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‘Clean Hydrogen Hub’ Awardees & Formula One Car Paint
20 oktober 2023 · 24 min
Seven “clean energy hubs” will receive a total of $7B to develop forms of hydrogen production with minimal carbon emissions. And, ahead of the US Grand Prix, an aerodynamicist breaks down the recent engineering changes to F1 cars. Lees meer
Department Of Energy Announces ‘Clean Hydrogen Hub’ Awardees
The Department of Energy announced seven “clean hydrogen hubs,” which will receive a cumulative $7 billion. Each group will use a host of different approaches to produce hydrogen fuel with little or no emissions.
SciFri producer Kathleen Davis talks with Casey Crownhart, climate reporter for MIT Technology Review, to break down the details of this announcement and other top science news of the week, including seals helping map a canyon in Antarctica, the number of living cells in the world, and a very spicy pepper.
Formula One Cars Are Stripping Off Paint To Save Weight
Formula One is known as the pinnacle of motorsport, with cars that can reach speeds of 230 miles per hour. Thanks to the Netflix series Drive To Survive, the sport is more popular than ever.
As engineers prepare for the U.S. Grand Prix in Austin, Texas, this Sunday, teams strive to make their cars as fast as possible. To do so, they try to reduce the ultra-fast cars’ weight by altering the construction of the frame of the car, or finding lighter engine parts. But recently, many teams have been stripping the paint off the cars instead.
Even though paint on an F1 car only adds up to about three pounds, races can be won by milliseconds, so every ounce counts. In the last couple years, many teams made the decision to pare down the amount of paint used on the cars, exposing the natural black color of the carbon fiber below it. It’s why the cars on the grid look darker overall, compared to previous years.
Kyle Forster, a former aerodynamicist for the Mercedes-AMG F1 team and a lead aerodynamicist for JKF Consultants, breaks down the engineering changes made to F1 cars in recent years, the newest in paint scienc…
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What Is Your Cat Doing When You're Not Watching?
19 oktober 2023 · 17 min
In a conversation from 2019, Ira and the researchers behind a “catcam” study discuss the secret lives of your feline friends. Lees meer
If you want the real scoop on what your cat is doing while you’re away, researchers are studying that very question, using cat cameras. Our feline friends spend quite a lot of time outside of our line of sight, and we imagine them napping, bathing, playing, hunting. But that’s merely speculation. To get the data, researchers need to catch them in the act. Maren Huck, Senior Lecturer at the University of Derby in the UK, recently published a methodological study where she successfully tracked the movements of 16 outdoor domestic cats to find out what they were up to. She joins Ira to discuss the findings, which she published in the journal Applied Animal Behavior Science.
Plus, cat behavior specialist and University California, Davis veterinary school researcher Mikel Delgado joins the conversation to talk more about catching cat behavior on camera, and what we can learn from recording their secret lives.
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Transcripts for this segment will be available on sciencefriday.com.
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The Stories Of The First Six Women Astronauts
18 oktober 2023 · 24 min
If you were asked to name the early astronauts, you probably wouldn’t have much trouble; Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, John Glenn come to mind easily enough. But what if you had to name women astronauts, besides Sally Ride? It’s a question that even space nerds might have trouble answering. Lees meer
A new book from space reporter Loren Grush centers those women’s stories. The Six: The Untold Story of America’s First Women Astronauts goes deep into the histories, triumphs, and tragedies of Sally Ride, Judy Resnik, Rhea Saddon, Kathy Sullivan, Shannon Lucid, and Anna Fisher. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration excluded women from its astronauts in the 1960s and ‘70s. The agency changed course in 1978, when it selected these six women from a candidate pool of 8,000.
Ira sits down with Loren Grush, space reporter for Bloomberg News, to talk about why NASA delayed their inclusion, the agency politics the women had to navigate, the pressure they faced from the media, and how they made their mark on the space program.
To stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters. Transcripts for each segment will be available the week after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.
Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri and sign up for our newsletters. Got a science question that’s keeping you up at night? Call us: 877-472-4374
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A Mathematician Asks ‘Is Math Real?’
17 oktober 2023 · 33 min
When math is based on abstract concepts, how do we know it’s correct? Dr. Eugenia Cheng takes on that question in a new book. Lees meer
The concept of math has been around for a long time, developing independently in many different cultures. In 1650 BC, the Egyptians were creating math textbooks on papyrus, with multiplication and division tables. Geometry, like the Pythagorean theorem, was used in ancient Greece. And negative numbers were invented in China around 200 BC.
Some mathematical concepts are easier to understand than others. One apple plus one apple equals two apples, for example. But when it comes to complex equations, negative numbers, and calculus, concepts become abstract. All that abstraction prompts some to wonder: Is math even real?
Mathematician Dr. Eugenia Cheng has heard this question many times over her career. The quandary is the basis of her latest book, Is Math Real?: How Simple Questions Lead Us to Mathematics’ Deepest Truths. She joins Ira from Chicago, Illinois.
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Transcripts for this segment will be available on sciencefriday.com.
Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri and sign up for our newsletters. Got a science question that’s keeping you up at night? Call us: 877-472-4374
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The mRNA Vaccine Revolution
16 oktober 2023 · 13 min
You’ve probably heard that there’s an updated COVID-19 vaccine on the market, and maybe you’ve already gotten your updated booster. But there are new kinds of vaccines in development that go beyond just tweaking protection to better cover circulating variants. Lees meer
In one promising development, researchers adapted the decades-old MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine into one covering measles, mumps, and multiple variants of SARS-CoV-2—and, rather than a shot, they delivered that experimental vaccine via a nasal spray.
Dr. Eric Topol, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, joins Ira to talk about the approach, the advantages of nasal vaccines, and other vaccines on the horizon that make use of the mRNA technology that was the focus of this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Topol hopes that the mRNA approach will be widely applicable to a range of diseases and conditions—from conventional pathogens to cancers and autoimmune disorders.
To stay updated on all-things-science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters. Transcripts for each segment will be available the week after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.
Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri and sign up for our newsletters. Got a science question that’s keeping you up at night? Call us: 877-472-4374
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Ancient Human Footprints & 'Ring Of Fire' Eclipse
13 oktober 2023 · 18 min
A new analysis of ancient footprints in New Mexico adds to the debate about when humans arrived in North America. Plus, astronomer Dean Regas offers tips for safe viewing of Saturday’s eclipse. Lees meer
New Data Support Human Arrival In North America 22,000 Years Ago
In 2021, scientists uncovered ancient human footprints in White Sands, New Mexico. Dating of the footprints suggested that people arrived in North America thousands of years earlier than anthropologists had thought. It sparked fierce debate among researchers, some of whom raised concerns about the radiocarbon dating process used in the original study. Now, a new study provides additional data supporting humans’ arrival in North America 22,000 years ago.
Ira talks with Maggie Koerth, editorial lead at Carbon Plan about the latest in this debate about the peopling of North America and other top science news of the week including how solar storms affect bird migration, why ants are getting ensnared in plastic, and how climate change is improving Bordeaux wine.
This Weekend’s ‘Ring Of Fire’ Eclipse
This Saturday, much of the continental United States will be treated to an astronomical event—an annular solar eclipse. In this type of eclipse, the apparent sizes of the moon and sun don’t align perfectly to Earth-bound viewers, resulting in a solar “ring of fire” shining around the edges of a moon nestled inside the boundaries of the sun.
The best viewing will come in a 125-mile-wide band known as the path of annularity, which will stretch from Eugene, Oregon to San Antonio, Texas, and then on into Mexico and Central America. Viewers outside that band will still be able to see some parts of the eclipse, with the percent coverage depending on how far they are from that central line.
Even though the sun will be partly covered, it is NOT safe to look directly at the sun without eclipse glasses. If you don’t have glasses, you can look at a projection of the sun through a pinhole onto the ground or another surface—bu…
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Saltwater Wedge In The Mississippi & Kenya's Geothermal Boom
12 oktober 2023 · 19 min
A Saltwater Wedge Is Moving Up The Mississippi River Lees meer
As the Mississippi River drops to one of its lowest levels in recent history, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said salt water from the Gulf of Mexico could threaten drinking water as far north as New Orleans’ French Quarter if no action is taken.
On Friday, the Corps announced plans to avoid that scenario by building upon an existing underwater barrier that has been in place to block the progression of salt water from intruding farther upriver since July. At its current height, the Corps expects the salt water creeping up the bottom of the Mississippi River to overtop the barrier later this week, sometime around Sept. 22.
If that were to happen, the salt water would begin affecting drinking water in Belle Chasse by early October.
To read more, visit sciencefriday.com.
Kenya’s Geothermal Boom Could Help Power Africa
Beneath Kenya, the African tectonic plate is splitting in two. That cleave creates hydrothermal vents, ripe for harnessing geothermal energy. This is a renewable source of energy derived from hot water that bubbles up from deep underground. When it comes to the surface, it turns into steam. That steam can be used to spin a turbine connected to a generator, and voilá: electricity.
Kenya began to tap into this natural supply in the 1950s, and now the East African nation is the seventh largest geothermal energy producer in the world. The Kenyan government has said that the country’s untapped resources are enough to meet its peak energy demands five times over. That’s a big deal on a continent where more than 40% of people lack electricity.
Joining guest host Flora Lichtman to talk about this is Geoffrey Kamadi, a freelance science journalist based in Nairobi, Kenya.
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Transcripts for each segment will be available the week after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.
Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instag…
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How Artists And Scientists Collaborated To Make Art About HIV
11 oktober 2023 · 18 min
How Artists And Scientists Collaborated To Make Art About HIV Lees meer
This past July, the 12th International Conference on HIV Science was held in Brisbane, Australia. But this wasn’t your typical scientific conference. Yes, findings were presented on the latest in HIV research, but it culminated in a museum exhibition.
12 HIV-positive artists were paired with 12 scientists, and each pair collaborated on a piece of art, largely based on the scientists’ research. One of the pieces attracted a bit more attention than the others.
Kairon Liu, an artist, curator, and photographer, and Kane Race, a professor of gender and cultural studies at the University of Sydney, wanted to create something that commented on the negative effects of global HIV policy and the current stigma of living with the disease. The resulting piece is titled Untransmittable, a transparent penis-shaped sculpture filled with thousands of expired antiretroviral pills.
Science Friday producer and Universe of Art host D. Peterschmidt sat down with Liu and Race to talk about the piece they made, why they couldn’t take it over the Australian border, and their hopes for future HIV research.
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Transcripts for each segment will be available the week after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.
Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri and sign up for our newsletters. Got a science question that’s keeping you up at night? Call us: 877-472-4374
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Full-Body MRIs Promise To Detect Disease Early. Do They Work?
10 oktober 2023 · 19 min
The latest trend in celebrity health care is full-body MRI scans, with influencers like Kim Kardashian endorsing them. These scans aren’t covered by health insurance, and run over $2,000 out of pocket. Lees meer
Typically, a new diagnostic tool is marketed to doctors and radiologists. But companies like Prenuvo are now marketing directly to consumers. They claim that their scans will catch early signs of cancer, aneurysms, liver diseases and even multiple sclerosis.
It’s an appealing promise. If you can afford it, wouldn’t it be nice to catch cancer super early? Could it even save your life? Unfortunately, it’s more complicated than that. Simply put, the potential harms far outweigh any possible benefits of such a scan.
Guest host Flora Lichtman separates fact from fad with Dr. Rebecca Smith-Bindman, professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at University of California, San Francisco’s School of Medicine, and director of the Radiology Outcomes Research Laboratory, based in San Francisco, California.
To stay updated on all-things-science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.
Transcripts for each segment will be available the week after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.
Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri and sign up for our newsletters. Got a science question that’s keeping you up at night? Call us: 877-472-4374
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Meet The Doctor Who Solves Medical Mysteries
9 oktober 2023 · 18 min
A news story was circulating a few months ago—a woman in Australia came into the hospital with abdominal pain. She was increasingly forgetful and struggling with depression. Her doctors were stumped for over a year. What was causing her symptoms? Turns out she had a three-inch parasitic worm living in her brain. They took it out, and she recovered. Lees meer
How do doctors crack cases like this? How do you even know to check for a brain worm? This is the specialty of Dr. Joe DeRisi. When doctors run into a diagnostic dead end they call him. In his world, brain worms aren’t even that rare. (Ask him about brain-eating amoebas.)
Guest host Flora Lichtman talks with Dr. DeRisi, professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco’s School of Medicine and president of the Chan Zuckerberg BioHub San Francisco, about his fascinating work solving some of the most vexing medical mysteries, and how it may even help detect the next pandemic-inducing pathogen.
To stay updated on all-things-science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.
Transcripts for each segment will be available the week after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.
Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri and sign up for our newsletters. Got a science question that’s keeping you up at night? Call us: 877-472-4374
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mRNA Research Wins Nobel Prize & Lightning On Venus
6 oktober 2023 · 25 min
An mRNA Advance Wins A Nobel Prize Lees meer
This week, a handful of scientists scattered around the world got surprise telephone calls announcing that they will be receiving Nobel Prizes. On Monday, the prize in medicine or physiology was announced. It went to Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman, scientists who developed the modifications to mRNA that made the biomolecule a viable strategy for creating vaccines. On Tuesday, the Nobel in physics went to Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier, who created techniques to illuminate the movement of electrons using attosecond-length pulses of light. And on Wednesday Moungi G. Bawendi, Louis E. Brus and Alexei I. Ekimov learned that they had won the prize in chemistry for their work with tiny bits of semiconductor material known as quantum dots.
Umair Irfan, staff writer at Vox, joins guest host Flora Lichtman to talk about the winners and their advances, and to share other stories from the week in science, including an FCC fine for a satellite company’s space junk, concerns over drought in the Amazon rainforest, and a tale of fighting a coral-threatening algal bloom using hungry crabs.
Venus Lightning Debate Gets Lit
Venus is an inhospitable place. The longest any spacecraft has survived on the planet’s surface is thought to be around two hours. It’s blazing hot. It has bone-crushing atmospheric pressure and clouds made of sulfuric acid. But is there lightning?
Flybys of Venus have detected electromagnetic signals in the radio spectrum called “whistler waves” that, on Earth, are associated with lightning strikes. So some experts speculated that Venus might have lightning too—perhaps a lot of lightning. But there was no hard proof. The question of Venusian lightning has been a topic of electric debate among scientists for some 40 years.
A study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters last month used data from the Parker Solar Probe to argue that the whistler waves around Venus may have a different caus…
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Placebo Effect, Technoableism, Florida Citrus, Neuroscience Music. Sept 29, 2023, Part 2
29 september 2023 · 48 min
The Science Behind The Placebo Effect Lees meer
Earlier this month, a Food and Drug Administration panel concluded that a common decongestant ingredient used in drugs like Sudafed and NyQuil doesn’t work. The panel agreed that while the ingredient, called phenylephrine, isn’t dangerous, it doesn’t work any better than a placebo.
That made us wonder: How well do placebos work? And why do they work even when people know they’re getting a placebo?
Ted J. Kaptchuk, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of the Program in Placebo Studies and Therapeutic Encounter at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, joins guest host and musician Dessa to talk about what’s new in placebo research. They discuss the benefits placebos can offer for chronic illness management, and when doctors might start using them in treatments.
Where Technology Meets Ableism
With all the bad news on our feeds, a feel-good story can be a welcome reprieve. But what happens when that story comes in the form of coverage of disability technology?
You might’ve seen the videos online of a person with a physical disability being fitted with an exoskeleton, essentially “wearing” a robot, to help them walk. Onlookers cheer in the background, dramatic music swells, and we get the sense we’re watching something inspirational and empowering—a victory of the human spirit.
This might seem like a triumph of scientific innovation, but our guest asks us to look again at what’s actually going on in narratives like this one.
Dr. Ashley Shew, associate professor at Virginia Tech, studies the intersection of disability and technology and how our collective fixation on these fancy, supposedly transformative gadgets could be doing more harm than good. In her new book, she coins the term “technoableism” to get to the heart of the matter.Guest host and musician Dessa talks with Dr. Shew about her book Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement, about what disability technology is, what the futu…
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Vision and the Brain, Jellypalooza. Sept 29, 2023, Part 1
29 september 2023 · 48 min
After 7 Years, NASA Gets Its Asteroid Sample Lees meer
About a week ago, space nerds got the delivery of a lifetime: a sample from Bennu, an asteroid soaring through the galaxy, currently about 200 million miles away. The capsule of rocks and dust came courtesy of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx, the first U.S. mission to collect a sample from an asteroid.
Scientists hope it’ll help unveil some of the mysteries of our universe, like how the sun and planets came to exist or how life began. Guest host and musician Dessa talks with Sophie Bushwick, technology editor at Scientific American, about this week in science. They also chat about how antimatter interacts with gravity, the new RSV vaccine for pregnant people, why LED streetlights are turning purple, and how beetles came to dominate all other species, especially ants.
How You See With Your Brain
Ever try to take a picture of a spectacular moon that looks like it fills up half the sky? And then you look at the photo, and the moon looks like a tiny dumb ping-pong ball? And you want to march into the Apple store and demand to know why this pocket-size device fails to capture the wonder of the cosmos properly?
The majesty of that supermoon you saw might be in your head as much as it is in the sky—your brain does a lot more than just receive data reports from your eyes. Vision is complicated. Seeing involves a lot of interpretation, of which you’re usually unaware.
Guest host and musician Dessa talks with neuroscientist Dr. Cheryl Olman, associate professor in the University of Minnesota’s psychology department, about her work to better understand how the brain processes visual information using sophisticated fMRI techniques, including studying the brains of people with schizophrenia.
Are Jellyfish Smarter Than We Think?
Jellyfish are known for their graceful, hypnotic movement through the water—and for occasionally stinging swimmers. One thing they’re not known for, however, is intelligence. A study published in the journal Current…
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Ocean Climate Solutions, Florida Corals, Climate Video Games. Sept 22, 2023, Part 2
23 september 2023 · 47 min
Florida’s Reefs Are Vanishing. Can Scientists Save Them? Lees meer
This was a bad year for Florida’s coral reefs. Since the 1970s, reef cover in the Florida Keys has decreased by 90%. Those remaining reefs have been subjected to water temperatures higher than 100 degrees Fahrenheit, alongside other threats like disease and ocean acidification. This is a big problem for the largest reef in the continental U.S., which plays an important role in protecting the shorelines from erosion and storms.
Scientists are scrambling to preserve as much of the reef as possible. One method marine biologists are focused on is selectively breeding corals in labs. Scientists look for the specimens most resilient to heat stress, then breed them together to create hardy offspring. Those spawn are then implanted into the reef, with hopes of bolstering the existing structure.
Vox environmental reporter Benji Jones joins Ira to talk about his dives to Florida’s Pickles Reef, and the differences he saw between this year and last year. Then, Ira speaks with marine biologist Andrew Baker at the University of Miami about his efforts to bolster Florida’s reefs.
The Ocean Is A Climate Ally
Did you know that the ocean absorbs about a quarter of all CO2 emissions? And about 90% of excess heat? It’s the largest carbon sink we have—and one of our biggest allies in the climate movement.
Ira talks with Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, marine biologist and co-founder of the non-profit Urban Ocean Lab, as well as the climate initiative The All We Can Save Project. They chat about climate solutions—like the newly launched Climate Corps—the power of the ocean, and steps forward. Dr. Johnson is also the curator for Climate Futurism, an art exhibition at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, New York.
Feeling Hopeless About Climate Change? Try Playing These Video Games
This segment, originally from 2022, was re-aired this week.
Five years ago, Stephanie Barish was tired of the public’s attitude about climate change. “Most …
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Our Fragile Moment, Climate Comedy. Sept 22, 2023, Part 1
22 september 2023 · 47 min
A Week Of Climate Protests, Meetings, Pledges, And Action Lees meer
Climate Week NYC is wrapping up, where hundreds of events took place across the city (including one from Science Friday), all with the goal of encouraging conversation and action around our climate crisis.
The weeklong event takes place alongside the UN General Assembly meeting, where world leaders discussed climate change, alongside other topics, including the war in Ukraine and universal health coverage.
While President Biden emphasized the importance of reducing the use of fossil fuels to combat climate change, there was a notable absence of leaders from the world’s biggest polluters, including Biden and president Xi Jinping of China, from the meeting’s Climate Ambition Summit. UN Secretary-General António Guterres said that in order to participate, governments need to come with “credible, serious and new climate action.”
Large demonstrations also took place across the city, pressuring leaders and companies to take bigger action to end gas, oil, and coal use.
Swapna Krishna, a journalist based in Philadelphia, talks with Ira about these stories and more, including a new climate jobs program from the White House, a lawsuit from California against the five big oil companies, new battery recycling rules from the EU, and data from the Parker Solar Probe’s recent flight through a sun explosion.
Can Earth’s Past Climate Help Us Understand Today’s Crisis?
A combination of factors led to Earth’s climate being able to support life. And changes in the climate some 6,000 years ago created the conditions for human civilization to flourish. It’s a delicate balance on the verge of collapse, due to our reliance on burning fossil fuels.
Ira talks with paleoclimatologist Dr. Michael Mann about his forthcoming book Our Fragile Moment: How Lessons from Earth’s Past Can Help Us Survive the Climate Crisis, about the importance of understanding our planet’s climate history, and strategies to get policymakers to take ac…
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New Covid Vaccine, Moroccan Earthquake, Native Bees. Sept 15, 2023, Part 2
16 september 2023 · 48 min
New COVID Boosters Arrive Amid Rise In Infections Lees meer
This past week, the FDA and CDC recommended new COVID vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna for anyone over the age of six months. They’re expected to be in larger pharmacies by the end of the week. It’s welcome news for some, as cases have ticked up over the summer, accompanied by higher hospital admissions and deaths.
The boosters join a suite of other vaccines to combat respiratory illness this fall, including this year’s flu shot and the new RSV vaccine, recommended especially for children and the elderly.
Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, epidemiologist, adjunct professor at UTHealth School of Public Health, and author of the Your Local Epidemiologist newsletter, joins Ira to talk about the details of the new boosters, how long you should wait to get one if you were recently infected, masking recommendations, and if you can get all three shots at once.
The Science Behind Devastating Earthquakes
On September 8, 2023 at 11:11 PM local time, a 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck Morocco’s High Atlas mountains. So far, more than 2,500 people died and thousands more were injured or lost.
Other natural disasters usually give off warning signs; we can predict when a volcano will explode, ring the alarms when a tsunami starts to build, or evacuate before a hurricane makes landfall, but we still can’t detect earthquakes before they strike. And victims are left to face “the particular trauma that comes from watching the world around you crumble in an instant,” writes science journalist Robin George Andrews for The Atlantic.
Ira talks with Andrews about the specifics of this earthquake, where the science stands with earthquake detection, and the particular kind of trauma that comes from watching the world crumble.
The Buzz On Native Bees In Your Neighborhood
When you think ‘bees,’ you probably think of a neat stack of white hive boxes and the jars of honey on the store shelves. But there’s a lot more to bees than the agricultural sta…
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Radioactive Wildlife, Bus Stop Heat, Football Jersey Numbers. Sept 15, 2023, Part 1
15 september 2023 · 47 min
Astronomers Find Exoplanet That May Be Covered In Water Lees meer
Scientists using the James Webb Space Telescope made an exciting discovery this week: Exoplanet K2-18 b, 120 light years away from our solar system, could be covered by a water ocean, similar to Earth. Astronomers say this could be a big leap in our exploration of life on other planets.
This news comes amid another JWST discovery: The earliest black holes seem to be much larger than black holes today. This news also provides evidence that black holes can form without stars, a theorized phenomenon that has never been directly observed.
Joining Ira to talk about these and other science stories of the week is Tim Revell, Deputy U.S. Editor of New Scientist, based in New York, New York.
What Radioactive Animals Teach Us About Nuclear Fallout
When you hear the words “radioactive wildlife,” your brain probably jumps to Chernobyl’s wolves, which—despite the odds—are still thriving at the site of the nuclear disaster. Or maybe you’ve heard of the rat snakes in Fukushima that pick up radioactive contamination as they slither around.
Well, it’s time to add two more to that list of radioactive critters: turtles and wild boar. They’re the subjects of two new studies that looked at radioactivity in wildlife and mapped out where it came from.
Ira talks with Dr. Cyler Conrad, archaeologist at Pacific Northwest National Lab in Richland, Washington who worked on the turtle study, and Dr. Georg Steinhauser, professor of applied radiochemistry at the Vienna University of Technology in Austria, who studied boar. They chat about the two studies, how wildlife can clue us into radioactive contamination, and what we can learn from critters in nuclear fallout zones.
Waiting for the Bus in Houston is Hot. And Dangerous.
It was a hot summer day and Glory Medina and her daughter Jade, who was 3 at the time, were running a quick errand at the grocery store near their apartment in Gulfton. They had taken the bus and once they arri…
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Tree Soil, Rodent Biologist, Soundscape Artist. Sept 8, 2023, Part 2
9 september 2023 · 47 min
Where Soil Grows Above The Trees Lees meer
You might be used to the feeling of Earth under your feet, but did you know that there’s soil high above your head? Way up in the treetops, where ferns, mosses, flowers, and even trees grow on top of the forest. A new study in Geoderma describes the factors that contribute to how canopy soil is formed.
Ira talks with lead author Jessica Murray, an ecologist and PhD candidate at Utah State University in Logan, Utah. They discuss the importance of canopy soil, what we do and don’t know about it, and what it’s like to study it.
Check out views from Murray’s field sites at sciencefriday.com!
‘I Will Not Be Vole Girl’—A Biologist Warms To Rodents
The path to becoming a scientist is not unlike the scientific process itself: Filled with dead ends, detours, and bumps along the way.
Danielle Lee started asking questions about animal behavior when she was a kid. She originally wanted to become a veterinarian. But after being rejected from veterinary school, she found a fulfilling career as a biologist, doing the type of work she always wanted to do—but never knew was possible for her.
Science Friday producer Shoshannah Buxbaum talks with Dr. Danielle Lee, a biologist, outreach scientist, and assistant professor in biology at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in Edwardsville Illinois about what keeps her asking questions, what rodents can help us understand about humans, and the importance of increasing diversity in science.
This Soundscape Artist Has Been Listening To The Planet For Decades
Jim Metzner is one of the pioneers of science radio—he’s been making field recordings and sharing them with audiences for more than 40 years. He hosted shows such as “Sounds of Science” in the 1980s, which later grew into “Pulse of the Planet,” a radio show about “the sound of life on Earth.”
Over the decades, Metzner has created an incredible time capsule of soundscapes, and now, his entire collection is going to the Library of Congress.…
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Embryo Model, Sweat, Whale Vocal Fry. September 8, 2023, Part 1
8 september 2023 · 47 min
Scientists Develop Human Embryo Model Without Sperm Or Eggs Lees meer
This week, research published in the journal Nature detailed a model of a 14-day old human embryo created without using sperm or eggs. The hope is to shine a light into a previously unavailable window of an embryo’s development, potentially helping to better understand miscarriages and side effects of medications taken during pregnancy.
Ira talks with Casey Crownhart, climate and energy reporter at MIT Technology Review to talk about that and other top science news of the week including Japan’s rocket launch to the moon, zinc batteries, and newly discovered toxic bird species.
Sweating Is Our Biological Superpower
Sweat may feel like a constant summer companion, whether or not you exercise frequently. Being damp can feel uncomfortable, but the smells that follow—thanks to the lives and deaths of sweat-munching bacteria—are often socially stigmatized as well. (Deodorant itself is actually a very recent invention!)
But sweat isn’t just a cosmetic embarrassment: It’s crucial to keeping us cool, as the evaporating liquid pulls heat energy from our bodies. If you look at animals that don’t sweat, many have evolved alternate adaptations like peeing or even pooping on body parts to achieve that vital evaporative effect. People who are born unable to sweat run a constant risk of heatstroke.
Ira talks to Sarah Everts, author of the new book, The Joy Of Sweat, about what makes sweat useful, the cool chemistry of this bodily fluid, and why it’s our evolutionary superpower.
Vocal Fry Serves Up Treats For Toothed Whales
Toothed whales—species like orcas, bottlenose whales, and dolphins—use echolocation to zero in on prey about a mile deep into the ocean.
Until now, scientists couldn’t quite figure out how the whales were making these clicking sounds in the deep ocean, where there’s little oxygen.
A new study published in the journal Science, finds the key to underwater echolocation is vocal fry. Although in w…
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An AI for Smell, Heat and Agricultural Workers, Golden Lion Tamarin, Y Chromosome. Sept 1, 2023, Part 2
2 september 2023 · 48 min
What’s That Smell? An AI Nose Knows Lees meer
If you want to predict the color of something, you can talk about wavelengths of light. Light with a wavelength of around 460 nanometers is going to look blue. If you want to predict what something sounds like, frequencies can be a guide—a frequency of around 261 Hertz should sound like the musical note middle C.
Predicting smells is more difficult. While we know that many sulfur-containing molecules tend to fall somewhere in the ‘rotten egg’ or ‘skunky’ category, predicting other aromas based solely on a chemical structure is hard. Molecules with a similar chemical structure may smell quite different—while two molecules with very different chemical structures can smell the same.
This week in the journal Science, researchers describe developing an AI model that, given the structure of a chemical compound, can roughly predict where it’s likely to fall on a map of odors. For example, is it grassy? Or more meaty? Perhaps floral?
Dr. Joel Mainland is one of the authors of that report. He’s a member of the Monell Chemical Senses Center and an adjunct associate professor in the department of neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Mainland joins Ira to talk about the mystery of odor, and his hope that odor maps like the one developed by the AI model could bring scientists closer to identifying the odor equivalent of the three primary colors—base notes that could be mixed and blended to create all other smells.
As Temperatures Rise, Farmworkers Are Unprotected
Juan Peña, 28, has worked in the fields since childhood, often exposing his body to extreme heat like the wave that hit the Midwest last week.
The heat can cause such deep pain in his whole body that he just wants to lie down, he said, as his body tells him he can’t take another day on the job. On those days, his only motivation to get out of bed is to earn dollars to send to his 10-month-old baby in Mexico.
To read more, visit sciencefriday.com.
T…
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US Surgeon General On Mental Health, Tracking Tick Bites. Sept 1, 2023, Part 1
1 september 2023 · 47 min
What To Expect From Hurricane Season Lees meer
We’re approaching the peak of hurricane season, which is usually around mid-September. It’s that time of year when it feels like there’s a new storm every week, and we blow through the alphabet trying to name them. This week, Hurricane Idalia made landfall around Florida’s Big Bend as a Category 3 storm, which caused a few fatalities, left hundreds of thousands of people without power, and some without homes. So what do we know about Idalia, and what can we expect from the rest of the hurricane season?
Ira talks with Rachel Feltman, editor at large at Popular Science, about hurricane season and other science news of the week. They chat about what we’re learning from India’s lunar rover, a three-inch roundworm pulled out of someone’s brain, a new study about public health and air pollution, heavy metals in marijuana products, what an ancient Egyptian mummy smells like, and a turtle named Tally, who is far from home.
The Surgeon General Warns About An Epidemic Of Loneliness
The early days of the COVID-19 pandemic were lonely for many, upending their social lives. But loneliness pre-dates COVID, especially among young people. In a recent advisory, the United States surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy warned that the negative health effects of loneliness and isolation are comparable to smoking daily. Despite being more technologically connected than ever before, the Surgeon General’s Office is also raising concerns about the harms of social media on youth mental health.
Ira sits down for a conversation with the United States surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, about the intersection of youth mental health, social media, and loneliness. Dr. Murthy outlines both public policy and community interventions that can help strengthen America’s emotional well being and social connections.
Keeping Tabs On Tick Bites
If you live in the Midwest or Northeast, you’re probably aware of an issue that’s gotten worse over the years: ticks, and th…
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Old Things Considered: La Brea, Megalodon, Dino Footprints, Surviving History. Aug 25, 2023, Part 2
26 augustus 2023 · 47 min
How Early Humans May Have Transformed L.A.’s Landscape Forever Lees meer
Join us on a time traveling adventure, as we go back 15,000 years to visit what’s now southern California. During the last Ice Age, saber-toothed cats, wooly mammoths, and dire wolves prowled the landscape, until … they didn’t. The end of the Ice Age coincided with the end of these species. And for decades, scientists have been trying to figure out a big question: Why did these animals go extinct?
A new study in the journal Science offers new clues and suggests that wildfires caused by humans might’ve been the nail in these critters’ coffins.
Guest host Flora Lichtman talks with paleoecologist Dr. Emily Lindsey and paleobotanist Dr. Regan Dunn, both curators at the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum in Los Angeles, California, about what we can learn from animals preserved in tar pits, how fire transformed the ecosystem, and why we have to look to the past for modern day conservation and land management.
How Scientifically Accurate Are The Sharks In ‘Meg 2: The Trench’?
“Meg 2: The Trench” is the sequel to the 2018 movie “The Meg,” in which a team of ocean scientists discover a megalodon, the largest shark that ever lived, thriving at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Megalodon went extinct over 2.6 million years ago … or so the movie’s characters thought.
When the team’s research sub gets damaged, a skilled rescue diver, played by Jason Statham, is brought in, who happened to have encountered the same megalodon years earlier. Over the course of the movie, the team discovers how this long-thought extinct apex predator survived, and what they can do to stop it before it wreaks havoc on the surface world.
“Meg 2: The Trench” largely follows in that movie’s footsteps, but this time, it features not just one, but multiple megalodons. Oh, and they’re even bigger this time.
Universe of Art host D. Peterschmidt chats with Dr. Sora Kim, an associate professor of paleoecology at University of California, Merced…
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Sea Otters, Alaskan Minerals, Salmon Restoration. Aug 25, 2023, Part 1
25 augustus 2023 · 47 min
Countries Seek To Return To The Moon Lees meer
On Wednesday, the Indian space agency ISRO celebrated as its Chandrayaan-3 craft successfully made a soft landing at the lunar south pole. This is the first mission to explore the region around the moon’s southern pole, and a major success for ISRO. The mission plans to use a robotic rover to conduct a series of experiments over the course of about 2 weeks, largely centered around the availability of water and oxygen-containing materials.
Less than a week earlier, a Russian craft, Luna-25, crashed onto the moon. It would have been Russia’s first moon landing in 47 years. The cause of the crash is not yet known. Maggie Koerth, science journalist and editorial lead for CarbonPlan, joins guest host Flora Lichtman to talk about the two lunar missions and whether the flurry of activity signals a new space race.
They’ll also discuss other stories from the week in science, including a new analysis of the Y chromosome, work on the camouflage skin of the hogfish, and a setback in a mission to clear up space junk.
What’s The Human Cost Of Alaska’s Mineral Boom?
A dusting of snow clings to the highway as Barbara Schuhmann drives around a hairpin curve near her home in Fairbanks, Alaska. She slows for a patch of ice, explaining that the steep turn is just one of many concerns she has about a looming project that could radically transform Alaskan mining as the state begins looking beyond oil.
Roughly 250 miles to the southeast, plans are developing to dig an open-pit gold mine called Manh Choh, or “big lake” in Upper Tanana Athabascan. Kinross Alaska, the majority owner and operator, will haul the rock on the Alaska Highway and other roads to a processing mill just north of Fairbanks. The route follows the Tanana River across Alaska’s interior, where spruce-covered foothills knuckle below the stark peaks of the Alaska Range. Snowmelt feeds the creeks that form a mosaic of muskeg in nearby Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge, a migration co…
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Women Athletes, Stem Cell Cornea Repair, Sand. August 18, 2023, Part 2
18 augustus 2023 · 47 min
Challenging The Gender Gap In Sports Science Lees meer
This weekend, Spain and England face off in the Women’s World Cup Finals in Sydney, Australia.
The first Women’s World Cup was in 1991, and the games were only 80 minutes, compared to the 90-minute games played by men. Part of the rationale was that women just weren’t tough enough to play a full 90 minutes of soccer.
This idea of women as the “weaker sex” is everywhere in early scientific studies of athletic performance. Sports science was mainly concerned with men’s abilities. Even now, most participants in sports science research are men.
Luckily things are changing, and more girls and women are playing sports than ever before. There’s a little more research about women too, as well as those who fall outside the gender binary.
SciFri producer Kathleen Davis talks with Christine Yu, a health and sports journalist and author of Up To Speed: The Groundbreaking Science of Women Athletes, about the gap in sport science about women.
Using Stem Cells For Cornea Repair Is Worth A Look
Each year in the US, over 40,000 people receive transplants of the cornea—the clear front part of the eye that light goes through first. Still more patients with damaged corneas might receive artificial corneas to help restore clear vision. But if an eye has been damaged by a chemical burn or another severe eye injury, neither of those treatments may be possible.
Now an early, Phase 1 clinical trial is reporting positive results using a stem cell technique called CALEC. It grows cells from a patient’s healthy eye, and then grafts them back into the damaged eye, either to support corneal tissue regrowth or as a foundation for a traditional transplant.
Dr. Ula Jurkunas, associate director of the Cornea Service at Mass Eye and Ear, and Dr. Jerome Ritz, the executive director of the Connell and O’Reilly Families Cell Manipulation Core Facility at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, join Ira to talk about how the process works, and the challenges o…
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Covid Update, Brain Fog Research, Toilet to Tap. Aug 18, 2023, Part 1
18 augustus 2023 · 47 min
Youth Climate Activists Score A Win In Montana Lees meer
This week, a state court in Montana ruled in favor of a group of 16 youth climate activists, who argued that a state environmental law was in violation of a provision in the state constitution. The Montana constitution states: “The state and each person shall maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and future generations.” The ruling will allow (but not require) regulators to consider climate impacts when evaluating proposed energy projects for approval.
Umair Irfan, staff writer at Vox, joins Ira to talk about the decision and what it might mean for other climate-related litigation around the country. They’ll also discuss other science news of the week, including some strange particle physics from Fermilab, the end of the road for the common incandescent light bulb, and how researchers decoded a snippet of song — using electrodes on a brain.
COVID-19’s Summer Wave Raises New Questions
Step outside into a public place, and you may experience some deja-vu: Masking is back up, the coughs and sniffles are echoing, and coworkers are calling in sick. It’s not just your imagination—hospitalizations from COVID-19 are up 14.3 percent for the week of August 5. This new wave has a name: EG. 5, named for the recent Omicron variant that is now the most prevalent.
With new boosters on the horizon, Ira catches up with Dr. Angela Rasmussen, virologist at VIDO, the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, at the University of Saskatchewan. They answer questions about the new monovalent booster, testing guidance, and why COVID-19 is still a public health problem.
New Research Suggests Neurological Culprit For COVID Brain Fog
Among the most debilitating symptoms of Long Covid is brain fog, a condition which includes symptoms like confusion or inability to concentrate.
A recently published study using mice cells in petri dishes suggests that brain fog might be the result of neurons fusing…
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Hawai’i Wildfires, Blue-Fin Tuna Science, Maine’s New Lithium Deposit. August 11, 2023, Part 1
11 augustus 2023 · 45 min
We have a new podcast! It’s called Universe Of Art, and it’s all about artists who use science to bring their creations to the next level. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Lees meer
Devastating Fires Might Become More Common In Hawaii
As of Friday morning, at least 55 were dead and thousands were seeking shelter on Maui, after wildfires tore across the Hawaiian island. Officials there say that the fires, once rare, have caused billions of dollars in damage, and the Biden administration has made federal disaster relief available.
The fires were driven by strong, dry winds from nearby Hurricane Dora, and were made worse by ongoing drought conditions. The region has grown hotter and drier, and highly flammable invasive grasses have been crowding out native vegetation.
Bethany Brookshire, freelance science journalist and author of the book Pests: How Humans Created Animal Villains, joins Ira Flatow to talk about this story and others from this week in science news, including an investigation into unknown genes in our genome, a 390 million year-old moss that might not survive climate change, and a fish that plays hide and seek to get to its prey.
A Tuna’s Reel Life Adventures
Bluefin tuna is typically sliced into small pieces, its ruby red flesh rolled into sushi. But don’t let those tiny sashimi slices fool you. Bluefin tuna are colossal creatures—on average, they’re about 500 pounds. The biggest one ever caught was a whopping 1,500 pounds. They can travel thousands of miles at breakneck speeds, and their skin changes color!
The fish, once in danger of extinction, have now rebounded due to a combination of scientific advances and possibly as a result of climate change.
Ira talks with Karen Pinchin, science journalist and author of the new book, Kings of Their Own Ocean: Tuna, Obsession, and The Future of Our Seas about a tuna nicknamed Amelia who traveled across the world, the fisherman who tagged her, and what their stories can help …
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Pod Pregnancy Movie, Increase In Deep-Sea Mining, Upcoming Astronomical Delights. August 11, 2023, Part 2
11 augustus 2023 · 47 min
We have a new podcast! It’s called Universe Of Art, and it’s all about artists who use science to bring their creations to the next level. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Lees meer
In ‘The Pod Generation,’ Pregnancy Goes High-Tech
In the new movie The Pod Generation, a wife named Rachel, played by Emilia Clarke, and her husband Alvy, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, want to start a family. In the movie’s near future, you don’t have to have a baby by getting pregnant, or using IVF, or going through a surrogate.
If you’re lucky, you can get a reservation at The Womb Center, where you can grow your baby inside a convenient, high-tech, egg-shaped pod. Pressured by her friends and her work’s HR department, Rachel decides to give The Womb Center a shot.
Science Friday producer and Universe of Art host D. Peterschmidt sat down with the film’s writer and director, Sophie Barthes, to talk about what inspired her to make the movie, and what may be lost in the thoughtless pursuit of technology.
The Rising Tide Against Deep Sea Mining
The ocean’s seabed is filled with minerals like copper, nickel, and cobalt—the very raw materials that tech companies use to make electronics and batteries. Some view it as fertile ground to mine and exploit, launching an underwater mining rush.
Last month, world leaders gathered in Kingston, Jamaica to hash out the future of deep sea mining. For years, the International Seabed Authority—the organization in charge of authorizing and controlling mineral operations on the seafloor—has been trying and failing to put together a set of guidelines for deep sea mining.
Ira talks with Dr. Diva Amon, marine biologist at the Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory at the University of California Santa Barbara and director of the non-profit SpeSeas, based in Trinidad and Tobago. They talk through the science of deep sea mining, the policies being debated, and what the world risks losing. Then, Ira talks with Solomon Pili Kahoʻohalaha…
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Answering Evolution Questions, Planetary Protection. Aug 4, 2023, Part 2
4 augustus 2023 · 47 min
We have a new podcast! It’s called Universe Of Art, and it’s all about artists who use science to bring their creations to the next level. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Lees meer
Protecting Other Planets From Earth’s Germs
For decades, people have been trying to figure out how to avoid contaminating other planets as they explore them—an idea called planetary protection. As missions venture forth to places such as Mars or Jupiter’s moon, Europa, the need to protect worlds that could support life becomes more critical. And at the same time, as space programs begin to bring samples back to Earth from places like Mars or asteroids, planetary protection becomes a concern in another way—the need to protect Earth from potential unknown life forms from the cosmos.
Sending humans to another world raises the stakes even more. NASA has a limit of no more than 300,000 spores (single-celled organisms) allowed on board robotic Mars landers. But human bodies contain trillions of microorganisms, making it impossible for human missions to achieve the same level of microbial cleanliness as robotic landers.
Dr. Nick Benardini is a NASA official responsible for ensuring that the proper precautions are made to prevent humans from contaminating outer space. Ira Flatow spoke to him about how to avoid spreading microbes between planets.
Ask An Expert: An Evolution Education
Most people raised in the U.S. were taught about evolution in science class growing up. But how much do you actually remember? Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species or Gregor Mendel’s pea plant experiments may ring a bell, but it’s likely most of us could use a refresher.
A good grasp on the science of evolution is extra important these days, argues Prosanta Chakrabarty, author of the new book, Explaining Life Through Evolution, and curator of fishes at Louisiana State University. In 2008, Louisiana’s governor signed the Louisiana Science Education Act, which allows schools to t…
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Artificial Sweetener Safety, Nuclear Weapons Tech. Aug 4, 2023, Part 1
4 augustus 2023 · 47 min
We have a new podcast! It’s called Universe Of Art, and it’s all about artists who use science to bring their creations to the next level. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Lees meer
A Possible Breakthrough Superconductor Has Scientists Split
Recently, a superconducting material went viral in the scientific community. Researchers in South Korea say they’ve discovered a room-temperature, ambient-pressure superconductor. If it works, it would create electricity under normal, everyday conditions.
But some scientists are hesitant to applaud this purported breakthrough. This field has a long history of supposed breakthroughs, many of which turn out to be not so superconducting after all.
In other science news, NASA has detected a ‘heartbeat’ from the Voyager 2 spacecraft, which lost contact last month. This may allow scientists to reestablish contact with the spacecraft before its expected October 15 date.
Joining Ira to talk about these stories and more is Sophie Bushwick, technology editor for Scientific American, based in New York, New York.
How Oppenheimer’s Bombs Compare To Today’s Nukes
On the day the film Oppenheimer came out, Science Friday discussed the history of the Manhattan Project, including the legacy of the Trinity Test, where the world’s very first nuclear weapon was detonated in the desert of New Mexico. We also heard from a survivor of the Hiroshima bombing and a New Mexican downwinder.
But our listeners responded with even more questions that we couldn’t get to—including this, from Randy in Orlando, who wrote, “I’ve heard Neil deGrasse Tyson say the new bombs aren’t that dirty?”
Randy’s referring to the astrophysicist’s interview last November, in which he said: “Modern nukes don’t have the radiation problem … it’s a different kind of weapon than Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” We wanted an answer to this question—and others—about current nuclear weapons technology, an issue that Russia’s implied threats of using nuclear w…
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The Cat’s Meow, Chumash Marine Sanctuary, EV Tires. July 28, 2023, Part 2
28 juli 2023 · 48 min
We have a new podcast! It’s called Universe Of Art, and it’s all about artists who use science to bring their creations to the next level. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Lees meer
What Is Your Cat’s Meow Trying To Tell You?
Cats have formed bonds with humans for thousands of years. But what exactly is going on in our furry friends’ brains? What are they trying to tell us with their meows? And why did humans start keeping cats as pets anyway?
To help answer those questions and more, John Dankosky talks with Jonathan Losos, professor of biology at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and author of the new book, The Cat’s Meow: How Cats Evolved from the Savanna to Your Sofa.
Read an excerpt of the book at sciencefriday.com.
Researchers Quantify The Navajo Nation’s Water Crisis
In Fort Defiance, one of five main communities situated on the Arizona-New Mexico border in the Navajo Nation, Taishiana Tsosie and Kimberly Belone are standing in a mobile office’s cramped bathroom.
The two researchers from the Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health turn off the lights and hold up plastic bags filled with water from the bathroom sink. Each bag has five small compartments, filled with the same sink water. Where they differ is in the chemicals added to each compartment.
“This is our compartment bag, and we use this and several other chemicals and tablets to test for E. coli in the water,” Tsosie said.
Today, the researchers are testing for harmful bacteria, but they also run separate tests for dangerous metals in drinking water.
To read the rest, visit sciencefriday.com.
Chumash Tribe Champions National Marine Sanctuary
For generations, the Chumash tribal nation have been stewards of a vital marine ecosystem along the central coast of California, bordering St. Louis Obispo County and Santa Barbara County.
The area is home to species like blue whales, black abalone, and snowy plovers. And it’s also an important part of the Chu…
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Kākāpō Conservation, NYC Parrots, One Year After the Dobbs Decision. July 28, 2023, Part 1
28 juli 2023 · 48 min
We have a new podcast! It’s called Universe Of Art, and it’s all about artists who use science to bring their creations to the next level. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Lees meer
No, The Gulf Stream Is Not Collapsing
A sobering climate study came out this week in the journal Nature Communications. It suggests that a system of ocean currents—called the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC)—could collapse sometime between 2025 and 2095, which could have dire climate consequences for the North Atlantic.
SciFri director of news and audio John Dankosky talks with Swapna Krishna, a journalist based in Philadelphia, about what this means and what could be at stake. They also chat through other big science news of the week, including the detection of water vapor around a very distant star, a new image depicting the first detection of gas giants being formed around stars, a new theory for the origin of the world’s “gravity hole,” why the fuzzy asp caterpillar packs such a scary sting, and what scientists can learn from ticklish rats.
The State Of Reproductive Health, One Year After Dobbs
In the year since the Supreme Court decided Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, overturning the federal right to an abortion, states jumped into action.
Thirteen states banned abortion with limited exemptions, and three others have banned abortion after the first trimester. A handful of other states have extremely restrictive abortion access, or otherwise remain in legal limbo, awaiting court decisions or new laws to be signed.
Leading up to Dobbs decision, SciFri delved into the science behind reproductive health and the potential ripple effects on access to care. Now, a little over a year later, we’re following up what’s going on.
SciFri guest host and experiences manager Diana Plasker talks with Usha Ranji, associate director for Women’s Health Policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, based in San Francisco, California, about he…
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How Does The Brain Control Your Every Move? July 21, 2023, Part 1
21 juli 2023 · 47 min
We have a new podcast! It’s called Universe Of Art, and it’s all about artists who use science to bring their creations to the next level. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Lees meer
Astronomers Spy A Two-Faced Star
This week, astronomers report in the journal Nature that they’ve discovered a white dwarf—a dying star’s dense inner core—that, instead of being uniform in composition, has a surface that appears to be hydrogen on one face and helium on the other. The star rotates on its axis once every 15 minutes, bringing each face into view. Researchers spotted the unusual object with an instrument called the Zwicky Transient Facility, which initially singled out the star because of its rapidly changing brightness.
The astronomers aren’t sure why the white dwarf, which they’ve nicknamed Janus after the two-faced Roman god, has this strange divided surface. Some possible theories include shifting magnetic fields which produce areas of different density, or that it’s a step in stellar evolution only partially complete.
Tim Revell, deputy US editor at New Scientist, joins John Dankosky to talk about the two-faced star and other stories from the week in science, including the resignation of the Stanford University president amidst an ethics probe, discovery of ancient natural graphene, an earthworm invasion in the Arctic, and investigations of alcoholic fruit.
How Does The Brain Control Your Every Move?
As you read this, every small action your body makes—eyes scanning the page, fingers scrolling a mouse, scratching an itch on your face—must be dictated by your brain. These actions usually happen without a second thought. But inside the brain, the motor cortex is hard at work making the body move.
For nearly a century, every neuroscience student came across the “homunculus”—a visual representation of which areas of the brain control certain body parts. But for the last few decades, some researchers have disputed this traditional view of b…
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What To Know Before You Go See ‘Oppenheimer’. July 21, 2023, Part 2
21 juli 2023 · 47 min
We have a new podcast! It’s called Universe Of Art, and it’s all about artists who use science to bring their creations to the next level. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Lees meer
Revisiting The Nuclear Age With ‘Oppenheimer’
This weekend, Christopher Nolan’s long awaited film Oppenheimer hits theaters. It tells the story of American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, and his road to becoming the “father of the atomic bomb.” With its release, audiences will be faced with the United States’ contentious history in developing and deploying the world’s first atomic weapons, marking a point of no return for the entire world.
Nearly 80 years since the bombs were first developed and tested in the New Mexican desert—and then dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki—the world is still reckoning with the Manhattan Project and Oppenheimer’s legacies.
In this live call-in show, Science Goes To The Movies, we analyze the roles of scientists during the Manhattan project, hear from the people most affected by Oppenheimer’s work, and pick apart his life and legacy—one which asks to what extent scientists are responsible for the things they create.
To read the rest, visit sciencefriday.com.
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Lab-Grown Meat Approval, Underground Climate Change, Utahraptor. July 14, 2023, Part 2
14 juli 2023 · 47 min
We have a new podcast! It’s called Universe Of Art, and it’s all about artists who use science to bring their creations to the next level. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Lees meer
Where’s The Beef? Lab-Grown Meat Gets U.S. Approval
People have been looking for meat-alternatives for decades. Vegetarians avoid animal products for many reasons, from concerns over animal treatment and slaughtering practices to the meat industry’s climate impacts. Methane from cows and other livestock contribute about 15% of all greenhouse gas emissions.
There have been plant-based alternatives on the market for awhile now, but another method has quietly gained steam over the past decade: meat grown in a lab, using cultured cells. This past June, the U.S. Department of Agriculture approved two companies—Eat Just and Upside—to grow and sell cultivated chicken products in the U.S. Lab-developed beef will likely be next, while some companies are even working on cultivated pet food meat. (Lab-grown mouse meat kibble, anyone?)
But will growing tissue in a lab actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and … will people even want to eat it? Joining Ira to discuss this beefy topic is Casey Crownhart, climate reporter at the MIT Technology Review, who talks about how this kind of meat is made in a lab, the challenges the industry faces, and what lab-grown beef patty tastes like.
How Rising Temperatures Are Shifting The Ground Beneath Chicago
As global temperatures rise, cities are typically hotter than rural areas. Tall buildings trap heat and temperatures don’t drop nearly as low at night.
Out of sight, just below the surface, it’s also getting hotter. Scientists are beginning to document the unexpected consequences of underground climate change.
A new study measuring the phenomenon used sensors to track increasing temperatures underground in Chicago and map how the earth has shifted beneath the city as a result.
Ira talks with the lead researcher of the st…
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Youth Mental Health Crisis, Repairing Sharks’ Bad Reputation. July 14, 2023, Part 1
14 juli 2023 · 48 min
We have a new podcast! It’s called Universe Of Art, and it’s all about artists who use science to bring their creations to the next level. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Lees meer
The Oceans Are Getting Hotter—And Greener
It’s hot out there, and more so than normal July weather. It’s estimated that more than 100 million Americans are under heat watches, warnings, and advisories, spanning the west coast and southern states. Not only is the land hot, but the oceans are, too. The water temperature near the Florida Keys this week reached 96.8 degrees Fahrenheit, just shy of the record for global ocean temperature.
A warmer climate is having some visual effects on our oceans, too. The color of the ocean surface near the equator has gotten greener. The culprit? Phytoplankton, which are full of the pigment chlorophyll.
Joining Ira to talk about these stories and other science news of the week is Rachel Feltman, Editor at Large for Popular Science and host of the podcast “The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week,” based in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Understanding The Reasons For The Mental Health Crisis In Youth
You’ve probably read the headlines about a spike in youth suicide rates, or about how social media and screen time are exacerbating teen anxiety and depression. Or maybe you read about the shortage of services for kids who need mental health treatment, waiting in emergency rooms for inpatient beds to open up.
And of course the pandemic accelerated all of these issues, leaving kids who might have been already struggling without the support of friends and teachers in their school communities.
Ira takes a closer look at what’s driving these trends with Dr. Patricia Ibeziako, associate chief for clinical services in the department of psychiatry and behavioral services at the Boston Children’s Hospital and associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Dr. Tami Benton, psychiatrist-in-chief in the department of child and…
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Beavers, Pando Tree, $7 Violin. July 7, 2023. Part 1
7 juli 2023 · 47 min
How The Humble Beaver Shaped A Continent Lees meer
The American beaver, Castor canadensis, nearly didn’t 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.
In her new book, Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America, author Leila Philipp tells that tale—and 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.
The Sweet Song Of The Largest Tree On Earth
For this story, we’re 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’t really look like the world’s biggest tree. It has rolling hills with thousands of tall, lean aspens swaying in the wind.
But Pando is there, hiding in plain sight. All those tree trunks you see aren’t actually individual trees. Technically, they’re branches, and that’s because Pando is one massive tree—sprawling more than 100 acres, with 47,000 branches growing from it.
There is a lot to learn about Pando, and our guests turned to sound to understand the tree better. Together, they created an “acoustic portrait” to hear all the snaps, splinters, and scuttles that happen in and around the tree.
Ira 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.
This $7 Violin May Be $7... But How Does It Sound?
Stringed instruments can be a joy to the ears and the eyes. They’re handcrafted, made of beautiful woo…
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Accessible Birding, Space Sounds, Wasps. July 7, 2023. Part 2
7 juli 2023 · 48 min
Meet The Blind Birder Reimagining Accessibility In The Outdoors Lees meer
For many blind and low vision people, accessing outdoor spaces like parks can be challenging. Trails are often unsafe or difficult to navigate, signs don’t usually have Braille, guides generally aren’t trained to help disabled visitors, and so on.
But nature recordist Juan Pablo Culasso, based in Bogata, Colombia, is changing that. He’s 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.
He talks with Maddie Sofia about how he designed the trail system and takes listeners on an adventure through the cloud forest he works in.
Listen To Ethereal Sounds Derived From Space
You’ve probably heard that if you scream in space, no one will hear a thing. Space is a vacuum, so sound waves don’t have anything to bounce off of. But that doesn’t 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.
The album, called “Universal Harmonies” aims to bring galaxies to life and allow more people, such as those who are blind and low-vision, to engage with outer space.
Guest host Flora Lichtman talks with two of the scientists behind “Universal Harmonies,” Dr. Kimberly Arcand, visualization scientist at NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, and Dr. Matt Russo, astrophysicist and musician at the University of Toronto.
Listen to a selection of the ethereal sonifications of “Universal Harmonies.”
Why You Should Thank Your Local Wasp
It’s late in the summer, meaning any outdoor gathering with food and drink has a good chance of being visited by a pesky, buz…
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Cloning for Conservation, Cubesats, Queer Ecology, Henry Petroski. June 30, 2023, Part 2
30 juni 2023 · 48 min
How Fungi Are Breaking The Binary: A Queer Approach To Ecology Lees meer
As Pride month comes to a close, many people are reflecting on the past, present, and future of the LGBTQIA+ community.
An interdisciplinary group of scientists, researchers, and artists are using queerness as a lens to better understand the natural world, too. It’s a burgeoning field called queer ecology, which aims to break down binaries and question our assumptions of the natural world based on heterosexuality.
For example, there are plenty of examples of same-sex animal pairings in the wild, like penguins, chimps, and axolotls. There are also plants that change sexes, or have a combination of male and female parts, like the mulberry tree.
But perhaps the most queer kingdom of all is fungi. Mushrooms are not easily forced into any type of binary. For example, the Schizophyllum commune, or the split gill mushroom, has 23,000 sexes, making it somewhat of a queer icon in the field of mycology.
SciFri producer Kathleen Davis talks with Patty Kaishian, incoming curator of mycology at the New York State Museum, about how fungi might help us expand our understandings of sexuality, identity, and hierarchy. They also discuss how queer ecology can help people of all sexualities reconnect with the natural world.
Scientists Think Cloning Could Help Save Endangered Species
Earlier this year, a baby Przewalski’s horse was born at the San Diego Zoo. But this foal isn’t any ordinary foal, he’s a clone. He’s the product of scientists aiming to save his dwindling species using genetics. This endangered horse species once roamed Europe and Asia, but by the 1960, threats like poaching, capture, and military presence drove the horses to extinction in the wild.
Conservationists raced to save this wild horse through captive breeding programs, but with a population so small, there just wasn’t enough genetic diversity to grow a healthy herd. But with careful genetic management, the Przewalski’s horse’s population is …
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Hum Of The Universe, Cephalopod Event In Miami. June 30, 2023, Part 1
30 juni 2023 · 47 min
Scientists Can Now Hear The Background Hum Of The Universe Lees meer
For the first time ever, scientists have heard the “low pitch hum” of gravitational waves rippling through the cosmos. It’s this ever-present background noise set off by the movement of massive objects—like colliding black holes—throughout the universe. Scientists have theorized that it’s been there all along, but we haven’t been able to hear until now. So what does this hum tell us about our universe?
SciFri producer Kathleen Davis talks with science writer Maggie Koerth about this discovery, as well as other science news of the week. They chat about the possibility of an icy planet hiding in the Milky Way, air quality problems due to wildfire smoke, an experimental weight loss drug that’s currently being tested, if our human ancestors were cannibals, and how dolphin moms use baby talk with their calves.
Celebrating The Weird, Wonderful World Of Cephalopods
Every year, Cephalopod Week reminds us of the fascinating and weird world of these sea creatures. And in this segment, recorded live at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science Auditorium, two cephalopod scientists share new research about our squishy sea-faring neighbors, how climate change is affecting squids and octopuses, and why they love working with them.
Ira Flatow talked to Dr. Lynne Fieber PhD., professor of marine biology and ecology who has studied the nervous systems of all types marine invertebrates including cephalopod and sea slugs, and Dr. Andrea Durant Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in the Grosell Environmental Physiology and Toxicology Lab, who studies how tiny glass squid live in a rapidly-changing ocean.
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Transcripts for each segment will be available the week after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.
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Social Media Chaos, Remembering Whale Song Scientist Roger Payne. June 23, 2023, Part 2
23 juni 2023 · 47 min
We have a new podcast! It's called Universe Of Art, and it features conversations with artists who use science to bring their creations to the next level. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Lees meer
When The Promise Of Social Media Becomes Perilous
Despite social media’s early promises to build a more just and democratic society, over the past several years, we’ve seen its propensity to easily spread hate speech, misinformation and disinformation. Online platforms have even played a role in organizing violent acts in the real world, like genocide against the Rohinga people in Myanmar, and the violent attempt to overturn the election at the United States capitol.
But how did we get here? Has social media fundamentally changed how we interact with the world? And how did big tech companies accumulate so much unchecked power along the way?
Remembering Roger Payne, Who Helped Save The Whales
Americans haven’t always loved whales and dolphins. In the 1950s, the average American thought of whales as the floating raw materials for margarine, animal feed, and fertilizer—if they thought about whales at all. But twenty-five years later, things changed for cetaceans in a big way. Whales became the poster-animal for a new environmental movement, and cries of “save the whales!” echoed from the halls of government to the whaling grounds of the Pacific. What happened?
Shifting attitudes were due, in large part, to the work of scientist Roger Payne, who died earlier this month at the age of 88. His recordings helped to popularize whalesong, and stoked the public imagination about intelligent underwater creatures who used vocalizations to communicate.
In 2018, our podcast “Undiscovered” explored the history of Payne’s work, and that of his colleagues. We’re featuring this episode as a way of remembering his life and groundbreaking work.
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Transcripts for each segment wil…
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Cephalopod Week Salutes See-Thru Squid, Hyperbole In Science Publishing, Art and the Brain, Rover Competition. June 23, 2023, Part 1
23 juni 2023 · 47 min
We have a new podcast! It's called Universe Of Art, and it features conversations with artists who use science to bring their creations to the next level. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Lees meer
A See-Through Squid Success Story
Adult octopuses have about 500 million neurons, which is about as many neurons as a dog. Typically, more neurons means a more intelligent and complex creature. But it’s a bit more complicated than that. Unlike dogs, or even humans, octopuses’ neurons aren’t concentrated in their brains—they’re spread out through their bodies and into their arms and suckers, more like a “distributed” mind. (Scientists still haven’t quite figured out exactly why this is.)
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, in terms of unanswered cephalopod questions. Now, researchers have successfully bred a line of albino squid that were first engineered using CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology, creating a see-through squid.
Their unique transparency allows scientists to more easily study their neural structure, and a whole lot more.
SciFri experiences manager Diana Plasker talks with Joshua Rosenthal, senior scientist at the University of Chicago’s Marine Biological Laboratory, based in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, about this see-through squid success story.
When Eye-Grabbing Results Just Don’t Pan Out
You know the feeling — you see a headline in the paper or get an alert on your phone about a big scientific breakthrough that has the potential to really change things. But then, not much happens, or that news turns out to be much less significant than the headlines made it seem.
Journalists are partially to blame for this phenomenon. But another guilty culprit is also the scientific journals, and the researchers who try to make their own work seem more significant than the data really supports in order to get published.
Armin Alaedini, an assistant professor of medical sciences at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, rece…
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Avian Flu, Curly Hair. June 16, 2023, Part 2
16 juni 2023 · 48 min
Curly Hair Keeps Your Scalp Cooler Lees meer
According to a fascinating new study, curly locks are better than straight hair at keeping your scalp cool. Researchers shone bright lights on three different manikins—one with no hair, one with loosely curled hair and another with tight curls.
Solar radiation bounced off the tightly curled hair, and less heat reached the manikin’s scalp than the straight haired manikin. The manikin with loose curls was right in the middle. The research is part of an effort to better understand the role of hair texture in human evolution, as humans are the only mammals with the majority of body hair atop our heads.
Ira talks with Dr. Tina Lasisi, a postdoctoral researcher in the department of quantitative and computational biology at the University of Southern California, and incoming assistant professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan.
Unprecedented Avian Flu Outbreak Continues
Avian influenza has been circulating for decades among wild birds, but the US is now experiencing the worst outbreak in its history. That’s because of a specific strain of highly pathogenic avian influenza, which has left around 60 millions birds—mostly poultry—dead. This has implications for us all, whether you’re frustrated about the price of eggs, worried about your backyard chickens, or concerned about yet another threat to public health.
In this live call-in, Ira talks with Ashleigh Blackford, the California Condor Coordinator at the US Fish & Wildlife Service about the initiative to vaccinate California condors—the first of its kind to vaccinate any bird.
Then Ira explores what this outbreak means for other wildlife, poultry, and for us. He talks with Dr. Kristy Pabilonia, professor and director of the Veterinary Diagnostics Laboratories at Colorado State University, and Dr. Richard Webby, director of the WHO’s Collaborating Center for Studies on the Ecology of Influenza in Animals and Birds and a researcher at St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hosp…
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Science Books For Summer Reading. June 16, 2023, Part 1
16 juni 2023 · 48 min
Why Have Ocean Temperatures Spiked? Lees meer
Sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic have risen dramatically in recent weeks, to as much as 0.5 degrees Celsius warmer than the previous record—and over 1 degree C warmer than average temperatures from 1982 to 2011.
The reason for the unusually toasty waters isn’t entirely clear. Some climatologists attribute part of the rise to an El Niño ocean circulation pattern this year, replacing the La Niña pattern that had been suppressing temperatures. Other factors may include a decline in atmospheric dust from the Sahara, and atmospheric circulation patterns that are allowing warm surface water to stay in place longer.
The warmer temperatures aren’t just limited to the North Atlantic, however—for the past three months, global average sea surface temperatures have also been reaching new highs. Casey Crownhart, a climate reporter at MIT Technology Review, joins Ira to talk about the warming trend, and other stories from the week in science, including accusations of body part sales from the Harvard Medical School morgue, studies of the economics of heat pumps, and a lawsuit brought by youth in Montana over global warming.
The Best Summer Books, According To Two Science Writers
Summer is one of the best times to crack open a book and read the hours away, according to Jaime Green and Annalee Newitz. The two science writers are voracious readers, and they’ve compiled a list of their summer reading recommendations for Science Friday listeners. Green and Newitz join Ira from New Britain, Connecticut and San Francisco, California respectively, to discuss their favorite nonfiction and fiction books for the summer, and take questions from listeners.
To read the full list of summer book recommendations, visit sciencefriday.com.
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Transcripts for each segment will be available the week after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.
Subscribe to this podcast…
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Living Underwater For 100 Days, Refineries’ Excess Emissions, Owl Facts. June 9, 2023, Part 2
9 juni 2023 · 47 min
Exposing Texas’ Excess Emissions Problems Lees meer
In the early hours of August 22, 2020, Hurricane Laura was still just a tropical storm off the coast of the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean. But effects from the monstrous storm, which would ultimately take at least 81 lives, were already being felt on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
As rain poured down on the Sweeney refinery in Old Ocean, Texas, that afternoon, two processing units failed, releasing nearly 1,400 pounds of sulfur dioxide, which can cause trouble breathing, and other chemicals.
Over the next few days, Laura siphoned up moisture from the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico and transformed into a Category 1 hurricane.
In Texas, chemical plants began shutting down, hurriedly burning off unprocessed chemicals and releasing vast amounts of pollution in anticipation of the storm making landfall. On August 24, Motiva’s Port Arthur refinery released 36,000 pounds of sulfur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, and other noxious pollutants.
The next morning, Motiva began purging chemicals its plant had been processing, emitting nearly 48,000 pounds of carbon monoxide and propylene, among other pollutants. The following day, a Phillips 66 refinery in southwest Louisiana shut down, releasing more than 1,900 pounds of sulfur dioxide.
Then, as gale-force winds swept through coastal communities and the relentless rain poured down, the chemical facilities increasingly malfunctioned.
To read the rest, visit sciencefriday.com.
A Scientist’s Catalog Of 100 Days Under The Sea
In February, Dr. Joe Dituri put on his scuba gear, dove 30 feet below the surface, and entered a 100-square-foot underwater lodge. This former US Navy diving officer didn’t come up again for air until June 9, spending 100 days underwater. And even before the end of his stay, he broke the record for living underwater.
He did all of this in the name of science—to understand how the human body handles long-term exposure to pressure. This mission is called Project Neptun…
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Wildfire Smoke, Jurassic Park Reflection, Mosquito DNA Editing. June 9, 2023, Part 1
9 juni 2023 · 47 min
Canadian Wildfire Smoke Drifts Across The United States Lees meer
This week, smoke from Canadian wildfires drifted south, enveloping the Northeastern United States, casting an ominous orange glow. The smoke continued spreading outwards to the Southeast and to the Midwest.
While climate change is extending and worsening the Canadian wildfire season, it’s still rare for this many fires, so early in the season.
Ira talks with Katherine Wu, staff writer at The Atlantic, about the latest on the Canadian wildfires and other top news stories of the week, including; a new type of cat contraception, drilling into the Earth’s mantle, and a ‘virgin’ crocodile birth.
30 Years Later, ’Jurassic Park’ Still Inspires
On June 11th, 1993, what would become one of the biggest movies of all time was released in theaters: Jurassic Park.
Based on the novel by Michael Crichton, the film is about people’s belief that they can control nature. Wealthy businessman John Hammond creates a dinosaur nature park. Things go awry quickly. Electric fences break down, dinosaurs get loose, and people are eaten. At the time of its release, the film became the highest-grossing movie of all time.
In the decades since it came out, the film has spawned a multi-movie franchise, amusement park rides, video games, and every type of merchandise imaginable. The movie also had a tremendous impact on visual effects, both computer animated and practical, which are still seen today in the media.
When the first Jurassic Park movie came out, many of the paleontologists of today were children—or not even born yet. Ira speaks with a trio of paleontologists about the film’s impact on them as kids, and its continuous use as an educational tool to inspire young dino enthusiasts: Riley Black, Steve Brusatte and Yara Haridy.
A Biotech Offensive Against Disease-Carrying Mosquitoes
Mosquitoes are the primary spreaders of some highly dangerous diseases for people: The insect spreads diseases like yellow fever, dengue fever, ma…
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Dwarf Tomatoes, Saguaro Cactus, Sonoran Desert. June 2, 2023, Part 2
2 juni 2023 · 48 min
Tomato Breeding Project Fueled By Over 1,000 Backyard Gardeners Lees meer
In 2005, gardeners Craig LeHouiller and Patrina Nuske-Small created the Dwarf Tomato Project. They wanted to preserve the flavor and beauty of heirloom tomatoes, without taking up too much space. They started crossbreeding heirloom tomatoes with smaller dwarf tomato plants.
To do so, they enlisted volunteers from all over the world. Over 1,000 people have participated so far. You can even buy the seeds and plant them in your own garden!
Ira talks with the project’s co-founder, gardener and author, Craig LeHoullier, based in Hendersonville, North Carolina.
Southwestern States Break The Dam On Water Stalemate
Southwestern states have been aware for decades that their use of Colorado River water is not sustainable. Forty million people depend on the watershed across seven states, several tribes, and northern Mexico. After intense pressure from the federal government, Arizona, California, and Nevada presented a plan last month to cut water use in these states.
While the proposal isn’t final, it’s an important step in a long stalemate among southwestern states hesitant to use less water. The three states propose cutting 3 million acre-feet in water use through 2026—about ten percent of their total water allocation. The federal government plans to spend $1.2 billion to pay water users for the cuts.
Joining Ira to break down what this plan means for southwest states is Dr. Sharon Megdal, director of the University of Arizona’s Water Resources Research Center in Tucson, and Luke Runyon, managing editor and reporter for KUNC, in Grand Junction, Colorado.
Tracking The Saguaro Cacti Decline
One of the most iconic symbols of the American Southwest is the saguaro cactus—the big, towering cactus with branching arms.
Saguaro are the most studied variety of cactus, yet there’s still much we don’t know about them.
Once a decade, researchers from the University of Arizona survey plots of roughly 4,500 saguaro…
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Rewilding, Allergy Season, Sharing Science Rejections. June 2, 2023, Part 1
2 juni 2023 · 47 min
Could Restoring Animal Populations Store More Carbon? Lees meer
Did you know that land and ocean ecosystems absorb about half of the carbon dioxide we emit each year? But what if the earth had the capacity to absorb even more? With the help of some furry, scaly, and leathery critters, maybe it can.
A recent study in the journal Nature Climate Change claims that by restoring the populations of just a handful of animals—like gray wolves, bison, and sea otters for example—the Earth could capture around 6.41 more gigatons of CO2 each year. This idea of restoring wildlife is called rewilding.
Ira talks with the co-author of this study, Dr. Trisha Atwood, an associate professor at Utah State University, based in Logan, UT. They chat about what critters make the rewilding list, and how they fit into the carbon cycle.
Allergy Season Is Blooming With Climate Change
Spring is in the air, and for many people that means allergy season is rearing its ugly head. If it feels like your allergies have recently gotten worse, there’s now data to back that up.
New research shows that since 1990, pollen season in North America has grown by 20 days and gotten 20% more intense, with the greatest increases in Texas and the Midwest. This is because climate change is triggering plants’ internal timing to produce pollen earlier and earlier. It’s a problem that’s expected to get worse.
SciFri producer Kathleen Davis speaks with William Anderegg, assistant professor at the University of Utah’s School of Biological Sciences about pollen counts, and pollen as a respiratory irritant.
Why This Scientist Shares Vulnerable Career Moments
Dr. Rachel Lupien, a paleoclimatologist at Aarhus University, makes it a point to be honest about the challenges she runs into at work. She hopes that other scientists can learn from them. So last year, when a paper she wrote was rejected from journals five times, she tweeted about the experience.
While the responses ranged from supportive replies to harsh emails, R…
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Zoonomia Genetics Project, Telomeres, Mutter Museum. May 26, 2023, Part 1
26 mei 2023 · 47 min
Orcas Are Attacking Boats Near Spain. Scientists Don’t Know Why Lees meer
This Thursday, the Supreme Court restricted the scope of the Clean Water Act pertaining to wetlands, in a 5-4 vote. This could affect the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to protect certain kinds of wetlands, which help reduce the impacts of flooding by absorbing water, and also act as natural filters that make drinking water cleaner. Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the court’s three liberal members in the dissent, writing that the decision will have, “significant repercussions for water quality and flood control throughout the United States.”
Plus, earlier this month, three orcas attacked a boat, leading to its sinking. This is the third time an incident like this has happened in the past three years, accompanied by a large rise of orcas attacking boats near the Strait of Gibraltar. Scientists are unsure of the cause. One theory is that these attacks could be a fad, led by juvenile orcas in the area, a documented behavior in this subpopulation of the dolphin family. They could also be a response to a potential bad encounter between boats and orcas in the area.
Science Friday’s Charles Bergquist talks with Sophie Bushwick, technology editor for Scientific American, about these and other stories from this week in science news, including a preview of a hot El Niño summer, an amateur astronomer who discovered a new supernova, and alleviating waste problems by using recycled diapers in concrete.
A Famous Sled Dog’s Genome Holds Evolutionary Surprises
Do you remember the story of Balto? In 1925, the town of Nome, Alaska, was facing a diphtheria outbreak. Balto was a sled dog and a very good boy who helped deliver life-saving medicine to the people in the town. Balto’s twisty tale has been told many times, including in a 1990s animated movie in which Kevin Bacon voiced the iconic dog.
But last month, scientists uncovered a new side of Balto. They sequenced his genes and discovered the sled dog wa…
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Experiencing Pain, Grief and the Cosmos, Ivory-Billed Controversy. May 26, 2023, Part 2
26 mei 2023 · 47 min
The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker Debate Keeps Pecking Away Lees meer
Every so often, there’s a claim that the ivory-billed woodpecker is back from the dead. Pixelated videos go viral, blurry photos make the front page, and birders flock to the woods to get a glimpse of the ghost bird.
Last week, a controversial paper claimed there’s reason to believe that the lost bird lives. The authors say they have evidence, including video footage, that the bird still flies. The paper is ruffling feathers among the birding and research community.
This debate has been going on for decades, but the American Birding Association categorizes the bird as “probably or actually extinct,” and its last verified sighting was in 1944.
So is it any different this time? And what do we make of the claims that keep cropping up?
Guest host Flora Lichtman talks all things ivory-billed with Michael Retter, editor of the magazines North American Birds and Special Issues of Birding, from the American Birding Association.
Tracking Pain In Your Brain
When you stub your toe, that pain is registered by the peripheral nervous system. It shoots off signals that travel up your spinal cord and to your brain, where the signals tell you, “Hey, your toe hurts. Take care of it.” But chronic pain—defined as lasting three months or more—is processed differently, and your nerves are constantly firing pain signals to your brain.
Chronic pain is complex, and a lot of its basics are still unknown. But a new study from this week discovered another piece of the pain puzzle: the brain signals that cause chronic pain and the region they are processed in. Researchers hope that this is the first step in developing a brain stimulation therapy that can intercept those chronic pain signals and bring relief to patients.
Guest host and SciFri director Charles Bergquist talks with lead author Dr. Prasad Shirvalkar, neurologist and associate professor at the University of California San Francisco, about this new paper.
What Can We Le…
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Weight and Health Myths, A Corvid Invasion. May 19, 2023, Part 1
19 mei 2023 · 48 min
Can Science Find An Antidote to Americium? Lees meer
With some poisons, there’s an antidote — something you can take to block the effects of the poison, or to help remove it from your body. But when the harmful chemical is a radioactive element, options are limited. Iodine pills can be used to help block radioactive iodine I131 from being absorbed by the thyroid, but there aren’t many other drugs that can help deal with contamination with other radioactive substances. One of the two existing medications can only be delivered via IV in a clinic.
This week, the NIH announced the start of an early clinical trial for an oral drug delivered as a tablet that could potentially be used to bind and remove radioactive elements including plutonium, uranium and neptunium from the body. Rachel Feltman, editor at large at Popular Science, joins Ira to talk about that trial and other stories from the week in science, including an experimental universal flu vaccine, research into the amount of trace DNA humans shed every day, and an update on the planet Saturn’s moon count.
Debunking Common Myths About Being Fat
Weight loss is big business. Americans spend roughly $60 billion each year trying to lose weight, forking over cash for supplements, diet plans, and gym memberships. Yet somewhere between 90 to 95% of diets fail.
Much of what we think we know about the relationship between weight and health is based on a series of assumptions that don’t always match up with the latest science.
Science Friday producer, Shoshannah Buxbaum talks with Aubrey Gordon, co-host of the podcast Maintenance Phase and author of the recent book “You Just Need To Lose Weight” and 19 Other Myths About Fat People, about the history of the Body Mass Index or BMI. She discusses why the word “obesity” is tangled up in stereotypes about fat people, the flaws in commonly cited mortality statistics, and how anti-fat bias translates into worse healthcare for fat people.
Read an excerpt of “You Just Need To Lose Wei…