Science Friday

Grant funding by the National Science Foundation has been cut by more than half this year, bringing the foundation's science funding to its lowest level in decades. Katrina Miller, who covers science for the New York Times, joins Host Flora Lichtman to unpack the cutbacks and discuss where the funding changes might lead.And, the FDA has cleared a blood test to help diagnose Alzheimer's disease. The first-of-its-kind test measures the levels of amyloid and tau proteins in a patient's blood, two major biomarkers of the disease. Alzheimer's researcher Jason Karlawish joins Flora to explain this new diagnostic tool and what it means for patients.Guests:Katrina Miller is a science reporter for The New York Times based in Chicago.Dr. Jason Karlawish is a professor of medicine, medical ethics and health policy, and neurology at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine, and co-director of the Penn Memory Center, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

At the end of April, air traffic control radar surveillance and radio communication systems at Newark airport went dark for over a minute. A week and half later, radar went down again briefly. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has since cut down the number of flights in and out of Newark. But, how does our air traffic control system work? How do air traffic controllers keep track of all of the planes in the sky? And what happens when systems fail? Michael McCormick, a former air traffic control operations manager at the FAA, joins Host Flora Lichtman to dive into the science of air traffic control. Guest: Dr. Michael McCormick is a former vice president of the FAA's Air Traffic Organization,  and an associate professor and program coordinator of Air Traffic Management at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.Transcripts for the segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

At the beginning of May, the National Institutes of Health, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, announced a plan to develop a universal vaccine platform. Think: a single shot for flu or COVID-19 that would last years, maybe a lifetime. The plan—called Generation Gold Standard—has a reported budget of $500 million, and a tight deadline. But will it work? And where does the science on this actually stand? In this live broadcast, Hosts Flora Lichtman and Ira Flatow talk with epidemiologist Michael Osterholm and vaccine researcher Ted Ross.Guests: Michael Osterholm is Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota.Dr. Ted Ross is the global director of vaccine research at the Cleveland Clinic's Florida Research and Innovation Center in Port St. Lucie, Florida. Transcript will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Betül Kaçar started her scientific career as a biochemist, working on an enzyme found in zebrafish. But then she found her calling: investigating some of the hardest questions in evolutionary biology by resurrecting ancient life forms. NASA administrator Melissa Kirven-Brooks recalls the fellowship application that put Betül on her radar. And evolutionary biologist and geneticist Harmit Malik weighs in on what makes Betül's project so hard, and why he's kind of jealous he didn't think of it first. Betül previously received a Hypothesis Fund Award for her research.Guest:Dr. Betül Kaçar, professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and leader of a NASA-funded multi-institutional research center focusing on life's early evolution“The Leap” is a 10-episode audio series that profiles scientists willing to take big risks to push the boundaries of discovery. It premieres on Science Friday's podcast feed every Monday until July 21. “The Leap” is a production of the Hypothesis Fund, brought to you in partnership with Science Friday.Transcript will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

The “Mission: Impossible” franchise is known for its big stunts, and the newest film is no exception. Producer Kathleen Davis talks to the film's stunt coordinator, Wade Eastwood, about the science behind one big underwater scene. Plus, psychologist Kenneth Carter joins Host Flora Lichtman to talk about what makes high-adrenaline adventurers tick.Take this questionnaire to see where you fall on the "sensation scale" Carter mentioned in this episode.Guests: Wade Eastwood is a stunt coordinator, stunt performer, and director in the film and television industry. He was the second unit director and stunt coordinator on "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning."Dr. Kenneth Carter is a Professor of Psychology at Oxford College of Emory University, and the author of Buzz!: Inside the Minds of Thrill-Seekers, Daredevils, and Adrenaline Junkies.Transcript will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Climate scientist Jagadish Shukla grew up in a small village in rural India, where people starved if the monsoon season didn't bring rain. To help his village, he set out to become a scientist and discover a way to predict the seasons—an unthinkable idea at the time, in the 1960s and ‘70s. Shukla became a pioneer in modern weather forecasting, and he tells his unlikely story in his new memoir, A Billion Butterflies: A Life in Climate and Chaos Theory. He talks with Host Flora Lichtman about his journey to becoming a leading climate scientist, the state of weather forecasting today, and why forecasting is more important than ever in the face of climate change.Guest:Dr. Jagadish Shukla, author of A Billion Butterflies: A Life in Climate and Chaos Theory and climate scientist at George Mason UniversityTranscripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

In recent years, digital touchscreens have replaced many of the buttons and knobs that control various functions in cars. But when Host Ira Flatow went shopping for a new car, he noticed that physical controls seemed to be making a comeback. But will the rise of technologies like voice recognition and automation make cars more button-centric, or less? Ira talks with car ergonomics engineer James Forbes and buttonologist Rachel Plotnick about the advantages and disadvantages of the physical button or knob, and what might lead an automaker to choose one type of control over another.Guests: James Forbes, professor of practice in the department of automotive engineering at Clemson University.Rachel Plotnick, author of Power Button: A History of Pleasure, Panic, and the Politics of Pushing (The MIT Press, 2018).Transcript will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Tomatoes come in all kinds of colors, sizes, and flavors. But what's going on at the genetic level? What makes a tomato red or yellow? Tiny or giant?Researchers are mapping the genomes of 22 varieties of nightshades—the family of plants that includes tomatoes, potatoes, and eggplants. They located the genes that control the size of tomatoes and eggplants and then used CRISPR gene editing to grow bigger fruits without sacrificing flavor.Geneticist Michael Schatz joins Host Ira Flatow to talk about his latest research into nightshade genomes and the current state of genetically modified crops.Guest: Dr. Michael Schatz, professor of computational biology and oncology at Johns Hopkins University, based in Baltimore, Maryland.Transcript will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

As a teenager living in St. Vincent, Richie Robertson saw first-hand what a volcanic eruption did to life on the island. Forty years later, he was the scientist the community turned to when the same volcano roared back to life. Richie's colleague, Stacey Edwards of the UWI Seismic Research Centre, explains how Richie earned the trust of the community, and why it was important to have a Vincentian leading the way in a crisis.Guests: Dr. Richard Robertson, geologist at the UWI Seismic Research Centre Stacey Edwards, education & outreach manager at the UWI Seismic Research Centre“The Leap” is a 10-episode audio series that profiles scientists willing to take big risks to push the boundaries of discovery. It premieres on Science Friday's podcast feed every Monday until July 21. “The Leap” is a production of the Hypothesis Fund, brought to you in partnership with Science Friday.Transcript will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

The lesser prairie chicken was granted endangered species status in 2023. Now the Department of the Interior is moving to revoke those protections. What can this bird known for its flamboyant courtship rituals tell us about the Trump administration's approach to environmental policy and protections for endangered species? Host Flora Lichtman is joined by Producer Shoshannah Buxbaum and Vox environmental reporter Benji Jones to talk about his reporting on the lesser prairie chicken and other science stories of the week including, Trump supporters in the wind energy sector, at-home cervical cancer screening, a new fossil from an ancient bird ancestor, the latest brood of cicadas emerging, and how flamingos eat with their heads upside down underwater. Guests:Benji Jones, environmental correspondent at VoxShoshannah Buxbaum, producer at Science FridayTranscripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Firefighting is a career with an inherent cancer risk, but a full understanding of what those risks are has been elusive. An important registry designed to help understand the link between firefighters and cancer was taken offline on April 1 because of federal cuts, then restored six weeks later. Host Flora Lichtman discusses this with firefighter health researcher Sara Jahnke and reporter Murphy Woodhouse from Boise State Public Radio and the Mountain West News Bureau. Plus, pests and pathogens are ravaging keystone tree species in forests across the country. Flora discusses the innovative science behind breeding pest-resistant trees with Leigh Greenwood from The Nature Conservancy.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

What does it take to create and maintain one of the largest repositories of botanical information in the world? For starters, it can mean helicopter-ing into remote nooks of the Amazon, hiking through rough terrain, looking for strange fruits and flowers, and climbing trees to pluck specimens from the branches. Then there's all the science required to identify, classify, and codify those species. Botanists Lúcia Lohmann and Charlotte Taylor join Host Flora Lichtman to discuss their work discovering new plant species and maintaining the storied Missouri Botanical Garden.And, what does it mean to be a superfood? What is the science of micronutrient-dense foods like millet, which get less hype than foods like açaí, goji berries, and quinoa? Flora talks with biological engineer Kiruba Krishnaswamy, who puts food under a microscope—literally—and studies the nutrients that help make our bodies function, in hopes of harnessing them to fight hunger worldwide.Guests: Dr. Lúcia Lohmann, professor at Washington University in St. Louis, and president and director of the Missouri Botanical GardenDr. Charlotte Taylor, botanist and senior curator at the Missouri Botanical Garden Dr. Kiruba Krishnaswamy, assistant professor in the Colleges of Engineering and Agriculture at the University of MissouriTranscript will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Medical sculptor Damon Coyle walks around with a Mary Poppins bag of body parts. Fake ones, that is. At the University of Missouri, his lab creates hyperrealistic body parts designed to help medical providers practice for real-world surgeries and procedures. They make things like lifelike arms for practicing blood draws or a set of eyeballs for ocular trauma training. On stage in Columbia, Missouri, Damon talks with Host Flora Lichtman about how he creates these eerily realistic body parts and how they're used.Guest: Damon Coyle, medical sculptor and innovation specialist at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.  Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Biochemist Kati Karikó spent decades experimenting with mRNA, convinced that she could solve the problems that had kept it from being used as a therapeutic. Her tireless, methodical work was dismissed and she was ridiculed. But that work laid the foundation for the rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines that saved millions of lives, and was recognized by a Nobel Prize in 2023. Kati shares her secret weapon for dealing with stress and naysayers. Plus, neurologist David Langer describes Kati's exacting research style, and her daughter, Olympic gold medalist Susan Francia, reveals the life lessons that led them both to the winner's circle.“The Leap” is a 10-episode audio series that profiles scientists willing to take big risks to push the boundaries of discovery. It premieres on Science Friday's podcast feed every Monday until July 21. “The Leap” is a production of the Hypothesis Fund, brought to you in partnership with Science Friday.Transcript will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Proposed budget cuts for NASA would jeopardize space research. And an executive order could change the political tides for deep sea mining.On May 2, the Trump Administration proposed a 24% budget cut for NASA. It would slash funding for science while setting billions aside for initiatives to send humans to the moon and Mars. New Scientist editor Sophie Bushwick joins us to talk about this, as well as other news in science, like how many U.S. cities are sinking, the search for geologic hydrogen within mountains, the first photos of free-floating atoms, Chinese poetry about porpoises, and cicadas turned into speakers.And, President Trump recently issued an executive order that would fast-track access for deep sea mining. Soon after, a Canadian company called The Metals Company submitted the first application for NOAA to review. This has raised environmental and climate concerns, as well as geopolitical tensions. Ocean geologist Sandor Mulsow breaks down what's at stake for the ocean.Guests:Sophie Bushwick, senior news editor at New Scientist in NYCDr. Sandor Mulsow, marine geologist at the Austral University of ChileTranscript will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.  Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Bacteria have been around for billions of years. Could they have come up with complex behaviors that we just don't understand yet? Could they have their own language? Their own culture? Their own complex societies playing out right under, and in, our noses? Microbiologist Bonnie Bassler has been studying these questions for more than 30 years. She talks with Host Flora Lichtman about the wild world of bacterial communication, and how understanding microbes could help us understand ourselves.Guest: Dr. Bonnie Bassler, microbiologist at Princeton UniversityTranscript will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

A passion for fashion among the “bone collector caterpillar,” who wears a coat of body parts, and an artist who makes fabrics that remember.We inch into the world of extreme outerwear with the newly-discovered “bone collector caterpillar,” which wears a coat of many co…llected body parts. Why, Hanipillar Lecter? Entomologist Dan Rubinoff, who along with his team found the species on a mountainside in Oahu, Hawaii, shares the juicy details. And, what if clothes could remember our experiences? Computer programmer and artist Laura Devendorf is making textiles embedded with sensors and other tech that can tell us about our lives. One dress she made recorded her physical interactions with her kids—and played them back. Laura joins Host Flora Lichtman and spins a yarn about the future of e-textiles. Transcript will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Millions of years ago, iguanas somehow got from North America to Fiji. Scientists think they made the trip on a raft of fallen vegetation. Also, the marine reptile's fossilized fetus is cluing paleontologists into the lives of ancient sea creatures.Ancient Iguanas Floated 5,000 Miles Across The PacificIf you picture iguanas, you might imagine them sunbathing on hot sand in the Caribbean or skittering around the Mojave Desert. But far, far away from where these iguanas are found is another group of iguanas living on the islands of Fiji and Tonga in the South Pacific—closer to New Zealand than the Americas. And it raises the question: How in the world did these iguanas end up all alone, on the other side of the ocean? In a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in March, scientists suggest that millions of years ago, iguanas hitched a ride on a raft and accidentally sailed all the way across the ocean before washing ashore and starting a new life. Host Flora Lichtman discusses the iguanas' intrepid adventure with lead author Dr. Simon Scarpetta, evolutionary biologist and assistant professor at the University of San Francisco in California.Meet Fiona, The Pregnant Icthyosaur FossilIn the Patagonia region of Chile, Torres del Paine National Park is a graveyard of ichthyosaurs—ancient, dolphin-like reptiles that roamed the oceans when dinosaurs dominated the land. Nearly 90 of these giant reptiles' fossils have been found amongst the glaciers. But the standout in the bone heap is Fiona, an ichthyosaur that lived 131 million years ago. She's in pristine condition, the only fully preserved ichthyosaur in Chile. And, she died pregnant. She's teaching paleontologists about the evolution of her species. And some of those findings were recently published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. Host Flora Lichtman talks with lead author Dr. Judith Pardo-Pérez, paleontologist at the University of Magallanes in Chile.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

In “Into the Unknown,” an astronomer explores the mysteries of the cosmos and the limits of what science can test.What is time? If the universe is expanding, what is it expanding into? What happened just before the Big Bang?Some of the most head-scratching ideas in physics strain the limits of what science can test. In her book Into the Unknown: The Quest to Understand the Mysteries of the Cosmos, astronomer Dr. Kelsey Johnson describes some of those concepts, and sketches out ways to try to wrap your brain around them. Johnson joins Host Ira Flatow to talk about the limits of scientific inquiry, and what mysteries lie at the limits of science.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.  Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Scientists bring us a lab-grown chicken nugget and texturally accurate, plant-based calamari. We'll bite.There's a movement in the world of science to find alternatives to meat and dairy products that don't involve killing animals. Two avenues for this are by using animal cells in a lab, or going plant-based. Two breakthroughs in this field of food science were published in journals recently: the largest lab-grown chicken nugget and a plant-based fried calamari that tastes like the real thing.Producer Kathleen Davis joins Host Flora Lichtman to discuss these morsels of research and other science news of the week, including mandatory composting hitting the largest U.S. city, why human wounds heal slower than our primate cousins, and the disinfecting limitations of at-home washing machines. Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Being able to belt out a tune like Adele or Pavarotti is not just about raw talent. The best singers in the world have to work on their technique—like how to control their breath and develop the stamina to hit note after note for a two-hour concert. But pop stars and opera singers aren't the only vocalists who have figured out how to harness their voices for maximum impact.Death metal vocalists also train their voices to hit that unique guttural register. And those iconic screams are not as easy to master as they might seem.Vocal scientists at the University of Utah are now bringing death metal singers into the lab to try to understand how they make their extreme vocalizations. What they're finding is not only insightful for metalheads, but might also help improve treatment for people with some types of vocal injuries. Host Flora Lichtman talks with Dr. Amanda Stark, speech pathologist and vocology researcher at the University of Utah, and Mark Garrett, vocal coach and lead singer of the band Kardashev.Read the whole story at sciencefriday.com.Also, we share a follow-up to our story about seasonal allergies based on a listener's question about her family's allergies.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.   Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

It's zombie season! At least if you're watching the new season of the fungal thriller “The Last of Us,” airing right now on Max, which chronicles what happens after a fungus turns most of humanity into zombies.It's fiction for us, but for some organisms on the planet, it's more like a documentary. The fungus that zombifies humanity in the show is based on Ophiocordyceps, a real fungal group that infects ants, takes over their brains and bodies, and turns them into spore factories.But this isn't the only example of real-life zombies. Science writer Mindy Weisberger found a whole book's worth of stories about horrifying and creative zombies and zombie-makers that inhabit the Earth, which she writes about in Rise of the Zombie Bugs: The Surprising Science of Parasitic Mind-Control.Host Flora Lichtman sits down with Weisberger to talk about the creepy and inventive lifestyles of these parasites, and how studying these zombifiers can teach us about ourselves.Read an excerpt from Rise Of The Zombie Bugs.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.  Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Research suggests that better understanding the psychological and neurological components of chronic pain may lead to better treatments.Chronic pain is remarkably common: Roughly 20% of adults in the US live with it. And people with chronic pain are more likely to have depression, anxiety, and substance abuse disorders. But this relationship between physical and mental health is not as straightforward as you might think, and there's still a stigma attached to neuro-psychological causes of chronic pain.The latest research suggests that untangling the connections between mind and body is a key part of developing better treatments for people with chronic pain. Now, a new psychological treatment called pain reprocessing therapy has shown initial success in eliminating back pain in research participants.Producer Shoshannah Buxbaum joins Host Flora Lichtman to share her reporting on the intersection of mental health and chronic pain.Transcript for this story will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Researchers isolated one kind of cone in the eye and aimed lasers at it to allow subjects to see a super vibrant teal shade they call “olo.”Think about the colors of the world around you—the blue of a cloudless sky, the green of a new leaf, the blazing red of a tulip's petals. We see these colors because of the way our eyes work. But what if we could change how our eyes respond to light, and present them with light in a form they'd never encounter in the natural world? What would we see?This week, researchers reported in the journal Science Advances that by using precisely aimed laser light, they were able to selectively target just one of the three types of color-sensing cones in the human retina. The cone, dubbed “M” because it responds to medium wavelengths of light, is normally stimulated at the same time as cones that respond to longer wavelength reddish light, or shorter wavelength bluish light. But after mapping the location of the cones in several subjects' eyes, the researchers were able to target just the M cones with one specific wavelength of green laser light—a condition that would never exist in nature. The result, they say, is a highly saturated bluish-green teal color unlike anything in the real world. The researchers named their new color “olo.”Study author James Fong, a computer science PhD student at University of California Berkeley, and his advisor, Dr. Ren Ng, join Host Flora Lichtman to talk about the project, and the possibility of expanding the limits of human color perception.Transcript for this story will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

How will market uncertainty and a lack of federal support for climate efforts affect the future of clean energy in the United States? Plus, many wetlands are disappearing, but Louisiana's “accidental” Wax Lake Delta is growing—and informing coastal restoration techniques.$8 Billion Of Climate Tech Projects Were Canceled In 3 MonthsIn the first three months of the Trump administration, officials have been aggressive in cancelling climate change related efforts, from enacting layoffs at large agencies to withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement and rescinding federal funding for green research and infrastructure.Joining Host Flora Lichtman to break down the changes we're starting to see in climate policy and clean tech on the ground is Casey Crownhart, senior climate reporter at MIT Technology Review. They also talk about other science news of the week, including a Florida-based startup that's recycling solar panels, an update on the growing measles outbreak in the Southwest, signs of a US science brain drain, humanoid robot participants in the Beijing half marathon, and how bats manage to drink on the fly.In Louisiana, A Chance To Study A Successful, Growing WetlandAmid the rapid erosion of Louisiana's coast, something hopeful is happening where the Atchafalaya River meets the Gulf. A flow of sediment from a decades-old river diversion has accidentally given birth to new wetlands.While that small delta is dwarfed by what's washing away all around it, researchers have gained knowledge from Wax Lake Delta that could help save the rest of Louisiana's coast and contribute to a better understanding of wetland science across the globe.Read more at sciencefriday.com.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

With the help of cat owners, a new project investigates cats' biology and aims to link some of their behaviors to their genes.Calling all cat people: This one's for you. Despite humans' long history of welcoming felines into their homes and delis, research on cats lags far behind research on dogs. Now, scientists behind the project Darwin's Ark are working to close the cat gap by enlisting cat caretakers from across the country to submit a tuft of fur and answer a few questions about their feline's appearance, personality, and behaviors.Host Flora Lichtman talks about the project, as well as what we do and don't know about cat genetics, with Dr. Elinor Karlsson, chief scientific officer at Darwin's Ark, and director of the Vertebrate Genomics Group at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard Universities.Transcript for this segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

An evolving technology is changing the lives of people with paralysis: brain-computer interfaces (BCI). These are devices that are implanted in the brain and record neural activity, then translate those signals into commands for a computer. This allows people to type, play computer games, and talk with others just by thinking, allowing more freedom to communicate.For decades, this technology has looked like a person controlling a cursor on a screen. But this work has advanced, and in a recent breakthrough, a person with paralysis in all four limbs was able to move a virtual quadcopter with extreme precision by thinking about moving it with their fingers.Another area of BCI research involves speech. Recent work has shown promise in allowing people with vocal paralysis to “speak” through a computer, using old recordings to recreate the person's voice from before their paralysis.Joining Host Flora Lichtman to discuss the state of this technology, and where it may be headed, are Dr. Matthew Willsey, assistant professor of neurosurgery and biomedical engineering at the University of Michigan, and Dr. Sergey Stavisky, assistant professor of neurosurgery and co-director of the Neuroprosthetics Lab at the University of California, Davis.Transcript for this segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

In Connecting Dots: A Blind Life, inventor Josh Miele recounts his life story and path to becoming an accessibility designer.When inventor and scientist Josh Miele was 4 years old, a neighbor poured sulfuric acid on his head, burning and permanently blinding him. In his new book Connecting Dots: A Blind Life, Miele chronicles what happened afterwards, growing up as a blind kid, and how he built his career as an inventor and designer of adaptive technology.Host Flora Lichtman talks with Dr. Joshua Miele, an Amazon Design Scholar and MacArthur Fellow, or “Genius Grant” recipient. They talk about the inspiration for the book, how he grew into his career, and how disabled people need to be included in the technology revolution.Transcript for this segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.  Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Are traffic engineering decisions based on evidence-based research? Not as much as you might think.If you've seen a car crash on the side of the road, you might look at it and think that the person at fault is the driver. But how much blame should be shared by the people who designed those roads in the first place?Well, some traffic engineers are calling for the field to accept more blame for the crashes and the tens of thousands of annual fatalities that happen on our roads, including Dr. Wes Marshall, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Colorado Denver. In his book Killed By A Traffic Engineer: Shattering the Delusion that Science Underlies our Transportation System, he digs into the standards that have dictated traffic design for decades to find out exactly how much science they're based on. Spoiler alert: It's a lot less than you'd think.Host Flora Lichtman sits down with Dr. Marshall to talk about how we got to this point and what a safer version of our streets could look like.Transcript for this segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

The Webb Space Telescope picked up traces of dimethyl sulfide on planet K2-18b. On Earth, the molecule comes from microbes and phytoplankton. Also, researchers captured the first confirmed video of a colossal squid swimming in its natural habitat—almost 2,000 feet deep.Possible Signature Of Life Detected On Exoplanet—MaybeIn major galactic news, scientists may have detected possible signs of life on a planet right here in our galaxy. Is this one of the best hints we've gotten that alien life exists? Host Flora Lichtman gets into it with Anil Oza, the Sharon Begley Science Reporting Fellow at STAT and MIT. They discuss the latest in alien life, the Trump's administration cuts to the “indirect costs” of science funding, the largest map of a brain yet, and how salmon on anti-anxiety meds make bolder choices.A Colossal Squid Video? That's A Big DealThis week, scientists announced that they had captured the first confirmed video of a colossal squid in its natural habitat, recorded some 1,968 feet (600 m) below the ocean surface near the South Sandwich Islands. While there have been sightings of the colossal squid before, they have mainly been of individuals entangled with fishing equipment—and much of what is known about the elusive creatures comes from dead specimens.The video was captured by scientists on board the R/V Falkor (too) during an Ocean Census expedition searching for new marine life. As the remotely operated vehicle SuBastian descended towards the ocean floor, its cameras caught sight of a juvenile squid roughly one foot long (30 cm), and captured over a minute of high resolution video. The footage was later analyzed by experts and determined to be a colossal squid.Colossal squid are estimated to grow up to 23 feet (7 m) in length and can weigh as much as 1,100 pounds (500 kg), making them the heaviest invertebrate on the planet. They are not the same as the giant squid, an entirely different species, which can grow to be longer but are lighter and slimmer.Dr. Kat Bolstad, one of the squid experts the researchers sent their videos to for identification, joins Host Flora Lichtman to talk about the sighting.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Imagine you're diving into a cell. You're paddling around in the cytoplasm, you're climbing up a mitochondria. If you're having a hard time picturing this, that's okay! There are professionals who do this for a living.We wanted to learn more from expert science interpreters, who take the results section of a research paper and translate it into something tangible, like a 40-foot dinosaur skeleton or a 3D animation of cellular machinery too small to see.At a live event in Salt Lake City in March, Host Flora Lichtman spoke with Dr. Janet Iwasa, head of the University of Utah's Animation Lab and director of the Genetic Science Learning Center; and Tim Lee, director of exhibits at the Natural History Museum of Utah, about how they bring these out-of-reach worlds to life.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Bringing back Southwest peach orchards won't be easy, but researchers are on the lookout for remaining trees—and they need help. And, the newly discovered Lokiceratops is challenging paleontologists' understanding of how horned dinosaurs evolved and existed together. How A Navajo Plant Researcher Is Reviving A Desert PeachWhen you think of states known for their peaches, Utah might not be at the top of your list. But there is a variety—the Southwest peach—that grows in this arid landscape, and Native communities have cultivated this tree since the 1600s. But many of the orchards were intentionally destroyed by colonizers hundreds of years ago, and the remaining trees are now scattered across the region.A local scientist and member of the Navajo Nation is on a mission to track down Southwest peach trees so we can learn more about how these peaches are so well-suited to grow in the desert.At a live event in Salt Lake City in March, Host Flora Lichtman spoke with Reagan Wytsalucy, plant scientist and assistant professor at Utah State University Extension in San Juan County, Utah. She researches traditional Native American crops, including the Southwest peach.Meet Lokiceratops, A Giant Dinosaur With Blade-Like HornsThe Intermountain West is a dinosaur nerd's dream because it's such a hotspot for fossils. Some of the most famous dino fossils in the world, like T. rex, triceratops, and stegosaurus can be found in western North America. So, of course, Science Friday couldn't go to Salt Lake City, Utah, without digging into some dinosaur science.At a live event in Salt Lake City in March, Host Ira Flatow spoke with the scientists behind the discovery of Lokiceratops, a large dinosaur with impressive horns that was unveiled in 2024. Dr. Mark Loewen, vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Utah and the Natural History Museum of Utah; and Savhannah Carpenter, paleontologist and school outreach coordinator at the Natural History Museum of Utah, discuss how they figured out Loki was a new dinosaur, the process of describing and naming the fossil, and what it taught them about dino evolution.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.  Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

We are rounding up your questions about roads. What confounds you about traffic, or how interstates are laid out? Are there certain road design elements that ignite your road rage? Tell us about it: we've got a traffic engineer in the passenger seat this week, ready to answer your questions. Call us at (877) 4-SCIFRI or 877-472-4374.In this episode, utterances like “um,” “wow,” and “mm-hmm” aren't just fillers—they keep conversations flowing. Also, new research suggests the artificial sweetener saccharin could kill antibiotic resistant bacteria.Huh? The Valuable Role Of InterjectionsListen carefully to a spoken conversation and you'll notice that the speakers use a lot of little quasi-words—mm-hmm, um, huh? and the like—that don't convey any information about the topic of the conversation itself. For many decades, linguists regarded such utterances as largely irrelevant noise, the flotsam and jetsam that accumulate on the margins of language when speakers aren't as articulate as they'd like to be.But these little words may be much more important than that. A few linguists now think that far from being detritus, they may be crucial traffic signals to regulate the flow of conversation as well as tools to negotiate mutual understanding. That puts them at the heart of language itself—and they may be the hardest part of language for artificial intelligence to master.Read the rest of this article on sciencefriday.com.A Sweet New Treatment For Antibiotic Resistant Infections?Researchers have discovered that the artificial sweetener saccharin has powerful antimicrobial properties. A new study published in EMBO Molecular Medicine suggests that saccharin can actually kill antibiotic resistant bacteria by interfering with DNA replication and cell division. The researchers also concluded that, with the help of traditional antibiotics, saccharin could even be used as an effective wound treatment.Host Ira Flatow talks with study author Dr. Ronan McCarthy, professor in biomedical sciences and director of the Antimicrobial Innovations Centre at Brunel University of London.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

On Wednesday, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation heard testimony from Jared Isaacman, President Trump's nominee to lead NASA. During the confirmation hearing, Isaacman indicated a priority of sending humans to Mars—while maintaining the agency's plans to return people to the lunar surface.In response to a question from Senator Ted Cruz, Isaacman said “I don't think we have to make any tough trades here, Senator. I think if we can concentrate our resources at the world's greatest space agency, we don't have to make a binary decision of moon versus Mars, or moon has to come first versus Mars.” Senators questioned how a strategy involving both options would be possible under current funding levels, and stressed that a bipartisan law had codified the current approach of targeting the moon first, then Mars.The fate of the Artemis lunar exploration program has faced questions in the new administration. In his inaugural address, President Trump expressed a desire to send astronauts to Mars, but didn't mention the moon. Elon Musk, head of SpaceX and a favored advisor to the president, is in favor of prioritizing crewed Mars missions ahead of lunar programs. Under questioning, Isaacman repeatedly refused to say directly whether Musk had been present for his job interview with the President.Host Flora Lichtman talks with Senior Producer Charles Bergquist about the nomination and the path ahead for NASA. They also talk about other stories from the week in science, including the controversy over claims of a “de-extincted” dire wolf, advances in rapid bird flu sensors, and the detailed physics of a cup of pour-over coffee.Transcript for this segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

We go inside the scientifically accurate ER world created for the TV show with one of its medical consultants.What is it actually like to work in an emergency room? To deal with overcrowded waiting rooms, a shortage of hospital beds, and a constant flow of life-and-death health conditions—while trying to maintain your sanity at the same time?That's the focus of “The Pitt,” a new medical drama on Max from the creators of “ER,” starring one of that show's key actors, all grown up: Noah Wyle. The first season takes place over a single shift, and each episode is one hour of that shift in real time. And medical professionals are praising the show for its accuracy.Joining Host Ira Flatow to talk about the accuracy of the show is one of its medical consultants, Dr. Sylvia Owusu-Ansah,  associate professor of pediatrics and emergency medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.Transcript for this segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

NASA is planning to decommission the International Space Station by the end of 2030. The ISS, which began operations in 2000, is reaching the end of its lifespan and has become costly to maintain. NASA selected SpaceX to construct a vehicle that would “de-orbit” the football field-sized station, pushing it down into the atmosphere where it'll burn up safely over the Pacific ocean.So what comes next? So far, NASA has awarded contracts to private companies including Axiom Space, Blue Origin, Northrup Grumman, and Starlab to support the research and development for commercial space stations which would help facilitate future research in orbit, among their own space tourism offerings. Next year, NASA will certify one or more of these companies to build at least one space station, where it'll then become one of many customers to purchase services from the new facilities.Loren Grush, space reporter at Bloomberg News, joins Host Ira Flatow to discuss who's in the running and how future space stations could differ from the one we know today. She also talks about her recent trip to the headquarters of Vast, one of the companies competing for this contract, to learn more about its cryptocurrency origins and its high-level recruitments from NASA and Apple.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

What happens when AI moves beyond convincing chatbots and custom image generators to something that matches—or outperforms—humans?Each week, tech companies trumpet yet another advance in artificial intelligence, from better chat services to image and video generators that spend less time in the uncanny valley. But the holy grail for AI companies is known as AGI, or artificial general intelligence—a technology that can meet or outperform human capabilities on any number of tasks, not just chat or images.The roadmap and schedule for getting to AGI depends on who you talk to and their precise definition of AGI. Some say it's just around the corner, while other experts point a few years down the road. In fact, it's not entirely clear whether current approaches to AI tech will be the ones that yield a true artificial general intelligence.Hosts Ira Flatow and Flora Lichtman talk with Will Douglas Heaven, who reports on AI for MIT Technology Review; and Dr. Rumman Chowdhury, who specializes in ethical, explainable and transparent AI, about the path to AGI and its potential impacts on society.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

In many parts of the United States, spring has sprung. There's nothing quite like those first few beautiful days of spring. They're delightful—until the sneezing starts.According to the CDC, a quarter of US adults deal with seasonal allergies. And if you think they're getting worse, it's not just in your head. Previous research has shown that climate change is making pollen seasons start earlier and become more intense, a problem that's expected to get worse.Joining Host Ira Flatow to discuss the science behind seasonal allergies, and the best methods for treating them, is Dr. Neeta Ogden, director of the Allergy, Asthma and Sinus Center in Edison, New Jersey.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Over the past two decades, rates of peanut allergies in children have more than tripled. A variety of theories has been proposed to explain this, from a rise in industrialization keeping kids away from the germs that develop the immune system, to the previous pediatric guidelines that urged parents to restrict access to peanuts early in life. Whatever the cause, higher rates of peanut allergies means effective treatments are in higher demand.New research published in NEJM Evidence shows that a simple treatment could be effective for kids who can tolerate half a peanut or more before an overwhelming reaction: eating a small amount of store-bought peanut butter, gradually increasing the amount over 18 months. In the study, 100% of participating kids increased their tolerance to three tablespoons of peanut butter without an allergic reaction.Joining Host Flora Lichtman to discuss this study and other food allergy treatments on the horizon is Dr. Scott Sicherer, Director of the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

The cuts hit multiple agencies, affecting work on HIV, gun violence prevention, vaccines, minority health research, and more.On April 1, thousands of federal health workers woke up to find that they had been laid off. Scientists and civil servants at the Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and National Institutes of Health were let go as part of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s pledge to cut jobs at the country's top disease-fighting agencies.Host Ira Flatow talks with Umair Irfan, senior correspondent at Vox in Washington, D.C., about the repercussions of these cuts. They also discuss other science news of the week, including a pacemaker the size of a grain of rice, how air pollution affects the climate, and miso made on board the International Space Station.Transcript for this segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Emergency response experts say that funding and staff cuts at the National Weather Service could mean less reliable weather forecast. And, babies like music, but they generally have preferences. A music therapist reveals the best kinds of music to soothe a baby.Forecasting Cuts Leave Some Worried For Hurricane SeasonMany in Georgia are still recovering from the devastation of Hurricane Helene last fall.Now, firings and funding cuts at the National Weather Service and other agencies have some experts worried about accurate forecasts heading into the next hurricane season, which begins June 1.Hundreds of workers have been fired from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, including meteorologists at the Weather Service. More cuts by the Trump administration are reportedly on the way.“The forecast is not going to be as accurate because it won't have as much information in it,” said Chuck Watson of ENKI research in Savannah, who studies disaster preparedness and response.Read the whole story at sciencefriday.com.Tips For Soothing Your Baby With Music, From A Music TherapistIf you're a parent, you've probably heard that playing music is good for your baby's brain development. But that's where many people's knowledge about the subject ends. What about music is good for a baby's development? Will queuing up a lullaby playlist get the job done? And how can you tell if it's all just too much for them?Sarah Nolan, a board-certified music therapist and neonatal intensive care unit music therapist in Children's Hospital Los Angeles' Mark Taper and Johnny Mercer Artists Program recently published recommendations on the best ways to play music around your baby.Host Ira Flatow talks to Nolan about the ideal length of time to play music, what kinds of music are best, and the benefits of music therapy to babies and adults alike.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.  Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

In January, an iceberg the size of Chicago splintered off from the Antarctic Peninsula and drifted away in the Bellingshausen Sea.As luck would have it, a team of scientists was nearby on a research vessel, and they seized the chance to see what was lurking on the seafloor beneath that iceberg—a place that had long been covered, and nearly impossible to get to.They found a stunning array of life, like octopuses, sea spiders, and crustaceans, as well as possible clues to the dynamics of ice sheets.Host Ira Flatow talks with the expedition's two chief scientists: Dr. Patricia Esquete, marine biologist at the University of Aveiro in Portugal, and Dr. Sasha Montelli, glaciologist and geophysicist at University College London.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.  Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Mental health information on social media can be both revelatory and misleading. How do clinicians and their patients make sense of it?TikTok and other social media sites are full of mental health content—often short, grabby, first-person videos detailing symptoms for conditions like ADHD and autism. But what does this mean for teens and young adults who spend hours a day scrolling?A new study published in PLOS One analyzes the 100 most viewed TikTok videos about ADHD to assess both how accurate they are and how young people respond to them. Researchers found that about half of the videos were inaccurate or missing key context, and that the more TikToks young adults watched, the less critical they were of the content.For some, watching social videos about mental health conditions led them to better understand themselves and eventually get a proper diagnosis and treatment. For others it made them consider if they have conditions they don't meet the diagnostic criteria for.Host Flora Lichtman talks with the lead author of the ADHD TikTok study, Vasileia Karasavva, a PhD Student in clinical psychology at the University of British Columbia; and Dr. Jennifer Katzenstein, director of psychology, neuropsychology, and social work at Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.  Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Engineers take an in-depth look at why the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore collapsed and how to prevent future tragedies.In the early morning of March 26, 2024, the container ship Dali struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. Within 30 seconds, the bridge collapsed into the river below. Six construction workers lost their lives.On the one-year anniversary of the accident, we talk about what went wrong, and how to improve the safety of our nation's bridges and prevent another tragic crash.Host Ira Flatow is joined by Dr. Abi Aghayere, professor of civil engineering at Drexel University; and Dr. Thomas McKenney, associate professor of engineering practice in the naval architecture and marine engineering department at the University of Michigan.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

The company has genetic data of 15 million people, which could be shared with a future buyer. Here's how to delete it. Plus, an experimental coating could make golf balls roll more reliably on greens with different conditions.After 23andMe Bankruptcy, Customers Urged To Delete Their DataIf you're one of roughly 15 million people who used 23andMe to unlock information from their DNA, consumer advocates have a message for you: Delete your data. On Sunday, the company, which has customers send saliva samples for DNA analysis, filed for bankruptcy. While many customers submitted their saliva for the purpose of ancestral analysis, 85% of customers also consent to their data used for genetic disease research.As the company searches for a buyer, consumer advocates, including California Attorney General Rob Bonta, have urged customers to delete their data from 23andMe's website. 23andMe and other genetic testing companies are not subject to HIPAA, meaning health and medical records kept by 23andMe could be shared with a future buyer.Producer Kathleen Davis joins Host Flora Lichtman to discuss this and other top science stories of the week.Chemists Make A Coating That Can Slow A Golf Ball's RollWith spring here, the days are getting warmer and longer, meaning conditions are perfect for a trip to the golf course. And while golf is certainly a game of physics—force, angles, parabolas—this week researchers presented work showing that chemistry could play an important role on the golf course as well. Speaking at the meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Diego, researchers described a high performance coating that could be incorporated into the polyurethane shell of a golf ball.The hydrophilic (water-loving) coating would make tiny bits of water stick to the surface of the golf ball and sheet off, modifying the way the ball interacts with the grass of the green. That interaction, says Tom Kennedy, owner of Chemical Innovative Solutions Inc., would lead to the ball rolling more slowly and reliably, especially on “fast,” closely-cut greens in dry and windy conditions.Kennedy joins Host Ira Flatow to discuss the technology, and how hydrophilic coatings could find a home in other applications, including solar cells.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Certain words are overrepresented in text written by AI language models. A study investigates why such patterns develop. Also, the ends of chromosomes, called telomeres, typically shorten as an organism ages. But when some fat-tail dwarf lemurs hibernate, they lengthen.‘Delving' Into The ‘Realm' Of AI Word ChoiceSeveral years ago, some eagle-eyed readers of scientific papers noticed an unusual trend—an increase in the number of abstracts using certain words. The terms, including “delve,” “realm,” “evolving landscape,” and more, were suddenly appearing more often than they used to.Researchers analyzed the abstracts and compared them to abstracts written just a few years earlier, before the widespread availability of artificial intelligence large language model chatbots. They came to the conclusion that abstracts written by AI were more likely to use words from a list of around 20 favorites than regular human speech. The question was, why? If the models were trained on conventional writing, how did a preference for words such as “delve” creep in?Host Flora Lichtman talks with Dr. Tom Juzek and Dr. Zina Ward of Florida State University, who set out to try to understand the origins of some of AI's favorite words.When Dwarf Lemurs Hibernate, Their Chromosomes Do Something OddThe fat-tail dwarf lemur is one of the only primates that hibernate for the winter. A new study published in the journal Biology Letters takes a closer look at what's going on inside lemur cells when they are in this extended phase of suspended animation. It turns out that their telomeres, the ends of the chromosomes, actually grow longer when the dwarf lemurs hibernate. Typically telomeres shorten as we age, as cells continuously divide. So, what exactly does this finding mean for lemurs and other primates, like humans?Host Flora Lichtman talks with the co-authors of this study, Dr. Marina Blanco and Dr. Lydia Greene, research scientists at Duke University.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

TB kills more than a million people each year. Dr. Mireille Kamariza has spent her career developing better detection and treatment tools.As the United States retreats from global health leadership—withdrawing from the World Health Organization, dismantling USAID—public health experts warn that there will be implications for the spread of certain diseases around the globe. One such disease is tuberculosis (TB), which is the deadliest infectious disease in the world.If you live in the United States, it's likely that TB is not on your radar: It's rare, and if someone is infected, there are effective treatments. But elsewhere in the world, more than a million people die of the bacterium each year, mostly in low-resource, high population regions.Tuberculosis isn't a straightforward bug to treat. It has a unique armor, which helps it evade treatment like antibiotics. The current treatment regimen involves taking 16 pills a day for six months, which for people in regions with limited access to medicine, can be a massive barrier.Joining Host Flora Lichtman to discuss the science behind this deadly bacterium, and new tools to test for and treat it, is Dr. Mireille Kamariza, a chemical biologist at the University of California, Los Angeles.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

In a new book, author John Green traces how the disease has impacted culture, geography, and even fashion over the centuries.Tuberculosis (TB) has had an incredibly large impact on human history. One staggering statistic? It's been estimated that by the start of the 1800s, the disease had killed one in seven people who had ever lived. Because of this, tuberculosis affected human culture, geography, and fashion—and even killed off some of literature and media's most famous heroines.While TB incidence has gone down tremendously in the United States, it remains a massive issue in low-resource nations. About 1.25 million people die of TB each year, making it still the deadliest infectious disease in the world.Author John Green explores humankind's relationship with TB in the new book Everything is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection. Green speaks with Host Flora Lichtman about how TB's path reflects our society and culture. He joins us from Indianapolis, Indiana.Transcript for this segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Researchers built the largest 3D map of our universe yet. What they found supports the idea that dark energy could have evolved over time.One of the mysteries of the universe is why it expands at the rate that it does. Back in 1998, two teams of researchers observed that not only was the universe expanding, but that the rate of expansion was increasing. That observation was the basis for a concept now known as dark energy. In the years since, cosmologists have been trying to get a handle on better measurements of that effect, and hoping to figure out what dark energy actually might be.This week, researchers on a project called DESI, the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, released results based on their first three years of data at an international physics conference. They found that it appears possible that dark energy—whatever it is—has changed over the lifetime of the universe. In other words, the so-called cosmological constant may not, in fact, be a constant. The data is not quite statistically significant yet, so researchers can't definitively say that this is true, which leaves many questions about the nature of dark energy still unresolved.Dr. Andrei Cuceu of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Dr. Adam Riess of Johns Hopkins University and the Space Telescope Science Institute join Host Flora Lichtman to talk about the new research, and what remains to be discovered in dark energy.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

After nine months aboard the International Space Station, astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have finally landed back on Earth. Also, a German physicist and homebrewer discovered brief, intense physical reactions that happen when you uncork a bubbly swing-top bottle.NASA Astronauts Return To Earth After Extended Stay On The ISSAfter 286 days aboard the International Space Station—278 days longer than their initial planned mission—NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams landed safely back on Earth on Tuesday, off the coast of Florida. Their mission turned into a nine-month stay on the station after their Boeing Starliner capsule had issues with its thrusters and NASA deemed it unsafe to carry the astronauts back. SpaceX's Dragon capsule instead ferried them to Earth earlier this week. And they had a splashdown surprise: A pod of curious dolphins greeted them after they landed.Host Flora Lichtman is joined by Casey Crownhart, senior climate reporter at MIT Technology Review, to catch us up on that and other big science stories from this week, including why a company is trying to “refreeze” a massive glacier, why the 10 hottest years on record are the last 10, and how the London Zoo is trying to conserve a unique frog that incubates its young in its vocal sacs.The Physics That Makes Swing-Top Bottles ‘Pop'For a lot of us, uncorking a bottle is the sound of celebration. It's also a sound that we may not think too much about—until we open our next bottle.But Dr. Max Koch, a physicist at the University of Göttingen who does home brewing on the side, got to wondering what actually makes that popping sound. What's happening inside that bottle, physics-wise? To find out more, he recorded the uncorking of an unsuccessful batch of his ginger beer using microphones and a high-speed camera, and analyzed the bubbly results with a physicist's rigor. His team's findings were published in the journal Physics of Fluids.Dr. Koch sits down with Host Flora Lichtman to talk about the brief but intense changes to temperature, sound, and speed that happen when you uncork a swing-top glass bottle.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

The framework of Adverse Childhood Experiences started with an unexpected finding over 30 years ago. How is our approach changing? We know that experiences from our childhood, both good and bad, shape who we become as adults. But, understanding what kinds of early experiences have staying power into adulthood and the wide range of impacts they can have is an emerging science.In the 1980s, Dr. Vincent Felitti ran a weight loss clinic in San Diego, California. He noticed that some patients who regained weight were more likely to have experienced sexual abuse in childhood.This eventually led him to conduct research on a larger scale to better understand the correlation between what he and his colleagues dubbed adverse childhood experiences, or ACES, and mental and physical health challenges later in life.This same 10-question survey Dr. Felitti gave participants in the 1990s is still used by researchers and clinicians to assess childhood trauma. But recently, some psychology experts have begun to question how accurately the ACES framework identifies trauma in diverse populations, since it was originally developed for a mostly white and affluent study population.Host Flora Lichtman talks with Preeti Simran Sethi, science writer and Rosalyn Carter Mental Health Journalism fellow, about her reporting for Science Friday about adverse childhood experiences.Also, to see more butterfly stories from our listeners, visit our story from last week. Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.