Heat Stroke with Bud Cooper and Radley Horton

About This Episode

How do you prevent a heat stroke? On this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson and co-hosts Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly learn about stopping heat illness deaths and the challenges of increasing heat waves with kinesiologist, Bud Cooper, and climate scientist, Radley Horton.

What is heat illness? Learn about the body’s thermoregulation and what happens when it loses balance. How do you spot someone who is having a heat stroke? How do you intervene? What is the wet bulb globe temperature? We discuss the impacts that surfaces have on heat and why heat illness can be tricky to diagnose. Is heat stroke anything like a traditional stroke? 

How can we regulate athletic events to make them safer? Bud tells us about his policy suggestions and his three-year epidemiological study on heat illness in high school football in Georgia. How will heat illness change as different regions experience heat waves? Is heat going to be an issue for the The FIFA World Cup in Qatar this year?

Next, we speak with Radley about extreme heat and why climate change results in extreme weather patterns. What is tail risk? Are our climate models able to predict unlikely but catastrophic disasters? We discuss water and other factors affecting the heat. What is an atmospheric river? How do higher global temperatures lead to more storms? All that, plus, how we can get our policy and infrastructure prepared for the heat. 

Thanks to our Patrons Zammo Taylor, Bill wessale, Korey B Helms, Kevin Browning, and Justin for supporting us this week.

NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free.