Science In Action (BBC World Service)

Episode: Why is Afghanistan so vulnerable to Earthquakes?
Date: September 4, 2025
Host: Roland Pease

Episode Overview

This episode dives into the devastating earthquake that struck Eastern Afghanistan, exploring the scientific reasons behind the country’s high vulnerability to seismic events. The show features expert analysis from Afghan seismologist Zakhary Shizai, insight on recent challenges in climate science communication with Andrew Destler, a report on landmark mouse brain research from Anne Churchland, and updates on the unusual interstellar comet 3I ATLAS with Daryl Seligman. The episode is rich with first-hand commentary, scientific nuance, and reflections on how science translates into real-world understanding and policy.

Earthquake in Eastern Afghanistan: Why So Deadly?

(Main segment starts at 02:40)

Key Insights and Discussion Points

• Earthquake Details and Impact

  • A magnitude 6 earthquake struck just north of Jalalabad, Afghanistan, causing over 1,400 deaths. Despite its moderate size, the event was devastating.
  • Zakhary Shizai, Afghan seismologist at Oxford University, explains that housing construction and geography are major factors in the destruction.

• Geographical and Infrastructural Vulnerabilities

  • Many villages are built on steep slopes; houses are densely stacked, often “on top of each other” in mountainous areas.

    “Even in 1km square. There are thousands of houses in this village…some of the village are like very old, like from 2, 3, 400 years.”
    — Zakhary Shizai (03:16)

  • Accessibility is limited: remote, steep valleys make rescue and aid difficult.

• Seismic Activity and Shallow Quakes

  • Afghanistan has a complex network of active faults, especially near the Indian and Asian plate boundary. The most destructive earthquakes are shallow, allowing energy to reach the surface rapidly.

    “The shallow earthquakes can cause very damage and destruction in that area. And because the energy that released during the earthquake can come very quickly to the surface…”
    — Zakhary Shizai (05:20)

  • Shallow earthquakes (depths <10 km) are most dangerous, as shown in this event.

• Lack of Preparation and Awareness

  • Few seismic stations in the country (only four, two in Kabul), making monitoring and mapping difficult.
  • Public awareness about earthquake risk is very low; many residents do not understand seismic origins or risks.

    “There is no public awareness in the country…many people, they don’t believe these earthquakes [are] caused by tectonic plates or active faults.”
    — Zakhary Shizai (06:39)

• Call for Better Mapping and Education

  • Urgent need for high-resolution satellite mapping to understand fault lines and for public education to prepare communities for natural hazards.
  • Shizai aims to return soon to map the earthquake and collect crucial geological evidence.

Notable Quotes

• “The main causes [for the destruction] was that [the earthquake] was really shallow and close to the surface because of that, that caused very huge damage.”
  — Zakhary Shizai (05:53)
• “The most important thing is the public awareness to people and to understand this is like natural phenomena can cause casualty and destruction. We have to prepare against this kind of nature events.”
  — Zakhary Shizai (06:55)
• “They don’t have like knowledge. You know, they are poor people even there is like very limited education. They don’t have access to the technology. They will believe what they are hearing.”
  — Zakhary Shizai (07:24)

Climate Science Under Siege: The US DOE Report Controversy

(Segment starts at 08:58)

Key Insights and Discussion Points

• US Department of Energy Report Sparks Outcry

  • A 2025 report commissioned by the US Department of Energy suggested global warming’s economic damages are overstated and that aggressive mitigation might be economically harmful.
  • 85 climate scientists, led by Andrew Destler (Texas A&M), responded with a 400-page rebuttal, cataloging scientific inaccuracies and misleading interpretations.

• Critical Rebuttal Highlights

  • The DOE Report is accused of cherry-picking studies, omitting key caveats, and misrepresenting consensus climate findings.

    “The report is built on simple misunderstandings of the scientific literature, selective citation…misquoting studies…That’s how you get to the conclusion that climate change is not a threat to human welfare.”
    — Andrew Destler (08:58)

  • Claims such as “CO2 enhances plant growth” are criticized for being simplistic and ignoring broader impacts on food security.

    “If somebody’s drowning and you’re screaming at them, ‘You need water to survive,’ that’s not a very helpful or accurate characterization of the situation.”
    — Andrew Destler (10:55)

  • Misuse of the 1930s Dust Bowl as evidence that climate extremes are not worsening is refuted; the causes of past and present heatwaves differ fundamentally.

• Broader Context for Science Communication

  • Destler underscores the dangers when political motivations override established science.

    “Climate science is probably the most scrutinized and reproduced science in the history of science.”
    — Andrew Destler (09:41)

  • The issue is seen as pivotal for US economic competitiveness and leadership in clean energy sectors.

    “When people look back in a century and the US is a second-rate economy and they say what happened, they might look at 2025 and say that was the year that we basically gave up competing on the technologies of the future.”
    — Andrew Destler (15:17)

Notable Quotes

• “Climate change doesn’t listen to reports, it listens to the rules of physics.”
  — Andrew Destler (14:51)
• “It really seems to me that they are working backwards. They know the answer they want to get and they just work backwards from it and they’re not trying to get to the right answer.”
  — Andrew Destler (13:36)

Big Data, Big Brains: Mouse Decision-Making Mapped

(Segment starts at 17:02)

Key Insights and Discussion Points

• Landmark Brain Mapping

  • Anne Churchland of UCLA discusses how new “Neuropixels” probes allowed her team to record from hundreds of thousands of neurons across the entire mouse brain during decision making tasks.

    “Because of a new instrument that we used…we were able to generate a data set that’s a really large scale…”
    — Anne Churchland (17:38)

• Multi-region Decision Processing

  • Contrary to previous assumptions that decision-making involves only a few brain areas, signatures of this process were found across numerous, sometimes unexpected, regions—including deep structures.

    “We saw signatures of the decision making process in many, many, many structures…even some areas much deeper in the brain that weren’t even on our radar at all.”
    — Anne Churchland (20:08)

• Complexity of Animal Choices

  • Mice combined sensory evidence and prior beliefs when performing tasks, demonstrating sophisticated calculations analogous to those in humans.

    “They’re able to dial up and down the way that they combine priors and sensory evidence based on the quality of the evidence…”
    — Anne Churchland (21:31)

• Relevance for Human and Clinical Research

  • The approach offers templates for studying how genetics and aging affect brain-wide activity and has implications for research into autism and neurological disorders.

    “My hope is that this work will have tremendous relevance to human health one day down the line.”
    — Anne Churchland (23:41)

Interstellar Visitor: Comet 3I ATLAS

(Segment starts at 23:51)

Key Insights and Discussion Points

• Discovery and Uniqueness

  • 3I ATLAS is only the third identified interstellar object to visit the solar system, first detected July 2025 by the ATLAS telescope in Chile.
  • With a perihelion on the far side of the Sun, observations must focus on its approach; the urgency is real given limited visibility.

    “As a comet gets closer to the sun…the amount of sunlight it receives increases. You can have lots of funny stuff happening, like different ices starting to sublimate, different jets turn on…”
    — Daryl Seligman (24:48)

• Strange Composition

  • The comet’s tail consists mainly of CO₂—unusual compared to typical Solar System comets, indicating formation in extremely cold, distant regions around its (unknown) parent star.

    “We have now seen water, but it looks like the tail is mainly carbon dioxide. And that is not what you typically see in a solar system comet.”
    — Daryl Seligman (26:55)

• Scientific Opportunities—and Frustrations

  • The opportunity to study such a pristine interstellar object is rare. While ground-based and space telescopes are mobilized, a true “close-up” mission would likely have required years of advanced planning.

    “In some crazy world we could [send a mission]….But it’s a harder sell to get [a spacecraft to] abandon everything it’s doing and go visit 3 Atlas.”
    — Daryl Seligman (29:57)

  • The next generation Rubin Observatory in Chile will aid in discovering more interstellar objects and, possibly, mounting future intercept missions.

Notable Quotes

• “There is a huge amount that we could learn about planet formation throughout the galaxy by looking up close at…an interstellar comet from another planetary system.”
  — Daryl Seligman (26:22)
• “We gotta take what we’re given. Right.”
  — Daryl Seligman (28:22)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Opening and Episode Preview: 01:48
• Afghanistan Earthquake Analysis (Zakhary Shizai): 02:40–07:35
• US DOE Climate Report and Rebuttal (Andrew Destler): 08:58–15:43
• Mouse Brain Decision-Making Advances (Anne Churchland): 17:02–23:51
• Interstellar Comet 3I ATLAS (Daryl Seligman): 23:51–31:17

Memorable Moments & Tone

• The frank concern from Afghan seismologist Zakhary Shizai about the disconnect between scientific knowledge and local public perception.
• Andrew Destler’s frustration and passion about defending scientific integrity and its societal impact.
• Anne Churchland marveling at the unexpected complexity uncovered in the brain’s processing of decisions.
• Daryl Seligman’s enthusiasm—and wistfulness—about the fleeting opportunity science has to study an interstellar visitor in real time.

By weaving timely disaster analysis with critical issues in climate policy, cutting-edge neuroscience, and interstellar mysteries, this episode demonstrates both the scope and subtlety of modern science—as well as the importance of public understanding and engagement.