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Home > Science in Action > Did the Climate Add to the Demise of Angkor?


	Podcast:		Science in Action
	Episode:		Did the Climate Add to the Demise of Angkor?
	Category:		Religion & Spirituality
	Duration:		00:26:28
	Publish Date:		2018-10-18 14:32:00
	Description:		Angkor, in what is now modern Cambodia, was the capital city of the Khmer Empire. It flourished from approximately the 9th to 15th centuries. Angkor was a megacity supporting at least a million people (0.1% of the global population) during 1010–1220. The city houses the magnificent temple Angkor Wat, one of Cambodia's popular tourist attractions. The city established a vast network of canals, embankments, moats and reservoirs to capture, store and distribute surface water resources. It was very extensive, covering up to 1200 sq.km. The city foundered during the 15th Century and was largely, but not completely, abandoned by 1431. Did monsoon-driven flooding weaken the infrastructure of water management in the city and contribute to its demise? Antimicrobials in Livestock Feed Global pharmaceutical companies are selling antibiotics as performance enhancers and artificial fatteners to livestock farmers in India. This unnecessary use of antibiotics has been made illegal in the US and Europe, as it is thought to increase the risk of antibiotic resistance. The practice is not illegal in India, but with the subcontinent suffering from the highest incidence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) it’s something the whole world needs to worry about. Facing Hurricane Michael Hurricane expert Professor James Elsner, at Florida State University, has studied these tropical cyclones for most of his career. He advocates for a higher Category 6 to be created for the stronger and stronger storms we are seeing. He lives in Tallahassee in Florida and has just faced Hurricane Micheal – is this the first time the expert has been face to face with a Cat 5 storm? Refuting Claims for Earliest Life Two years ago, a paper was published, in the journal Nature, stating that the earliest evidence of life on Earth had been discovered in rocks from Greenland’s Supercrustal Belt in Isua. Stromatolites - fossils of conical structures created by bacterial action were thought to have been identified in rocks that were at least 3.8 billion years old. However this week, also in the journal Nature, is a study refuting these claims and describing the conical structures as mere folds in the metamorphic rock. Picture: Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia, Credit: rickwang/Getty Images Presenter: Roland Pease Producer: Fiona Roberts
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