Coronavirus Genetics, Prosthetic Hands. March 6, 2020, Part 1
A New Trick For Dexterity In Prosthetic Hands Researchers working on the next generation of prosthetic limbs have a few fundamental engineering problems to overcome. For starters, how can people using prosthetic limbs effectively signal what motions they want to perform?  A team of researchers may have a solution: A surgical technique that uses muscle tissue to amplify the nerve signals. Partic...
48m Mar 06, 2020
48m
Coronavirus Preparedness, Facebook’s History. Feb 28, 2020, Part 2
This week, the world’s attention has turned to the spread of the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, that was first detected in Wuhan, China, late in 2019. More countries are finding cases, and in the United States, a California patient has become the first known case of possible “community spread”—where the patient had not traveled to affected areas or had known exposure to someone who had been inf...
47m Feb 28, 2020
47m
Degrees of Change: Building Materials. Feb 28, 2020, Part 1
In order to slow a warming planet on track to increase by 2 degrees celsius, nearly every industry will be forced to adapt: airlines, fashion, and even the unglamorous and often overlooked building materials sector.  Just like the farm to table movement, consumers are increasingly thinking about where the raw materials for their homes and cities come from, and how they impact climate change. An...
48m Feb 28, 2020
48m
Coronavirus Update, Genuine Fakes, Neanderthal News. Feb. 21, 2020, Part 2
What Is Real And Fake? There are two ways to grow a diamond. You can dig one up from the Earth—a product of billions of years of pressure and heat placed on carbon. Or you can make one in a lab—by applying lots of that same heat and pressure to tiny starter crystals—and get it made much faster.  Put these two objects under a microscope and they look exactly the same. But is the lab-grown diamon...
48m Feb 21, 2020
48m
Ask A Dentist. Feb. 21, 2020, Part 1
Brushing Up On Tooth Science Most of us spend our time at the dentist holding our mouths open, saying “ahhh,” and occasionally sticking out our tongues. But if you could ask a dentist anything, what would you want to know (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/ask-a-dentist-tooth-science/) ? Ira asks University of Utah researcher Rena D’Souza and UPenn’s Mark Wolff about cavity formation, the ...
48m Feb 21, 2020
48m
Building A Ghost Heart, The Effect Of Big Tech. Feb 14, 2020, Part 2
The human heart is one of the most complicated organs in our body. The heart is, in a way, like a machine—the muscular organ pumping about 2,000 gallons of blood in an adult human every day. But can we construct a heart in the lab? Some scientists are turning to engineering to find ways to preserve that constant lub dub when a heart stops working. One team of researchers created a biohybrid hea...
47m Feb 14, 2020
47m
Great Lakes Book Club Wrap-Up, California Groundwater. Feb 14, 2020, Part 1
The Great Lakes hold 20% of the world’s surface drinking water, with Lake Superior holding half of that alone. The lakes stretch from New York to Minnesota, and cover a surface area of nearly 100,000 square miles—large enough to cover the entire state of Colorado. And they’re teeming with life. Fish, phytoplankton, birds, even butterflies call the lakes home for some portion of their lives. But...
47m Feb 14, 2020
47m
SciFri Extra: The Marshall Islands Stare Down Rising Seas
The Republic of the Marshall Islands is a country of 58,000 people spread across 29 coral atolls (https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/atoll/) in the Pacific Ocean. And in a world where seas are both rising and acidifying, the Marshall Islands are exceptionally vulnerable: Those atolls rise a mere two meters above the original ocean height on average, and rely on the health and conti...
15m Feb 13, 2020
15m
Tech And Empathy, The Ball Method. Feb 7, 2020, Part 2
How Tech Can Make Us More—And Less—Empathetic Much of technology was built on the promise of connecting people across the world, fostering a sense of community. But as much as technology gives us, it also may be taking away one of the things that makes us most human—empathy. (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/tech-empathy/) Meet Alice Ball, Unsung Pioneer In Leprosy Treatment In 1915, an i...
48m Feb 07, 2020
48m
Degrees Of Change: How Native American Communities Are Addressing Climate Change. Feb 7, 2020, Part 1
How Native American Communities Are Addressing Climate Change Indigenous peoples are one of the most vulnerable communities when it comes to the effects of climate change. This is due to a mix of cultural, economic, policy and historical factors. Some Native American tribal governments and councils have put together their own climate risk assessment plans. Native American communities are very d...
48m Feb 07, 2020
48m
Breast Cancer Cultural History, Butterfly Wings. Jan 31, 2020, Part 2
‘Radical’ Explores The Hidden History Of Breast Cancer  Nearly 270,000 women are diagnosed (https://www.cancer.org/content/dam/cancer-org/research/cancer-facts-and-statistics/annual-cancer-facts-and-figures/2019/cancer-facts-and-figures-2019.pdf)  with breast cancer every year, along with a couple thousand men. But the disease manifests in many different ways, meaning few patients have the same...
48m Jan 31, 2020
48m
Coronavirus Update, Invasive Species. Jan 31, 2020, Part 1
Tracking The Spread Of The Coronavirus Outbreak This week, the World Health Organization declared (https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/01/30/798894428/who-declares-coronavirus-outbreak-a-global-health-emergency)  that the coronavirus outbreak—which began in Wuhan, China—is a public health emergency of international concern. Nearly 8,000 cases have been confirmed worldwide. Chinese sc...
48m Jan 31, 2020
48m
SciFri Extra: Revisiting Unique Science Stories Of 2019
2020 has just begun, but we’re still celebrating all the amazing work done by science journalists in 2019. Thanks to them, we’ve been informed on stories like the new illnesses linked to vaping, the first image of a black hole, and the increase in youth-led climate change protests. At our year in review event at Caveat in NYC on December 18, 2019, three science storytellers—Arielle Duhaime-Ross...
34m Jan 28, 2020
34m
Coronavirus, Great Lakes Drinking Water. Jan 24, 2020, Part 1
A novel coronavirus—the type of virus that causes SARS, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), and common cold symptoms—has killed 18 people, and sickened more than 600. In response, Chinese officials have quarantined several huge cities (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/china-coronavirus/) , where some 20 million people live. In this segment, Ira talks with epidemiologists Saskia Popes...
47m Jan 24, 2020
47m
Feathered Dino, Clinical Trials, Coffee Extraction. Jan 24, 2020, Part 2
Before any new drug comes to market, it goes through a time-consuming process. Researchers have to recruit human subjects for a clinical trial, collect all the data, and analyze the results. All of that can take years to complete, but the end result could be worth it: a drug that treats a rare disease or improves patients lives with fewer side effects.  Or the opposite could happen: The drug do...
47m Jan 24, 2020
47m
Polling Science, Gar-eat Lakes. Jan 17, 2020, Part 1
The Science Of Polling In 2020 And Beyond In today’s fast-paced digital culture, it is more difficult than ever to follow and trust political polls. Campaigns, pollsters, and media outlets each say that their numbers are right, but can report different results. Plus, the 2016 election is still fresh in the public’s mind, when the major story was how political polling got it wrong.  But despite ...
48m Jan 17, 2020
48m
Biorobots, The Math Of Life, Science Comics. Jan 17, 2020, Part 2
Living Robots, Designed By Computer Researchers have used artificial intelligence methods to design ‘living robots,’ made from two types of frog cells. The ‘xenobots,’ named for the Xenopus genus of frogs, can move, push objects, and potentially carry materials from one place to another—though the researchers acknowledge that much additional work would need to be done to make the xenobots into ...
48m Jan 17, 2020
48m
Migraines, Galaxy Formation. Jan 10, 2020, Part 2
The Mysteries Of Migraines What do sensitivity to light, a craving for sweets and excessive yawning have in common? They’re all things that may let you know you’re about to have a migraine. Of course each person’s experience of this disease—which impacts an estimated 38 million people in the U.S.—can be very different. One person may be sensitive to light while another is sensitive to sound. Yo...
47m Jan 10, 2020
47m
Australia Fires, Great Lakes Book Club. Jan 10, 2020, Part 1
How Climate Change Is Fanning Australia’s Flames  All eyes have been on Australia in recent weeks as the country’s annual summer fire season has spun out of control with devastating damage to endangered wildlife, homes, farms, indigenous communities, and—as smoke drifts across unburned major metropolitan centers like Sidney and Canberra—air quality.  Vox reporter Umair Irfan (https://www.vox.co...
46m Jan 10, 2020
46m
Geoengineering Climate Change, Tasmanian Tiger, New Water Plan. Jan 3, 2020, Part 1
In the context of climate change, geoengineering refers to deliberate, large-scale manipulations of the planet to slow the effects of human-induced global warming—whether by removing carbon from the atmosphere and storing it safely, or altering the atmosphere to reflect the amount of incoming sunlight that is absorbed as heat.  But neither strategy is uncomplicated to deploy (https://www.scienc...
47m Jan 03, 2020
47m
Christmas Bird Count. Jan 3, 2020, Part 2
For many, the new year means looking back on the past accomplishments and checking off your goals. For birders, it means tallying up your species list and recording all the birds you’ve spotted in the season (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/christmas-bird-count-2020/) . Birders Corina Newsome and Geoff LeBaron, director of the National Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count, guide us thr...
48m Jan 03, 2020
48m
2019 Year In Review. Dec 27 2019, Part 1
 In 2019 we experienced some painful and heartbreaking moments—like the burning of the Amazon rainforest, a worldwide resurgence of measles cases, and the first ever deaths linked to vaping (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/vaping-illness-death/) .  Ira talks with this year’s panel of science news experts, Wendy Zukerman, Rachel Feltman, and Umair Irfan, live on stage at Caveat in New Yor...
49m Dec 27, 2019
49m
Looking Back at the Pale Blue Dot. Dec 27, 2019, Part 2
Few people could put the cosmos in perspective better than astronomer Carl Sagan. And that’s why we’re taking this opportunity to take another listen to this classic conversation with Sagan, recorded December 16, 1994, twenty-five years ago this month.  Ira and Sagan talk about US space policy, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, the place of humans in the universe, and humanity’s nee...
48m Dec 27, 2019
48m
Emerging Technologies, Pokémon In The Brain, Colds And Flu. Dec 20, 2019, Part 1
Back when Science Friday began in 1991, the Internet, as we know it, didn’t even exist. While ARPA-NET existed and the first web pages began to come online, social media, online shopping, streaming video and music were all a long ways away. In fact, one of our early callers in 1993 had a genius idea (https://www.npr.org/2010/11/26/131608861/a-trip-back-to-the-future-of-the-internet) : What if y...
47m Dec 20, 2019
47m
Space Junk, Chronobiology, Mistletoe. Dec 20, 2019, Part 2
As more commercial companies are getting into the satellite launching game, space is becoming a crowded place and all of these objects are creating space debris. Right now, there are approximately 2,000 satellites floating in low-Earth orbit. Space agencies have estimated that are over 100 million small particles floating in low-Earth orbit, but there are no large scale projects to clean up the...
47m Dec 20, 2019
47m
Degrees of Change: Transportation. December 13, 2019, Part 1
Transportation—whether it be your car, aircraft, cargo ships, or the heavy trucks carrying all those holiday packages—makes a big contribution to the world’s CO2 emissions (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/degrees-of-change-transportation/) . In the U.S., the transportation sector accounts for some 29% of the country’s emissions, according to Environmental Protection Agency data. And desp...
48m Dec 13, 2019
48m
Insulin Marketplace, Hair, Whale Size. December 13, 2019, Part 2
Why Diabetes Patients Are Getting Insulin From Facebook Almost one in ten Americans are diagnosed with diabetes, according to the most recent statistics from the CDC (https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/data/statistics/statistics-report.html) . With those odds, you likely know someone with the disease. And you may also know that most diabetes patients need to be treated with insulin therapy—frequent i...
48m Dec 13, 2019
48m
Undiscovered Presents: Spontaneous Generation
These days, biologists believe all living things come from other living things. But for a long time, people believed that life would, from time to time, spontaneously pop into existence more often—and not just that one time at the base of the evolutionary tree. Even the likes of Aristotle believed in the “spontaneous generation” of life, until Louis Pasteur debunked the theory—or so the story g...
21m Dec 11, 2019
21m
Best Science Books and Board Games of 2019. Dec 6, 2019, Part 2
In a year jam-packed with fast-moving science news and groundbreaking research, books can provide a more slower-paced, reflective look at the world around us—and a precious chance to dive deep on big ideas. But how do you decide which scientific page-turner to pick up first? Science Friday staff pawed through the piles (https://www.sciencefriday.com/series/books/)  all year long. Listen to Ira ...
48m Dec 06, 2019
48m
Parker Solar Probe, Slime Molds. Dec 6, 2019, Part 1
In August 2018, NASA sent the Parker Solar Probe off on its anticipated seven-year-long mission to study the sun. Already, it has completed three of its 24 scheduled orbits, and data from two of those orbits are already telling us things we didn’t know about the star at the center of our solar system. The probe has collected information on the factors that influence the speed of solar wind, the...
48m Dec 06, 2019
48m
SciFri Extra: Bringing Environmental Justice To The Classroom
Laura Diaz, a Bay Area science teacher, grew up in Pittsburg, California near chemical plants and refineries. That experience, combined with watching her mother’s home go up in flames in last year’s Camp Fire, transformed her into an “environmental justice activist.” Now, she’s bringing those experiences into the classroom to inspire young people to solve the world’s injustices through science ...
16m Nov 30, 2019
16m
Science Awards Of The Sillier Sort. Nov 29, 2019, Part 2
The 2019 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony is a tribute to offbeat and quirky scientific studies. Here's some examples: Does pizza have a protective effect against cancer? What’s the physics behind the wombat’s unusual cubic-shaped droppings? And can dog-training clickers be used to help the medical education of orthopedic surgeons?  These projects were among 10 that were recognized at this year’s 29th f...
47m Nov 29, 2019
47m
Imagining The Future Of AI / Face Mites. Nov 29, 2019, Part 1
What can science fiction and social science  contribute to how we think about our algorithmic present and future? Science fiction writers and Hugo-winning podcast (https://www.ouropinionsarecorrect.com/) hosts Annalee Newitz (author of The Future Of Another Timeline (https://www.npr.org/2019/09/26/764358950/future-of-another-timeline-edits-the-past-to-save-the-present) ) and Charlie Jane Anders...
48m Nov 29, 2019
48m
Undiscovered Presents: Planet Of The Killer Apes
In Apartheid-era South Africa, a scientist uncovered a cracked, proto-human jawbone. That humble fossil would go on to inspire one of the most blood-spattered theories in all of paleontology: the “Killer Ape” theory.  According to the Killer Ape theory, humans are killers—unique among the apes for our capacity for bloodthirsty murder and violence. And at a particularly violent moment in U.S. hi...
25m Nov 27, 2019
25m
Degrees of Change: Coral Restoration. Nov 22 2019, Part 1
A quarter of the world’s corals are now dead, victims of warming waters, changing ocean chemistry, sediment runoff, and disease. Many spectacular, heavily-touristed reefs have simply been loved to death. But there are reasons for hope. Scientists around the world working on the front lines of the coral crisis have been inventing creative solutions that might buy the world’s reefs a little time....
48m Nov 22, 2019
48m
Astronaut Kathryn Sullivan, Marie Curie Play. Nov 22, 2019, Part 2
For most Americans, the story of the Hubble Space Telescope began on April 24th, 1990, the launch date of the now 30 year-old observatory. But for astronaut Kathryn Sullivan, Hubble’s journey began on a wintery day in early 1985 at a meeting at NASA headquarters, where she was assigned to the mission that would take Hubble into space.  For the next five years, Sullivan, a former oceanographer a...
48m Nov 22, 2019
48m
Undiscovered Presents: Like Jerry Springer For Bluebirds
“Do men need to cheat on their women?” a Playboy headline asked in the summer of 1978. Their not-so-surprising conclusion: Yes! Science says so! The idea that men are promiscuous by nature, while women are chaste and monogamous, is an old and tenacious one. As far back as Darwin, scientists were churning out theory and evidence that backed this up. In this episode, Annie and Elah go back to the...
27m Nov 20, 2019
27m
Volume Control, Dermatology In Skin Of Color, Kelp Decline. Nov 15, 2019, Part 2
Dermatologists presented with a new patient have a number of symptoms to look at in order to diagnose. Does the patient have a rash, bumps, or scaling skin? Is there redness, inflammation, or ulceration? For rare conditions a doctor may have never seen in person before, it’s likely that they were trained on photos of the conditions—or can turn to colleagues who may themselves have photos. But i...
47m Nov 15, 2019
47m
EPA Transparency Proposal, Tick Milking. Nov 15, 2019, Part 1
This week, a House Committee held a hearing to review an Environmental Protection Agency proposal called ‘Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science.’ The proposal would require researchers to disclose underlying data (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/critics-say-the-epa-transparency-proposal-will-squash-science/) —which could include private medical and health information— (https:/...
48m Nov 15, 2019
48m
SciFri Extra: Add A Dash Of Science To Your Thanksgiving Recipes
This Thanksgiving, put your cooking skills to the test (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/food-failures-add-a-dash-of-science-to-your-thanksgiving-recipes/) . Looking for tips to avoid singed sweet potatoes, acrid apple pies, and a burned bird? In this 2016 conversation from the SciFri archive, Molly Birnbaum and Dan Souza from Cook’s Science help us understand the science behind favorite ...
22m Nov 13, 2019
22m
Infant Formula, AI Weirdness, Venus Fly Traps. Nov. 8, 2019, Part 2
Would you feel comfortable consuming a product that listed “whey protein concentrate” and “corn maltodextrin” on its list of ingredients? What about feeding it to your baby? Most of the ingredients found in baby formula are actually just carbohydrates, fats, and proteins, and are perfectly safe—and necessary—for infant health. But this inscrutable list of ingredients is one reason why many pare...
48m Nov 08, 2019
48m
Biomedical Espionage, Einstein’s Eclipse, Transit Of Mercury. Nov. 8, 2019, Part 1
The FBI, National Institutes of Health (NIH), and other agencies who oversee federal research grants are currently asking if the open culture of science in the U.S. is inviting other countries to steal it. The FBI has been warning since 2016 that researchers could be potentially sending confidential research, and even biological samples, to other countries. On Monday, a report in the  (https://...
48m Nov 08, 2019
48m
Moths, Alan Alda, Graveyard Lichens. Nov 1, 2019, Part 2
There are over 160,000 species of moths worldwide, and they come in all different shapes and sizes. For example, the Comet Moth, native to the rainforests of Madagascar, boasts vibrant red and yellow patterned wings, feathery antennae, and long swapping tails, thought to useful for distracting its bat predators. By comparison, most common North American moths seem boring and dull. While their b...
48m Nov 01, 2019
48m
PFAS Lawsuit, Bat Disease. Nov 1, 2019, Part 1
Eighteen years ago, a lawyer named Robert Bilott sent a letter to the EPA, the attorney general, and other regulators, warning them about a chemical called PFOA, short for perfluorooctanoic acid. Outside of the companies that made and used PFOA, most people had never heard of it. But E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, better known as DuPont, had been using PFOA to make Teflon since the early ...
48m Nov 01, 2019
48m
“Black Software” Book, Mucus. Oct 25, 2019, Part 2
When the World Wide Web was first being developed, African American software engineers, journalists and entrepreneurs were building search engines, directories, and forums to connect and bring on black web users and communities. In his book Black Software: The Internet and Racial Justice, from the AfroNet to Black Lives Matter, Charlton McIlwain tells the stories of these individuals (https://w...
47m Oct 25, 2019
47m
Spiders, Quantum Supremacy, Missouri Runoff. Oct 25, 2019, Part 1
Spiders were one of the first animals to evolve on land. And over the span of 400 million years of speciation and evolution, they’ve learned some amazing tricks. One of their trademarks? The strong, sticky substance that we call silk—every spider produces it, whether for weaving webs, wrapping prey, or even leaving trails on the ground for potential mates.  But every silk is unique (https://www...
48m Oct 25, 2019
48m
Policing And Mental Health, Ancient Clams, Moon Plan. Oct. 18, 2019, Part 2
In the 1980s and 1990s, in the midst of rising crime rates and a nationally waning confidence in policing, law enforcement around the country adopted a different approach to addressing crime. Instead of just reacting to crime when it happened, officers decided they’d try to prevent it from happening in the first place, employing things like “hot spots” policing and “stop and frisk,” or “terry s...
48m Oct 18, 2019
48m
Degrees Of Change: Climate Change Migration. Oct. 18, 2019, Part 1
When the water rises, whether from heavy rains or rising seas, communities have a few options: reinforce flood-threatened homes, rebuild after the water recedes, or—in places where the threat of repeated floods and even more damage is increasing—leave. And while leaving may feel synonymous with defeat, more cities and states are interested in encouraging people to leave risky floodplains—a proc...
48m Oct 18, 2019
48m
Office Air Pollution, Tetris Decisions, Alzheimer's Update. Oct 11, 2019, Part 2
If you live and work in an urban area, you might think about the air quality outside your home or workplace. But what about the air quality inside the office? (https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/indoor-air-quality/) It turns out that on average, indoor environments have higher concentrations of potentially harmful substances, such as aerosols and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). While pas...
48m Oct 11, 2019
48m
Trust In Science, California Power Outages, Regrowing Cartilage. Oct 11, 2019, Part 1
Despite widely reported attacks on science, the vast majority of Americans continue to trust scientists, according to the latest survey from the Pew Research Center. Many listeners of Science Friday might take it as a given that we should trust science, but is that trust well-founded? Naomi Oreskes, history of science professor at Harvard University, argues that we should (https://www.sciencefr...
47m Oct 11, 2019
47m