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b"How The Humble Beaver Shaped A Continent\\nThe American beaver, Castor canadensis, nearly didn\\u2019t survive European colonialism in the United States. Prized for its dense, lustrous fur, and also sought after for the oil from its tail glands, the species was killed by the tens of thousands, year after year, until conservation efforts in the late 19th century turned the tide.\\nIn her new book, Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America, author Leila Philipp tells that tale\\u2014and the ecological cost of this near-extermination. But she also has good news: beavers, and their skillful engineering of waterways, have the potential to ease the fire, drought and floods of a changing climate. She talks to Ira about the powerful footprint of the humble beaver.\\n\\n\\xa0\\nThe Sweet Song Of The Largest Tree On Earth\\nFor this story, we\\u2019re taking a trip to south central Utah and into the Fishlake National Forest to visit the largest tree on earth, an aspen named Pando. The strange thing about Pando is that it doesn\\u2019t really look like the world\\u2019s biggest tree. It has rolling hills with thousands of tall, lean aspens swaying in the wind.\\nBut Pando is there, hiding in plain sight. All those tree trunks you see aren\\u2019t actually individual trees. Technically, they\\u2019re branches, and that\\u2019s because Pando is one massive tree\\u2014sprawling more than 100 acres, with 47,000 branches growing from it.\\nThere is a lot to learn about Pando, and our guests turned to sound to understand the tree better. Together, they created an \\u201cacoustic portrait\\u201d to hear all the snaps, splinters, and scuttles that happen in and around the tree.\\nIra talks with Jeff Rice, a sound artist and co-founder of the Acoustic Atlas at the Montana State University Library, and Lance Oditt, executive director of the non-profit Friends of Pando, which is dedicated to preserving the tree.\\n\\n\\xa0\\nThis $7 Violin May Be $7... But How Does It Sound?\\nStringed instruments can be a joy to the ears and the eyes. They\\u2019re handcrafted, made of beautiful wood, and the very best ones are centuries old, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, or sometimes even millions.\\nBut there\\u2019s a new violin in the works\\u2014one that\\u2019s 3D-printed. It costs just a few bucks to print, making it an affordable and accessible option for young learners and classrooms.\\nDr. Mary-Elizabeth Brown is a concert violinist and the founder and director of the AVIVA Young Artists Program in Montreal, Quebec, and she\\u2019s been tinkering with the design of 3D-printed violins for years. She talks with Ira about the science behind violins, the design process, and how she manages to turn $7 worth of plastic into a beautiful sounding instrument.\\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."