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b'Meet The Blind Birder Reimagining Accessibility In The Outdoors\\nFor many blind and low vision people, accessing outdoor spaces like parks can be challenging. Trails are often unsafe or difficult to navigate, signs don\\u2019t usually have Braille, guides generally aren\\u2019t trained to help disabled visitors, and so on.\\nBut nature recordist Juan Pablo Culasso, based in Bogata, Colombia, is changing that. He\\u2019s designed a system of fully accessible trails in the cloud forests of southwest Colombia that are specifically tailored to help visually disabled people connect with nature. The trails are the first of their kind in the Americas, and Culasso drew on his own experiences as a blind person and a professional birder to design the system.\\nHe talks with Maddie Sofia about how he designed the trail system and takes listeners on an adventure through the cloud forest he works in.\\n\\n\\xa0\\nListen To Ethereal Sounds Derived From Space\\nYou\\u2019ve probably heard that if you scream in space, no one will hear a thing. Space is a vacuum, so sound waves don\\u2019t have anything to bounce off of. But that doesn\\u2019t necessarily mean that space is silent. A team of researchers are taking data from a variety of telescopes and assigning them sounds, creating song-length sonifications of beloved space structures like black holes, nebulas, galaxies, and beyond.\\nThe album, called \\u201cUniversal Harmonies\\u201d\\xa0aims to bring galaxies to life and allow more people, such as those who are blind and low-vision, to engage with outer space.\\nGuest host Flora Lichtman talks with two of the scientists behind \\u201cUniversal Harmonies,\\u201d Dr. Kimberly Arcand, visualization scientist at NASA\\u2019s Chandra X-ray Observatory, and Dr. Matt Russo, astrophysicist and musician at the University of Toronto.\\nListen to a selection of the ethereal sonifications of \\u201cUniversal Harmonies.\\u201d\\n\\n\\xa0\\nWhy You Should Thank Your Local Wasp\\nIt\\u2019s late in the summer, meaning any outdoor gathering with food and drink has a good chance of being visited by a pesky, buzzing wasp. But don\\u2019t reach for that rolled-up newspaper or can of bug spray. The wasps in your world play an important role that\\u2019s often overlooked.\\nFar beyond the social hornets and yellowjackets people think about when they picture a wasp, the wasp world includes thousands of species. Some are parasitic, injecting their eggs into unwilling prey. Others hunt, either paralyzing prey for their young to feed on, or by bringing bits of meat back to a nest for their young. Some are strictly vegetarian, and live on pollen. Some are needed for the pollination of figs and certain species of orchids.\\nDr. Seirian Sumner, a behavioral biologist at University College London, says that if people understood the services provided by wasps the same way that they understand the need for bees, they might be more willing to overlook an occasional wasp annoyance\\u2014and might even be thankful for the wasps in their lives. In her book,\\xa0"Endless Forms: The Secret World of Wasps," Sumner makes the case for wasps as nature\\u2019s pest control agents, as important pollinators that should be celebrated.\\nAnd the pesky yellowjacket at your picnic? It\\u2019s probably being driven by a late-summer shift in functions within the nest, in which many of the workers die off and are replaced by sexual brood. Earlier in the year, worker wasps can bring bits of meat to the developing young, which reward them with sugary secretions. But later in the season, that food source dries up\\u2014so visiting wasps are probably searching for a bit of sugar just to get by. \\u201cWatch the wasp, see what she wants at your picnic,\\u201d Sumner advises. \\u201cIs she going for sugar, or is she going for some meat? Whatever you can work out that she wants, give her a little bit of it. Make a little wasp offering.\\u201d\\nSumner joins SciFri producer Charles Bergquist to talk about wasps, and make a case for why you should be thankful for the wasps in your neighborhood.\\n\\n\\xa0\\nTo stay updated on all-things-science,\\xa0sign up for Science Friday\'s newsletters.\\nTranscripts for each segment will be available the week after the show airs on\\xa0sciencefriday.com.'