Climate And Farming, Mars 2020, Fireflies. August 23, 2019, Part 2
From cutting back on fossil fuels to planting a million trees, people and policymakers around the world are looking for more ways to curb climate change. Another solution to add to the list is changing how we use land. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, released a special report this month that emphasized the importance of proper land management, such as pro...
48m Aug 23, 2019
48m
Book Club Birds, Amazon Burning. August 23, 2019, Part 1
“Bird-brain” has long been an insult meant to imply slow-wittedness or stupidity. But in reading Jennifer Ackerman’s The Genius of Birds, SciFri Book Club readers have been learning that birds often have wits well beyond ours—take the mockingbird’s capacity to memorize the songs of other birds, or the precise annual migrations of hummingbirds and Arctic terns. Or the New Caledonian crow, which ...
47m Aug 23, 2019
47m
Live in San Antonio: Deadly Disease, Bats, Birds. Aug. 16, 2019, Part 2
Imagine stepping into a white suit, pulling on thick rubber gloves and a helmet with a clear face plate. You can only talk to your colleagues through an earpiece, and a rubber hose supplies you with breathable air. Sounds like something you wear in space, right? In this case, you’re not an astronaut. You’re at the Texas Biomedical Institute in San Antonio, one of the only places where the most ...
48m Aug 16, 2019
48m
Lightning, Electric Scooters, News Roundup. Aug. 16, 2019, Part 1
Lightning during a heavy rainstorm is one of the most dramatic phenomena on the planet—and it happens, somewhere on Earth, an estimated 50 to 100 times a second. But even though scientists have been puzzling over the physics of lightning for decades, stretching back even to Ben Franklin’s kite experiment, much of the science remains mysterious. Ira and IEEE Spectrum news editor Amy Nordrum spea...
47m Aug 16, 2019
47m
Northwest Passage Project, Birds and Color. Aug 9, 2019, Part 1
First, tardigrades on the moon, feral hogs on Earth, and more news from this week’s News Roundup. (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/tardigrades-on-the-moon/) Scientists and students navigated the Northwest Passage waterways to study how the Arctic summers have changed. (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/northwest-passage-project-arctic-climate/)  Last year, one day into expedition, t...
47m Aug 09, 2019
47m
Wiring Rural Texas, Visiting Jupiter and Saturn. Aug 9, 2019, Part 2
High-speed internet access is becoming a necessity of modern life, but connecting over a million rural Texans is a challenge. How do we bridge the digital divide in Texas' wide open spaces? (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/bridging-digital-divide-in-texas/) It turns out the Great Red Spot might not be so great—it's shrinking. Plus, other news from the giant planets. (https://www.sciencef...
47m Aug 09, 2019
47m
Is Chemical Sunscreen Safe, Slime, Amazon Deforestation. August 2, 2019, Part 2
Sunscreen has been on the shelves of drugstores since the mid-1940s. And while new kinds of sunscreens have come out, some of the active ingredients in them have yet to be determined as safe and effective. A recent study conducted by the FDA showed that the active ingredients of four commercially available sunscreens were absorbed into the bloodstream—even days after a person stops using it (ht...
47m Aug 02, 2019
47m
Ethics Of Hawaiian Telescope, Bird Song, Alaska Universities Budget Cut. August 2, 2019, Part 1
Mauna Kea is the tallest mountain in Hawaii, towering over the Pacific at nearly 14,000 feet. That high altitude, combined with the mountain’s dry, still air and its extreme darkness at night, make it an ideal place for astronomy. There are already 13 observatories on the summit plateau. Now, astronomers want to build another, called the Thirty Meter Telescope, or TMT, which would become the la...
48m Aug 02, 2019
48m
Ice Cream Science, Online Language. July 26, 2019, Part 2
Have you ever tried to make your favorite rocky road flavored ice cream at home, but your chocolate ice cream turns out a little crunchier than you hoped? And your ribbons of marshmallow are more like frozen, sugary shards? Chemist Matt Hartings (https://edspace.american.edu/hartingslab/)  and ice cream maker Ben Van Leeuwen, co-founder of Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream (https://vanleeuwenicecre...
47m Jul 26, 2019
47m
Anonymous Data, Birding Basics. July 26, 2019, Part 1
The Science Friday Book Club is buckling down to read Jennifer Ackerman’s The Genius of Birds this summer. Meanwhile, it’s vacation season, and we want you to go out and appreciate some birds in the wild. (https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/science-friday-bird-club) But for beginning birders, it may seem intimidating to find and identify feathered friends both near and far from home. Audubon ...
46m Jul 26, 2019
46m
Moon Art, Space History, And NASA's Megarocket. July 19, 2019, Part 2
Our Lunar Muse Most of us remember that iconic photograph of the Apollo 11 moon landing: Buzz Aldrin standing on a footprint-covered moon, one arm bent, and Neil Armstrong in his helmet’s reflection taking the picture.  But there’s a much longer, ancient history of trying to visually capture the moon that came before the 1969 photo—from Bronze Age disks with crescent moons to Galileo’s telescop...
48m Jul 19, 2019
48m
Apollo Anniversary And Bird Book Club. July 19, 2019, Part 1
Celebrating Apollo's 'Giant Leap' July 20, 1969 was a day that changed us forever—the first time humans left footprints on another world. In this segment, Ira Flatow and space historian Andy Chaikin celebrate that history and examine the legacy of the Apollo program. Apollo ushered in a new age of scientific discovery, with lunar samples that unlocked the history of how the moon and the solar s...
46m Jul 19, 2019
46m
Mosquitos and Smell, Fermentation, Model Rocket Launch. July 12, 2019, Part 2
If you’ve ever tried brewing your own beer or raising your own sourdough, then you know that the process of fermentation isn't easy to get right. How do you control the growth of mold, yeast, or bacteria such that it creates a savory and delicious new flavor, and not a putrid mess on your kitchen counter? David Zilber is Director of Fermentation at the restaurant Noma, and he tells his fermenta...
47m Jul 12, 2019
47m
Degrees of Change: Food and Climate. July 12, 2019, Part 1
A quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions come from putting food on the table. From the fossil fuels used to produce fertilizers, to the methane burps of cows, to the jet fuel used to deliver your fresh asparagus, eating is one of the most planet-warming things we do. In our latest chapter of Degrees of Change, we're looking at how to eat smarter in a warming world. (https://www.science...
47m Jul 12, 2019
47m
Science Road Trips, Archaeology From Space. July 5, 2019, Part 1
Summer is here—and that means it’s time for a road trip! Dylan Thuras and Ella Morton, co-authors of Atlas Obscura: An Explorer’s Guide to the Hidden Wonders of the World, join Ira to share some suggestions for sciencey things to see and do around the country, from unusual museum exhibits to outstanding natural wonders. Plus, we asked you for YOUR travel ideas—and did you deliver! We’ll share t...
46m Jul 05, 2019
46m
The Bastard Brigade, Spontaneous Generation. July 5, 2019, Part 2
Much has been written about the Manhattan Project, the American-led project to develop the atomic bomb. Less well known is Nazi Germany’s “Uranium Club”—a similar project started a full two years before the Manhattan Project. The Nazis had some of the greatest chemists and physicists in the world on their side, including Werner Heisenberg, and the Allies were terrified that the Nazis would beat...
59m Jul 03, 2019
59m
Paternity, Musical Proteins, Microbiome In Runners. June 28, 2019, Part 2
These days, a scientific paternity test is easily acquired, and its results are seen as almost indisputable. But what about the days before so-called foolproof DNA analysis (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/solving-the-mystery-of-paternity-once-and-for-all/) ? For most of human history, people considered the identity of a child’s father to be more or less “unknowable.” Then in the 20th ce...
48m Jun 28, 2019
48m
Cephalopod Week Wrap-Up, USDA Climate Change, Sinking Louisiana. June 28, 2019, Part 1
The eight-day squid-and-kin appreciation extravaganza of Cephalopod Week is nearly over (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/closing-out-the-cephalo-party/) , but there’s still plenty to learn and love about these tentacled “aliens” of the deep. After a rare video sighting of a giant squid—the first in North American waters—last week, NOAA zoologist Mike Vecchione talks about his role identi...
48m Jun 28, 2019
48m
SciFri Extra: About Time
The official U.S. time is kept on a cesium fountain clock named NIST-F1, located in Boulder, Colorado. On a recent trip to Boulder, Ira took a trip to see the clock. He spoke with Elizabeth Donley, acting head of the Time and Frequency Division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, about keeping the official U.S. time on track—and how NIST is using advanced physics to develop e...
15m Jun 25, 2019
15m
Smoke Chasers, Colorado Apples, Pikas. June 21, 2019, Part 2
When wildfires rage in the West, Colorado State University atmospheric scientist Emily Fischer hops into a plane, and flies straight into the smoke (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/through-the-mountains-and-smoke/) . The plane is a flying chemistry lab, studded with instruments, and Fischer’s goal is to uncover the chemical reactions happening in smoke plumes, to determine how wildfire s...
50m Jun 21, 2019
50m
Cephalopod Week 2019, Climate and Microbes, Puppy Eyes, Wave Energy. June 21, 2019, Part 1
For eight glorious days during the end of June, Science Friday honors the mighty mollusks of the ocean—Cephalopod Week returns for the sixth year (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/sucker-for-cephalopods-cephalopod-week-2019-has-you-covered/) ! And we’re cephalo-brating with a tidal wave of ways for you to participate. This year, we want to know your favorite cephalopod. Is it the charisma...
49m Jun 21, 2019
49m
Degrees Of Change: Urban Heat Islands. June 14, 2019, Part 1
We’ve known for more than 200 years that cities are hotter than surrounding rural areas. All that concrete and brick soaks up the sun’s rays, then re-emits them as heat long after night has fallen. On top of that, waste heat from the energy we use to power our buildings, vehicle emissions, and even air conditioning units can cause some cities to be as many as 20 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than t...
47m Jun 14, 2019
47m
The Best Summer Science Books. June 14, 2019, Part 2
The Best Science Books To Read This Summer They say a vacation is only as good as the book you bring with you. And these days it feels like there are as many ways to consume science writing as there are fields of science. Whether you’re a fan of historical nonfiction, graphic novels, poetry or short essays, this year’s panel of summer science books experts has the one you’re looking for to take...
48m Jun 14, 2019
48m
Quantum Leaps, Cancer Drugs, Cat Cameras. June 7, 2019, Part 2
The “spooky physics” of the quantum world has long been marked by two key ideas: The idea of superposition, meaning that a quantum particle can exist in multiple states simultaneously, and the idea of randomness, meaning that it’s impossible to predict when certain quantum transitions will take place. Writing in the journal Nature, Zlatko Minev and colleagues report that they may be able to mak...
47m Jun 07, 2019
47m
Gender Bias In Research Trials, Antarctica, Tornado Engineering. June 7, 2019, Part 1
For half a century, most neuroscience experiments have had one glaring flaw: They've ignored female study subjects. The reason? Researchers claimed, for example, that female rats and mice would skew their data, due to hormonal cycling. Writing in the journal Science, neuroscientist Rebecca Shansky says that view is out of date—and it's been harming science too. She and Radiolab producer and co-...
48m Jun 07, 2019
48m
SciFri Extra: Remembering Murray Gell-Mann
Physicist Murray Gell-Mann died recently at the age of 89. He received the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the theory of elementary particles, and is credited with giving quarks their name. But he was known for more than just physics—he was a co-founder of the Santa Fe Institute, and a champion of creativity and interdisciplinary research.   One of his biggest interests was explorin...
44m Jun 04, 2019
44m
Climate Politics, Football and Math, Ether. May 31, 2019, Part 2
A green wave is sweeping through Washington, and it’s picking up Republicans who are eager to share their ideas on clean energy and climate change. But even as Republican lawmakers turn to shaping climate policy, the White House is doubling down on climate denial, forming a “climate review panel” to vet and discredit the already peer-reviewed science on climate change. So where will climate sci...
47m May 31, 2019
47m
Spoiler Alert, Glyphosate, Unisexual Salamanders. May 31, 2019, Part 1
How many times has this happened to you? You’re standing in front of an open freezer, wondering what type of mystery meat has been left in there, when you purchased it, and if it’s still safe to eat? If you’re puzzled by sell-by dates, freezer burn, and just how long food can remain edible, you’re not alone. Studies show that more than 80 percent of Americans misinterpret date labels and throw ...
47m May 31, 2019
47m
SciFri Extra: A Relatively Important Eclipse
This week marks the 100th anniversary of an eclipse that forever changed physics and our understanding of the universe. In May 1919, scientists set out for Sobral, Brazil, and Príncipe, an island off the west coast of Africa, to photograph the momentarily starry sky during a total eclipse. Their scientific aim was to test whether the sun’s gravity would indeed bend light rays from faraway stars...
15m May 28, 2019
15m
Bees! May 24, 2019, Part 2
For the hobby beekeeper, there’s much to consider when homing your first domestic honey bee colonies—what kind of hive to get, where to put them, where to get your bees, and how to help them survive the winter. But when left to their own devices, what do the bees themselves prefer? From smaller nests to higher openings, wild honey bees seem to prefer very different conditions from the closely c...
47m May 24, 2019
47m
Ebola Outbreak, Climate Play, Navajo Energy. May 24, 2019, Part 1
What would it take to power a subsea factory of the future? Plus, other stories from this week in science news. (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/under-the-sea-future-factories-and-a-new-volcano/) Then, as the last coal-fired power plant plans to shut down at the end of the year, the Navajo Tribe is embracing renewables. (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/hoping-for-a-sunny-future-th...
47m May 24, 2019
47m
New Horizons Discovery, Science Fair Finalists, Screams. May 17, 2019, Part 2
The most happening New Year’s Party of 2019 wasn’t at Times Square or Paris—it was in the small town of Laurel, Maryland, halfway between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab. There, scientists shared the stage with kids decked out in NASA gear, party hats, and astronaut helmets. They were there to count down not to the new year, but to the New Hor...
47m May 17, 2019
47m
Degrees Of Change: Sea Level Rise, Coal-Use Decline. May 17, 2019, Part 1
As the frequency of tropical storms and droughts increase and sea levels rise with climate change, forested wetlands along the Atlantic coast are slowly filling with dead and dying trees (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/embracing-the-salt-and-adapting-to-sea-level-rise/) . The accelerating spread of these “ghost forests” over the past decade has ecologists alarmed and eager to understand...
47m May 17, 2019
47m
Biodiversity Report And The Science Of Parenting. May 10, 2019, Part 2
According to a new UN report on global biodiversity, as many as one million species—both plants and animals—are now at risk of extinction, according to a new UN report on global biodiversity. That number includes 40% of all amphibian species, 33% of corals, and around 10% of insects. One might assume that this type of devastating species loss could only come as a result of one thing—climate cha...
47m May 10, 2019
47m
Superconductivity Search, Ride-Share Congestion, Lions Vs. Porcupines. May 10, 2019, Part 1
Six decades ago, a group of physicists came up with a theory that described electrons at a low temperature that could attract a second electron. If the electrons were in the right configuration, they could conduct electricity with zero resistance. The Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer theory (https://jqi.umd.edu/glossary/bardeen-cooper-schrieffer-bcs-theory-superconductivity) , named after the three ph...
48m May 10, 2019
48m
Neuroscientists Peer Into The Mind's Eye, Alexander von Humboldt. May 3, 2019, Part 2
It sounds like a sci-fi plot: Hook a real brain up to artificial intelligence, and let the two talk to each other. That’s the design of a new study in the journal Cell, in which artificial intelligence networks displayed images to monkeys, and then studied how the monkey’s neurons responded to the picture. (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/neuroscientists-peer-into-the-minds-eye/) The com...
48m May 03, 2019
48m
Business Planning For Climate Change,The Digital Afterlife. May 3, 2019, Part 1
Scientists have built all sorts of models to predict the likelihood of extreme weather events. But it’s not just scientists who are interested in these models. Telecomm giant AT&T teamed up with scientists at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois to build a climate map of the Southeastern part of the country, overlaid with a map of AT&T’s infrastructure. Climate scientist Rao Kothamarthi from...
48m May 03, 2019
48m
Measles, Poetry Month, Lemur Hibernation. April 26, 2019, Part 2
Back in 1963, before the development of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, there were 4 million cases of measles every year. It took nearly four decades, but by 2000, enough people had become vaccinated that the measles virus was eliminated in the U.S. But since then, the ranks of unvaccinated people have grown, and the measles virus has been reintroduced into the U.S. This week, Ce...
46m Apr 26, 2019
46m
Degrees of Change: Sponge Cities and Pocket Prairies. April 26, 2019, Part 1
Climate change is happening—now we need to deal with it. Degrees of Change (https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/degrees-of-change/) , a new series of hour-long radio specials from Science Friday, explores the problem of climate change and how we as a planet are adapting to it. In this first chapter, SciFri looks at how climate change affects water systems. This year, there were record downpo...
46m Apr 26, 2019
46m
New Human Species, Census, Plankton, Brain Etchings. April 19, 2019, Part 2
Last week, researchers announced they’d found the remains of a new species of ancient human on the island of Luzon in the Philippines. It was just a few teeth and bones from toes and hands, but they appeared to have a strange mix of ancient and modern human traits scientists had never seen before. Enter: Homo luzonesis. However, Homo luzonesis’ entry on the hominid family tree is still fuzzy an...
47m Apr 19, 2019
47m
5G, Pig Brains, Privacy For Nature. April 19, 2019, Part 1
Last week, President Trump announced a new initiative (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/the-future-of-5g/) to push forward the implementation of 5G, the next generation of wireless connectivity for smartphones and other devices. How is this faster speed possible, and how quickly will it become accessible to consumers? Washington Post technology reporter Brian Fung explains the innovations...
47m Apr 19, 2019
47m
Year In Space Results, Citizen Science Day, Cherry Blossoms. April 12, 2019, Part 2
To find out what was happening to astronauts over longer periods of space flight, NASA put together a 10-team study of twin astronauts Scott and Mark Kelly. Scott spent a year on International Space Station, while his brother Mark lived a relatively normal life on Earth—though both regularly sent the researchers samples of their blood, urine, cognitive test results, and other data to assess the...
47m Apr 12, 2019
47m
Event Horizon Telescope, Biosphere 2. April 12, 2019, Part 1
“As I like to say, it’s never a good idea to bet against Einstein,” astrophysicist Shep Doeleman told Science Friday back in 2016, when the Event Horizon Telescope project was just getting underway. At an illuminating press conference on Wednesday, April 10th, scientists shared the image for the first time (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/plunging-into-the-physics-of-the-black-hole-image...
47m Apr 12, 2019
47m
SciFri Extra: Picturing A Black Hole
The Event Horizon Telescope is tackling one of the largest cosmological challenges ever undertaken: Take an image of the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, using a telescope the size of the Earth. Now, the Event Horizon team has announced they have big news to share about those efforts. On Wednesday April 10th, it’s anticipated they will show a photo of the event horizon. Befo...
18m Apr 06, 2019
18m
Right-To-Repair, Exercise Recovery, Gov. Inslee. April 5, 2019, Part 2
Whenever your smartphone or video game console breaks down, you usually have to go back to the manufacture or a technician affiliated with the company to have your device fixed. Oftentimes, companies don’t release parts or guides to their devices, making it difficult to repair them own your own. 20 different states have introduced right-to-repair legislation (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segme...
48m Apr 05, 2019
48m
Coal Ash, Soil Loss, Sap, Bristlecone Pines. April 5, 2019, Part 1
Maple tapping season is underway in the sugar maple stands of the United States. Warm days and below-freezing nights kick off a cycle of sap flow crucial for maple syrup production. But why is the flow of sap so temperature dependent in sugar maples? (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/how-the-sap-runs/) University of Vermont maple researcher Abby van den Berg explains how ice crystals in t...
48m Apr 05, 2019
48m
Poetry of Science, The Power of Calculus. March 29, 2019, Part 2
April is National Poetry Month (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/metaphors-medicine-and-the-poetry-of-science/) , a time of readings, outreach programs, and enthusiastic celebration of the craft. And for a special Science Friday celebration, we’ll be looking at where science and poetry meet. Tracy K. Smith, the current U.S. poet laureate, wrote the 2011 book Life On Mars, which touches on...
50m Mar 29, 2019
50m
Growing Glaciers, Expanding Universe, Flu Near You. March 29, 2019, Part 1
Once upon a time, everything in the universe was crammed into a very small space. Then came the Big Bang, and the universe has been expanding ever since. But just how fast is it expanding? Calculating that number is a challenge that dates back almost a hundred years, when Edwin Hubble used data from Harvard astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt to try to answer that question. His value came to be c...
50m Mar 29, 2019
50m
A.I. And Doctors, Alzheimer’s. March 22, 2019, Part 2
When you go to the doctor’s office, it can sometimes seem like wait times are getting longer while face time with your doctor is getting shorter. In his book, Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again, cardiologist Eric Topol argues that artificial intelligence can make medicine more personal and empathetic. He says that algorithms can free up doctors to focus m...
48m Mar 22, 2019
48m
House Science Committee, Superbloom, Snowpack. March 22, 2019, Part 1
There’s been a changing of the guard in the U.S. House of Representatives. In January, Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/meet-the-member-of-congress-renewing-science-on-capitol-hill/) , a democrat from Texas, took over as chair of the House Committee for Science, Space, and Technology from her predecessor Lamar Smith. Smith was in charge of the House S...
48m Mar 22, 2019
48m