How The Brain Deals With Grief, Listening To Noisy Fish Sounds. May 6, 2022, Part 1
How Grief Rewires The Brain Being a human can be a wonderful thing. We’re social creatures, craving strong bonds with family and friends. Those relationships can be the most rewarding parts of life. But having strong relationships also means the possibility of experiencing loss. Grief is one of the hardest things people go through in life. Those who have lost a loved one know the feeling of o...
49m May 06, 2022
49m
Covid Court Cases, Sharing Viruses for Research, Hepatitis Spike. April 29, 2022, Part 1
What’s Up With The Spike In Hepatitis Among Young Kids? This spring, there’s been a strange spike in hepatitis cases among young children (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/hepatitis-spike-kids/?utm_source=wnyc&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=scifri) . Hepatitis can leave kids with stomach pain, jaundice, and a generally icky feeling. 169 cases have been recorded globally, and one death. ...
49m Apr 29, 2022
49m
Dog Breeds And Dog Behavior, Polar Science Update, Decarbonizing Transportation. April 29, 2022, Part 2
Your Dog’s Breed Doesn’t Always Determine How They’ll Behave The dog world abounds with stereotypes about the personalities of different breeds. The American Kennel Club describes chihuahuas as “sassy,” and malamutes as “loyal,” while breed-specific legislation in many cities target breeds like pit bulls as stereotypically aggressive. But do these stereotypes say anything true about a dog’s pe...
50m Apr 29, 2022
50m
Plastics And Ocean Life, Building An Animal Crossing, Indigenous Restoration. April 22, 2022, Part 2
Building The World’s Largest Animal Crossing Outside of LA There’s a spot on Highway 101 in Agoura Hills, it’s pretty inconspicuous. There’s brown and green rolling hills on either side of the highway. Homes are sprinkled here and there. And then a small metal gate that leads off on a hiking trail. You probably wouldn’t know it, but soon this spot will be the location of the world’s largest an...
50m Apr 22, 2022
50m
Carbon Removal Technology, IPCC And Policy, Sustainability News, Listening To A River. April 22, 2022, Part 1
Celebrating Earth Day With Sustainable Action Today is Earth Day, when many people around the world are taking time to think about their relationship with the planet and to focus on activities helping to mitigate the existential problems our environment faces. And we will be doing the same: devoting our program to Earth Day stories, ideas, and issues (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/ear...
49m Apr 22, 2022
49m
Inaccurate COVID Case Numbers, Spending A Trillion Dollars To Solve Problems. April 15, 2022, Part 1
FDA Approves First Breathalyzer COVID Test The FDA approved a new COVID breathalyzer test (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/fda-breathalyzer-covid-test/?utm_source=wnyc&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=scifri) , which gives results in just three minutes. It’s the first test that identifies chemical compounds of coronavirus in breath. The testing unit is about the size of a piece of carry-...
49m Apr 15, 2022
49m
NSF Director, Soylent Green In 2022, Colorado Snowpack, Springtime On Neptune. April 15, 2022, Part 2
Did ‘Soylent Green’s’ Predictions About 2022 Hold Up? In the spring of 1973, the movie Soylent Green premiered. The film drops us into a New York City that’s overcrowded, polluted, and dealing with the effects of a climate catastrophe. Only the city’s elite can afford clean water and real foods, like strawberry jam. The rest of the population relies on a communal food supply called Soylent. Th...
49m Apr 15, 2022
49m
Why Cold Plasma Could Help Sustainable Farming, How To Get Teens The Sleep They Need. April 8, 2022, Part 2
The Future of Sustainable Farming Could Be Cold Plasma Plasma is a fascinating medium. It’s considered the fourth state of matter—alongside solid, liquid and gas—and it’s everywhere. In fact, more than 99.9% of all matter in the universe is assumed to be in plasma form. You may be most familiar with plasma as the material inside those glowing novelty lamps found in museum gift shops, but it’s...
48m Apr 08, 2022
48m
FDA To Analyze COVID Boosters Efficacy, Dig Into Spring With Gardening Science. April 8, 2022, Part 1
FDA Convenes Panel On COVID Boosters And New Vaccines This week, the FDA convened a panel of independent experts to discuss COVID-19 boosters and possible variant-specific vaccines (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/covid-boosters-vaccines/?utm_source=wnyc&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=scifri) . This comes after last week’s authorization of a second booster for people over the age of 50...
50m Apr 08, 2022
50m
Why People Can’t Read Bar Graphs, First Complete Human Genome Released, Mars Book Club Finale. April 1, 2022, Part 2
Can You Read A Bar Graph? Bar graphs seem like one of the simplest ways to represent data. Many people assume that the longer the bar, the bigger the number it represents. Sometimes bar graphs represent an average not a total count, which is trickier to understand. And because bar graphs are everywhere, psychologists from Wellesley College wanted to determine how well people can actually read...
49m Apr 01, 2022
49m
Experimental HIV Vaccines, Lithium Mining In Oregon, Controlling The Tawny Crazy Ant. April 1, 2022, Part 1
Why Another Antarctic Ice Shelf Collapsed On March 15, the Conger ice shelf, a piece of ice half the size of Rome, collapsed in eastern Antarctica (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/antarctic-ice-shelf-collapsed/?utm_source=wnyc&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=scifri) . It’s the first time that side of the continent experienced a major loss of ice in the 40-year history of satellite obser...
49m Apr 01, 2022
49m
Ukraine And The Energy Market, More West Nile Virus, Bird Flu In Chickens, 5,000 Exoplanets Found. March 25, 2022, Part 1
How Has The War In Ukraine Shaped The Global Energy Market? Russia’s war on Ukraine sent shock waves through the global energy market. The United States and the United Kingdom stopped importing Russian oil and gas, and the European Union set a target of reducing their reliance on Russian fossil fuels by two thirds. In the short term some countries may start relying more on dirty fossil fuels ...
49m Mar 25, 2022
49m
How Vampire Bats Evolved To Drink Blood, Ethics Checks On Brain Research, Cicada Exhibit. March 25, 2022, Part 2
How Vampire Bats Evolved To Drink Blood Vampire bats subsist solely on blood: In technical terms, they’re what’s called “obligate sanguivores.” And the three species of vampire bats are the only mammals to have ever evolved this particular diet. Living on blood is hard work. Blood is a low-calorie food with a lot of water volume, and very little of it is fat or carbohydrates. To survive this ...
49m Mar 25, 2022
49m
James Webb Focused Image, Decarbonize Your Home, Wildlife Crime. March 18, 2022, Part 1
The James Webb Telescope Releases Its First Focused Image This week eager astronomers got an update on the progress of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which launched last December. After a long period of tweaking and alignment, all 18 mirrors of the massive orbiting scope are now in focus (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/james-webb-telescope-image/?utm_source=wnyc&utm_medium=podc...
49m Mar 18, 2022
49m
Dandelion Sensors, GoFundMe Healthcare Shortcomings, Where Did Mars’ Water Go. March 18, 2022, Part 2
Flower Power: Floating Sensors Inspired By Dandelions Dandelions’ white puff balls are irresistible—kids delight in blowing on them until the seeds break free, floating away. But, dandelion seeds’ ability to travel through the air is not just aesthetic. Like many other plants, they rely on the wind for seed dispersal. The traveling success of those floating dandelion seeds inspired engineers ...
49m Mar 18, 2022
49m
Mask Mandates Drop, International Salmon Survey, Long COVID Answers And Questions. March 11, 2022, Part 1
As Mask Mandates Drop, COVID Cases Increase In Some Parts Of World Later this month, Hawai’i will become the 50th and final state in the U.S. to drop its indoor mask mandate, as those and other COVID-19 protections tumble down nationwide and in places like the United Kingdom and Austria. But as the winter omicron surge eases in some places, an omicron subvariant called Ba.2 is joining the vir...
48m Mar 11, 2022
48m
T. Rex Dispute, Texas Trans Healthcare, Russian Cyber Warfare, Bird Calls. March 4, 2022, Part 1
The Tyrannosaurus Rex Is Having An Identity Crisis There are few creatures, present or extinct, that hold the iconic status of the Tyrannosaurus rex. In museums and dinosaur media, this powerful, lumbering reptile often plays a starring role. But new research argues that the T. rex should really be classified into three separate species (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/t-rex-species/?ut...
49m Mar 04, 2022
49m
Lack Of Black Physicists, Solar Outages, Martian Meteorites, What Is A Butt. March 4, 2022, Part 2
Where Are The Black Physicists? Black scientists make up less than one percent of physics PhDs in the U.S. And since 1999, most physics departments in the country have failed to graduate more than one or two Black undergraduates. Furthermore, the share of Black students in physics is declining: If the number receiving a bachelor’s degree in physics had kept pace with the rising popularity of t...
49m Mar 04, 2022
49m
Bridge Infrastructure, Cat Ancestor Gap, Lab Mice, Power Of The Dog, Mars Book Club. Feb 25, 2022, Part 2
Pittsburgh’s Bridge Collapse Spotlights America’s Infrastructure Woes Our modern world is made up of infrastructure: Roads, buildings, and bridges all play a big role for many people’s daily lives. If these structures do their jobs well, we don’t think much about them. That is, until infrastructure fails. Bridge collapses are especially scary, like the structural failure in Pittsburgh, Pennsy...
49m Feb 25, 2022
49m
Eye Implant Ethics, Sled Dogs, Tranquility Sound Scapes. Feb 25, 2022, Part 1
Paul Farmer, Global Health Leader, Dies At 62 Paul Farmer, physician and co-founder of the humanitarian medical organization Partners in Health died unexpectedly this week in Rwanda at the age of 62 (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/paul-farmer-death-polio-space-junk/?utm_source=wnyc&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=scifri) . Farmer was widely known for his compassion, and his conviction ...
49m Feb 25, 2022
49m
Paralysis Treatment, Protein Vaccines Advantages, How Cuba Made Five Vaccines, Fish Sounds. Feb 18, 2022, Part 2
New Device Helps People With Paralysis Walk Again Spinal cord injuries are notoriously difficult to treat, especially for those who have been paralyzed for several years. Now, researchers have developed a new implant that is able to reverse paralysis in patients with complete spinal cord injuries (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/spinal-cord-paralysis-implants/?utm_source=wnyc&utm_mediu...
50m Feb 18, 2022
50m
Successful HIV Treatment, Improving Health Equity, Fusion Energy Record. Feb 18, 2022, Part 1
Third Person Cured From HIV, Thanks To Umbilical Cord Stem Cells The third person ever, and the first woman, has been cured of the HIV virus, thanks to a stem cell transplant using umbilical cord blood (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/hiv-cure-stem-cells/?utm_source=wnyc&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=scifri) . While the invasive, risky bone marrow transplant process may not prove the ...
50m Feb 18, 2022
50m
How Grief Rewires The Brain, New Cancer Therapy, Olympic Battery-Heated Skiing Shorts. Feb 11, 2022, Part 2
How Grief Rewires The Brain Being a human can be a wonderful thing. We’re social creatures, craving strong bonds with family and friends. Those relationships can be the most rewarding parts of life. But having strong relationships also means the possibility of experiencing loss. Grief is one of the hardest things people go through in life. Those who have lost a loved one know the feeling of o...
49m Feb 11, 2022
49m
Science Advisor Resigns, COVID Drug Treatments, Science Drag Artists. Feb 11, 2022, Part 1
An Abrupt Departure For Biden’s Science Adviser This week, Eric Lander, the Presidential science advisor and head of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, resigned following an investigation into bullying behavior towards his subordinates (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/eric-lander-resignation/?utm_source=wnyc&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=scifri) . In an apology, Lander ackno...
56m Feb 11, 2022
56m
Phasing Out “Problematic” Plastics, Sticky Surface Science, Monarch Boom. Feb 4, 2022, Part 2
Phasing Out “Problematic” Plastics Plastic packaging is just about impossible to avoid. Getting takeout? You’ll likely wind up with a plastic container, or cutlery. Grabbing a coffee? Plastic stirrers and straws are hard to evade. These items are tough to recycle, and most sanitation systems aren’t equipped to process them. That means they go into the trash, or worse, waterways. Last week, th...
49m Feb 04, 2022
49m
Brain Donation, Meat And Human Evolution, Bird Song, Space Station Retirement. Feb 4, 2022, Part 1
Date Set For International Space Station’s Burial At Sea The International Space Station was never going to last forever. And its expiration date had already been moved from 2024 to 2030. But NASA finally released the plan for what happens after the end of United States support for the orbiting research lab. In a report released this week, NASA announced the station, once decommissioned, woul...
49m Feb 04, 2022
49m
Fake COVID Testing Sites, Cannabis And Exercise, Electric Aviation. Jan 28, 2022, Part 2
Beware Of Fake Pop-Up COVID Sites In recent months, mobile COVID-19 testing tents and vans have sprouted on urban sidewalks and street curbs as demand has skyrocketed in response to the rapid spread of the omicron variant. Some of the sites run by private companies offer legitimate, timely and reliable results, but others are more like weeds. High demand and scarce supply opened the door to ba...
48m Jan 28, 2022
48m
Saving Manatees, Nighttime Satellite Streaks, Webb Telescope Update. Jan 28, 2022, Part 1
Space-X Booster To Hit The Moon, After Years Of Hurtling Through Space A Space-X rocket booster is on track to slam into the moon (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/space-x-rocket-moon/?utm_source=wnyc&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=scifri) , which scientists predict will happen on March 4. The rocket was originally launched in 2015 to deploy a space weather satellite. Now, it’s a piece ...
49m Jan 28, 2022
49m
Epstein-Barr Virus and MS, Agrivoltaics, Ag School Influence, Social Cues From Saliva. Jan 21, 2022, Part 1
Scientists Are Working On A Universal COVID Vaccine As the Omicron wave of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spike around the U.S., there are scientists working not on variant-specific boosters, but on a vaccine that might cover every possible strain, past and future (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/universal-covid-vaccine/) . Called universal vaccines, they require a fundamentally di...
50m Jan 21, 2022
50m
Airborne eDNA, Beetle Jumps, Wordle Psychology, City Pigeons. Jan 21, 2022, Part 2
Identifying Animals Through Airborne DNA In recent years, the technique of eDNA—environmental DNA, or samples taken from the environment, as opposed to from a specific animal—has changed ecology research. Scientists have learned how to obtain eDNA from water samples, soil, and even the intestinal tract of other animals. Writing recently in the journal Current Biology, two different groups repo...
49m Jan 21, 2022
49m
Historic Big Bang Debate, Black Hole Sounds, Plant DNA Mutations. Jan 14, 2022, Part 2
A Debate Over How The Universe Began Even though it’s commonly accepted today, the Big Bang theory was not always the universally accepted scientific explanation for how our universe began. In fact, the term ‘Big Bang’ was coined by a prominent physicist in 1948 to mock the idea. In the middle of the 20th century, researchers in the field of cosmology had two warring theories. The one we woul...
47m Jan 14, 2022
47m
Omicron And Kids, Ivermectin Origins, Icefish Nests. Jan 14, 2022, Part 1
A Replacement Heart, From A Pig This week, doctors reported that they had successfully transplanted a heart taken from a pig into a human being (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/transplant-heart-pig-human/) , a type of procedure known as xenotransplantation. The pig had been genetically modified to lack a certain protein thought to be responsible for organ rejection in previous transplan...
49m Jan 14, 2022
49m
Omicron News, COVID Severity Questions, Bird Count. Jan 7 2022, Part 1
Omicron Variant Drives Winter COVID Surge The United States set a global record this week, recording roughly one million new coronavirus tests in a single day. The current surge in cases is mostly driven by Omicron. The highly contagious variant accounted for about 95% of new cases last week. And, to top it all off, tests are in short supply, the CDC changed its quarantine guidelines, and som...
48m Jan 07, 2022
48m
Pizza Science, Remembering E.O. Wilson And Richard Leakey. Jan 7 2022, Part 2
How A Former Microsoft Exec Mastered The Perfect Slice—Using Science Who doesn’t love pizza? It’s a magical combination of sauce, cheese, crust, and maybe even a topping or two. Depending on where you eat it, the ratio of sauce and cheese and toppings changes: Neapolitan, NY Style, and Chicago Deep Dish each have a slightly different recipe. And different methods of baking impart their signatu...
55m Jan 07, 2022
55m
Celebration Of Weird Ice, Non-Melting Jelly, Former NIH Director Reflects On His Tenure. December 31, 2021, Part 2
From the Arctic To Enceladus: A Celebration Of Unusual Ice With the Arctic’s annual summer ice cover hovering at record lows; and a new record low in global sea ice coverage recorded earlier this year; and a large crack threatening the collapse of a large ice shelf in Antarctica, it can feel like the news about earth’s polar ice caps is all bad. But for researchers who spend time in the frigi...
49m Dec 31, 2021
49m
Best Science Books Of 2021, Glitter Bad For Environment. December 31, 2021, Part 1
Glitter Gets An Eco-Friendly Glimmer Glitter—it’s everywhere this time of year. You open up a holiday card, and out comes a sprinkle of it. And that glitter will seemingly be with you forever, hugging your sweater, covering the floor. But glitter doesn’t stop there. It washes down the drain, and travels into the sewage system and waterways. Since it's made from microplastics, it’s never going ...
49m Dec 31, 2021
49m
Looking Back On A Century Of Science, Holiday Math. December 24, 2021, Part 2
Looking Back On A Century of Science In 1921, the discovery of radium was just over 20 years in the past. And the double helix of DNA was still over thirty years in the future. That year, a publication that came to be the magazine Science News started publication, and is still in operation today. Editors Nancy Shute and Elizabeth Quill join Ira to page through the magazine’s archives (https:/...
49m Dec 24, 2021
49m
American Chestnut, ‘Don’t Look Up’ Movie, Aurora Electrons. December 24, 2021, Part 1
The Resurrection Of The American Chestnut At the turn of the 20th century, the American chestnut towered over other trees in forests along the eastern seaboard. These giants could grow up to 100 feet high and 13 feet wide. According to legend, a squirrel could scamper from New England to Georgia on the canopies of American chestnuts, never touching the ground. Then the trees began to disappea...
49m Dec 24, 2021
49m
Big Trees, Masks And Singing, Capturing Holiday Scents, Unseen Body. Dec 17, 2021, Part 2
Big Trees, Big Benefits When you think about big trees, likely what comes to mind are some of the Earth’s biggest trees, like giant sequoias or redwoods, which can grow to roughly 25 stories tall. But big trees are actually an essential part of every forest ecosystem. Big trees capture a disproportionate share of carbon, provide important animal habitats, propel new tree growth and provide mu...
49m Dec 17, 2021
49m
James Webb Space Telescope, Vaccination And Church, Maine Puffins. Dec 17, 2021, Part 1
A Spike In Winter COVID Cases Begins The United States reached a grim milestone this week: 800,000 total deaths from COVID-19. A winter spike in COVID cases is beginning across the country. And Omicron is making up an increasing share of new cases. Early data shows that the new variant is likely more transmissible than previous ones. Joining guest host John Dankosky to discuss this and other...
49m Dec 17, 2021
49m
Vocal Fry, Indigenous Tribes And The Colorado River, Year In Space. December 10, 2021, Part 2
The Why Of Vocal Fry For decades, vocal fry lived a relatively quiet existence. A creaky or breathy sound that occurs when your voice drops to its lowest register, this phenomenon was long known to linguists, speech pathologists, and voice coaches—but everyday people didn’t pay much attention to it. Then in 2011, people started noticing it everywhere. So, what happened? What’s going on in our...
48m Dec 10, 2021
48m
Michael Pollan On Mind-Altering Plants, A Second Pandemic Winter. December 10, 2021, Part 1
How America Is Preparing For Another Pandemic Winter The weather is getting colder, the days are getting shorter, and the world is approaching the two year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic. Like last year, experts are wary that a winter surge in cases could happen again this year, even with the protection of vaccinations. The Biden administration is trying to get ahead of this possibility...
48m Dec 10, 2021
48m
Omicron Variant, Quantum Computing, Xenobots, SciFri Trivia. Dec 3, 2021, Part 2
Decoding Quantum Computing The computer chips that are delivering these words to you work on a simple, binary, on/off principle. There’s either a voltage, or there’s not. The ‘bits’ encoded by the presence or absence of electrons form the basis for much of our online world.  Now, physicists and engineers are working to create systems based on the strange rules of quantum physics—in which quan...
49m Dec 03, 2021
49m
Ralph Nader On 55 Years Of Car Safety, Spinal Cord Research, Omicron And Travel Bans. Dec 3, 2021, Part 1
Travel Bans Do Little To Slow Spread Of Omicron After South African researchers first detected the new COVID variant Omicron last week, it’s already been found in dozens of countries around the world, including in the United States. Travel restrictions imposed by the Biden administration and others have done little to slow its spread. Instead, experts say that increasing global vaccination rat...
49m Dec 03, 2021
49m
Candy COVID Test, Ig Nobel Prizes 2021. November 26, 2021, Part 2
A More Delicious COVID Screener One of the most bizarre symptoms of COVID-19—a nearly surefire way to know if you have been infected—is a loss of taste or smell. Estimates of how many people are impacted range wildly, with the highest estimates reaching 75 to 80% (https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/covid-19-health/loss-smell-and-covid-19-80-those-infected-sars-cov-2-virus-report-losing-their-se...
50m Nov 26, 2021
50m
Futuristic Freezing, Koji, Cheese Microbiome, Wine-Bottle Resonators. November 26, 2021, Part 1
New Cold Storage Method Solves Freezer Burn—And Saves Energy Have you ever pulled a long-anticipated pint of ice cream out of the freezer, only to find the strawberries crunchy and the normally creamy substance chalky and caked with ice? Freezer burn, a phenomenon caused by water in food crystallizing into ice inside the ice cream or fruit or meat during freezing, is a menace to taste buds, a ...
48m Nov 26, 2021
48m
Thanksgiving Food Science, Force of Infection, Food Inequality. Nov 19, 2021, Part 2
Blunting The Force Of Disease Is Complicated  COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective at preventing severe disease. But their efficacy in lab-controlled trials may not exactly correlate to how well they work in the real world. David Kaslow, chief scientific officer at the global public health nonprofit PATH, explains that a factor known as the “force of infection” plays a role in determining h...
50m Nov 19, 2021
50m
Picking Right COVID Test For Holidays, “Big Bang Theory” Of Cancer. Nov 19, 2021, Part 1
Here’s How Biden’s Infrastructure Bill Addresses Science President Joe Biden signed a massive bipartisan infrastructure bill into law this Monday. The measure focuses on a range of sectors. It would funnel billions into cleaning up pollution in the air and water with efforts that include eliminating lead service lines and cleaning up old, polluted manufacturing sites. (https://www.sciencefrida...
50m Nov 19, 2021
50m
Mammoth Pool Fire, Fun Squirrel Facts, Soil Importance. Nov 12 2021, Part 2
As Wildfire Intensity Rises, So Does The Human Toll Of Blazes It was Labor Day 2020, and Mammoth Pool Reservoir, in California’s Sierra Nevada, was buzzing with campers. Karla Carcamo and her parents, siblings, cousins, and countless others, mostly from the Los Angeles area, have been coming here every Labor Day for 17 years. “Most of it is my family, and family that’s invited family, and thos...
54m Nov 12, 2021
54m
Psychedelics Can Treat Depression, Climate Meeting, Dopesick Show. Nov 12 2021, Part 1
Psilocybin Effective In Treating Serious Depression Depression is often treatable with medication, therapy, or a combination of the two. But some 30% of patients don’t respond well to existing medications—and may try multiple antidepressant drugs with little or no improvement. This week, researchers reported that a new trial suggests psychedelics may be an effective therapy for treatment-resi...
49m Nov 12, 2021
49m