phil torres. i'm phil torres. 'm an entomologist. that's hour team, nout let's do some science. >>> hey, guys, welcome to "techknow", joined by dr ross shimabuku, and lindsay moran. microscopic things have been making news. viruses. take ebola - it caught america offguard. in some places we overreacted and in other places we doesn't do enough. >> there's a lot of scare around ebola, because we don't know much about it, compared to measles. which is also a hot topic. >> when we think of diseases we tend to think of containment. how do we contain them. i had an opportunity to meet a small group of scientists who are seeking out the pathogens in order to understand it. it might surprise people that metropolis. that's good reason for that. let's have a look. >> reporter: we are all vulnerable to the tiny viruses. >> microscopic agents causing big diseases. >> reporter: these infectious agents know now boundaries and in today's hyper connective world, they can move fast. like others, like small pox are eradicated. others spring back to li

i'm phil torres joined by davison.know the internet at all you've probably seen the face of commander chris hadfield. i got a chance to interview him. >> making space travel and this whole idea so cool again. it's fantastic. >> give us a with it into his world and a way for those of us that aren't living on the international space station to kind of have an understanding of what that experience is like and maybe imagine ourselves in space one day. >> and i had a chance to talk to him about all those amazing things. let's take a look. >> five four three two one and liftoff. tom and ivan and chris making their way to the international space station. >> international space station has long been a paragon of mystery, that is until one man brought it back down to earth. >> chocolate pudding cake, looks like it too. not bad. it is going to be hard to eat. going to be messy. >> chris hadfield the former commander of the international space station spent 166 days in space. but he didn't spend his time just doing experiments. i

i'm cara santa maria with marita davison and phil torres. w marita you and phil had a chance to follow some scientists to focus in on the california drought. >> we did and they are using some really sophisticated equipment. >> now marita, you went up in that specially outfitted plane while i got to take a hike in the los padres mountains just outside of la. i think you may have gotten the better part of the deal here. >> ok maybe, it was a really fascinating way to see the forests in a way the naked eye just can't. >> this drought is so epic, it's so out of the norm that we actually don't have an answer to what we can expect long term. >> four years into california's epic drought, reservoirs are near empty, farmers hurting, and its forests are aflame or under attack by opportunistic pests. >> so we're seeing tree mortality all over the landscape. >> but in order to understand these changes to forests, scientists must first assess their health, using field observations, and airplanes. >> we have the most advanced airborne remote sensing packag

i'm phil torres, with global extremes. we're seeing the hot get hotter and the cold get colder, and it's hitting all corners of the u.s. >> it's a really challenging time. challenging and exciting to try to understand what these extreme weather patterns mean for our climate. >> and i got to look at the significant costs involved not just with the devastation caused by extreme weather but hidden causes. >> heat, drought, it's happening. let's take a look. >> oxnard, california, august 12, 2014. >> the weather team has been at it for ours. the storm was no surprise. scientists and technos cameras were tracking it. what meteorologists were calling the storm of the decade hit california with a vengeance. at the national weather service office in response to one of the worst winter storms to hit the state in a very long time. nine inches at once reported in napa valley. massive snow and minutes lake tahoe. flooding in los angeles. >> this is a chance for scientists to study in realtime the latest in a year of extreme weather ev

phil torres of "techknow" reports. >> remote, bret taking. for years it's been a battle over energy and climate change. temperatures here are rising twice as fast as the rest of the world but the arctic may hold 13% of the world's undiscovered oil. what about an oil spill in the arctic? >> i do believe in and when that event occurs, it's going to be a difficult event to deal with. the concern is it's a fairly short operational window. it's something, long playing out like say deep water horizon occurred here it would be a catastrophe. >> in the chucchi sea, winter comes early, in the middle of october. earlier, "techknow" reached out to shell, did not agree to an on camera interview, but in e-mail oonses tanswers to questions, dm confident. we can effectively recover oil in a variety of arctic conditions including broken ice and slush. on september 28th, shell made a stunning announcement. it was ceasing all arctic operations. they released this statement: shell has found indications of oil and gas but these are not sufficient to warrant furg

and i'm phil torres, i'm an entomologist. so how did katrina change the resident's attitude toward nature? now, techknow in new orleans: katrina, 10 years after. i'm here at jefferson parish at the exact spot that was submerged back in august 2005 and i'm 6 foot 2 and if i stretch my hand up to this height... triple that. that's how high some of the flood waters were in some neighborhoods here in this area. now while the waters are long gone, the issues are not. techknow's marita davison has spent a week here in new orleans - now marita, you've been piecing together what went wrong from a science and engineering perspective. >> and phil you said it, this community was devastated when hurricane katrina hit, now in the 10 years since, scientists have made significant improvements to the system, these are coming together to form multiple lines of defense that reduce the risks from another katrina-like storm. let's take a look. >> this area has been vulnerable to storms like katrina since 1200 years ago. >> katrina was really a w

phil torres, thank you so much.ou can see more of rachel's mdma journey on techno saturday at 6:30 p.m. eastern time. now coming up next, a booming business of fantasy football. and the lawmakers are saying its nothing more than legaliz legalized gambling. and the man on the wire, we talk about that astounding walk that made him famous. >> the nfl is a television juggernaut. many are not just rooting for the teams but individual players who are on their fantasy league teams. fantasy sports in general is now a multi billion dollar industry, but many say it is no different than illegal gambling on sports. john henry smith has the detai details. [ cheering ] >> old school sports fandom follow your favorite team. >> my pitcher just gained four or five sports. >> your new sports fandom follow your real players on your smart phone. rick anthony runs a factcy league whose season runs as long as the nfl season. >> yes i'm a jet fan. it's good to see us win. but to make some money along the way rooting for other teams, other

controversial plans to drill for oil and gas there, but other companies could be about to try their luck as phil torress. >> reporter: the arctic, remote, breathtaking, and one of the world's harshest frontiers. for years it has been a front line in a battle over the future of energy and climate change. temperatures are rising twice as fast as the rest of the world. but the arctic may hold 13% of the world's undiscovered oil. >> what about an oil spill in the arctic. >> i do believe if and when that event occurs, it will be difficult to deal with. we have a fairly short operational window, something long playing out like say deep water horizon occurred up here, it would be a catastrophe. >> reporter: in the sea, winter and its ice come early. ice typically begins forming towards the end of october. in early july technoreached out to shell about its exploration plans in the arctic. in an email response shell seemed confident. they wrote: on september 28th, shell made a stunning announcement. it was ceasing all arctic operations. they released this statement. shell has found indications of oil and gas, b

i'm phil torres. "mdma", "molly", "x", call it what you want, this drug is offering some intriguing and even surprising potential in both the military institutional perspective and medical scientific. and that's why i'm joined by "techknow's" ex-cia operative, lindsay moran, and cara santa maria who can explain it from a neuroscience perspective. now, i've seen "molly" as a club drug but as a therapeutic drug? >> the military once used this as what they imagined could be a truth serum and now there's evidence that suggests that it could help ptsd sufferers. >> yeah and you know, scientists have long been intrigued by the sort of empathic benefits of mdma but now for the first time, there's an fda backed study so that they can see if these results are scientifically quantifiable. >> this serene treatment room nestled in the woods of south carolina... couldn't be further than the pulsing lights and booming music at this electronic music festival. at festivals and nightclubs the illegal drug "molly" or "

. >> welcome to techknow im phil torres joined by marita davison and dr. shini somara. guys there are outlaws out there working in the shadows committing horrible acts against defenseless yet majestic animals. we're talking about the ivory poachers who have decimated the populations in africa. >> it's really alarming because ivory goes for about a thousand dollars a pound, that's more valuable than illegal drugs. >> and you know what that means is that the damage has been devestating over a hundred thousand elephants have been killed in just the last three years and the question is what can we do about it? we found a team of scientists who are using some unexpected weapons- dna and radiocarbon dating- let's check it out. >> april 18th, 2015. thai customs intercepts 4 tons of ivory smuggled in bean sacks from the democratic republic of congo. it is the largest seizure in this country's history. the ivory, on the way to laos, seized in bangkok after a tip. the seizure makes headlines >> thai customs displayed over 3 tons of confiscated african ivory worth 6 million dollar

>> i'm phil torres. now, techknow's journey to the arctic. >> it's summer high up in the arctic circle - and this is what you expect to see - ice as far as the horizon. the only way through it is on this ship - the coast guard cutter healy. it's one of only two ice breakers in the united states built to handle polar ice. the ride can get a little rough. >> that noise there - that's the sound of being in the bow of an icebreaker. >> but there is trouble in this frozen paradise. now images like this are becoming more common in the summer months. we even caught a polar bear. >> look! look on the camera screen, he's dead center. >> we see it moving. >> like many species - forced to search further for ice and food - as sea ice retreats in this part of the world. the arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the globe - and that's causing a sea change in this frontier. summer sea ice has receded close to 25 percent since 1979. on land we saw it, birch trees are sprouting on the tundra, and melting permafr

plans to drill for oil and gas, but that doesn't mean other companies may not try their luck as phil torres reports. >> reporter: the arctic, remote, breath-taking, and one of the world's harshest frontiers. for years it's been a front line in a battle over the future of energy and climate change. temperatures here are rising twice as fast as the rest of the world. the arctic may hold 13% of the world's undiscovered oil. >> what about an oil spill in the arctic? >> i do believe if and when that event occurs, it's going to be a difficult event to deal with. my concern is that there's a fairly short operational window. something long-playing out like deepwater horizon occurred up here, it would be a catastrophe. >> in the sea winter and its ice come early. ice typically begins to form towards the end of ookt. in early july tech know reached out to shell about the exploration plans in the arctic. shell did not agree to an on-camera interview, but in an e-mailed response to questions it seemed confident of its ability in arctic conditions. on the issue of oil spilled in ice, shell wrote through