this effect on a really big day on a really big day if particulate matter goes from the bottom 25th percent are the best course to the worst cortile the 75th percentile we would see that returns would decrease by 2 basis points which is a point 02 percent decrease so it's not the most enormous effect but we do see them they are statistically significant effects and they're there similar magnitude to the effects from other things that have been shown to affect returns and when you say basis points folks my think of that is simply $0.02 on a dollar people make a lot of money on Wall Street squeezing you know a 10th of a penny out of transactions consistently they do they do and it's interesting because we actually had that same idea to say hey can we use this as a way to make money off of this if we know something about air pollution that the traders don't know how much over time do you think a savvy trader who knows the effects of 5 particulate pollution on the minds of traders or on Wall Street how much money thing could be made by somebody who's willing to short the market on those days so at this point to be hard for people to make money off of the way we see people make money in the stock market is if they have some information that other people don't have. So if you knew something about what air quality was going to be in the area and you knew that it affects stock prices then then that might be an opportunity for somebody to make money off of it but in this case now that this research is out in the public everybody has access to this information so it's not clear that somebody would have an advantage in using this information now you study public health and the economics of it the fine particulates are having this kind of impact on the minds of folks who are trading stocks how might this be affecting the rest of our economy when we have this kind of pollution Well that's what we thought was the particularly interesting aspect of this study it could possibly be affecting everybody there's been previous work looking at particulate matter and its effect on workers and in sort of manual more physical labor settings and this is showing that this work doesn't just apply to people that are and that sector but applies to a much broader sector so these effects could be affecting everyone even even the 2 of us on a day like today depending on what pollution levels are like Matthew Knight Del is an associate professor of health policy management at Columbia thank you so much for taking the time of us today thanks a lot for having me. Just ahead reading the mean streets of Baltimore some of the folks that used to make the mean that's just ahead here on living on Earth state support for living on Earth comes from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and from a friend of sailors for the sea working with boaters to restore ocean health. Next time on true politics and power of the wall Donald Trump's promise to build a big beautiful wall along the border of Mexico was central to his campaign and will likely be critical measure of this president to come how secure borders became part of the definition of the state how walls were throughout history and in Berlin and I want to know more next time on to politics and power which will come your way at 7 o'clock tonight on k.q.e.d. . Radio. I'm Adrian help on the next episode of Marketplace Weekend a look at a federal lawsuit challenging Detroit schools is reteach that walked out of classes saying they came deal with it because this had no classes and there might be relatives in the class education literacy and the economy next time a Marketplace Weekend. What you'll hear this evening at 9 pm on k.q.e.d. Public Radio 88.5 f.m. It's 423. It's living on earth I'm Steve Carroll would the u.s. Department of Veterans Affairs has been making efforts to ensure that don't have to wait too long for mental and physical health appointments at the v.a. After wait times spiked over 30 days during 2016 but those long wait times parked in the matches the novel Push in Georgia to improve care for that's by helping them connect with their roots down on the far reporter Sean powers of Georgia Public Broadcasting has the story. On a 25 acre farm in rural Milledgeville in Baldwin County John Jackson looks through a gate separating him from his goats and animals don't care about your bad day they're going to come up and they're like I want you to pet me you know and you're like Ok you're like I'm feeling really mad right now but I'm paying you and man they don't know the amazing stuff that they're doing for our Back to come through it's been a long journey for Jackson going from battlefield to farmland he served 6 tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and he returned home with post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury getting care has been a challenge an initially he was seeing a psychiatrist at the be a center into ski Alabama but he says he was told he had to wait 6 months between appointments last year he had a meltdown he called the V.A.'s crisis hotline and he says the earliest they could see him was in 8 weeks after a lot of pushing they move that up to 2 weeks but Jackson says it shouldn't have been that hard every point that I got with them was because it was like no I need to see you right now you know and I had to push it and it was like I'm fighting fighting a fight you know man and then you get sick and tired of fighting why am I fighting for care Well guess what happened within a 6 months this will happen I come back and I found I got diabetes so. I'm taking all these medications you know there's nobody watching John Jackson Well that's not entirely true anymore 2. Instead of waiting for care Jackson wanted more immediate attention so he moved to Milledgeville with his family started going to a nearby v.a. Facility in Dublin where he says care is better and he started a farm it's called Comfort farms named after a friend of Jackson's who was killed in action in Afghanistan comfort farms is ripe with everything from Oprah and tomatoes to chickens and pigs. For Jackson farming fits like a glove as you readjust to civilian life with the scars of war you know form and. I like chaos it's just like one of those things where I'm constantly here struggling against Mother Nature struggling against Paris you know but you know when you when you get those small battles small victories. Veterans coming back from conflict often struggle with transition to civilian life they have higher rates of depression and suicide and they're more likely to be unemployed Jackson hopes to change that by introducing more votes to farming he's got a u.s.d.a. Grant a travel the state training Beth an agriculture 150 vets and their families have visited his farm so far this year one of them is Thomas Scott Kennedy who also suffers from p.t.s.d. a missing Marine veteran who they say could be suicidal 49 year old Thomas. Silver 2004 Toyota Tundra with a friend found Kennedy and connected him with John Jackson now Kennedy lives on Jackson's property on one condition that he helps him on the farm pages a counsellor in Atlanta she works with people suffering from p.t.s.d. And she. Says having them work together like on a farm can help stimulate brain activity I believe they do better when they have a shared mission they're extremely resilient strong individuals and since p.t.s.d. Is a medical condition it's a treatable medical condition it means their brain is simply injured by the high stress that they've lived with and can be healed nearly half of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are from rural areas but the u.s.d.a. Says very few go into farming the director of the Dublin v.a. Sees her center's location in rural Georgia as an opportunity Mary Alice morrow is talking with the State Department of Agriculture about growing fresh produce on site that can be used in her Center's cafeteria we house approximately $115.00 that trend in our domicile eory mental health rehabilitation program that helps veterans with homelessness p.t.s.d. Substance abuse and or a combination of those get back on their feet and they're usually here for a period of $60.00 to $90.00 days so it would be a great way to teach them new skills or give them something to do while they're here could be therapeutic Now there are still a lot of unknowns about the benefits of farming for veterans but it may take off as the nation's farmers get older and the v.a. Searches for ways to improve care while cutting down on the wait times for living on earth I'm Shawn powers in Atlanta. From life on the farm to life in the gritty inner city in their predominantly black and low income neighborhoods of Baltimore violent crime is all too common place along bleak asphalt and concrete streets but an effort to Green these neighborhoods is also uplifting residents by putting them to work planting trees in particular nonprofits are good. In former inmates and will be drug dealers the opportunity to take ownership of their home turf while earning a living wage among them is Alex Smith who spent 15 years in prison but has turned over the proverbial new leaf and now works for the Baltimore tree trust Alex welcome to living under a I don't good the 1st tell me what you do as a staff member of the Baltimore tree trust Well my official title is fear operations and outreach essentially I'm a farm and I work with fellers ladies who come from rough backgrounds and we go out and plant trees all over body even when it's not even one of the day and I just finished plants and Zokol was Zarkov as one of those they're a good hearty St tree they want to the most popular trees that we plant Alex I understand that you were in prison for some 15 years or some before joining the tree trust what was that like and how did you make the most of your time behind bars I don't really know how to explain presents anybody who hasn't been there I could sum it up in 2 words it sucks. But how did you make the most of your time behind bars reading exercise and study and that was actually well learnt or of course I started working with plants I'm a certified master gardener through a Maryland co-operative extension program and what inspired you to get into working with plants working with gardens or they had a little horticulture program it was a guy that came from Frostburg University Dr when you and he would come they teach about science but it is not like we could actually put it to practical application we were just learning about it but when we approached staff about it and Wharton this idea started growing that we could actually transform the grounds and then we could use what we were in the classroom inside of the present how did you feel once you started that horticulture program there and present you're going to agree. In a place it was definitely a good film it was a feeling you know one that we were even paid attention to you know a lot of times I've written letters to different organizations in they went unanswered or they were simply retired so for us to actually have somebody start to pay attention to us that was exciting to begin with It was a foundation that actually helped us out a t.k. a Foundation they were already doing meditation guards around the city they only requirement was that we somewhere put in a meditational piece garden so we did it right out in front of the chapel at the prison in on western Maryland. So you built these gardens in the prison and then you get out how did you find your job with the Baltimore tree trust. I was working a couple jobs and at the time I was working construction but you know a construct you have a lot of down time because of weather what have you so what I was on was a landscaping on a side someone suggested about pick up there are certain little landscaping skill just sitting on a shelf so I took their advice and because I volunteer at the Center for the families. So some of the people around there some of the stuff that I could do you know part of it was in hopes to get a couple new clients but I was also proud of my work so I guess Dan walk there and talk to one of the Career Counselor Dan Millen the executive director of the bone which reaches my boss and he walked in looking for somebody who could work with the bottom or tree truss and my name came up in the sound of my editors were how do you recruit other people who've had similar experiences spent time in jail and he recruit them to help you plant trees or Everywhere I go in Baltimore I'm asked Are you hiring so it's pretty easy when I'm in the bottom what you trust truck and I have a vessel and I'm out working it's pretty easy to get people who say they're interested in jobs but mostly I come to the center of our of families and get people that have come through the strive program strive tell me more about strong strive as an employee readiness program which basically sharpens up or refreshes People Soft skills and they help some not only get jobs but keep jobs Alex when I plant trees in Baltimore one it's the beautification you know you put trees in a block it changes the whole of it it's not just concrete and asphalt and brick but 2 It definitely helps out the trap rainwater and the bad stuff that it doesn't get filtered by the tree fits in the trees and roost and sells all that stuff goes right into the Chesapeake Bay but beautification and how it changes what people see when they look out their window that's the most important part of me is there a place with trees in Baltimore that's a particular favorite of yours or is a place that I haven't planned it but it's a small street named York Road in Baltimore that has full grown trees that just can't be the whole street like it reminds you of maybe with it black look like some 5060 years ago pretty amazing to see these trees and tell us thought of we're going football I want to drive I never really paid it it's on that's what I. Vision when I'm out there plan a story that one day treated our planet will look like that and we plant them to say variety so you know I'll be checking that out in 30 years to see how do people in the community respond to the work that you're doing now planting trees for the most part we definitely have community support it is not just the people who are seeking employment or. Interested in that way is just for knowing where every day people who just like to see trees like to see people working but we do have those people who we have to convince that planting trees in the neighborhood were front of the house is a good thing there's a lot of myths about trees bring rats trees string of pipes that's like the number one issue that we get and some people would they just don't want to because the mosquitoes we get all kinds of things when we are in a community with definitely on the information and sometimes you know if you even if you show people they still don't want the tree what kind of ownership a kind of responsibility for the trees to people in neighborhoods take once you plant a tree or bottom or tree truss we give them a bucket that has a lot of pointers on it about trees we passed out flyers part of my job is to do outreach so it's not just outreach with the fellows that I hired to help me plant these trees but as outreach in the community to disperse on the lips about the trees and the teach people how to care for but we also maintain a tree for 2 years after we planted and so people in the neighborhood they see us maintaining the trees and Purnell the trees and making sure that we care for the trees so any chance that I can I'm always giving people advice and given a point is untypical how to take a tree some people have actually taken ownership of the trees you know that's my tree you know even some neighbors squabble over who treat is for the people who care about the neighborhood and about the way that neighborhood looks we get a pretty good response from those people now Alex many neighborhoods who work in are mostly African-American. But the Baltimore treat raster is mostly a white institution how do people respond to that I've never had anybody directly have a problem with it I do know that in Baltimore City people do have a feeling that there's a lot of white organizations they come in the city of I'll ask in do people want these services or products and things like that and they just 7 down people so that's what people believe in and they were for the most part I would like to think that because I was presented as I would certainly it is my chance to try to change that change the perception so what I do with I go and knock on people's door and I say hey a tree is common I tell them of the laws concerning the tree but I also ask their opinion about it and sometimes if they adamantly against a tree we don't plan it I definitely make sure that the community in which we work in August said it is not that they were open a door one day and see 20 people stand in front of the house plant trees imagine some people might be worried about gentrification that you know planting trees could raise property values and end up pushing out the very people supposed to benefit him that's a definite concern and a lot of people do believe that they do believe that the trees didn't come and tell the probably value started raising and some of the neighbors and worked and nobody cared about exotic walks in the streets and so people from outside start invest in and remind some of the vacant homes in the neighborhood I really don't know the answer to that but I know that the bubble tree tries we plant trees for everybody and I don't see any board those has whore tanks pushing people out of neighborhood then and even though I can say that you know when you raise prices to a certain level you will squeeze out certain bias you know and that's and that's the issue that is way above the trees for us that's an issue that should concern everybody everybody just looking to keep Baltimore a city that welcomes everybody. That's something that we all have to work together on so Alex this is worked well for you helped you turn your life around what about other prisoners and former prisoners people getting out of jail trying to establish themselves in communities again Oh I hope that I'm not. A novelty I would hope that eventually this catches on because every day that I'm out in history I see opportunity you know while I'm playing trees I see the tree pits that are being taken care of I see the trees that have been planted years ago that are being cared for I see the little of this and the tree pits all those are employment opportunities you know if the government the communities if they just a little creative it could see that the opportunities that ass you are out there in the street I think that it definitely can work for other people and before you go Alex tell me about your vision for the future of Baltimore's environment including the trees my vision for Baltimore and myself is that I learn more about the trees I learn more about how they impact our bomb and I learn more about how I can help other people I me I'm a servant of my community and I feel like I'm blessed to be given this opportunity so every day I go out in the street it's for me it's opportunity to give back you know I took away so much from and streets and from the neighborhoods I was the bad element and one time I thought there's hope that I have impact and I can help other people the way I've been helped Alex Smith leads field operations and out reach for the Baltimore tree trust Alex thanks so much for taking the time with us today no problem. 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Here in a public hearing in Richmond Virginia where the city is starting the painful process of deciding what should happen to get its Confederate monuments up to come 1st all I hear is discrimination very much a history her oh my this actually every day I am home are her that debate and the latest news Sunday on Weekend Edition from n.p.r. News. Which will be coming your way at the top of the hour at 5 o'clock here on k.q.e.d. Public Radio. Next time on the New York Radio Hour an organization working secretly together added. Of war crimes committed by the Assad regime and smuggle it out of Syria the risks are huge and it's unlikely that Assad will ever be brought to trial that remarkable story is on the next episode of The New York arena which you will hear it 3 o'clock this afternoon here on k.q.e.d. Public Radio 88.5 f.m. . It's $443.00 now. It's living on earth I'm Steve Irwin the name means tyrant lizard king and in 1000 know 5 The New York Times called Taran Osiris Rex the absolute warlord of the earth T.-Rex fossils were 1st discovered in 8 $174.00 and now the group includes some $29.00 different species with a new one identified just about every year these days the Tyrannosaur family was extremely successful during its 100000000 years on earth they were active on 4 of the present continents and fossils have been found in Britain are David Ho now studies them at Queen Mary University of London his book the Tyrannosaur Chronicles details the anatomy evolution and ecology of these fearsome carnivores we called him up but before we talk to ran a story we challenge David Hunt to name as many of the family as he could in 15 seconds go oh boy. Alone you Torana us I throw you not just around a source Thomas source displayed a source of but a source told Soros. Quinsey or Soros. And others a couple more and I'm struggling now. So David this was a widespread family with lots of variety they were really quite a so the 1st few species that we have from the around 165000000 years ago were about the size of something like a Labrador and actually some of the early species of Tauranga saw also had these big elaborate bunny crest on the head so they actually had a fairly different profile and they didn't have the giant heads and they didn't have the little or things like trying to source on the very last of the Toronto so in your book you say as I'm writing this they're likely to be more species identified and my book will be out of date even before it hits the bookstore that's already happened in February so the book was already out but publishes a new Tauranga So it was name from Asia and actually as I was writing the book 3 new species were added that line of this book is going to be. By the time this book is published and I like having to edit but line because it was already. The book you know you're a scientist so this is a totally unfair question but what's this simple explanation of what makes it around a store a tremendous or happily these are one of the re groups where there's actually a fairly simple explanation for this the very front teeth in the jaw have this very old profile they have a flat back pointing into the mouth a very round front push it out at the front and this is actually feeding adaptation and the other thing they have the binds called the nasals those 2 by and you have one on the left and one on the right by so all animals have this but in the finals they fused together into one big block the teeth are the better to eat with I gather and will specifically for feeding so they have these joint kind of robust bone crunching killing teeth down the so it's of the jaw but at the front they have you have these kind of flat blunt little basically scraping take the best analogy I can give is take a cookie like and I re I've paid off one biscuit and how do you get the cream off and everyone puts it in their mouth and then pulls it forward and scrapes the cream off on their teeth and this is how they're trying to sell as we're feeding and we know this actually because we have the bones that they were feeding on and they leave exactly these marks you see a whole bunch of very blunt but deep grooves in the buying pulled in a straight line together that basically scraping the muscle off the bone with these old little teeth so what did these animals look like and how do we know this well the big ones were big they walked on the back legs I mean the fact that they've got tiny arms is a pretty big giveaway we've always like got footprints for these animals so we can see that definitely walking around of the back legs we also don't see any tile traces so we know the tile is held up off the ground and around a source probably had feathers early thing from China called The Long which has some patches of feathers preserved alongside it and then there's a much larger to run us off 78 metres long from China code you turn around us and you turn honest. Basically is preserved with feathers from the tip of its nose to the tip of its tail this thing was covered and therefore the obvious inference is that the other trying to source work we just simply haven't found the feathers yet and that's not a big surprise for this do not preserve very often so in your book you discuss trying to figure out the color of these things how would you do that the short version is at least part of what makes up the color in feathers and indeed actually does the inherent some other things as well are these tall I need little packages called monocytes and they basically contain these color pigments. Imagine if you went to a d.i.y. Store or something like the hardware store and all the paint was sold in different shapes ten's and the tings actually correspond to the colors that it there are in them so black always comes in a long thin 10 blue always comes in a square tin and yellowish comes in a triangular tin or something like this as it happens the way that a lot of signs of light down different pigments correspond to different shapes of package so actually you don't need to see the actual color to know what color was in that as long as you've got the shock there are some huge limitations to this so for example we can only do kind of general shades so red basically means anything from kind of bright orange all the way down to dark brown then there are some complications because you can actually then change the colors often quite dramatically by how you orientate the tins relative to each other and actually got as information is probably lost during the k. So we never see Blue for example because Blue is a color which is basically built on structure not on Malana sometimes So with all these feathers I'm wondering what does science have in the way of d.n.a. From Taranto sources nothing at the moment unfortunately maybe maybe maybe one day we'll find something like that but even if we do you be talking about tiny fragments of bits you know you'd be lucky to be able to go yes this is probably a reptile let alone this there's something unique about it which is to run a story and so don't get your hopes up for talk sequel any time say so talk to me about the life of the Tyrannosaurus How close were they to the top of the food chain the basic life of them as indeed for most of us was very short because as with animals in the modern world you know most things don't survive past their 1st year in terms of what they're doing ecologically cause it varies enormously the 1st few Taran of those 23 meters long $4050.00 kilos these were pretty small carnivores in their ecosystem the equivalent of something like a fox or a jackal rebadge and now. So they're making their way in the world as it were but there are lots of big threats out there to them when you get through to the light of giants things like they're on a source in Asia things like top of the source they are the biggest carnivore out there in fact the biggest con has an earth at this point something original 5 to 7 metric tons in and these are seriously big animals and the next biggest carnivores like 20 kilos just you know compared to a 57 ton monster this is an enormously big gap in size you expect to have anything from about 3 to 6 or even 7 big carnivals and frankly I haven't. Come across anyone who has any idea why the O.P.'s conclusion is that it's the younger animals are kind of filling in those ecological niches a half trying to run a source is 78 meters long way is a couple of tons that's filled that midsize cart of on a ship that's an explanation but it doesn't explain why we don't see that for some of the earlier ecosystems so it's very very old well science has to have more mysteries to solve doesn't it or so how fearsome were they really I mean what did they have in the way of you know cute and cuddly ones as well well the small ones would have been fairly cute and cuddly though they're probably taking your arm off if you were standing in front of them and of course the juveniles are hatchling was really pretty small I mean a hatchling to run a saurus might be less than a metre long so this is an animal that has to get from under a metre to over 12 metres to become a full sized adult so that's a colossal amount of drugs and so actually yet for a normal population there would have been lots of baby and young Toronto cells knocking around and bear in mind you know a young to run a small can mean an Afghanistan 7 metres long and weighs a ton but it still barely an adolescent by human standards how do they find their food the big ones I mean obviously everybody knows they're coming they may not need to water really about whether or not things can see them coming because what the big. Around a sort of a built for was actually long distance running they were pretty quick they couldn't run in one sense that is you know the natural by mechanical definition of running they were probably not getting both legs off the ground at once what they had was actually what effective a very quick walk but when you have a baby with legs that long you still cover a lot of ground very quickly so actually what they may well be doing is you know effectively the coming over the horizon approach you don't care the prices you coming you just run the herd or the group or the individual that you selected and try and close the gap faster than they can outpace you they might be faster in the short but as long as you can keep them in view you will go for longer the 2nd solution which actually pulls in the book and I don't think has been suggested before this is actually one of the great things about writing a popular science but rather than a piece of scientific literature you can actually speculate a bit more freely there is an obvious solution to this which is be nocturnal these are animals that are 45 meters high to the top of the head there probably is no cover you can hide in but these are animals that we know have exceptional eyesight and one of the big correlates of being not totally is having exceptional eyesight this one actually probably offset part of the problem of not being able to hide when your that big I freely admit this is complete speculation but I think it fits a few of the limited things that we know about so how do you know that they had such great eyes that actually the very short version is that they have enormous I saw one thing we do know from very careful studies of mammals and birds in particular owls actually serves that directly relevant but you sickly the bigger the only people you can physically fit in the skull the better is it taking in light and details and people said that turn of sources got little ice and compared to the size of its skull it does they look small but it's not relative size it's important it's absolute size and they are absolutely enormous In fact the eyes of turn a source when measured or at least the eye socket on the largest of any time. Real animal of all time so in fact this animal had in some way shape or form the best eyesight of any animal on land that we know of all time David I have to ask you this on the big Tyrannosaurus T.-Rex How did they reproduce I mean you think sex would be kind of risky with all those teeth and was hip carefully possibly they they obviously and in terms of actual physical Congress let's actually it is quite awkward because they are all these big big heavy animals falling over is actually probably quite a big deal for them and yet you need to get the relevant parts together and that's quite difficult since it's under the base of the Bacon actually very muscular title The obvious conclusion is that the Mio had something and I'm not being pure in this time is the correct biology but on an intermittent organ in other words something that poked out or could be poked out this is not unique to mammals actually lots of birds in particular ducks and you might not want to google this from your office but I can highly recommend looking up some of the biology of duck reproduction and that's actually probably the best way that you could get a male and female 7 ton carnivores with little arms that might fall Eva together but I have to add to that of course we don't actually know for sure there's a fascinating part of your book where you talk about the Renaissance functioning as part of a larger ecosystem describe for me what these ancient ecosystems might have looked like and the role that the to Renaissance played a central source would actually lived in an environment which would look a lot like it did today we had grasses by this time we had big colorful forests we had big open plains So actually some of the big forests in North America you know it would recognize a lot of those plants a more interesting one he's told us or so this is kind of the Asian equivalent if you like which lived in Mongolia Northern China and at that time actually much of the guy who does it is a desert now that's what the environment looked like 6570000000 years ago and so this is a very very. Different environment or very similar animal So what do you wish people knew about dinosaurs and is there a dinosaur myth that you can bust for us one thing that comes back again and again if you can't know that you clearly made that up I've done stuff online I've written articles and I do q. And A's on websites and stuff and what they see is I go Well actually we do you know what color they were sort of and we know that they could run at their speed and we know that they were bad at turning all we you know we know they fight with their front teeth about how can you possibly know that well they have this you need to show that suggest that doing something with it we have bite marks on binds that match that to show you and then they go. On and it's like right dig into it see what it is that we know when how but we know this because some research is hearing some phenomenally clever and impressive stuff and there are some incredible specimens which give us these details in terms of busting a dinosaur myth it's the one which is almost the tipping point to when I increasingly come across people who are going to go online and they're not that impressed but remember the dinosaurs aren't extinct but dinosaurs birds of a direct descendants of dinosaurs evolutionary indeed taxonomically they are doing this or what's left in terms of Tarana source are they all extinct Yes I turn a source did go extinct in the in the great extinction event 65000000 years ago to run a source is actually one of the last known avian dinosaurs that we know of you know that's a guy who would have instead on health often seen the meet your coming so the birds branched off from a group of dinosaurs actually very close to Philosopher it was there was a little kind of branching event and 100 went on to pursue stuff like Velociraptor and another group went on to produce the birds so birds go back to about 150000000 years ago David Hone is a lecturer in zoology at Queen Mary University of London his new book is called the terrain of sore Chronicles thanks so much for taking the time with us today David thanks for having me on. 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Did your high school science classes sound something like this water molecules polar with a partial negative charge on the Oxygen one of those classes sounded like this things get really horrible is just Skinner rips apart and he sees a virus coming out from his inside. I'm Guy Raz ideas about changing education next time on the Ted Radio Hour from n.p.r. . Which will come your way tonight at 10 pm here on k.q.e.d. Public radio could be cloudy this morning and mostly sunny and breezy by this afternoon temperatures ranging from the fifty's to the upper sixty's around the bay to the upper eighty's to lower ninety's well inland and we're going to have gusts up to 35 miles per hour by this afternoon Laurie Sanders is coming in next that weekend edition is also be coming your way here on them $88.00 San Francisco and. 89.3 new.