African Wild Dogs, Spotted Lanternfly, Seashells. July 9, 2021, Part 1
Sniffing Out How To Save African Wild Dogs One of the most endangered mammals on Earth, African wild dogs are known for their oversized ears, social bonds, and highly efficient hunting style (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/what-wildlife-shows-dont-tell-you-about-african-wild-dogs?loggedin=true) . That predatory nature is now contributing to their threatened status, as their...
48m Jul 02, 2021
48m
Garden Hotline, Benjamin Franklin. July 2, 2021, Part 2
The Science Of Your Summer Vegetable Garden Planting and tending to a vegetable garden is both an art and a science. If all goes well, you’ll be enjoying delicious homemade salads all summer long. But if your tomatoes get too little water, or if the soil is too acidic, or if pests get to the lettuce before you do, then all that hard work may have been for nothing. Whether you’re a seasoned gr...
48m Jul 02, 2021
48m
Extreme Heat, COVID Delta Variant, Poe’s Science. July 2, 2021, Part 1
The Alarming Impacts Of Extreme Heat This week, the Pacific Northwest was hit by a record breaking heat wave, with temperatures rising as high as 116 degrees Fahrenheit in Portland, Oregon. Experts say of all the extreme weather events brought on by climate change and heat waves stand to do the most damage to the environment, infrastructure, and human health (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segm...
48m Jul 02, 2021
48m
Cephalopod Week Wrap Up, California Carbon Credits Error. June 25, 2021, Part 1
California’s Climate Program Is Actually Adding Carbon To The Atmosphere California has a reputation as the state that’s doing the most about climate change. And the lynchpin of those efforts is California’s Cap-and-Trade program, where the state’s biggest polluters—like ExxonMobil, BP, and others—are required to offset their carbon dioxide emissions by investing in carbon reduction strategies...
48m Jun 25, 2021
48m
UFO Report, Animal Play, Alzheimers and Music. June 25, 2021, Part 2
Is The Truth About UFOs Out There? Over the past several years, U.S. Navy pilots have reported several instances of ”unexplained aerial phenomena” while in flight (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/truth-ufos/) . They’ve recorded videos that show (https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/15/politics/ufo-report-briefing-pentagon-fighting/index.html)  shapes that appear to move in unusual ways, zooming ...
48m Jun 25, 2021
48m
Immunocompromised and Covid, Summer SciFi Reading. June 18, 2021, Part 2
COVID-19 Vaccines May Not Protect Immunocompromised People This week, California  (https://covid19.ca.gov/safely-reopening/) and New York (https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-announces-covid-19-restrictions-lifted-70-adult-new-yorkers-have-received-first) , two of the states hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, announced that they were relaxing almost all coronavirus-related busin...
48m Jun 18, 2021
48m
Marijuana And Medicine, Cephalopod Week, Environmental Antidepressants. June 18, 2021, Part 1
How To Talk About Medical Marijuana With Your Doctor Over the last decade, cannabis has had a moment. Thirty-six states and Washington D.C. have legalized it for medical use. (Fifteen states, plus D.C., have also legalized weed recreationally.) Altogether, about 5.5 million people in the U.S. now have medical marijuana cards. One of the primary arguments for expanding marijuana laws is the dr...
48m Jun 18, 2021
48m
Health Equity And Trans Health, Human-Robot Relationship. June 11, 2020, Part 1
Biden’s New Assistant Secretary Of Health On Protecting Trans Youth The American healthcare system is facing some incredible challenges: Black and Latino communities were hit harder by COVID-19, and have lower vaccination rates than white, Asian, and Native American communities. The opioid crisis is still raging, climate change is disproportionately impacting the health of communities of color...
49m Jun 11, 2021
49m
Alzheimer’s Treatment Controversy, Science Mistakes, Chonky Fish. June 11, 2020, Part 2
FDA’s Approval Of Debated Alzheimer’s Treatment Raises Controversy This week, the FDA gave the green light to a drug for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. The drug, a monoclonal antibody called aducanumab, is the first Alzheimer’s treatment to receive approval in almost 20 years. It targets the amyloid protein that forms the tangled plaques found in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s. B...
1hr 1m Jun 11, 2021
1hr 1m
Genetics of Depression, Engineering Humans for Space, Tech Ethics. June 4, 2021, Part 2
Research Reveals 178 Genes Are Associated With Depression If you have a family member that suffers from depression, chances are you may have more than one. Doctors often say “depression runs in families,” but scientists really had no good idea how—until a major analysis (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-021-00860-2)  of the genomes of 200,000 military veterans uncovered the 178 genes tha...
48m Jun 04, 2021
48m
Fauci On 40 Years Of HIV/AIDS, Watermelon Origins, Venus Missions. June 4, 2021, Part 1
Anthony Fauci Reflects On 40 Years Of HIV/AIDS Research Every week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) releases its regular report of the latest developments on emerging diseases—a living record documenting decades of medical history, known as the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). In May 1981, former MMWR editor Michael B. Gregg got a call about an unusual deadly ...
48m Jun 04, 2021
48m
Sand Sustainability, Jane Goodall, Morphing Pasta, Cicada Snacks. May 28, 2021, Part 2
Shifting The Sand Business To Greener Practices Sand is one of the most in-demand natural materials on the planet—some 50 billion tons of sand and gravel are mined (https://wwf.panda.org/wwf_news/?333451%2FUncovering-sand-minings-impacts-on-the-worlds-rivers)  every year. It’s because the humble sand is a key ingredient in many materials, from concrete and asphalt to microchips and glass. But ...
48m May 28, 2021
48m
Vaccine Hesitancy, Colorado River Drought, Alternative Syrups. May 28, 2021, Part 1
How Do We Overcome Vaccine Hesitancy? This Memorial Day weekend, many people will be traveling to the beach, hitting the road or socializing with friends—maskless—for the first time in over a year. As of this week, 50% of people over 18 are now fully vaccinated. Another 15 to 20% of people are taking a “wait and see” approach. (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/vaccine-hesitancy/) Of thos...
48m May 28, 2021
48m
Cybersecurity, Baseball Physics, Opioid Trial. May 21, 2021, Part 2
Americans’ Online Security Needs An Update Last week, all eyes were on the shutdown of a gas pipeline that delivered fuel to large portions of the Southeastern US. The shutdown was not due to a leak or planned pipeline maintenance, but to a ransomware attack that took billing computers at the pipeline operator offline (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/american-online-security/) . The att...
49m May 21, 2021
49m
Global Vaccination, Malaria Vaccine, Zombie Wildfires. May 21, 2021, Part 1
How Do You Solve a Problem Like World Vaccination? Here in the U.S., it feels as if we’ve turned a corner in the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of the population can be vaccinated, and restrictions for masks and distancing are loosening. But we won’t be able to get a handle on the pandemic until the rest of the world has access to a vaccine. If you thought distributing shots to rural areas here in th...
48m May 21, 2021
48m
NFTs and Art, Neuralink, Preserving Endangered Foods. May 14, 2021, Part 2
What’s Behind The Blockchain-Based Art Boom? From multi-million dollar (https://www.prestigeonline.com/th/pursuits/art-culture/beeple-nft-art-christies/)  art sales to short NBA video clips (https://nbatopshot.com/) , non-fungible tokens have taken off as a way to license media in the digital realm. The blockchain-based tokens, which function as a certificate of ownership for purchasers, produ...
48m May 14, 2021
48m
New Mask Rules, Pain Algorithm, Assorted Nuts, Muldrow Glacier. May 14, 2021, Part 1
Fully Vaccinated Can Unmask Often, CDC Says As the number of vaccinated Americans continues to rise and evidence mounts that the vaccines may reduce viral transmission in addition to lessening disease severity, the CDC announced Thursday that fully-vaccinated people may be able to go mask-free except in specific crowded indoor situations (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/vaccinated-unmas...
47m May 14, 2021
47m
Beetles, Wildfires, Woodchip Bioreactor. May 7, 2021, Part 2
A Beetle’s Chemical (And Plastic) Romance For many species of beetle, the key to finding a mate is scent: Both females and males give off pheromones that signal their species, their sex, and even their maturity level. How do researchers know? In experiments with dead beetles that have been sprayed with female pheromones, live males reliably attempt to mate with the dead insects. But when one ...
48m May 07, 2021
48m
Herd Immunity, Crossword Program. May 7, 2021, Part 1
Weighing COVID-19 Vaccinations For Teens Federal officials are reporting that the Food and Drug Administration is poised to authorize Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 12 to 15 (https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-business-coronavirus-vaccine-health-government-and-politics-cf218f1f24fdccd4e06c024b0a869d20)  by early next week—just as Canada became the first country to do so (https...
48m May 07, 2021
48m
Viking Metal, Possible Futures, Global Pollination. April 30, 2021, Part 2
Uncovering Metal Crafts Of The Viking Age Vikings are often associated with scenes of boats and fiercely-pitched battles. But new research, published in the journal Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences (http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12520-021-01308-1) , shows they also had other, calmer skills. The paper details advances in the cast metalwork of objects, such as keys and ornamental brooche...
48m Apr 30, 2021
48m
The Past And Future Of Plastics Tech. April 30, 2021, Part 1
The Future Of Plastics Plastics do a lot of good. They’re sturdy, they’re clean, and the COVID-19 pandemic has really highlighted their benefits, with personal protective equipment like disposable gloves and masks. But its durability is also its biggest problem. We’ve all seen photos of piles of plastic trash washed up on beaches, and animals surrounded by plastic bags and straws. Those mater...
48m Apr 30, 2021
48m
Gender-Affirming Health Care, Defining ‘Life’. April 23, 2021, Part 2
Proposed Legislation Threatens Trans Rights Nationwide Since the start of the 2021 legislative session, members of more than 30 state legislatures have proposed over 100 bills (https://www.aclu.org/legislation-affecting-lgbt-rights-across-country)  that would limit transgender children’s ability to play sports, or access gender-affirming medical care such as puberty blocking medications. One s...
48m Apr 23, 2021
48m
Climate Summit, Offshore Wind, Hummingbirds. April 23, 2021, Part 1
World Leaders Gather Virtually For Climate Summit Forty world leaders attended an international summit on climate change to discuss how each country would commit to decreasing emissions (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/news-climate-summit/) . Sophie Bushwick from Scientific American fills us in on the commitments stated during the meeting. Plus, she talks about China launching its space...
48m Apr 23, 2021
48m
History Of Conservation, Right Whales Decline. April 16, 2021, Part 1
Conserving More Than Just the Planet’s ‘Beloved Beasts’ Historically, “conservation” simply meant not overhunting a game animal, preserving sufficient populations to continue to hunt the following year. Over time, however, conservationists have learned to broaden their focus from individual animals to entire ecosystems, protecting not just species, but the food webs and habitat they need to th...
48m Apr 16, 2021
48m
Understanding Caribbean Volcano Eruption, Billions Of T-Rexes, Pterosaur Necks, Lost Feasts. April 16, 2021, Part 2
Understanding St. Vincent’s Volcanic Eruption Since April 9th, the Caribbean island of St. Vincent has been rocked by eruptions at the La Soufrière volcano. Over the last week, plumes of ash and gas have rained down on the island, and dense masses of debris, called pyroclastic flows, are destroying everything in their path. Tens of thousands of residents have been evacuated.   La Soufrière h...
47m Apr 16, 2021
47m
Piano AI, Giraffes, Alzheimer’s, Mime Psychology. April 9, 2021, Part 2
New AI Composes Songs From Silent Performance Videos There have been many awkward attempts in the quest to train algorithms to do what humans can. Music is a prime example. It turns out that the process of turning the individual notes of a composed piece into a fully expressive performance—complete with changes in loudness and mood—is not easy to automate.  But a team at the University of Was...
48m Apr 09, 2021
48m
Future For Long COVID Patients, Getting COVID Info To Sihk Truckers. April 9, 2021, Part 1
What Does The Future Look Like For COVID-19 Long-Haulers? There’s something strange happening with some people who’ve gotten sick with COVID-19: Somewhere between 10 and 30% of people who are infected are stuck with long-lasting effects and complications.   People dealing with long-term symptoms after a coronavirus infection are known as COVID long-haulers, and as the pandemic gets longer, t...
48m Apr 09, 2021
48m
Pollination, Beekeeping How-To, Sunflower Project. April 2, 2021, Part 2
The Buzz Over Non-Bee Pollinators When you think of pollinators, bees are probably the first insect that comes to mind. But there are actually all sorts of insects and animals that contribute to pollination, like moths, beetles and many kinds of flies—from hoverflies to gnats. Pollination biologist Robert Raguso joins SciFri to explain how different pollinators have different ‘personalities,’...
47m Apr 02, 2021
47m
Unexpected Physics, Controlling Cow Methane, Spring Break. April 2, 2021, Part 1
Signs The Standard Model Of Physics May Be Incomplete The pandemic has slowed many projects around the world, but scientists and engineers are nearing completion of a long-planned upgrade and maintenance period at CERN’s massive Large Hadron Collider project in Switzerland. The collider is currently cooling down and testing components, and aiming to start up for its third major run late this y...
47m Apr 02, 2021
47m
Spring Climate Effects, Octopus Sleep, Housing and Health. March 26, 2021, Part 2
In New York, Essential Workers Face Eviction If you walk through many towns during this pandemic, you can tell that something is different just by looking at the storefronts. Some businesses have limited hours, others have capacity restrictions. Still other businesses are temporarily closed. Some are gone altogether. The pandemic has also had other financial effects that are harder to see—and ...
47m Mar 26, 2021
47m
Racism And Mental Health, How To Milk Ticks. March 26, 2021, Part 1
The Mental Health Costs Of ‘Everyday’ Racism On March 16, a 21-year-old white man killed six Asian women and two other people in multiple shootings in Atlanta. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Asians and Asian-Americans in the U.S. have experienced a rise in racist attacks, which psychologists say are tied to anti-Chinese rhetoric from the former White House administration, as well as...
47m Mar 26, 2021
47m
SciFri Extra: The Origin Of The Word 'Introvert'
Science Diction (https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/science-diction) from Science Friday is back! Their latest episode is all about a recent buzzword: "Introvert."  In 2013, introverts staged their comeback. For decades, they’d been told to get out of their shells and *smile*, while those  showy, gregarious extroverts were held up as the American ideal. But when one author published a kind o...
29m Mar 20, 2021
29m
Greenland Plants, Privacy and Big Data, Rainbows. March 19, 2021, Part 2
Under A Mile Of Ice, A Climate Clue Scientists studying sediment taken from a core sample of the Greenland ice sheet just 800 miles from the North Pole have found remnants of ancient plants, freeze-dried under more than a mile of ice. Using several different dating techniques, they say the soil, twigs, and leaves date to sometime within the last million years—probably on the order of several h...
49m Mar 19, 2021
49m
COVID Questions, Introvert Origin. March 19, 2021, Part 1
Rise In Anti-Asian Violence Is At The Intersection Of Racism And Disease Earlier this week, eight people were killed at three Atlanta-area massage parlors. Six of the victims were Asian-American women. In 2020, reported attacks on Asian-Americans increased by 150% over those reported the previous year in some of the country’s most populous cities, according to data compiled by California State...
48m Mar 19, 2021
48m
Virtual Disease, Daydreaming, Geoengineering. March 12 2021, Part 2
Learning From World Of Warcraft’s Virtual Pandemic The widespread infection of roughly four million virtual characters (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-flu-virtual/online-blood-plague-offers-lessons-for-pandemics-idUKTRE53Q4HI20090427?edition-redirect=uk)  all started with a giant snake demon. In 2005, the massively multiplayer online video game World Of Warcraft introduced a special event ...
47m Mar 12, 2021
47m
Jackson Water Woes, Giant Telescope Mirror, Shark Sex. March 12 2021, Part 1
What Went Wrong With Jackson, Mississippi’s Water? Residents of Jackson, Mississippi have been dealing with a water crisis since a storm rolled through town on February 15th. The city’s water system was damaged, leaving thousands of residents without running water at home (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/what-went-wrong-with-jackson-mississippis-water/) . People have relied on water dis...
47m Mar 12, 2021
47m
Conversations, Baby Teeth, Tasmanian Tiger. March 5, 2021, Part 2
When Is It Time To Say Goodbye? Imagine you’re having a conversation with someone. You may get the sense that they have somewhere else to be. Or you might start feeling restless, and use an excuse to cut the conversation short. Sometimes, you feel like you could talk for HOURS. Chances are you’re wrong every time.  In a study published (https://www.pnas.org/content/118/10/e2011809118)  this w...
50m Mar 05, 2021
50m
Implementing Oregon’s Drug Policy, Wisconsin Wolf Hunt, Johnson & Johnson Vaccine. March 5, 2021, Part 1
Oregon Just Decriminalized Small Amounts of All Drugs. Now What? On February 1, a big experiment began in Oregon: The state has decriminalized small amounts of all drugs, including heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine. In the November election, voters passed ballot Measure 110 by a 16-point margin. Now, if you’re caught with one or two grams of what some refer to as “hard drugs”, you won’t be...
47m Mar 05, 2021
47m
Texas Storm, NASA Climate Advisor, Mars Sounds. Feb 26, 2021, Part 1
Does A Vaccine Help You If You’ve Already Had COVID-19? Vaccines doses have started to rollout and are getting into the arms of people. We know that if you already had COVID-19, you build up antibodies against the virus. So do the vaccines affect you if you’ve already had COVID-19?  Science writer Roxanne Khamsi talks about recent studies showing that a single dose of vaccine could boost immu...
48m Feb 26, 2021
48m
Lucid Dreaming, Sex As A Biological Variable, Parachute Science, Global Vaccine Access. Feb 26, 2021, Part 2
Memory And The Dreaming Mind If you’ve ever stayed up too late studying for a test, you know that sleep impacts memory—you need that precious shut-eye in order to encode and recall all that information. But what is it about sleep that aids memory?  Researchers have pinpointed a specific stage of sleep, REM sleep, as an area of interest for studying memory consolidation. REM, or rapid eye move...
47m Feb 26, 2021
47m
Tech Unions, Color Perception, Fish Vs Birds. Feb 19, 2021, Part 2
Reprogramming Labor In Tech More than 6,000 warehouse workers in Bessemer, Alabama are midway through voting on whether they should unionize. If the ‘yes’ votes win, it would be unprecedented for the company: The last time a unionization vote was held by Amazon’s United States employees, back in 2014, a group of 30 technicians ultimately voted not to join the International Association of Machi...
48m Feb 19, 2021
48m
Fauci On Vaccines and Variants, Mummy Mystery, Texas Power Grid Failure. Feb 19, 2021, Part 1
Fauci Says Majority Of U.S. Adults Likely To Be Vaccinated By Late Summer We’re about a month shy of a big anniversary: one year since the World Health Organization officially labeled COVID-19 a pandemic. Since then, a lot has changed—and a lot has not. We have more information than ever about COVID-19, but there are still a lot of unknowns about the illness. While about 40 million people in ...
48m Feb 19, 2021
48m
Fish Eye Secrets, Human Genome Project, Science Diction 'Mesmerize.' Feb 12, 2021, Part 2
Seeing The World Through Salmon Eyes The saying goes, “The eyes are the window to the soul.” But for fish, the eyes are the window to the stomach.  As one California biologist recently learned, the eyes of Chinook salmon are like a tiny diet journal of everything it ate. But to read that journal, you have to peel back the layers of the eye, like it’s the world’s tiniest onion.  Miranda Tilco...
48m Feb 12, 2021
48m
The Effectiveness Of Double-Masking, Mars Landing Preview. Feb 12, 2021, Part 1
Two Masks Are Better Than One Masks have been a big issue throughout the pandemic, from supply shortages to debates about when they should be required to be used. This week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put out research and guidance on the effectiveness of double masking—wearing one mask over another (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/why-double-mask/) . Engineer and ae...
47m Feb 12, 2021
47m
Four Lost Cities, Sourdough Microbiome, Queen Bees, Bison. Feb 5, 2021, Part 2
National Bison Range Returns To Indigenous Management Hundreds of years ago, tens of millions of bison roamed North America. They were an essential resource and cultural foundation for many Native American tribes. And by 1890, European colonists had hunted them nearly to extinction.  When President Theodore Roosevelt moved to conserve the remaining bison in 1908, he established the National B...
48m Feb 05, 2021
48m
COVID Variants And Vaccines, U.S. Energy Justice. Feb 5, 2021, Part 1
Will Vaccines Work Against New Variants Of The Coronavirus? The rollout of COVID-19 vaccination programs around the world has been anything but smooth. Complicating the effort is the virus itself. The original coronavirus genome that the current vaccines were based on has mutated. Now, there are three virus variants, and experts are somewhat concerned. How will the vaccines scientists have wor...
48m Feb 05, 2021
48m
Medieval Bones, Vaccine Rollout, Florida Panthers. Jan 29, 2021, Part 2
A Skeletal Record Of Medieval England Society If you’ve ever fractured a bone, that skeletal trauma stays with you forever, even after it heals. So researchers across the pond are using bones from medieval times to put together a picture of what life was like. The bones in the study came from ordinary people in medieval Cambridge in the United Kingdom, from between the 10th and 14th century. ...
47m Jan 29, 2021
47m
Your Questions About COVID-19 Vaccines Answered, Placenta Science. Jan 29, 2021, Part 1
Everything You Want To Know About COVID-19 Vaccines The U.S. has been vaccinating people against COVID-19 for a little over a month. While there have been plenty of hiccups, over 20 million people in the country have received at least one dose of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or the Moderna shots. For the past few weeks, Science Friday has been collecting your questions about the COVID-19 vaccin...
47m Jan 29, 2021
47m
Orange Bat, Greenland Bacteria, COVID Anniversary, Alien Argument. Jan 22, 2021, Part 2
Orange Is The New Black—For Bats For a newly-described bat from West Africa, dubbed Myotis nimbaensis (mouse-eared bat from the Nimba Mountains), scientists are reaching for a different part of the color wheel. While Myotis does have some black on its body, the overwhelming majority of the bat’s fur is bright orange.   A team of scientists from the American Museum of Natural History and Bat C...
47m Jan 22, 2021
47m
Finding Lead Pipes Through Algorithm, How Soil Could Save The Planet. Jan 22, 2021, Part 1
After Flint’s Crisis, An Algorithm Helps Citizens Find Lead Pipes It’s been nearly seven years since the beginning of Flint, Michigan’s water crisis, when high levels of lead from corroded lead pipes led to water shortages and health issues for city residents. Since then, many other cities around the country have had their own problems with lead. Researchers estimate that millions of Americans...
48m Jan 22, 2021
48m