Securing nuclear waste for 100,000 years, and the link between math literacy and life satisfaction

On this week’s show: Finland puts the finishing touches on the world’s first high-level permanent nuclear repository, and why being good at math might make you both happy and sad

First up, freelance science journalist Sedeer El-Showk joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss his visit to a permanent nuclear waste repository being built deep underground in Finland, and the technology—and political maneuvering—needed to secure the site for 100,000 years.

Also this week, Pär Bjälkebring, a senior lecturer in the department of psychology at the University of Gothenburg, talks with Sarah on the sidelines of the 2022 annual meeting of AAAS (publisher of Science) about the link between numeracy—math literacy—income, and life satisfaction. Bjälkebring took part in the AAAS panel Decision-Making with Large Numbers and Its Underlying Psychological Mechanisms on 19 February. Learn more about the 2022 AAAS meeting here.

This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.

[Image: Tapani Karjanlahti/TVO; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

[alt: photograph of a digging machine inside a giant cave]

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Sedeer El-Showk

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ada1534

About the Science Podcast: https://www.science.org/content/page/about-science-podcast

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