Podcast appearances and mentions of daniel peterschmidt

Where Are The Black Physicists? Black scientists make up less than one percent of physics PhDs in the U.S. And since 1999, most physics departments in the country have failed to graduate more than one or two Black undergraduates. Furthermore, the share of Black students in physics is declining: If the number receiving a bachelor's degree in physics had kept pace with the rising popularity of the major, there would be 350 Black physicists graduating every year. Instead, in 2020, that number was 262. But why is this number so small? A comprehensive investigative series in Science Magazine this week examines those statistics, the academic climate of physics departments, and how academia may be limiting the achievement of Black students. The series also highlights some success stories about proposed solutions, with mixed results. But why is physics a uniquely white, male discipline—and how can institutions make the climate more friendly to students from marginalized backgrounds? Ira talks to Apriel Hodari, one of 150 Black women to receive a PhD in physics in the U.S., who now researches the culture of higher education in STEM fields.   Why The Equinox Can Make Your Credit Card Fail Twice a year, people listening to signals from satellites in geostationary orbit face a problem known as a solar outage, a solar transit, or sun fade. Around the spring equinox, the Sun approaches the equator from the south, as the north gets ready for spring. In the fall, near the autumnal equinox, the Sun appears to move back below the equator. During these times, it comes into the view of Earthbound satellite dishes directed at geostationary satellites positioned some 22,000 miles above the equator. When a ground receiver, the satellite it's looking at, and the Sun all line up, the radiation from the Sun can temporarily overwhelm the satellite receiver. Think of it like when you're driving on a westbound road close to sunset, and you're staring straight into the setting sun—it gets hard to read the road signs. The effect is temporary: a maximum of 12 minutes at any given location for several days in a row. But it can affect everything from a satellite TV dish to credit card processing at your local gas station—even public radio stations receiving live programming over the satellite network. SciFri's Charles Bergquist talks with Chris DeBoy, who teaches a course in satellite communications at the Johns Hopkins University (and is also the RF communications lead for the New Horizons Mission to Pluto, and the Space Engineering Branch Manager at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory), about the advantages and disadvantages of geostationary satellites, and what can be done to minimize the impact of solar outages. They are joined by MaryJane Peters, technical operations chief at KAZU in Monterey, California, who describes the effect the seasonal outages have on station operations. Can Meteorites On Earth Point To Ancient Life On Mars? In 1996, the late astrobiologist David McKay and his team published a paper arguing that a four-pound rock from Mars, called Allan Hills 84001 (found in Antarctica), showed evidence of ancient microbial life on the planet Mars. The team pointed to several mineral structures, including tiny beads of magnetite, as well as shapes that might be fossilized bacteria. This hypothesis ignited a storm of controversy and a flurry of research that contradicted the team's theory. But decades later, ALH 84001, like the other meteorites that have been linked to the Red Planet, remains an important insight into Martian geology and the formation of organic molecules in the absence of biological processes. Producer Christie Taylor talks to astrobiologist Andrew Steele, who has been studying ALH 84001 and other meteorites for decades. He discusses the process of probing meteorites for data, the difficulty of studying rocks without their original contexts, and how new samples from the Perseverance rover could change everything. Plus, how the original controversy over ALH 84001 changed the trajectory of planetary science.   From Zero To 100 Butts: The Wild World Of Invertebrate Behinds Recently, the staff of Science Friday came across a tweet that caught our attention, sent out by researcher Dr. Maureen Berg.   Turns out, it was a call to source comic ideas for Invertebrate Butt Week, a celebration of—you guessed it—the butts of invertebrates. “Invertebrates really get the short end of the stick,” says Rosemary Mosco, the creator of the comic series Bird And Moon and #InverteButtWeek organizer. “People are not as excited about them as, say, a majestic whale or a beautiful bird. And I love my birds, but [invertebrates have] such an incredible diversity. So, butts are sort of a cheeky way to access some of that amazing diversity and celebrate it.”   Rosemary and other scientists and illustrators teamed up to create #InverteButtWeek, a celebration of the behinds of the backbone-less. “It's a chance for some people who do science communication to do the silliest thing that they can possibly think of,” says Dr. Ainsley Seago, curator of invertebrate zoology at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.   Science Friday's Daniel Peterschmidt talks to the organizers of #InverteButtWeek about how it came together, their favorite invertebrate butt facts (like how sea cucumbers have anal teeth), and how you can participate in the celebration.  

We have a favor to ask! We want to know more about what you like, what you don't, and who you are—it'll help us make better episodes of Science Diction. Please, take our brief survey. Thank you! At the turn  of the 20th century, the American chestnut towered over other trees in Eastern  forests. The trees would grow as much as 100 feet high, and 13 feet wide. According to legend, a squirrel could scamper from New England to Georgia on the canopies of American chestnuts, never touching the ground. And then, the trees began to disappear, succumbing to a mysterious fungus. The fungus first appeared in New York City in 1904—and  then it spread. By the 1950s, the fungus had wiped out billions of trees, and effectively finished off the American chestnut. Now, some people are trying to resurrect the American chestnut—and soon. But not everyone thinks that's a good idea. Guests:  Sara Fitzsimmons is Director of Restoration, North Central Regional Science Coordinator, and Regional Science Coordinator Supervisor at the American Chestnut Foundation.  Susan Freinkel is the author of American Chestnut: The Life, Death, and Rebirth of a Perfect Tree. ​​Neil Patterson Jr. works at the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at SUNY, and is a member of the Tuscarora Nation.  Bart Chezar is a chestnut enthusiast, and volunteers with the Prospect Park Alliance. Footnotes & Further Reading:  Listen to oral histories from people who grew up with the American chestnut. Credits: This episode of Science Diction was produced by Shahla Farzan and Johanna Mayer. Elah Feder is our Editor and Senior Producer. Daniel Peterschmidt is our composer, and they sound designed this episode. Lauren J. Young contributed research, and Danya AbdelHameid fact checked the episode. Our Chief Content Officer is Nadja Oertelt.  

For decades, vocal fry lived a relatively quiet existence. It was known to linguists, speech pathologists and voice coaches, but everyday people didn't pay much attention to it. But then in 2011, people started noticing it everywhere. So what happened? What is vocal fry? Why does host Johanna Mayer use it? What's her problem? And is it really that bad? Guest:  Lisa Davidson is the chair of the Linguistics Department at NYU. Footnotes & Further Reading:  Check out this article on young women as linguistic trendsetters.  Read the full study from 2011.  Learn more about people's negative reactions to vocal fry. Credits:  This episode was produced with Kevin McLean, along with Johanna Mayer. Elah Feder is our Editor and Senior Producer. Daniel Peterschmidt is our Composer, and they sound designed and mastered the episode. Nadja Oertelt is our Chief Content Officer.

In 2014, a grad student in Kolkata named Ujaan Ghosh came across an old book by a Scottish missionary. And as Ghosh paged through the book, he noticed the missionary kept using a word over and over: Juggernaut. But the missionary wasn't using it the way we do today—to mean an unstoppable, overwhelming force. He  was using it to talk about a place: a temple in Puri, India. So Ghosh dug further, and as he grasped the real story of where the English word, juggernaut, had come from, he realized there was just no way he could keep using it. A transcript of this episode is being processed and will be available within a week. Guests:  Chris Egusa is an audio producer and 2020 KALW Audio Academy fellow. Dylan Thuras is co-founder of Atlas Obscura, and host of the Atlas Obscura podcast. Ujaan Ghosh is a PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Footnotes & Further Reading:  Read Ujaan Ghosh's article on the origins of the word “juggernaut.”  Learn more about Jagannath Temple in Atlas Obscura.  Listen to more episodes of the Atlas Obscura podcast. Credits:  This episode was a collaboration between Science Diction and Atlas Obscura. It was produced by Johanna Mayer and Chris Egusa, and edited by Elah Feder and John DeLore. Daniel Peterschmidt is our composer, and Danya AbdelHameid fact checked the episode. It was mixed by Luz Fleming.

Head on over to plainlanguage.gov, and you'll find a helpful table, dedicated to simplifying and demystifying military jargon. On one side of the table, there's the jargon term, and on the other, its plain language equivalent. “Arbitrarily deprive of life”? Actually just means “kill people.” “Render nonviable”? Also means “kill people.” “Terminate with extreme prejudice”? “Kill people.”    This table is just one of many resources on plainlanguage.gov—from checklists to plain language training to thesauruses. The website was created by an unfunded government group of plain language activists who make it their mission to translate government communications into regular old, plain language.  But jargon isn't just a government problem. It pops up in nearly every field, and it seems like it annoys most of us. So why do we use it? And is there anything actually good about it?   This episode was inspired by a question from a listener, Jafar, who asked about the word “recrudescence” and why we tend to use fancy words when simple ones would work just fine. If you have a question about a word or phrase, leave us a voicemail! The number is 929-499-WORD, or 929-499-9673. Or, you can always send an email to podcasts@sciencefriday.com.  A transcript of this episode is being processed. It will be available within one week. Guests:  Joe Kimble is a plain language advocate and professor emeritus at WMU-Cooley Law School. David Lipscomb is Director of the Writing Center at Georgetown University, and Vice Chair of the Center for Plain Language. Alejandro Martínez García is a researcher at the National Research Council in Italy. Footnotes & Further Reading: For a challenge, try to explain science using only 1,000 of the most common words.  For all your plain language writing needs, take a look at plainlanguage.gov.  Learn more about the history of the plain language movement in the United States.  Read a study on how our brains react to concrete vs. abstract language. Read more about how jargon affects citations in scientific papers. Credits:  This episode was produced by Johanna Mayer and Senior Producer and Editor Elah Feder. Daniel Peterschmidt is our composer. Nadja Oertelt is our Chief Content Officer. Special thanks to Jana Goldman, Bill Lutz, and especially Karen Schriver for background information on the plain language movement.

When high schooler Gracie Cunningham posted a TikTok asking where algebra came from, she probably didn't expect to become a viral sensation. There were the usual Twitter trolls, but some unexpected voices also began piping up, causing a flurry in the math world.Thank you to Chad, the listener who suggested that we do an episode on algebra. If you have a suggestion for a word or episode, leave us a voicemail. The number is 929-499-WORD, or 929-499-9673. Or, you can always send an email to podcasts@sciencefriday.com. Guests:  Steven Strogatz is a Professor of applied mathematics at Cornell, and Visiting Professor at National Museum of Mathematics.Eugenia Cheng is a mathematician and Scientist in Residence at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the author of x + y: A Mathematician's Manifesto for Rethinking Gender. Footnotes & Further Reading:  Read Eugenia Cheng's full response to Gracie. Take a peek at al-Khwarizmi's The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing. Credits:  This episode was produced by Johanna Mayer and Lauren Young. Our Editor and Senior Producer is Elah Feder. Daniel Peterschmidt is our Composer. Danya AbdelHameid contributed fact checking. Our Chief Content Officier is Nadja Oertelt. 

This episode is a re-broadcast. It originally aired in November 2020.  Every year, the World Meteorological Organization puts out a list of 21 names for the season's hurricanes and tropical storms. But in 2020, the Atlantic hurricane season was so active that by September, we'd flown through the whole list of names and had to switch to the Greek alphabet. Thus, Hurricane Iota became the 30th named storm of the season. We've only had to dip into the Greek alphabet once before, in 2005. But the practice of naming hurricanes goes back to the 19th century, and it was a bumpy ride to land on the system we use today. In this episode: The story of a meteorologist in Australia, a novel, and a second-wave feminist from Florida—and how they brought us hurricane names. Guests: Christina M. Gonzalez is a doctoral candidate in anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin.Liz Skilton is a historian and the author of Tempest: Hurricane Naming and American Culture. Footnotes & Further Reading: For more hurricane history, check out A Furious Sky: The Five-Hundred-Year History of America's Hurricanes by Eric Jay Dolin. To learn more about Roxcy Bolton and the fight to change the naming system, read Liz Skilton's article “Gendering Natural Disaster: The Battle Over Female Hurricane Names.” Credits: Science Diction is hosted and produced by Johanna Mayer. Our editor and Senior Producer is Elah Feder. We had story editing from Nathan Tobey, and fact checking by Michelle Harris. Our composer is Daniel Peterschmidt. Chris Wood did sound design and mastered the episode. Special thanks to the Florida State Library & Archives for allowing us use footage from Roxcy Bolton's oral history interview. Nadja Oertelt is our Chief Content Officer. 

Journalists Kevin McLean and Shalina Chatlani join us for a round of Diction Dash, where Johanna tries - and usually fails - to guess the true meaning or origin of a word.    If you're curious about a word, get in touch! Give us a call, leave a message, and we might play it on the show. The number is 929-499-WORD, or 929-499-9673. Or, you can always send an email to podcasts@sciencefriday.com. Guests:  Kevin McLean is a freelance producer based in Davis, California. Shalina Chatlani is the health care reporter for the Gulf States Newsroom. Footnotes & Further Reading:  Read the full study on the link between a desire for control, and reliance on superstitions under stress. Credits:  This episode was produced by Daniel Peterschmidt, Johanna Mayer, and Senior Producer Elah Feder. Daniel Peterschmidt is our composer and mastered this episode. We had fact checking help from Robin Palmer. Nadja Oertelt is our Chief Content Officer.    A transcript of this episode is being processed and will be available within a week.

When Isabel Briggs Myers imagined that her homegrown personality test would change the world, she couldn't have pictured this. Today, millions take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator each year. Countless organizations use it, from General Motors to the CIA. But there's one field that mostly rolls its eyes at the test: psychology.  In our final chapter, Isabel rescues her indicator from the verge of extinction, but has to make some compromises. And we explore what the Myers Briggs does (and doesn't) measure, and why people love it despite psychologists' complaints. Listen to Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 of this series. A transcript of this episode is being processed and will be available within a week.  Guests:  Merve Emre is a writer and English professor at the University of Oxford. Annie Murphy Paul is a science journalist and author.   Dan McAdams is a professor of psychology at Northwestern University.  Quinisha Jackson-Wright is a writer and the author of Working Twice as Hard.  Jeffrey Hayes is the President and CEO of the Myers-Briggs Company. Rich Thompson is Senior Director of Global Research at The Myers-Briggs Company. Peter Geyer is a Myers-Briggs practitioner in Melbourne Australia. Footnotes & Further Reading:  Check out Merve Emre's book, ​​The Personality Brokers: The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the Birth of Personality Testing. Read Annie Murphy Paul's book, The Cult of Personality Testing. Credits: This episode of Science Diction was produced by Johanna Mayer, Chris Egusa, and Senior Producer Elah Feder. Daniel Peterschmidt is our composer, and they mastered the episode. We had fact checking help from Sona Avakian. Special thanks to Peter Geyer for providing archival audio. Nadja Oertelt is our Chief Content Officer. 

At first, it seemed like Isabel Briggs Myers would have nothing to do with personality typology. That was her mother Katharine's passion project, not hers. But when Isabel enters a tumultuous marriage, she discovers that her mother's gospel of type might just be the thing to save it.  In Chapter 2, Isabel picks up her mother's work, and decides to transform it into a marketable product—but first, she has to convince a group of skeptical PhDs that it actually works. Along the way, one particularly dogged researcher notices some issues with her indicator, threatening to undo everything she'd worked for. If you're new to the series, listen to Chapter 1. A transcript of this episode is being processed and will be available within a week. Guest:  Merve Emre is a writer and English professor at the University of Oxford. Footnotes & Further Reading:  Read Merve Emre's book, ​​The Personality Brokers: The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the Birth of Personality Testing. Credits:  This episode was produced by Johanna Mayer, Chris Egusa, and Senior Producer Elah Feder. Our music was composed by Daniel Peterschmidt, who also mastered this episode and helped with archival research. We had fact checking help from Cosmo Bjorkenheim. Peter Geyer provided us with archival audio. Nadja Oertelt is our Chief Content Officer.

If you're one of the 2 million people who take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator every year, perhaps you thought Myers and Briggs are the two psychologists who designed the test. In reality, a mother-daughter team created the test essentially at their kitchen table. In this episode, we look at the unlikely origins of the Myers-Briggs, going all the way back to the late 1800s when Katharine Cook Briggs turned her living room into a “cosmic laboratory of baby training” and set out to raise the perfect child. In this three-part series, we uncover the strange history of the most popular personality test in the world, and how two women revolutionized personality testing—for better or for worse.  Guest:  Merve Emre is a writer and English professor at the University of Oxford. Footnotes & Further Reading:  Read Merve Emre's book, ​​The Personality Brokers: The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the Birth of Personality Testing. Credits:  This episode was produced by Johanna Mayer, Chris Egusa, and Elah Feder. Our music was composed by Daniel Peterschmidt, who also mastered the episode. Fact checking by Danya AbdelHameid. Archival audio was provided courtesy of Peter Geyer. Nadja Oertelt is our Chief Content Officer.

Honeymoon: It just seems like a word that would have a lovely story behind it, doesn't it?  When a listener named Eric emailed us from Centerville, Ohio asking about the word, that's what we were hoping to find. Instead, we found a more bittersweet origin stretching all the way back to an early modern poem. Plus: We take a look at what's going on in our brains during the honeymoon period—and whether it's all downhill from there.  If you want us to cover a word on the show, get in touch! Give us a call, leave a message, and we might play it on the show. The number is 929-499-WORD, or 929-499-9673. Or, you can always send an email to podcasts@sciencefriday.com. Guest:  Christine Proulx is an Associate Professor in Human Development and Family Science at the University of Missouri. Footnotes & Further Reading:  Read the full John Heywood poem where the word "honeymoon" appears for the first time. Learn more about what's happening in your brain during the honeymoon phase. Read the full study on how researchers used an fMRI to find activity in the ventral tegmental area of the brains of people who recently fell in love. Credits:  Science Diction is produced by Johanna Mayer and Senior Producer Elah Feder. Daniel Peterschmidt is our composer, and they mastered the episode. Nadja Oertelt is our Chief Content Officer. Special thanks this week to Michael Lorber and Helen Fisher. See you soon.

A transcript for this episode is in progress. In 1910, a fruit fly geneticist named Thomas Hunt Morgan noticed something strange in one of his specimens. Out of his many, many fruit flies—all with brilliant red eyes—a single fly had white eyes. This fruit fly turned out to be a very big deal. From those white eyes, Morgan eventually figured out that genes can be sex-linked, confirmed that genes exist on chromosomes, and won the Nobel prize. But he also cemented his legacy another way, with what he chose to name that gene: “white.” It might sound uninspired, but it kicked off a tradition that decades later gave us names like spatzle, hamlet, and ken and barbie. Here and there, a name went too far, but overall, fanciful names brought joy to researchers and worked well—until genes like these were discovered in humans, and everything went awry. Johanna and Senior Producer Elah Feder team up with Helen Zaltzman of The Allusionist to talk about fruit flies, genes, and whether it's ok to name a gene after a German noodle. Plus, after much demand, we bring you... the origin of defenestration! Guests:  Helen Zaltzman is the host of The Allusionist. Credits: Science Diction is produced by Johanna Mayer and Senior Producer Elah Feder. Our composer is Daniel Peterschmidt. Nadja Oertelt is our Chief Content Officer.

What pigment do we owe to the squid? And what do you name a teeny tiny octopus that's cute as a button? In this episode of Diction Dash, we're talking about those clever and often tentacled marine invertebrates: Cephalopods.  Diana Montano, Science Friday's resident trivia maestro, quizzes Johanna. But this time, Johanna calls in reinforcements—from Science Friday host Ira Flatow himself. If you want us to cover a word on the show, get in touch! Give us a call, leave a message, and we might play it on the show. The number is 929-499-WORD, or 929-499-9673. Or, you can always send an email to podcasts@sciencefriday.com.  This episode is part of Science Friday's annual Cephalopod Week! Join the cephalo-bration.  Guests:  Diana Montano is the Outreach Manager at Science Friday. Ira Flatow is the Host of Science Friday. Footnotes & Further Reading: Join Science Friday's annual Cephalopod Week celebration of our favorite, often tentacled, marine invertebrates. In the episode, we mention Science Friday's video on the Adorabilis—check it out, and prepare to say “awww.”  For a detailed explanation of how to pluralize “octopus,” Merriam-Webster has your back. Sponsor a cephalopod! With every donation of $8 made during Cephalopod Week, you'll get a special Cephalopod Badge, featuring your choice of ceph, your first name and city. You'll find it swimming in our very own Sea of Support. Credits:  This episode of Science Diction was produced by Johanna Mayer with Diana Montano and Katie Feather. Elah Feder is our Senior Producer. Daniel Peterschmidt composed all our music and they mastered this episode. Nadja Oertelt is our Chief Content Officer.

If you read the title of this episode and cringed, you're not alone. At Merriam-Webster, editors and lexicographers receive countless letters grousing about the addition of certain words to the dictionary. And here at Science Diction, we get our fair share of emails pointing out our linguistic missteps.  But the more you dig into the origins of words, the more you notice that when it comes to language, “correctness” is a slippery concept. In fact, some of our most beloved English words - nickname! newt! - were born of mistakes.  In this episode, Merriam-Webster lexicographers Emily Brewster and Peter Sokolowski explain the mistake-ridden origins of our words, how language evolves, and how wrong becomes right. Plus, we answer a listener question about the most exported word in the English language. Guests:  Emily Brewster is a Senior Editor and Lexicographer at Merriam-Webster.  Peter Sokolowski is a Lexicographer at Merriam-Webster. Credits:  Science Diction is produced by Johanna Mayer and Senior Producer and Editor Elah Feder. Daniel Peterschmidt composed our music, and they mastered this episode. Nadja Oertelt is our Chief Content Officer.

How did a country's name end up inside the word, “serendipity"? And what’s a “syzygy"? And, more importantly, why does it have so many y’s?    Over the past year, several listeners have written to us asking about these two words. Now, we answer—with a little help. Eli Chen and Justine Paradis join us for a round of Diction Dash, where Johanna tries (and usually fails) to guess the correct origin or meaning of a word.  If you want us to cover a word on the show, get in touch! Give us a call, leave a message, and we might play it on the show. The number is 929-499-WORD, or 929-499-9673. Or, you can always send an email to podcasts@sciencefriday.com.  Guests:  Justine Paradis is a reporter and producer for Outside/In from New Hampshire Public Radio.  Eli Chen is senior editor of Overheard at National Geographic.  Footnotes & Further Reading:  More on how a syzygy helped free the Suez ship at the Wall Street Journal Read The Three Princes of Serendip Credits:  Science Diction is produced by Johanna Mayer and Senior Producer and Editor Elah Feder. Daniel Peterschmidt composed all our music. Fact checking by Robin Palmer. Nadja Oertelt is our Chief Content Officer.

Last month, Science Diction received a letter from a listener named Ben. He wanted to know about ambergris, a strange substance that washes up on beaches from time to time. So today, we’re talking about this thing that for centuries, rich people coveted, rubbed on their necks, and even ate, all without having any idea what it really was. If they had known, they might have put their forks right down. Plus, Science Diction now has a phone number! If you, like Ben, want us to cover a certain word, you can call in, leave us a message, and we might play it on the show. Call 929-499-WORD or 929 499 9673. Or send us an email at podcasts@sciencefriday.com. Guest:  Christopher Kemp is the author of Floating Gold: A Natural (and Unnatural) History of Ambergris. Special thanks to Ben Gartner for emailing us and inspiring this episode. Footnotes & Further Reading:  To learn more about ambergris, read Christopher Kemp’s book Floating Gold. Credits:  Science Diction is produced by Johanna Mayer and senior producer Elah Feder. Daniel Peterschmidt is our composer. Robin Palmer helped fact check this episode. Nadja Oertelt is our Chief Content Officer.

When the first COVID-19 vaccines were approved for emergency use last December, it felt like - at last! - our nightmare was nearly over. Then came reports of botched distribution efforts, from broken websites to factory mix-ups. Scientists created the vaccine in record time, but it was beginning to look like that might’ve been the easy part. But if you think vaccine distribution was a logistical nightmare in 2021, try doing it in the early 1800s. In 1796, Edward Jenner discovered that cowpox worked as a vaccine against smallpox. All you had to do was pop a cowpox sore on someone’s skin and transfer the lymph fluid (a.k.a. pus) into a cut on a second person. Soon, they'd develop a few sores, but when they recovered, they'd be immune to smallpox, a far more serious disease. This worked well enough for short distances, but when smallpox began to destroy Spanish colonies in the Americas, Spain had to figure out a way to move the vaccine across the ocean. Their solution was resourceful, effective, and very ethically dubious. Science writer Sam Kean brings us the story of the world's first vaccination campaign. Guest:  Sam Kean is a science writer, author of The Bastard Brigade, and host of the podcast Disappearing Spoon. Footnotes & Further Reading:  Listen to our episode on the origin of the word ‘vaccine.’ Listen to a full episode about this story on Sam Kean’s podcast, Disappearing Spoon. Credits:  Science Diction is produced by Johanna Mayer and Elah Feder. Elah is our Editor and Senior Producer. Daniel Peterschmidt is our composer. Nadja Oertelt is our Chief Content Officer.

Over the past year, you’ve sent us words you want us to cover on the show. And for months, we let those suggestions pile up into a list of nearly 200 words. Today, we begin to chip away at that lexical mountain. A team of Science Friday producers set out to tackle five listener-suggested words and quiz Johanna about their meaning or origin in a game we’re calling, Diction Dash. Feel free to play along... or just listen to Johanna get all the answers wrong.  We still want your suggestions! If you want us to cover a word on the show, send an email to podcasts@sciencefriday.com. We’ll add it to the lexical mountain. A transcript of this episode is being processed. It will be updated within a week after publication. Guests:  Kathleen Davis is a Producer at Science Friday.  Diana Montano is Events Producer at Science Friday.  Lauren J. Young is a Digital Producer at Science Friday.  Christie Taylor is a Producer at Science Friday.  Alexa Lim is Senior Producer at Science Friday. Credits:  Science Diction is produced by Johanna Mayer and Elah Feder. Elah is also our editor and senior producer. Daniel Peterschmidt is our composer. Robin Palmer helped fact check this episode. Nadja Oertelt is our Chief Content Officer. 

Science Diction from Science Friday is back! Their latest episode is all about a recent buzzword: "Introvert."  In 2013, introverts staged their comeback. For decades, they’d been told to get out of their shells and *smile*, while those  showy, gregarious extroverts were held up as the American ideal. But when one author published a kind of introvert’s manifesto, she sparked an introvert pride movement. Since then, the war of the ‘verts has only escalated, with self-identified introverts accusing extroverts of being shallow and incessantly chatty party monsters, and extroverts declaring introverts self-absorbed shut-ins who are just jealous because extroverts are actually happy. (A contention that studies support.) It all feels like a very 21st Century, internet-era drama. But the history of the dubious and divisive introvert-extrovert binary began 100 years ago, when Carl Jung fell out with Sigmund Freud, and tried to make sense of where they’d gone wrong. In the process, Jung coined a couple of new terms, and unleashed an enduring cultural obsession with cramming ourselves into personality boxes. For more stories like these, subscribe to Science Diction wherever you get your podcasts. GUESTS: Dan McAdams is a professor of psychology at Northwestern University.  Wiebke Bleidorn is a professor of psychology at the University of California Davis. Kelly Egusa is producer Chris Egusa’s sister, and a proud introvert. FOOTNOTES & FURTHER READING:  For an introvert’s manifesto, check out Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain.Looking for a personality test backed by science? This one comes closest. Curious about the 18,000 words in “Trait Names: A Psycho-lexical Study”? Read them here. Read the 2019 study that suggests that introverted people feel happier when they force themselves to act extroverted. (And you can also check out a different study from the same year that adds a wrinkle to this finding.) Take a look at a study that analyzes the Big Five personality dimensions as they relate to career success. CREDITS:  This episode was produced by Chris Egusa, Johanna Mayer, and Elah Feder. Elah is our Editor and Senior Producer. Daniel Peterschmidt is our Composer and did sound design for this episode. They wrote all the music, except for the Timbo March by Tim Garland from the Audio Network. Robin Palmer fact checked this episode. Nadja Oertelt is our Chief Content Officer.

One year into this pandemic, it’s been a struggle to feel a connection with other people digitally. That’s why I was inspired to hear an episode from the show Science Friday about a community that refused to disband their virtual world. As reporter Daniel Peterschmidt explains to me, the staff of Science Friday had set up a virtual outpost in Second Life when it was a trendy thing to do in the mid-2000s. The show eventually left Second Life, but Daniel recently discovered their community of hardcore fans stuck together long after many people abandoned Second Life, and the group went through not-so virtual turmoil along the way.  Today's episode is brought to you by SerialBox and BetterHelp. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? We have partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle our advertising/sponsorship requests. They’re great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started. Imaginary Worlds AdvertiseCast Listing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2013, introverts staged their comeback. For decades, they’d been told to get out of their shells and *smile*, while those  showy, gregarious extroverts were held up as the American ideal. But when one author published a kind of introvert’s manifesto, she sparked an introvert pride movement. Since then, the war of the ‘verts has only escalated, with self-identified introverts accusing extroverts of being shallow and incessantly chatty party monsters, and extroverts declaring introverts self-absorbed shut-ins who are just jealous because extroverts are actually happy. (A contention that studies support.) It all feels like a very 21st Century, internet-era drama. But the history of the dubious and divisive introvert-extrovert binary began 100 years ago, when Carl Jung fell out with Sigmund Freud, and tried to make sense of where they’d gone wrong. In the process, Jung coined a couple of new terms, and unleashed an enduring cultural obsession with cramming ourselves into personality boxes. Guests: Dan McAdams is a professor of psychology at Northwestern University.  Wiebke Bleidorn is a professor of psychology at the University of California Davis. Kelly Egusa is producer Chris Egusa’s sister, and a proud introvert. Footnotes & Further Reading:  For an introvert’s manifesto, check out Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain.Looking for a personality test backed by science? This one comes closest. Curious about the 18,000 words in “Trait Names: A Psycho-lexical Study”? Read them here. Read the 2019 study that suggests that introverted people feel happier when they force themselves to act extroverted. (And you can also check out a different study from the same year that adds a wrinkle to this finding.) Take a look at a study that analyzes the Big Five personality dimensions as they relate to career success. Credits:  This episode was produced by Chris Egusa, Johanna Mayer, and Elah Feder. Elah is our Editor and Senior Producer. Daniel Peterschmidt is our Composer and did sound design for this episode. They wrote all the music, except for the Timbo March by Tim Garland from the Audio Network. Robin Palmer fact checked this episode. Nadja Oertelt is our Chief Content Officer. This season of Science Diction is sponsored by Audible.

Learning From World Of Warcraft’s Virtual Pandemic The widespread infection of roughly four million virtual characters all started with a giant snake demon. In 2005, the massively multiplayer online video game World Of Warcraft introduced a special event raid, where groups of players could team up to fight a giant snake demon named Hakkar the Soulflayer. Hakkar would cast a spell called “Corrupted Blood” on players, which would slowly whittle down their health. The effect of the spell was only supposed to last inside the raid arena—when players returned to the main world of the game, the spell would dissipate. But thanks to a software glitch, that wasn’t the case if the player had a pet companion. When the pets returned to the main world, they started infecting players and non-playable characters with the Corrupted Blood spell. If the player wasn’t powerful enough to heal themselves, they would die and erupt in a fountain of blood before turning into a skeleton. What followed was a virtual pandemic that startlingly resembled today’s COVID-19 pandemic, from the spread, human behavior, and cultural response. Blizzard, the developer of the game, wanted players to social distance. Some players listened, others flouted the rules, traveling freely and spreading the disease with them. Conspiracy theories formed about how the virus was engineered by Blizzard on purpose, and others placed blame on players with pets as the cause of the outbreak, mirroring the racist anti-Asian attacks and rhetoric surrounding COVID-19 today.  Coincidentally, two epidemiologists, Nina Fefferman and Eric Lofgren, were there to witness the World Of Warcraft outbreak unfold. They studied and used the incident to model human behavior in response to a pandemic. Their findings were published in The Lancet in 2007. Many of their observations came to pass in 2020 when COVID-19 appeared.  SciFri producer Daniel Peterschmidt sat down with Eric Molinsky, host of the podcast Imaginary Worlds, who reported this story for his show. He talks about the epidemiologists who studied the outbreak and how it prepared them for public responses to COVID-19. Why Is Daydreaming Difficult For Grownups? Children have a natural talent for imagination. Even in moments of boredom, their imagination can take them away into daydreams that help pass the time in a flash. But for many adults, falling into a daydream is hard, especially when our minds are filled with worries about tomorrow’s obligations, finances, and a global pandemic.  Turns out those who feel this way are not alone. New research shows that adults report getting to a daydreaming state is harder than experiencing their unguided thoughts. Adults often require a prompt to think about something pleasant, and tend to ruminate on unpleasant things.  Daydreaming can be an antidote to boredom, and researcher Erin Westgate of the University of Florida says that’s important. Her previous research shows that boredom can cause sadistic behavior in people. Westgate joins guest host John Dankosky and Manoush Zomorodi, host of the TED Radio Hour and author of the book “Bored and Brilliant,” who argues leaning into boredom can unlock our most creative selves. Can We Geoengineer Our Way Out Of A Natural Disaster? Humans have always altered their landscapes—from simple agriculture used to cultivate specific crops to huge projects like damming rivers to change the flow of entire ecosystems. And many of these human interventions have unintended consequences and have led to major environmental disasters. In her book Under A White Sky: The Nature Of The Future, author Elizabeth Kolbert talks to scientists and people working on geoengineering projects and technology to mitigate and avert damage caused by humans in the natural world like climate change. The projects range from electrifying rivers to turning CO2 emissions into rocks. Kolbert discusses if we can solve these natural problems with the tools that created the problems in the first place, and at what cost?

In 1953, in the coastal town of Minamata in Japan, locals noticed some cats were acting strangely—twitching, spinning in circles, almost dancing. The reality was far darker. What looked like dancing was really convulsions. The cats drooled, spun in circles, and flung themselves into the sea. The cause of this strange behavior, residents discovered, was mercury. Mercury—a silvery liquid, named for a quick-footed Roman God—has captivated humans since ancient times. It’s found in Egyptian tombs that date to 1500 BCE, and the first emperor of unified China believed it was the elixir of life. But what happens when it invades a town, and seeps into our brains? Footnotes & Further Reading:  For this story, we relied heavily on the book Minamata : Pollution and the Struggle for Democracy in Postwar Japan.Learn how mercury played a pivotal role in pinpointing a key campsite location in the Lewis and Clark expedition. Credits:  This episode of Science Diction was written by Kaitlyn Schwalje, and produced by Elah Feder and Johanna Mayer. Elah is our editor and senior producer. Daniel Peterschmidt sound designed this episode and composed all the music, except The Timbo March which is by Tim Garland, from the Audio Network. We had fact checking help from Danya Abdelhameid and Robin Palmer. Nadja Oertelt is our chief content officer. The season of Science Diction is sponsored by Audible.

Vervet monkeys steal it out of people's hands. Chimpanzees in Guinea are known to climb up palm trees and drink it. There’s even a theory that loving it was an important adaptation for our pre-human ancestors, that the smell of fermentation helped them track down very ripe, calorie-rich fruit.  Alcohol has been deeply ingrained in our lives from the beginning, possibly since before we were human. And while the drive to drink is older than civilization, many have worked hard to reign it in. In 1920s America, these desires clashed like never before. It’s a story of a battle between chemists, and the unthinkable lengths the U.S. government went to to try to pry away our favorite mind-altering substance. Guest:  Deborah Blum is a science writer and journalist. Footnotes & Further Reading:  For more on the government poisoning program, check out The Poisoner’s Handbook by Deborah Blum. For more on the “chemist’s war,” read this article by Deborah Blum. Credits:  Science Diction is produced by Johanna Mayer and Elah Feder. Elah is our editor and senior producer. Our composer is Daniel Peterschmidt, who also mastered this episode. Special thanks to the Arabic scholar Stephen Guth, and to Kat Eschner. This episode was fact checked by Robin Palmer. Chris Wood contributed sound design. Nadja Oertelt is our chief content officer. This season of Science Diction was sponsored by Audible.

In 1920, a Czech writer was stumped. He’d written a play about a future where machines that looked like people do our bidding. They were the perfect workers: obedient, hard working, and never demanded a pay raise. But what was the writer to call these marvelous machines? There wasn’t yet a word for this type of creation.  He had initially chosen labori, from the Latin for labor, but something about the word wasn’t quite right. It seemed...stiff, bookish. This play wasn’t just about machines who labored. It was about machines we exploited, relentlessly. And eventually, the writer landed on a word that fit better: Robot.  Robot comes from an old Czech word for drudgery and servitude. Though in his play - like so very many robo-dystopias to come - the writer showed that a mind we create to serve us, isn’t necessarily a mind we can control. Footnotes & Further Reading:  See more drawings and diagrams in The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices by Ismail al-Jazari. Check out some old footage of Unimate, the first worker robot. Credits: This episode was produced by Johanna Mayer, Julia Pistell, and Elah Feder. Elah is our editor and senior producer. We had sound design and mastering from Chris Wood. Our music was composed by Daniel Peterschmidt. Thank you to Craig Cravens, senior lecturer at Indiana University, for helping us with research about Karel Capek. We had fact checking help from Danya AbdelHameid. Nadja Oertelt is our chief content officer.  This season of Science Diction is supported by Audible.

On December 5th, 2012, a bill landed on President Barack Obama’s desk, meant to do one thing: remove the word “lunatic” from the federal code. This is because in 2012, you could still find the word in laws about banking and controlling estates, among others. And not only was it offensive, it was antiquated—ancient, in fact. The word lunacy comes from luna—Latin for moon. This is because there was a time when we thought the power to change our moods and minds came from the sky. Guests:  Miena Hall is a Family Medicine Resident at Adventist Hinsdale Hospital. Jo Marchant is a science journalist and author of The Human Cosmos. Footnotes & Further Reading:  For a deep history on “madness,” check out Madness in Civilization: A Cultural History of Insanity, from the Bible to Freud, from the Madhouse to Modern Medicine by Andrew Scull. Meta-analyses and literature reviews haven’t backed up  a lunar effect on human behavior, but more recent studies have found intriguing patterns. Credits:  Science Diction is hosted by Johanna Mayer. This episode was produced by Johanna Mayer, Chris Egusa, and Elah Feder. Elah is our editor and senior producer. Daniel Peterschmidt composed all the music and designed sound for this episode. Chris Wood mastered. We had fact checking by Danya AbdelHameid. Nadja Oertelt is our Chief Content Officer. Special thanks to Andrew Scull, Chiara Thumiger, who studies ancient medicine, and Janet Downie, Associate Professor of classics at UNC Chapel Hill. This season of Science Diction is supported by Audible.

In the late 18th century, a doctor showed up in Paris practicing some very peculiar medicine. He would escort patients into dimly lit rooms, wave his arms over their bodies, and touch them with a magnetic wand. Patients would react to these treatments violently: crying, sweating, convulsing or shrieking. But then they would emerge healed. According to the doctor anyway. Many believed he was a fraud, but despite his dubious methods, this doctor inadvertently gave us a new approach to healing—and a new word: mesmerize. Because the doctor’s name was Franz Anton Mesmer.  A depiction of Mesmer’s “treatment” baquets. (Wikimedia Commons)   Guests:  Emily Ogden is an associate English professor at the University of Virginia. Footnotes & Further Reading:  For a deep dive on mesmerism, check out Emily Ogden's book, Credulity: A Cultural History of US Mesmerism. Credits:  Science Diction is hosted by Johanna Mayer. This episode was produced by Johanna Mayer, Katie Thornton, and Elah Feder. Elah is our editor and senior producer. We had story editing from Nathan Tobey. Daniel Peterschmidt is our composer, and we had sound design from Chris Wood, who also mixed and mastered the episode. Fact checking by Michelle Harris and Danya AbdelHameid. Nadja Oertelt is our Chief Content Officer. This season of Science Diction is supported by Audible.

The pearl clutching about “cancel culture” and “censorship” has become louder and more absurd while also getting more and more play in the media. Journalists Katelyn Burns and Oliver-Ash Kleine see this panic for what it is though: a grift. In this new podcast, they take a closer look at these temper tantrums, dispelling myths, laughing at the most outrageous takes, and shedding light on which perspectives are actually being suppressed and left out of the conversation. You can hear a new episode of Cancel Me, Daddy every other week, wherever you listen to podcasts. To join our community and support our work, visit our Patreon: www.patreon.com/cancelmedaddy Our theme music was created by Daniel Peterschmidt.

They Might Be Giants With A Timely Reminder: “Science Is Real” Fans of the band They Might Be Giants are likely to be familiar with the band’s version of the 1959 Tom Glazer song “Why Does The Sun Shine?” As they sing, “The sun is a mass / of incandescent gas / a gigantic nuclear furnace.” In their album “Here Comes Science,” the band revisits that song, and follows it with a fact-checking track titled “Why Does the Sun Really Shine?” In the lyrics, they describe the science of plasma. The album also includes an ode to the elements, descriptions of what blood does in the body, and songs describing the scientific process. In a reminder that resonates for the start of 2021, one song is titled “Science is Real.”   In this archival segment from 2009, John Linnell and John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants join Ira in the studio to discuss the album, and to play some science songs. Name That Call: Test Your Animal Sound Trivia Can you differentiate the cry of an Antarctic Weddell seal from the song of an emperor penguin? How about the bellows of a howler monkey from a warthog’s rumbling roar? The animal kingdom is filled with diverse calls and sounds, and for World Wildlife Day earlier this week on Tuesday, we curated them—in a quiz. SciFri’s digital producer Daniel Peterschmidt teamed up with Google Earth to create an interactive quiz that hops you around the world and highlights the many (sometimes surprising) sounds that species make. Daniel challenges Ira to an animal sound showdown. Test your knowledge and explore the wide world of screeches, howls, and growls with the Science Friday Google Earth Animal Sound Quiz! The Luxury Ostrich Eggs Of The Bronze And Iron Age Upper Class Today, if you want to show off that you’ve made it, you might buy a top-of-the-line Rolex watch, or line your garage with Ferraris and Rolls Royces. But in the Iron and Bronze age, one of the luxury goods of choice was to put a highly decorated ostrich egg in your tomb. These status symbols have been found in multiple European Iron and Bronze Age locations, despite ostriches not being indigenous to the area. A team of scientists wanted to know the origins of these eggs—and just how they made it from Africa into the hands of the Iron and Bronze Age elite. Mediterranean archaeologist Tamar Hodos, an author on the study recently published in Antiquity, explains how the team determined that these eggs came from wild ostriches, rather than captive birds, and what this reveals about the ancient luxury trade. See a gallery of these ostrich eggs below!

How did we wind up with a storm named Iota? Well, we ran out of hurricane names. Every year, the World Meteorological Organization puts out a list of 21 names for the season’s hurricanes and tropical storms. But this year, the Atlantic hurricane season was so active that by September, we'd flown through the whole list of names and had to switch to the Greek alphabet. Thus, Hurricane Iota became the 30th named storm of the season. We’ve only had to dip into the Greek alphabet once before, in 2005. But the practice of naming hurricanes goes back to the 19th century, and it was a bit of a bumpy ride to land on the system we use today. In this episode: The story of a meteorologist in Australia, a novel, and a second-wave feminist from Florida—and how they brought us hurricane names. A transcript for this episode is being processed. We'll update the link when it's ready. Guests:  Christina M. Gonzalez is a doctoral candidate in anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin.Liz Skilton is a historian and the author of Tempest: Hurricane Naming and American Culture. Footnotes & Further Reading:  For more hurricane history, check out A Furious Sky: The Five-Hundred-Year History of America's Hurricanes by Eric Jay Dolin. To learn more about Roxcy Bolton and the fight to change the naming system, read Liz Skilton’s article “Gendering Natural Disaster: The Battle Over Female Hurricane Names.” Credits: Science Diction is hosted and produced by Johanna Mayer. Our editor and producer is Elah Feder. We had story editing from Nathan Tobey, and fact checking by Michelle Harris. Our composer is Daniel Peterschmidt. Chris Wood did sound design and mastered the episode. Special thanks to the Florida State Library & Archives for allowing us use footage from Roxcy Bolton’s oral history interview. Nadja Oertelt is our chief content officer.

Most people who contract coronavirus recover, but we still don't know much about the lingering side effects – including the loss of taste and smell. Patrick talks with a local foodie who survived the virus but hasn't fully regained his ability to taste and smell. We're taking a break, but send us your thoughts and ideas for episodes here: dishcity@wamu.org Twitter: @dishcity Instagram: @dishcity Become a member of WAMU and tell them Dish City sent ya! wamu.org/donate Theme music by Daniel Peterschmidt

The first Oreo rolled out of Chelsea Market in Manhattan in 1912, but despite the cookie’s popularity today, Oreos weren’t an immediate cookie smash hit. In fact, there was already another cookie on the block that looked remarkably similar to Oreos: two chocolate wafers embossed with laurel leaves, and white cream in the center. This cookie was widely loved, made with the highest quality ingredients, and saddled with a curious name: Hydrox. So how did a cookie get a name so bad? Producer Alexa Lim takes us all the way back to the early 1900s, and brings us a story of the rise - and the crumble - of a cookie named Hydrox.   Guests:  Carolyn Burns is the owner of The Insight Connection, and a former marketing director for Keebler. Stella Parks is a pastry chef and the author of Brave Tart: Iconic American Desserts. Ellia Kassoff is the CEO of Leaf Brands. Footnotes & Further Reading:  For more Hydrox history, check out Brave Tart by Stella Parks. Can’t get enough Hydrox? This is a fun website. Credits:  This episode of Science Diction was produced by Alexa Lim, Elah Feder, and Johanna Mayer. Our editor is Elah Feder. Daniel Peterschmidt is our composer and contributed sound design. Fact checking by Danya AbdelHameid. Chris Wood mastered the episode. Our Chief Content Officer is Nadja Oertelt. 

In the 1760s, a new kind of establishment started popping up in Paris, catering to the French and fancy. These places had tables, menus, and servers. They even called themselves “restaurants,” and you might have too, were it not for one key difference: these restaurants were places you went not to eat. Well, not to chew anyway. Because they weren’t in the business of feeding their genteel clientele, but of soothing their frayed nerves —with premium medicinal soups. Soups which were also called “restaurants”! In this episode: How restaurants evolved from a soup to a chic Parisian soup spa to the diverse, loved—and sorely missed—solid food eateries of today. Guests:  Rebecca Spang is a professor of history at Indiana University. Stephani Robson is senior lecturer at the Cornell School of Hotel Administration. Footnotes & Further Reading:  For more on early bouillon-sipping establishments and the rise of restaurants, take a peek at Rebecca Spang’s book, The Invention of the Restaurant: Paris and Modern Gastronomic Culture.  Still can’t get enough restaurant history? Check out Dining Out: A Global History of Restaurants. If you, like Stephani Robson, are passionate about optimal chair spacing, check out one of her studies on the subject.  To see some of Stephani’s work in action, listen to this collaborative episode from Planet Money and The Sporkful, on “The Great Data-Driven Restaurant Makeover.” Credits:  Science Diction is hosted and produced by Johanna Mayer. Elah Feder is our editor and producer. We had story editing from Nathan Tobey. Daniel Peterschmidt contributed sound design and wrote all our music, except the accordion piece which was by Dana Boulé and the final piece by Jazz at the Mladost Club. We had research help from Cosmo Bjorkenheim. Chris Wood mastered the episode, and we had fact checking by Michelle Harris. Special thanks to Gregg Rapp for talking to us about menu engineering. Nadja Oertelt is our Chief Content Officer.

Salty, sweet, sour, bitter. Scientists once thought these were the only tastes, but in the early 20th century, a Japanese chemist dissected his favorite kombu broth and discovered one more: umami. In recent years, umami has become a foodie buzzword, but for nearly a century, the Western world was in full-blown umami denial—didn’t believe it existed. And we might have stayed that way if it weren’t for our most notorious and potent source of umami: MSG.   A 1930s advertisement for Ajinomoto. (Courtesy of the Science History Institute.)   Advertising brochure from the late 1940s until the early 1950s for Ac'cent, an MSG product manufactured by the International Minerals & Chemical Corporation. (Courtesy of the Science History Institute.)   Kikunae Ikeda, who proposed the idea of umami as a fifth basic taste. (Wikimedia Commons)   Guest:  Nirupa Chaudhari is a professor of physiology & biophysics at the University of Miami. Kumiko Ninomiya is the director of the Umami Information Center.  Footnotes & Further Reading:  Special thanks to Sarah Tracy for some background on MSG in the United States. Read a translation of Kikunae Ikeda's original manuscript in Journal of the Chemical Society of Tokyo. "A Short History Of MSG" discusses Ajinomoto's marketing techniques, as well as reception of MSG in the United States and around the globe.  If you're dying to see the Mr. Umami video mentioned in this story, watch it here. Hear more chefs gushing over umami at the Austin Food & Wine Festival.  Credits:  Science Diction is hosted and produced by  Johanna Mayer. Elah Feder is our editor and producer. Nathan Tobey contributed story editing, and Kaitlyn Schwalje contributed writing and research. Thanks also to Lauren J. Young and Attabey Rodríguez Benítez for research help. Our composer is Daniel Peterschmidt, and they also did sound design. Chris Wood mastered this episode. We had fact checking from Michelle Harris. Nadja Oertelt is our Chief Content Officer.

Rocky Road is just a good name for an ice cream flavor. So good, in fact, that two ice cream institutions have dueling claims to Rocky Road’s invention. It’s a story of alleged confessions and a whole lot of ice cream-fueled drama. If it were just the flavor that made Rocky Road so special, every company could have just made their own concoction of nuts, chocolate, and marshmallows, named it “Muddy Street” or “Pebble Lane,” and called it a day. But there’s a linguistic reason why Rocky Road just sounds so dang delicious—and it’s studied by linguists and marketers alike. Fenton's Creamery in Oakland, California, one of the institutions that lays claim to inventing Rocky Road. (Wikimedia Commons)     In this episode, we mention the Bouba Kiki Effect. Imagine two shapes: One is a pointy, jagged polygon, the other an ameboid-like splotch. Which shape would you name “Bouba,” and which would you name “Kiki?” In study after study, 90% of people agree—the pointy shape is “Kiki” and the rounded shape is “Bouba.” This so-called “Bouba-Kiki Effect” holds in many languages, and has even been demonstrated with toddlers. But why the near-universal agreement? Cognitive psychologists like Kelly McCormick have several theories. Watch this Science Friday video to learn more.    Guest:  Alissa Greenberg is a freelance journalist.  Dan Jurafsky is a professor of linguistics at Stanford, and the author of The Language of Food.  Will Leben is professor emeritus of linguistics at Stanford, and is the former director of linguistics at Lexicon Branding.  Footnotes And Further Reading:  Read Alissa Greenberg’s full (highly entertaining) story of the history of Rocky Road ice cream.  The Language of Food by Dan Jurafsky is a word nerd’s dream, and contains more about his experiment on cracker and ice cream brand names.  Credits: Science Diction is hosted and produced by Johanna Mayer. Our editor and producer is Elah Feder. We had additional story editing from Nathan Tobey. Fact checking by Michelle Harris, with help from Danya AbdelHameid. Daniel Peterschmidt is our composer. Sound design and mastering by Chris Wood. Our Chief Content Officer is Nadja Oertelt. 

Science Diction is back! This time around, the team is investigating the science, language, and history of food. First up: Digging into America's favorite condiment, ketchup! At the turn of the 20th century, 12 young men sat in the basement of the Department of Agriculture, eating meals with a side of borax, salicylic acid, or formaldehyde. They were called the Poison Squad, and they were part of a government experiment to figure out whether popular food additives were safe. (Spoiler: Many weren’t.) Food manufacturers weren’t pleased with the findings, but one prominent ketchup maker paid attention. Influenced by these experiments, he transformed ketchup into the all-American condiment that we know and love today. Except ketchup—both the sauce and the word—didn't come from the United States. The story of America’s favorite condiment begins in East Asia. Want more Science Diction? Subscribe on Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Harvey Wiley (back row, third from left) and the members of The Poison Squad. (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) Members of the Poison Squad dining in the basement of the Department of Agriculture. Harvey Wiley occasionally ate with them, to offer encouragement and support. (U.S. Food and Drug Administration)  The members of the Poison Squad came up with their own inspirational slogan, which hung on a sign outside the dining room. (U.S. Food and Drug Administration ) Guest Alan Lee is a freelance linguist and native Hokkien speaker.  Footnotes And Further Reading The Poison Squad by Deborah Blum tells the very entertaining history of Harvey Wiley, the early days of food regulation in the United States, and, of course, the Poison Squad. The Language of Food by Dan Jurafsky is a word nerd’s dream, and contains more on ketchup’s early history. Special thanks to Dan Jurafsky for providing background information on the early history of ketchup for this episode.  Can't get enough ketchup history? Check out Pure Ketchup: A History of America's National Condiment With Recipes by Andrew F. Smith. Learn more about ketchup's early origins in Dan Jurafsky's Slate article on "The Cosmopolitan Condiment."  Credits Science Diction is hosted and produced by Johanna Mayer. Our editor and producer is Elah Feder. We had additional story editing from Nathan Tobey. Our Chief Content Office is Nadja Oertelt. Fact checking by Michelle Harris, with help from Danya AbdelHameid. Daniel Peterschmidt is our composer, and they wrote our version of the “Song of the Poison Squad.” We had research help from Cosmo Bjorkenheim and Attabey Rodríguez Benítez. Sound design and mastering by Chris Wood.

At the turn of the 20th century, 12 young men sat in the basement of the Department of Agriculture, eating meals with a side of borax, salicylic acid, or formaldehyde. They were called the Poison Squad, and they were part of a government experiment to figure out whether popular food additives were safe. (Spoiler: Many weren’t.) Food manufacturers weren’t pleased with the findings, but one prominent ketchup maker paid attention. Influenced by these experiments, he transformed ketchup into the all-American condiment that we know and love today. Except ketchup—both the sauce and the word—didn't come from the United States. The story of America’s favorite condiment begins in East Asia. Harvey Wiley (back row, third from left) and the members of The Poison Squad. (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) Members of the Poison Squad dining in the basement of the Department of Agriculture. Harvey Wiley occasionally ate with them, to offer encouragement and support. (U.S. Food and Drug Administration)  The members of the Poison Squad came up with their own inspirational slogan, which hung on a sign outside the dining room. (U.S. Food and Drug Administration ) Guest Alan Lee is a freelance linguist and native Hokkien speaker.  Footnotes And Further Reading The Poison Squad by Deborah Blum tells the very entertaining history of Harvey Wiley, the early days of food regulation in the United States, and, of course, the Poison Squad. The Language of Food by Dan Jurafsky is a word nerd’s dream, and contains more on ketchup’s early history. Special thanks to Dan Jurafsky for providing background information on the early history of ketchup for this episode.  Can't get enough ketchup history? Check out Pure Ketchup: A History of America's National Condiment With Recipes by Andrew F. Smith. Learn more about ketchup's early origins in Dan Jurafsky's Slate article on "The Cosmopolitan Condiment."  Credits Science Diction is hosted and produced by Johanna Mayer. Our editor and producer is Elah Feder. We had additional story editing from Nathan Tobey. Our Chief Content Office is Nadja Oertelt. Fact checking by Michelle Harris, with help from Danya AbdelHameid. Daniel Peterschmidt is our composer, and they wrote our version of the “Song of the Poison Squad.” We had research help from Cosmo Bjorkenheim and Attabey Rodríguez Benítez. Sound design and mastering by Chris Wood.

In the fall of 1918, Philadelphia newspapers announced that a new virus had arrived in the city, the so-called “Spanish flu.” But the facts and scope were muddy and uncertain, and the city decided to push forward with a highly-anticipated parade. About 200,000 people showed up, and packed onto sidewalks. Halfway across the country, St. Louis, Missouri looked very different that fall. Businesses shuttered, movie theatres went dark, and students stayed home.  Just like today, cities across the U.S. responded to the 1918 influenza pandemic differently—with very different results.  In this episode, we go back to 1918 and a pandemic which wasn’t Spanish at all. Footnotes And Further Reading:  Get into the nitty gritty of viral evolution with "1918 Influenza: the Mother of All Pandemics” which reviews the 1918 pandemic and all outbreaks it later spawned. The CDC’s Pandemic Influenza Storybook paints a vivid picture of life during the pandemic. We first learned about Philadelphia’s Liberty Loan Parade from the Washington Post’s reporting. For this story, we read many old articles from newspapers across the country, all archived on newspapers.com (available with a subscription). Credits:  Science Diction is hosted and produced by Johanna Mayer. Our producer and editor is Elah Feder. We had additional story editing from Nathan Tobey, and fact checking help from Michelle Harris. Our composer is Daniel Peterschmidt. We also included audio from "The Liberty Loan March," performed by the United States Marine Band, which is in the public domain. Special thanks to Alan Kraut, a professor of history at American University who’s written extensively on the topic of immigration, disease, and prejudice. And to Chris Naffziger, who spoke to us about St. Louis’s response to the 1918 pandemic. You can read more of his reporting for St. Louis Magazine.

Routine Healthcare Is Falling Through The COVID-19 Cracks Our healthcare system is straining under the weight of the coronavirus epidemic, with hospital emergency rooms and ICUs around the country facing shortages of masks, ventilators, hospital beds, and medical staff. But the epidemic is also upsetting parts of the healthcare system that aren’t directly treating COVID patients. How are you supposed to keep up with regular medical care when you’re not supposed to leave the house, or when your primary care doctor’s office is shut down Michael Barnett is an assistant professor at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health who studies access to healthcare services, as well as a primary care physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. He joins Ira to talk about how patients and clinics are attempting to navigate a healthcare landscape altered by the global pandemic—including telemedicine and virtual health services, the economics of private doctors’ offices, and shortages of regular medications. These Flowers Bounce Back Everywhere, colorful, spirit-lifting flowers are blooming. But if you’ve stepped off a path to avoid an oncoming runner recently, don’t worry. New research, published in the journal New Phytologist, finds some flowers have a unique ability to “bounce back” after injury—say after getting squished by a falling branch or shoe. This gives flowers a second chance at being pollinated, preserving their role in the seasonal ecosystem. One of the authors of this study, Nathan Muchhala, an assistant professor of biology at the University of Missouri in St. Louis, joins Science Friday to discuss the unique properties of flowers. How Dogs Are Helping Scientists Build A Smell Detector For Cancer Scientists are now training dogs to sniff out cancer. A team at UPenn and Monell Chemical Chemical Senses Center are using dogs’ heightened sense of smell to detect the specific chemicals produced by cancer cells. The scientists are using this data to produce a device that could be used in ovarian cancer detection.  Science Friday’s video producer Luke Groskin and digital producer Daniel Peterschmidt talk with Ira about a trip to the cancer laboratory, where they met the scientists—and dogs—behind this unique research. This is part of Science Friday’s Methods, where we bring you into the field alongside the scientists working to answer big questions, by using gorgeous video and pictures. You can read the article and watch the videos about their trip at sciencefriday.com/smellingcancer.  Big Data’s Latest On Tracking The Spread of COVID-19 In an effort to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus, some European countries are collecting information on the movements of residents using cell phone data. This helps determine who is following stay-at-home orders, and who isn’t. Facebook and Google want to use their data about user movements to do the same. But some say this is a big breach of privacy. Amy Nordrum of IEEE Spectrum joins Ira to discuss this story and more of the latest COVID-19 news. 

Quarantine has been on many of our minds lately. The phrases “shelter in place” and “self-quarantine” have filled up our news, social media, and conversations since the first inklings of the coronavirus pandemic. But this is far from the first time cities and countries have used the practice of physical separation to battle the spread of disease.  You might think of Mary Mallon, who many know as “Typhoid Mary.” In the early 1900s, she spent nearly 30 years  in a cottage on a small island in New York City’s East River, all to prevent her from infecting others. But we’ve been using quarantine for millennia—well before we even understood germs existed and that they can be transmitted from person-to-person. And the origin of the word stretches all the way back to the mid-14th century, when Europe was swept by one of the biggest losses of human life in history: the Black Death. Want to stay up to speed with Science Diction? Sign up for our newsletter. Guest: Alexander More is a historian at Harvard University and Long Island University in Brooklyn, New York. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram. Footnotes And Further Reading:  Special thanks to Alexander More, Judith Walzer Leavitt, and Karl Appuhn. If you want to learn more about Mary Mallon, we recommend Judith’s book, Typhoid Mary: Captive to the Public’s Health. Credits: Science Diction is hosted and produced by Johanna Mayer. Our producer and editor is Elah Feder. We had additional story editing from Nathan Tobey, and fact checking help from Michelle Harris. Our composer is Daniel Peterschmidt. Charles Bergquist played the part of George Soper.

Quarantine has been on many of our minds lately. The phrases “shelter in place” and “self-quarantine” have filled up our news, social media, and conversations since the first inklings of the coronavirus pandemic. But this is far from the first time cities and countries have used the practice of physical separation to battle the spread of disease.  You might think of Mary Mallon, who many know as “Typhoid Mary.” In the early 1900s, she spent nearly 30 years  in a cottage on a small island in New York City’s East River, all to prevent her from infecting others. But we’ve been using quarantine for millennia—well before we even understood germs existed and that they can be transmitted from person-to-person. And the origin of the word stretches all the way back to the mid-14th century, when Europe was swept by one of the biggest losses of human life in history: the Black Death. Want to stay up to speed with Science Diction? Sign up for our newsletter. Guest: Alexander More is a historian at Harvard University and Long Island University in Brooklyn, New York. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram. Footnotes And Further Reading:  Special thanks to Alexander More, Judith Walzer Leavitt, and Karl Appuhn. If you want to learn more about Mary Mallon, we recommend Judith’s book, Typhoid Mary: Captive to the Public’s Health. Credits: Science Diction is hosted and produced by Johanna Mayer. Our producer and editor is Elah Feder. We had additional story editing from Nathan Tobey, and fact checking help from Michelle Harris. Our composer is Daniel Peterschmidt. Charles Bergquist played the part of George Soper.

Cobalt has been hoodwinking people since the day it was pried from the earth. Named after a pesky spirit from German folklore, trickery is embedded in its name.   In 1940s Netherlands, cobalt lived up to its name in a big way, playing a starring role in one of the most embarrassing art swindles of the 19th century. It’s a story of duped Nazis, a shocking court testimony, and one fateful mistake. Want more Science Diction? Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and sign up for our newsletter. The infamous Han van Meegeren, hard at work. (Wikimedia Commons) Guest:  Kassia St. Clair is a writer and cultural historian based in London. Footnotes And Further Reading: For fascinating histories on every color you can imagine, read Kassia St. Clair’s The Secret Lives of Color. Thanks to Jennifer Culver for background information on the kobold. Read more about Han van Meegeren in The Forger’s Spell by Edward Dolnick and in the 2009 series “Bamboozling Ourselves” in the New York Times. Credits:  Science Diction is written and produced by Johanna Mayer, with production and editing help from Elah Feder. Our senior editor is Christopher Intagliata, with story editing help from Nathan Tobey. Our theme song and music are by Daniel Peterschmidt. We had fact-checking help from Michelle Harris, and mixing help from Kaitlyn Schwalje. Special thanks to the entire Science Friday staff.

At the turn of the 19th century, Britons would stroll along the Yorkshire Coast, stumbling across unfathomably big bones. These mysterious fossils were all but tumbling out of the cliffside, but people had no idea what to call them. There wasn’t a name for this new class of creatures.  Until Richard Owen came along. Owen was an exceptionally talented naturalist, with over 600 scientific books and papers. But perhaps his most lasting claim to fame is that he gave these fossils a name: the dinosaurs. And then he went ahead and sabotaged his own good name by picking a fight with one of the world’s most revered scientists. Want more Science Diction? Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and sign up for our newsletter. Woodcut of the famous dinner inside of an Iguanodon shell at the Crystal Palace in 1854. Artist unknown. (Wikimedia Commons) Footnotes And Further Reading:  Special thanks to Sean B. Carroll and the staff of the Natural History Museum in London. Read an article by Howard Markel on this same topic. Credits:  Science Diction is written and produced by Johanna Mayer, with production and editing help from Elah Feder. Our senior editor is Christopher Intagliata, with story editing help from Nathan Tobey. Our theme song and music are by Daniel Peterschmidt. This episode also featured music from Setuniman and The Greek Slave songs, used with permission from the open-source digital art history journal Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide. We had fact-checking help from Michelle Harris, and mixing help from Kaitlyn Schwalje. Special thanks to the entire Science Friday staff.

For centuries, smallpox seemed unbeatable. People had tried nearly everything to knock it out—from herbal remedies to tossing back 12 bottles of beer a day (yep, that was a real recommendation from a 17th century doctor), to intentionally infecting themselves with smallpox and hoping they didn’t get sick, all to no avail. And then, in the 18th century, an English doctor heard a rumor about a possible solution. It wasn’t a cure, but if it worked, it would stop smallpox before it started. So one spring day, with the help of a milkmaid, an eight-year-old boy, and a cow named Blossom, the English doctor decided to run an experiment. Thanks to that ethically questionable but ultimately world-altering experiment (and Blossom the cow) we got the word vaccine. Want more Science Diction? Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and sign up for our newsletter. "The cow-pock - or - the wonderful effects of the new inoculation" by James Gillray in 1802, featured at the beginning of this episode. (Library of Congress) Footnotes And Further Reading:  Special thanks to Elena Conis, Gareth Williams, and the Edward Jenner Museum. Read an article by Howard Markel on this same topic. We found many of the facts in this episode in “Edward Jenner and the history of smallpox and vaccination” from Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings. Note: Most sources indicate that the figure in Gillray's "The cow-pock" cartoon is Edward Jenner, but there's been some debate. Other sources indicate that the figure could be George Pearson.  Credits:  Science Diction is written and produced by Johanna Mayer, with production and editing help from Elah Feder. Our senior editor is Christopher Intagliata, with story editing help from Nathan Tobey. Our theme song and music are by Daniel Peterschmidt. We had fact-checking help from Michelle Harris, and mixing help from Kaitlyn Schwalje. Special thanks to the entire Science Friday staff.

Remember that summer when the internet was one Distracted Boyfriend after another—that flannel-shirted dude rubbernecking at a passing woman, while his girlfriend glares at him? Everyone had their own take—the Boyfriend was you, staring directly at a solar eclipse, ignoring science. The Boyfriend was youth, seduced by socialism, spurning capitalism. The Boyfriend could be anyone you wanted him to be.    We think of memes as a uniquely internet phenomenon. But the word meme originally had nothing to do with the internet. It came from an evolutionary biologist who noticed that genes weren’t the only thing that spread, mutated, and evolved. Sign up for our newsletter, and stay up to speed with Science Diction.  Guest:  Gretchen McCulloch is an internet linguist. For some fun, check out her book, Because Internet, and her podcast Lingthusiasm. She’s also appeared on Science Friday. Footnotes And Further Reading: For an academic take on memes, read Memes in Digital Culture by Limor Shifman. Read The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins.    Check out the first time the word meme appeared in an internet context, in Mike Godwin’s 1994 Wired article called “Meme, Counter-meme.” Credits:  Science Diction is written and produced by Johanna Mayer, with production and editing help from Elah Feder. Our senior editor is Christopher Intagliata, and we had story editing help from Nathan Tobey. Our theme song and music are by Daniel Peterschmidt. We had fact-checking help from Michelle Harris. Special thanks to the entire Science Friday staff.

Cobalt has been hoodwinking people since the day it was pried from the earth. Named after a pesky spirit from German folklore, trickery is embedded in its name.   In 1940s Netherlands, cobalt lived up to its name in a big way, playing a starring role in one of the most embarrassing art swindles of the 19th century. It’s a story of duped Nazis, a shocking court testimony, and one fateful mistake. Want to stay up to speed with Science Diction? Sign up for our newsletter. The infamous Han van Meegeren, hard at work. (Wikimedia Commons) Guest:  Kassia St. Clair is a writer and cultural historian based in London. Footnotes And Further Reading:  For fascinating histories on every color you can imagine, read Kassia St. Clair’s The Secret Lives of Color. Thanks to Jennifer Culver for background information on the kobold. Read more about Han van Meegeren in The Forger’s Spell by Edward Dolnick and in the 2009 series “Bamboozling Ourselves” in the New York Times. Credits:  Science Diction is written and produced by Johanna Mayer, with production and editing help from Elah Feder. Our senior editor is Christopher Intagliata, with story editing help from Nathan Tobey. Our theme song and music are by Daniel Peterschmidt. We had fact-checking help from Michelle Harris, and mixing help from Kaitlyn Schwalje. Special thanks to the entire Science Friday staff.

At the turn of the 19th century, Britons would stroll along the Yorkshire Coast, stumbling across unfathomably big bones. These mysterious fossils were all but tumbling out of the cliffside, but people had no idea what to call them. There wasn’t a name for this new class of creatures.  Until Richard Owen came along. Owen was an exceptionally talented naturalist, with over 600 scientific books and papers. But perhaps his most lasting claim to fame is that he gave these fossils a name: the dinosaurs. And then he went ahead and sabotaged his own good name by picking a fight with one of the world’s most revered  scientists. Want to stay up to speed with Science Diction? Subscribe to our newsletter. Woodcut of the famous dinner inside of an Iguanodon shell at the Crystal Palace in 1854. Artist unknown. (Wikimedia Commons) Footnotes And Further Reading:  Special thanks to Sean B. Carroll and the staff of the Natural History Museum in London. Read an article by Howard Markel on this same topic. Credits:  Science Diction is written and produced by Johanna Mayer, with production and editing help from Elah Feder. Our senior editor is Christopher Intagliata, with story editing help from Nathan Tobey. Our theme song and music are by Daniel Peterschmidt. This episode also featured music from Setuniman and The Greek Slave songs, used with permission from the open-source digital art history journal Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide. We had fact-checking help from Michelle Harris, and mixing help from Kaitlyn Schwalje. Special thanks to the entire Science Friday staff.

For centuries, smallpox seemed unbeatable. People had tried nearly everything to knock it out—from herbal remedies to tossing back 12 bottles of beer a day (yep, that was a real recommendation from a 17th century doctor), to intentionally infecting themselves with smallpox and hoping they didn’t get sick, all to no avail. And then, in the 18th century, an English doctor heard a rumor about a possible solution. It wasn’t a cure, but if it worked, it would stop smallpox before it started. So one spring day, with the help of a milkmaid, an eight-year-old boy, and a cow named Blossom, the English doctor decided to run an experiment. Thanks to that ethically questionable but ultimately world-altering experiment (and Blossom the cow) we got the word vaccine. Want to stay up to speed with all things Science Diction? Sign up for our newsletter. "The cow-pock - or - the wonderful effects of the new inoculation" by James Gillray in 1802, featured at the beginning of this episode. (Library of Congress) Footnotes And Further Reading:  Special thanks to Elena Conis, Gareth Williams, and the Edward Jenner Museum. Read an article by Howard Markel on this same topic. We found many of the facts in this episode in “Edward Jenner and the history of smallpox and vaccination” from Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings. Credits:  Science Diction is written and produced by Johanna Mayer, with production and editing help from Elah Feder. Our senior editor is Christopher Intagliata, with story editing help from Nathan Tobey. Our theme song and music are by Daniel Peterschmidt. We had fact-checking help from Michelle Harris, and mixing help from Kaitlyn Schwalje. Special thanks to the entire Science Friday staff.

Remember that summer when the internet was one Distracted Boyfriend after another—that flannel-shirted dude rubbernecking at a passing woman, while his girlfriend glares at him? Everyone had their own take—the Boyfriend was you, staring directly at a solar eclipse, ignoring science. The Boyfriend was youth, seduced by socialism, spurning capitalism. The Boyfriend could be anyone you wanted him to be.    We think of memes as a uniquely internet phenomenon. But the word meme originally had nothing to do with the internet. It came from an evolutionary biologist who noticed that genes weren’t the only thing that spread, mutated, and evolved. Want to stay up to speed with all thing Science Diction? Sign up for our newsletter. Guest:  Gretchen McCulloch is an internet linguist. For some fun, check out her book, Because Internet, and her podcast Lingthusiasm. She’s also appeared on Science Friday. Footnotes And Further Reading:  For an academic take on memes, read Memes in Digital Culture by Limor Shifman. Read The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. Check out the first time the word meme appeared in an internet context, in Mike Godwin’s 1994 Wired article called “Meme, Counter-meme.” Credits:  Science Diction is written and produced by Johanna Mayer, with production and editing help from Elah Feder. Our senior editor is Christopher Intagliata, and we had story editing help from Nathan Tobey. Our theme song and music are by Daniel Peterschmidt. We had fact-checking help from Michelle Harris. Special thanks to the entire Science Friday staff.

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. Participants fitted with prosthetic hands after this surgery, described in Science Translational Medicine this week, reported being able to manipulate objects with a degree of control and dexterity not previously seen. Electrical engineer Cynthia Chestek at the University of Michigan explains why this muscle graft seems to be solving the engineering problem of reading nerve signals and what the next generation of prosthetic hands could be capable of.  Looking To The Genome To Track And Treat The New Coronavirus As of Thursday, March 5, Washington state has reported over 30 cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. To better understand the pathogen and the disease, scientists have sequenced the genome of the virus from two of the patients. Kristian Andersen, an immunologist at Scripps Research who uses genomics to track the spread of diseases, discusses how the genetic information from these patients can help determine the spread of the virus globally. Plus, Ralph Baric, a coronavirus researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, talks about developing vaccine and drug candidates for COVID-19 and how the genomic sequences from this outbreak can be used to help create treatments. Can You Name That Call? Test Your Animal Sound Trivia Can you differentiate the cry of an Antarctic Weddell seal from the song of an emperor penguin? How about the bellows of a howler monkey from a warthog’s rumbling roar? The animal kingdom is filled with diverse calls and sounds, and for World Wildlife Day earlier this week on Tuesday, we curated them—in a quiz. SciFri’s digital producer Daniel Peterschmidt teamed up with Google Earth to create an interactive quiz that hops you around the world and highlights the many (sometimes surprising) sounds that species make. Daniel challenges Ira to an animal sound showdown.  Test your knowledge with the Science Friday Google Earth Animal Sound Quiz! What You Don’t Know About Well Water Could Hurt You Residents in Kansas who use private wells face uncertainty about what’s in their water. Environment and energy reporter Brian Grimmett for KMUW in Wichita tells us the State of Science.  A Human Trial For CRISPR Gene Therapy This week, researchers announced that they have started a clinical trial of a treatment that uses the CRISPR gene-editing technique on live cells inside a human eye. Plus a satellite rescue mission, parrot probability, and more in this week’s News Roundup.

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. history, the idea stuck! It even made its way into one of the most iconic scenes in film history. Until a female chimp named Passion showed the world that we might not be so special after all.   GUESTS Erika Milam, professor of history, Princeton University Agustín Fuentes, professor of anthropology, Notre Dame   FOOTNOTES Erika Milam’s book Creatures of Cain: The Hunt for Human Nature in Cold War America, elaborates on the Killer Ape theory. Robert Ardrey’s African Genesis, published in 1961, tells his account of the Killer Ape theory and his visit with Dr. Raymond Dart. Dr. Raymond Dart’s own narrative of his theory can be found in The Predatory Transition from Ape to Man. (Warning: bloody, over-the-top language ahead!) [requires log-in] Read more about Australopithecus africanus. Jane Goodall shared her chronicles of Gombe’s chimp war, Life and Death at Gombe for National Geographic. [requires log-in] Watch the 1965 documentary Miss Goodall and the Wild Chimpanzees. Learn more about murderous meerkats.   CREDITS This episode of Undiscovered was produced by Annie Minoff and Elah Feder. Our senior editor is Christopher Intagliata and our composer is Daniel Peterschmidt. Our theme music is by I Am Robot And Proud. We had fact checking help from Michelle Harris. Special thanks to Charles Bergquist. The free version of Richard Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra is by Kevin MacLeod.

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. history, the idea stuck! It even made its way into one of the most iconic scenes in film history. Until a female chimp named Passion showed the world that we might not be so special after all.   GUESTS Erika Milam, professor of history, Princeton University Agustín Fuentes, professor of anthropology, Notre Dame   FOOTNOTES Erika Milam’s book Creatures of Cain: The Hunt for Human Nature in Cold War America, elaborates on the Killer Ape theory. Robert Ardrey’s African Genesis, published in 1961, tells his account of the Killer Ape theory and his visit with Dr. Raymond Dart. Dr. Raymond Dart’s own narrative of his theory can be found in The Predatory Transition from Ape to Man. (Warning: bloody, over-the-top language ahead!) [requires log-in] Read more about Australopithecus africanus. Jane Goodall shared her chronicles of Gombe’s chimp war, Life and Death at Gombe for National Geographic. [requires log-in] Watch the 1965 documentary Miss Goodall and the Wild Chimpanzees. Learn more about murderous meerkats.   CREDITS This episode of Undiscovered was produced by Annie Minoff and Elah Feder. Our senior editor is Christopher Intagliata and our composer is Daniel Peterschmidt. Our theme music is by I Am Robot And Proud. We had fact checking help from Michelle Harris. Special thanks to Charles Bergquist. The free version of Richard Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra is by Kevin MacLeod.

“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 1970s and 1980s, when feminism and science come face to face, and it becomes clear that a lot of animals—humans and bluebirds included—are not playing by the rules.   GUESTS Angela Saini, author of Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong Patricia Adair Gowaty, professor emeritus at UCLA, editor of Feminism and Evolutionary Biology.   FOOTNOTES Sarah B. Hrdy is an anthropologist, feminist, and a major figure in this chapter of science history. In this book chapter she addresses the myth of the “coy female” and reviews the relevant scientific happenings of the 1970s and 80s, especially in the primatology sphere. Angus John Bateman’s 1948 paper about fruit fly mating and reproductive success, popularized by this paper from Robert Trivers in 1972. Bateman finds that males have more reproductive success the more females they mate with, and that females don’t benefit as much from mating with multiple males. Patty Adair Gowaty found holes in Bateman’s study. Bateman didn’t know exactly how many sexual partners his fruit flies had because he didn’t watch them. Instead, he counted up how many offspring they made. Unfortunately, a lot of them had harmful mutations and died—skewing his numbers. Not only do they not meet Mendelian expectations, but in Bateman’s data, he consistently counts more fathers than mothers—which can’t be right, since every baby fly has one mother and one father. Patty found that eastern bluebird females successfully raise offspring without help from their male partners. Patty and Alvan Karlin found that eastern bluebird babies aren’t always related to the parents raising them. True “genetic monogamy,” where bird couples only have sex with each other, appears to be the exception, not the rule in passerines. Polyandry—where females have sex with multiple males—has been found most of the species studied! In the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, a psychology study at Florida State University found that most men, and no women would accept a sex invitation from a stranger. In this more recent Germany study, 97% of the women expressed interest in sex with at least one strange man, but only when researchers promised to arrange a (relatively) safe encounter.  Btw, Patty tells us bluebirds don’t actually have sex in the nest, so having sex “outside the nest” is the norm. We were using the expression figuratively, but worth noting. The nest is really for storing the babies.   CREDITS This episode was reported and produced by Elah Feder and Annie Minoff. Our senior editor is Christopher Intagliata. Fact checking by Robin Palmer. I Am Robot and Proud wrote our theme. All other music by Daniel Peterschmidt.

“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 1970s and 1980s, when feminism and science come face to face, and it becomes clear that a lot of animals—humans and bluebirds included—are not playing by the rules.   GUESTS Angela Saini, author of Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong Patricia Adair Gowaty, professor emeritus at UCLA, editor of Feminism and Evolutionary Biology.   FOOTNOTES Sarah B. Hrdy is an anthropologist, feminist, and a major figure in this chapter of science history. In this book chapter she addresses the myth of the “coy female” and reviews the relevant scientific happenings of the 1970s and 80s, especially in the primatology sphere. Angus John Bateman’s 1948 paper about fruit fly mating and reproductive success, popularized by this paper from Robert Trivers in 1972. Bateman finds that males have more reproductive success the more females they mate with, and that females don’t benefit as much from mating with multiple males. Patty Adair Gowaty found holes in Bateman’s study. Bateman didn’t know exactly how many sexual partners his fruit flies had because he didn’t watch them. Instead, he counted up how many offspring they made. Unfortunately, a lot of them had harmful mutations and died—skewing his numbers. Not only do they not meet Mendelian expectations, but in Bateman’s data, he consistently counts more fathers than mothers—which can’t be right, since every baby fly has one mother and one father. Patty found that eastern bluebird females successfully raise offspring without help from their male partners. Patty and Alvan Karlin found that eastern bluebird babies aren’t always related to the parents raising them. True “genetic monogamy,” where bird couples only have sex with each other, appears to be the exception, not the rule in passerines. Polyandry—where females have sex with multiple males—has been found most of the species studied! In the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, a psychology study at Florida State University found that most men, and no women would accept a sex invitation from a stranger. In this more recent Germany study, 97% of the women expressed interest in sex with at least one strange man, but only when researchers promised to arrange a (relatively) safe encounter.  Btw, Patty tells us bluebirds don’t actually have sex in the nest, so having sex “outside the nest” is the norm. We were using the expression figuratively, but worth noting. The nest is really for storing the babies.   CREDITS This episode was reported and produced by Elah Feder and Annie Minoff. Our senior editor is Christopher Intagliata. Fact checking by Robin Palmer. I Am Robot and Proud wrote our theme. All other music by Daniel Peterschmidt.

From high-powered creatives and business executives in New York, to lawyers and politicians in D.C., the power lunch has long been a staple for the wealthy and powerful. And the classic steakhouse has always been the quintessential setting for these meals. But as more and more young people move to D.C., do power lunches still hold the cachet they once did? And, despite being known as a "steakhouse town" for decades, are D.C.'s steaks still the ultimate "power lunch"? Ruth and Patrick explore the local lunch scene to see if what you eat in the middle of the day indicates how powerful you might be in D.C. --- Please fill out our survey (dishcity.org/survey) so we can get a better sense of what you want most out of future episodes and events! Meet us at Hawk 'n' Dove on Capitol Hill, October 29, from 6-8 p.m. to discuss this episode and more. Details: dishcity.org/sidedish Twitter & Instagram: @dishcity Email: dishcity@wamu.org Theme music by Daniel Peterschmidt

D.C. has historically been part of the American South. But as D.C.'s population has grown and diversified, its obvious ties to the South are starting to fade. Patrick and Ruth dine at the Florida Avenue Grill and Succotash, and take a detour through local football history, to learn what D.C.'s Southern and Soul Food restaurants tell us about our regional roots. Meet us at Busboys & Poets in Anacostia, October 22, from 6-8 p.m. to discuss this episode and more! Details: dishcity.org/sidedish Twitter & Instagram: @dishcity Email: dishcity@wamu.org Theme music by Daniel Peterschmidt.

The pupusa is one of the most recognizable dishes in El Salvador and one of the most delicious street foods in the world. It's loved locally and yet restaurants that serve and celebrate just Salvadoran food seem underrepresented in the District. Ruth and Patrick sample local Salvadoran Mexican cuisine from Audi Field, El Tamarindo and Gloria's Pupuseria to figure out how lesser-known immigrant cuisines distinguish themselves in D.C. Meet us at Reliable Tavern, October 15, from 6-8 p.m. to discuss this episode and more! Details: dishcity.org/sidedish Twitter & Instagram: @dishcity Email: dishcity@wamu.org Theme music by Daniel Peterschmidt. Additional music by Xenia Rubinos.

Washingtonians have been pouring blood red, sticky-sweet mumbo sauce over chicken wings and fries for decades. That's why, when the D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said it "annoyed" her and hadn't heard of the sauce until she was an adult, she caused an uproar. What would it mean if mumbo sauce wasn’t even from D.C.? We trace the mysterious origins of D.C.'s choice condiment and consider what it takes to stake a claim on a dish: history or pride? Follow us on Twitter and Instagram: @dishcity. Join us for our Tuesday meetups to discuss our most recent episode. Details about our next event are at dishcity.org/sidedish. Theme music is by Daniel Peterschmidt.

Jumbo slice is divisive. A single, floppy slice is longer than most diners' forearms. While it's a favorite among late night partiers, especially in Adams Morgan, it's often derided as "drunk food" and has historically been blamed for all the fights and litter on 18th street on weekends. Ruth and Patrick call on pizza experts near and far to understand why jumbo slice has stood the test of time -- and why it's so beloved. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram: @dishcity. Join us for our Tuesday meetups to discuss our most recent episode. Details about our next event are at dishcity.org/sidedish. Theme music is by Daniel Peterschmidt. Additional music in this episode is by Vitamin Tramp and Blue Dot Sessions.

Ethiopian cuisine is a D.C. mainstay, so when Ruth and Patrick taste "fast-casual Ethiopian" at Union Market, they have questions. What does it mean when a chef tries to put a new spin on dishes that are thousands of years old? We visit a family restaurant that's sticking to tradition, talk to a chef who tried to make the "Rasika of Ethiopian food," and collect some scorching hot takes from perhaps the best-known Ethiopian chef out there, Marcus Samuelsson. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram: @dishcity. If you’re based in the D.C. area, we host meetups to discuss our latest episode on Tuesday evenings at local bars and restaurants. You can find out more at our website, dishcity.org. Our theme music is by Daniel Peterschmidt.

The half-smoke is the first food that comes to mind when we think about D.C.'s "iconic" foods. But when Ruth and Patrick take a trip to Ben's Chili Bowl, which made the half-smoke famous, Ruth orders a hot dog by mistake and realizes she doesn't really know what a half-smoke is. We take a trip to a sausage factory, hop back in time to 1958 when Ben's Chili Bowl opened and foray into the struggle playing out between old and new D.C. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram. If you're based in the D.C. area, we host meetups on Tuesday evenings at bars and restaurants around town. You can find out more at our website, dishcity.org. Our theme music is by Daniel Peterschmidt. Other music in this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions and Pierce Murphy.

Undiscovered is back between seasons with a listener question: What saved the cats? If you rewind to the Middle Ages, cats and humans were on bad terms. Cat roundups, cat torture, and even cat murder were common occurrences throughout Europe. But a series of historic events steadily delivered the tiny felines into public favor. In a story that spans centuries and continents, the Catholic Church and the Rosetta Stone, Elah and Annie investigate how the cat’s reputation shifted from devil’s minion to adored companion.   Guests Bob Collom, Undiscovered listener and question asker Joshua J. Mark, Writer and researcher at Ancient History Encyclopedia  Footnotes Joshua J. Mark’s article, "Cats in the Ancient World," was our first introduction to both Joshua and this story. Read it in Ancient History Encyclopedia. Read about how the Persians cleverly exploited the Egyptians’ love for cats in the Battle of Pelusium. Look inside an ancient Egyptian cat mummy. Spoiler: It’s a kitten! And learn more about the process of animal mummification. Credits This episode of Undiscovered was produced by Kaitlyn Schwalje with help from Elah Feder and Annie Minoff. Our senior editor is Christopher Intagliata, our composer is Daniel Peterschmidt, and our theme music is by I Am Robot And Proud. Special shoutout to listener Bob Collom for directing us to this wild story. And thanks, as always, to the entire Science Friday staff and the folks at WNYC Studios.

Undiscovered is back between seasons with a listener question: What saved the cats? If you rewind to the Middle Ages, cats and humans were on bad terms. Cat roundups, cat torture, and even cat murder were common occurrences throughout Europe. But a series of historic events steadily delivered the tiny felines into public favor. In a story that spans centuries and continents, the Catholic Church and the Rosetta Stone, Elah and Annie investigate how the cat’s reputation shifted from devil’s minion to adored companion.   Guests Bob Collom, Undiscovered listener and question asker Joshua J. Mark, Writer and researcher at Ancient History Encyclopedia  Footnotes Joshua J. Mark’s article, "Cats in the Ancient World," was our first introduction to both Joshua and this story. Read it in Ancient History Encyclopedia. Read about how the Persians cleverly exploited the Egyptians’ love for cats in the Battle of Pelusium. Look inside an ancient Egyptian cat mummy. Spoiler: It’s a kitten! And learn more about the process of animal mummification. Credits This episode of Undiscovered was produced by Kaitlyn Schwalje with help from Elah Feder and Annie Minoff. Our senior editor is Christopher Intagliata, our composer is Daniel Peterschmidt, and our theme music is by I Am Robot And Proud. Special shoutout to listener Bob Collom for directing us to this wild story. And thanks, as always, to the entire Science Friday staff and the folks at WNYC Studios.

In this Undiscovered Cares Report, Annie and Elah dig into a scary science headline and help Elah’s friend, David, figure out how scared he should be that his B12 vitamins will give him lung cancer. And we find out how—even with top-notch scientists, journalists, and readers—science communication can go very wrong.   Guests Theodore Brasky, assistant professor at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center   Footnotes Read some of the headlines that scared us, and one that did a better job. Then read Ted’s original study for yourself and the press release.   OUR MAIN TAKEAWAYS: 1) If you’re a man who smokes, these findings could matter for you. This study found that if you smoke, taking high doses of vitamins B12 or B6 was associated with an even greater risk of lung cancer than smoking by itself. But this finding still needs to be replicated, so proceed with caution before making massive lifestyle changes. Ted has notes on this summary: Might be best to switch the 2nd and 3rd sentences. If you start with “This finding still needs to be replicated…” and then say “Nevertheless, the study found that if you smoke…” it’s better than making the “this needs replication” comment seem offhand; which is an issue with much of the media attention thus far. Not a big deal either way, but I guess I still want people to understand that this is a single and unique study, and that means that trusting the results as truth can be problematic. All of that said, I don’t think people need to proceed with caution before making lifestyle changes: smoking is singularly responsible for 1 in 5 deaths in the US each year. Anyone who smokes should consider quitting. A good place to start is the National Cancer Institute’s quit line: 1-800-QUIT-NOW. Smoking is awful for a person’s health. It is responsible for heart disease, COPD, and several different types of cancer in addition to lung cancer (which is the #2 most common cancer in men and women and the #1 cause of cancer death).   2) If you’re a man who's never smoked, don’t freak out! Men who have never smoked have extremely low rates of lung cancer, and that includes men who took these vitamins. This study didn’t turn up any evidence that these vitamins had any effect on that risk. (In fact, in this study, there were no cases of lung cancer in men who never smoked and were also taking the highest doses of these vitamins.) The study also didn’t find any effect of these vitamins on lung cancer risk in men who’d quit smoking before the study began. Ted says: Yes, not freaking out is ideal.   Credits This episode of Undiscovered was produced by Elah Feder and Annie Minoff. Our senior editor is Christopher Intagliata, our composer is Daniel Peterschmidt, and our intern is Kaitlyn Schwalje. Our theme music is by I Am Robot And Proud. We had fact checking help from Michelle Harris. Thanks, as always, to the entire Science Friday staff, and the folks at WNYC Studios.  

In this Undiscovered Cares Report, Annie and Elah dig into a scary science headline and help Elah’s friend, David, figure out how scared he should be that his B12 vitamins will give him lung cancer. And we find out how—even with top-notch scientists, journalists, and readers—science communication can go very wrong.   Guests Theodore Brasky, assistant professor at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center   Footnotes Read some of the headlines that scared us, and one that did a better job. Then read Ted’s original study for yourself and the press release.   OUR MAIN TAKEAWAYS: 1) If you’re a man who smokes, these findings could matter for you. This study found that if you smoke, taking high doses of vitamins B12 or B6 was associated with an even greater risk of lung cancer than smoking by itself. But this finding still needs to be replicated, so proceed with caution before making massive lifestyle changes. Ted has notes on this summary: Might be best to switch the 2nd and 3rd sentences. If you start with “This finding still needs to be replicated…” and then say “Nevertheless, the study found that if you smoke…” it’s better than making the “this needs replication” comment seem offhand; which is an issue with much of the media attention thus far. Not a big deal either way, but I guess I still want people to understand that this is a single and unique study, and that means that trusting the results as truth can be problematic. All of that said, I don’t think people need to proceed with caution before making lifestyle changes: smoking is singularly responsible for 1 in 5 deaths in the US each year. Anyone who smokes should consider quitting. A good place to start is the National Cancer Institute’s quit line: 1-800-QUIT-NOW. Smoking is awful for a person’s health. It is responsible for heart disease, COPD, and several different types of cancer in addition to lung cancer (which is the #2 most common cancer in men and women and the #1 cause of cancer death).   2) If you’re a man who's never smoked, don’t freak out! Men who have never smoked have extremely low rates of lung cancer, and that includes men who took these vitamins. This study didn’t turn up any evidence that these vitamins had any effect on that risk. (In fact, in this study, there were no cases of lung cancer in men who never smoked and were also taking the highest doses of these vitamins.) The study also didn’t find any effect of these vitamins on lung cancer risk in men who’d quit smoking before the study began. Ted says: Yes, not freaking out is ideal.   Credits This episode of Undiscovered was produced by Elah Feder and Annie Minoff. Our senior editor is Christopher Intagliata, our composer is Daniel Peterschmidt, and our intern is Kaitlyn Schwalje. Our theme music is by I Am Robot And Proud. We had fact checking help from Michelle Harris. Thanks, as always, to the entire Science Friday staff, and the folks at WNYC Studios.  

In 2016, a North Carolina legislator announced that his party would be redrawing the state’s congressional district map with a particular goal in mind: To elect “10 Republicans and three Democrats.” His reasoning for this? As he explained, he did “not believe it’s possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and two Democrats.” It was a blatant admission of gerrymandering in a state already known for creatively-drawn districts. But that might be about to change. A North Carolina mathematician has come up with a way to quantify just how rigged a map is. And now he’s taking his math to court, in a case that could end up redrawing district lines across the country.   Braxton Brewington (center) preparing to make a statement outside the District Court on the first day of Common Cause's trial. (Courtesy of Braxton Brewington)   A&T Aggies at "Roll to the Polls" last April. (Courtesy of Braxton Brewington)   Jonathan Mattingly at Duke last June. (Annie Minoff)   Guests Jonathan Mattingly, professor of mathematics and statistical science, Duke University Braxton Brewington, undergraduate senior, North Carolina A&T State University, senior democracy fellow, Common Cause North Carolina Bob Phillips, executive director, Common Cause North Carolina   Footnotes Read about Jonathan and his students’ analyses of North Carolina’s 2012 and 2016 congressional maps (and check out the rest of their work on gerrymandering) See North Carolina’s congressional map, which a federal court declared unconstitutional in 2018 Read the District Court’s opinions from January 2018, declaring North Carolina’s 2016 congressional map unconstitutional Watch Representative David Lewis make his comments before the state legislature's joint select committee on congressional redistricting Read about the history of Common Cause’s lawsuit: Common Cause v. Rucho Read about other partisan gerrymandering court challenges Read about Common Cause v. Rucho’s prospects at the Supreme Court   Credits This episode of Undiscovered was produced by Elah Feder and Annie Minoff  Our senior editor is Christopher Intagliata, our composer is Daniel Peterschmidt, and our intern is Kaitlyn Schwalje. Our theme music is by I Am Robot And Proud. We had fact checking help from Robin Palmer. Eddie Garcia was our reporter on-the-ground at A&T.   Special thanks this week to Thomas Wolf and the Brennan Center for Justice, Justin Levitt, Gregory Herschlag, and Jonathan Mattingly’s Data+ team.      

In 2016, a North Carolina legislator announced that his party would be redrawing the state’s congressional district map with a particular goal in mind: To elect “10 Republicans and three Democrats.” His reasoning for this? As he explained, he did “not believe it’s possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and two Democrats.” It was a blatant admission of gerrymandering in a state already known for creatively-drawn districts. But that might be about to change. A North Carolina mathematician has come up with a way to quantify just how rigged a map is. And now he’s taking his math to court, in a case that could end up redrawing district lines across the country.   Braxton Brewington (center) preparing to make a statement outside the District Court on the first day of Common Cause's trial. (Courtesy of Braxton Brewington)   A&T Aggies at "Roll to the Polls" last April. (Courtesy of Braxton Brewington)   Jonathan Mattingly at Duke last June. (Annie Minoff)   Guests Jonathan Mattingly, professor of mathematics and statistical science, Duke University Braxton Brewington, undergraduate senior, North Carolina A&T State University, senior democracy fellow, Common Cause North Carolina Bob Phillips, executive director, Common Cause North Carolina   Footnotes Read about Jonathan and his students’ analyses of North Carolina’s 2012 and 2016 congressional maps (and check out the rest of their work on gerrymandering) See North Carolina’s congressional map, which a federal court declared unconstitutional in 2018 Read the District Court’s opinions from January 2018, declaring North Carolina’s 2016 congressional map unconstitutional Watch Representative David Lewis make his comments before the state legislature's joint select committee on congressional redistricting Read about the history of Common Cause’s lawsuit: Common Cause v. Rucho Read about other partisan gerrymandering court challenges Read about Common Cause v. Rucho’s prospects at the Supreme Court   Credits This episode of Undiscovered was produced by Elah Feder and Annie Minoff  Our senior editor is Christopher Intagliata, our composer is Daniel Peterschmidt, and our intern is Kaitlyn Schwalje. Our theme music is by I Am Robot And Proud. We had fact checking help from Robin Palmer. Eddie Garcia was our reporter on-the-ground at A&T.   Special thanks this week to Thomas Wolf and the Brennan Center for Justice, Justin Levitt, Gregory Herschlag, and Jonathan Mattingly’s Data+ team.      

Americans haven’t always loved whales and dolphins. In the 1950s, the average American thought of whales as the floating raw materials for margarine, animal feed, and fertilizer—if they thought about whales at all. But twenty-five years later, things had changed for cetaceans in a big way. Whales had become the poster-animal for a new environmental movement, and cries of “save the whales!” echoed from the halls of government to the whaling grounds of the Pacific. What happened? Annie and Elah meet the unconventional scientists who forever changed our view of whales by making the case that a series of surreal bleats and moans were “song.” GUESTS D. Graham Burnett, professor of history, Princeton University, author, The Sounding of the Whale: Science and Cetaceans in the 20th Century Scott McVay, former executive director, Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, author, Surprise Encounters Roger Payne, biologist, author, Among Whales Sheri Wells-Jensen, associate professor of linguistics, Bowling Green State University FOOTNOTES Read Roger and Scott’s landmark Science paper on whale song. (The paper includes great pics of the spectrograms Scott and Roger analyzed.) Listen to Roger’s record, Songs of the Humpback Whale. Listen to more humpback whale recordings (and dolphin tapes too!) courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Read D. Graham Burnett’s essay on John C. Lilly in Orion. (It’s a great teaser for the rest of his book.) Read a paper Dr. Lilly published in Science, based in part on Scott McVay’s work with Elvar the dolphin. Read the essay that inspired Scott: Loren Eiseley’s “The Long Loneliness: Man and Porpoise: Two Solitary Destinies” CREDITS This episode of Undiscovered was produced by Elah Feder and Annie Minoff  Our senior editor is Christopher Intagliata, our composer is Daniel Peterschmidt, and our intern is Kaitlyn Schwalje. Our theme music is by I Am Robot And Proud. We had fact checking help from Michelle Harris. Thanks, as always, to the entire Science Friday staff, and the folks at WNYC Studios. Special thanks this week to Jack Horowitz, Katie Lupica, and to the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island.  

Americans haven’t always loved whales and dolphins. In the 1950s, the average American thought of whales as the floating raw materials for margarine, animal feed, and fertilizer—if they thought about whales at all. But twenty-five years later, things had changed for cetaceans in a big way. Whales had become the poster-animal for a new environmental movement, and cries of “save the whales!” echoed from the halls of government to the whaling grounds of the Pacific. What happened? Annie and Elah meet the unconventional scientists who forever changed our view of whales by making the case that a series of surreal bleats and moans were “song.” GUESTS D. Graham Burnett, professor of history, Princeton University, author, The Sounding of the Whale: Science and Cetaceans in the 20th Century Scott McVay, former executive director, Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, author, Surprise Encounters Roger Payne, biologist, author, Among Whales Sheri Wells-Jensen, associate professor of linguistics, Bowling Green State University FOOTNOTES Read Roger and Scott’s landmark Science paper on whale song. (The paper includes great pics of the spectrograms Scott and Roger analyzed.) Listen to Roger’s record, Songs of the Humpback Whale. Listen to more humpback whale recordings (and dolphin tapes too!) courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Read D. Graham Burnett’s essay on John C. Lilly in Orion. (It’s a great teaser for the rest of his book.) Read a paper Dr. Lilly published in Science, based in part on Scott McVay’s work with Elvar the dolphin. Read the essay that inspired Scott: Loren Eiseley’s “The Long Loneliness: Man and Porpoise: Two Solitary Destinies” CREDITS This episode of Undiscovered was produced by Elah Feder and Annie Minoff  Our senior editor is Christopher Intagliata, our composer is Daniel Peterschmidt, and our intern is Kaitlyn Schwalje. Our theme music is by I Am Robot And Proud. We had fact checking help from Michelle Harris. Thanks, as always, to the entire Science Friday staff, and the folks at WNYC Studios. Special thanks this week to Jack Horowitz, Katie Lupica, and to the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island.  

Travis Thomas is a rookie turtle researcher in Florida. He was on the verge of publishing his first big paper and naming two new species of turtle when he found out he’d been scooped by a stranger in Australia: Raymond Hoser, a.k.a. the Snake Man. Raymond is a reptile wrangler and amateur herpetologist who’s managed to name hundreds of animals—and has made a lot of enemies in the process. In this episode of Undiscovered, Travis sets out to get his turtles back, and Annie and Elah set out to find out how and why the Snake Man does what he does.   Guests Travis Thomas, PhD student, University of Florida, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Robert Sprackland, herpetologist, visiting researcher at the Smithsonian Institution Raymond Hoser, founder of the Australasian Journal of Herpetology, owner of Snakebusters   Footnotes Read Travis Thomas et al.’s 2014 paper splitting alligator snapping turtles into three species, Raymond Hoser's 2013 paper, Raymond's response to Thomas et al. (pg. 19), and a later paper arguing for a different classification. Check out Raymond’s website where he responds to his critics, lists the animal taxa (species, genera, etc.) he’s named, and posts the Australasian Journal of Herpetology. Crack open the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature’s big book of rules for naming animals. Read articles about “taxonomic vandalism” that criticize Raymond Hoser. Dive into this great Nautilus piece on prolific species namers in history and the ire they provoked.   Credits This episode of Undiscovered was produced by Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, and Annie Minoff  We had production help from Sushmita Pathak who brought us this story. Our senior editor is Christopher Intagliata, our composer is Daniel Peterschmidt, and our intern is Kaitlyn Schwalje. Our theme music is by I Am Robot And Proud. We had fact checking help from Michelle Harris. Thanks, as always, to the entire Science Friday staff, and the folks at WNYC Studios, especially Tony Phillips and Jenny Lawton for feedback on this story.  

Travis Thomas is a rookie turtle researcher in Florida. He was on the verge of publishing his first big paper and naming two new species of turtle when he found out he’d been scooped by a stranger in Australia: Raymond Hoser, a.k.a. the Snake Man. Raymond is a reptile wrangler and amateur herpetologist who’s managed to name hundreds of animals—and has made a lot of enemies in the process. In this episode of Undiscovered, Travis sets out to get his turtles back, and Annie and Elah set out to find out how and why the Snake Man does what he does.   Guests Travis Thomas, PhD student, University of Florida, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Robert Sprackland, herpetologist, visiting researcher at the Smithsonian Institution Raymond Hoser, founder of the Australasian Journal of Herpetology, owner of Snakebusters   Footnotes Read Travis Thomas et al.’s 2014 paper splitting alligator snapping turtles into three species, Raymond Hoser's 2013 paper, Raymond's response to Thomas et al. (pg. 19), and a later paper arguing for a different classification. Check out Raymond’s website where he responds to his critics, lists the animal taxa (species, genera, etc.) he’s named, and posts the Australasian Journal of Herpetology. Crack open the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature’s big book of rules for naming animals. Read articles about “taxonomic vandalism” that criticize Raymond Hoser. Dive into this great Nautilus piece on prolific species namers in history and the ire they provoked.   Credits This episode of Undiscovered was produced by Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, and Annie Minoff  We had production help from Sushmita Pathak who brought us this story. Our senior editor is Christopher Intagliata, our composer is Daniel Peterschmidt, and our intern is Kaitlyn Schwalje. Our theme music is by I Am Robot And Proud. We had fact checking help from Michelle Harris. Thanks, as always, to the entire Science Friday staff, and the folks at WNYC Studios, especially Tony Phillips and Jenny Lawton for feedback on this story.  

This week, Annie and Elah share an episode from one of their favorite podcasts, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Sum of All Parts. For years, Robert Schneider lived the indie rocker’s dream, producing landmark records and fronting his band, The Apples in Stereo. And then, he gave it all up...for number theory. Host Joel Werner tracks Robert’s transformation, from a transcendental encounter with an antique tape machine, to the family temple of a mysterious long-dead mathematician, Ramanujan. Find more episodes of Sum of All Parts. CREDITS This episode of Sum of All Parts was produced and hosted by Joel Werner. Sophie Townsend served as story editor and Jonathan Webb served as science editor. Sound engineering by Mark Don and Martin Peralta. Undiscovered is reported and produced by Elah Feder and Annie Minoff. Our senior editor is Christopher Intagliata, our composer is Daniel Peterschmidt, and our intern is Kaitlyn Schwalje.  GUESTS Robert Schneider, Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science, Emory University Ken Ono, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Mathematics, Emory University FOOTNOTES Hear more Sum of All Parts, and see pictures of Robert and Ken at Ramanujan’s family temple. Robert Schneider and Ben Phelan’s article about Ramanujan, Encounter with The Infinite, was a huge inspiration for this story. Read it in The Believer. Listen to Ken Ono talk about Ramanujan and a biopic based on his life — The Man Who Knew Infinity — on Science Friday. Read about the new musical scale Robert Schneider devised, based on natural logarithms.  

This week, Annie and Elah share an episode from one of their favorite podcasts, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Sum of All Parts. For years, Robert Schneider lived the indie rocker’s dream, producing landmark records and fronting his band, The Apples in Stereo. And then, he gave it all up...for number theory. Host Joel Werner tracks Robert’s transformation, from a transcendental encounter with an antique tape machine, to the family temple of a mysterious long-dead mathematician, Ramanujan. Find more episodes of Sum of All Parts. CREDITS This episode of Sum of All Parts was produced and hosted by Joel Werner. Sophie Townsend served as story editor and Jonathan Webb served as science editor. Sound engineering by Mark Don and Martin Peralta. Undiscovered is reported and produced by Elah Feder and Annie Minoff. Our senior editor is Christopher Intagliata, our composer is Daniel Peterschmidt, and our intern is Kaitlyn Schwalje.  GUESTS Robert Schneider, Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science, Emory University Ken Ono, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Mathematics, Emory University FOOTNOTES Hear more Sum of All Parts, and see pictures of Robert and Ken at Ramanujan’s family temple. Robert Schneider and Ben Phelan’s article about Ramanujan, Encounter with The Infinite, was a huge inspiration for this story. Read it in The Believer. Listen to Ken Ono talk about Ramanujan and a biopic based on his life — The Man Who Knew Infinity — on Science Friday. Read about the new musical scale Robert Schneider devised, based on natural logarithms.  

Are non-native species all that bad, or are we just prejudiced against “the Other”? In the San Francisco Bay Area, one particular foreign species has been dividing environmentalists for years: the blue gum eucalyptus. Eucalyptus opponents say it’s a serious fire hazard. Defenders say there’s no good evidence it’s worse than native plants. Which is it? And is the fight against non-native species grounded in science or xenophobia? In this episode of Undiscovered, Annie and Elah investigate.    GUESTS  Fred Pearce, environmental journalist and author of The New Wild Norman La Force, Sierra Club, San Francisco Bay Chapter Dan Grassetti, Hills Conservation Network Sara Kuebbing, Assistant Professor of invasion ecology at the University of Pittsburgh   FOOTNOTES Read about the Bay Area’s eucalyptus debate. Watch the debate between Norman and Dan in full, courtesy of Ray Madrigal. Browse this website by a pro-eucalyptus activist and this page from the San Francisco Sierra Club, which wants to remove eucalyptus trees in some areas. Invasion biologists defend their field and dispute allegations of xenophobia. Sara Kuebbing has also found that land managers aren’t arbitrarily eradicating non-native species, but selectively removing ones they deem harmful. Mark Davis, a biologist who’s critical of invasion biology, covers some of the field’s history in his book, Invasion Biology. Still want more? Check out these think pieces defending non-native species, including Michael Pollan’s article and Stephen Jay Gould’s essay. And for a completely different perspective, check out these sources on the impacts of non-native species, including an early study that attempted a rough calculation of their global economic cost.   CREDITS Undiscovered is reported and produced by Elah Feder and Annie Minoff. Our senior editor is Christopher Intagliata, our composer is Daniel Peterschmidt, and our intern is Kaitlyn Schwalje. We had fact checking help for this episode from Michelle Harris. I Am Robot And Proud wrote our theme. Thank you to the whole Science Friday staff and to the many people on both sides of this issue who spent hours talking to us, taking Elah for nature walks, and providing us with documents.

Are non-native species all that bad, or are we just prejudiced against “the Other”? In the San Francisco Bay Area, one particular foreign species has been dividing environmentalists for years: the blue gum eucalyptus. Eucalyptus opponents say it’s a serious fire hazard. Defenders say there’s no good evidence it’s worse than native plants. Which is it? And is the fight against non-native species grounded in science or xenophobia? In this episode of Undiscovered, Annie and Elah investigate.    GUESTS  Fred Pearce, environmental journalist and author of The New Wild Norman La Force, Sierra Club, San Francisco Bay Chapter Dan Grassetti, Hills Conservation Network Sara Kuebbing, Assistant Professor of invasion ecology at the University of Pittsburgh   FOOTNOTES Read about the Bay Area’s eucalyptus debate. Watch the debate between Norman and Dan in full, courtesy of Ray Madrigal. Browse this website by a pro-eucalyptus activist and this page from the San Francisco Sierra Club, which wants to remove eucalyptus trees in some areas. Invasion biologists defend their field and dispute allegations of xenophobia. Sara Kuebbing has also found that land managers aren’t arbitrarily eradicating non-native species, but selectively removing ones they deem harmful. Mark Davis, a biologist who’s critical of invasion biology, covers some of the field’s history in his book, Invasion Biology. Still want more? Check out these think pieces defending non-native species, including Michael Pollan’s article and Stephen Jay Gould’s essay. And for a completely different perspective, check out these sources on the impacts of non-native species, including an early study that attempted a rough calculation of their global economic cost.   CREDITS Undiscovered is reported and produced by Elah Feder and Annie Minoff. Our senior editor is Christopher Intagliata, our composer is Daniel Peterschmidt, and our intern is Kaitlyn Schwalje. We had fact checking help for this episode from Michelle Harris. I Am Robot And Proud wrote our theme. Thank you to the whole Science Friday staff and to the many people on both sides of this issue who spent hours talking to us, taking Elah for nature walks, and providing us with documents.

As a critical care doctor, Jessica Zitter has seen plenty of “Hail Mary” attempts to save dying patients go bad—attempts where doctors try interventions that don’t change the outcome, but do lead to more patient suffering. It’s left her distrustful of flashy medical technology and a culture that insists that more treatment is always better. But when a new patient goes into cardiac arrest, the case doesn’t play out the way Jessica expected. She finds herself fighting for hours to revive him—and reaching for a game-changing technology that uncomfortably blurs the lines between life and death.    Resources Talking about end-of-life stuff can be hard! Here are some resources to get you started. (Adapted from Jessica Zitter’s Extreme Measures: Finding a Better Path to the End of Life. Thanks Jessica!)   I want to…  ...figure out what kind of care I might want at end of life: Prepare uses videos of people thinking about their end-of-life preferences to walk you through the steps for choosing a surrogate decision maker, determining your preferences, etc.  ...talk with family/friends about my preferences (or theirs!): The Conversation Project offers a starter kit and tools to help start the conversation.  ...put my preferences in writing (an advance directive):  Advance Directive forms connects you to advance directive forms for your state.  My Directives For those who like their documents in app form! Guides you through creating an end-of-life plan, then stores it in the cloud so it’s accessible anywhere.  Guests Jessica Nutik Zitter, MD, MPH, Author and Attending Physician, Division of Pulmonary/Critical Care and Palliative Care Medicine, Highland Hospital Thomas Frohlich, MD, Chief of Cardiology, Highland Hospital Kenneth Prager, MD, Professor of Medicine and Director of Clinical Ethics, Columbia University Medical Center Daniela Lamas, MD, author and Associate Faculty at Ariadne Labs David Casarett MD, author and Chief of Palliative Care, Duke University School of Medicine   Footnotes Read the books: Jessica Zitter’s book is Extreme Measures: Finding a Better Path to the End of Life. Daniela Lamas’s book is You Can Stop Humming Now: A Doctor’s Stories of Life, Death, and In Between. David Casarett’s book is Shocked: Adventures in Bringing Back the Recently Dead Read the memoirs of Amsterdam’s “Society in Favor of Drowned Persons,” the Dutch group that tried to resuscitate drowning victims (including Anne Wortman) Learn more about ECMO, its success rates, and the ethical questions it raises (Daniela also wrote an article about it here) Read Daniela’s study about quality of life in long-term acute care hospitals (LTACHs). And for an introduction to LTACHs, here’s an overview from The New York Times Watch Extremis, the Oscar-nominated documentary (featuring Jessica Zitter), about families facing end-of-life decisions in Highland Hospital’s ICU. Read some of Dr. Zitter’s articles about life support tech (here and here) and the tough decisions doctors and patients face in the ICU (here and here)   Credits This episode of Undiscovered was reported and produced by Annie Minoff and Elah Feder. Editing by Christopher Intagliata. Original music by Daniel Peterschmidt. Fact-checking help from Michelle Harris. Our theme music is by I Am Robot And Proud. Our mid-break theme for this episode, “No Turning Back,” is by Daniel Peterschmidt and I am Robot and Proud. Thanks to the entire Science Friday staff, the folks at WNYC Studios, and CUNY’s Sarah Fishman. Special thanks to Michele Kassemos of UCSF Medical Center, Lorna Fernandes of Highland Hospital, and the entire staff at Highland.

As a critical care doctor, Jessica Zitter has seen plenty of “Hail Mary” attempts to save dying patients go bad—attempts where doctors try interventions that don’t change the outcome, but do lead to more patient suffering. It’s left her distrustful of flashy medical technology and a culture that insists that more treatment is always better. But when a new patient goes into cardiac arrest, the case doesn’t play out the way Jessica expected. She finds herself fighting for hours to revive him—and reaching for a game-changing technology that uncomfortably blurs the lines between life and death.    Resources Talking about end-of-life stuff can be hard! Here are some resources to get you started. (Adapted from Jessica Zitter’s Extreme Measures: Finding a Better Path to the End of Life. Thanks Jessica!)   I want to…  ...figure out what kind of care I might want at end of life: Prepare uses videos of people thinking about their end-of-life preferences to walk you through the steps for choosing a surrogate decision maker, determining your preferences, etc.  ...talk with family/friends about my preferences (or theirs!): The Conversation Project offers a starter kit and tools to help start the conversation.  ...put my preferences in writing (an advance directive):  Advance Directive forms connects you to advance directive forms for your state.  My Directives For those who like their documents in app form! Guides you through creating an end-of-life plan, then stores it in the cloud so it’s accessible anywhere.  Guests Jessica Nutik Zitter, MD, MPH, Author and Attending Physician, Division of Pulmonary/Critical Care and Palliative Care Medicine, Highland Hospital Thomas Frohlich, MD, Chief of Cardiology, Highland Hospital Kenneth Prager, MD, Professor of Medicine and Director of Clinical Ethics, Columbia University Medical Center Daniela Lamas, MD, author and Associate Faculty at Ariadne Labs David Casarett MD, author and Chief of Palliative Care, Duke University School of Medicine   Footnotes Read the books: Jessica Zitter’s book is Extreme Measures: Finding a Better Path to the End of Life. Daniela Lamas’s book is You Can Stop Humming Now: A Doctor’s Stories of Life, Death, and In Between. David Casarett’s book is Shocked: Adventures in Bringing Back the Recently Dead Read the memoirs of Amsterdam’s “Society in Favor of Drowned Persons,” the Dutch group that tried to resuscitate drowning victims (including Anne Wortman) Learn more about ECMO, its success rates, and the ethical questions it raises (Daniela also wrote an article about it here) Read Daniela’s study about quality of life in long-term acute care hospitals (LTACHs). And for an introduction to LTACHs, here’s an overview from The New York Times Watch Extremis, the Oscar-nominated documentary (featuring Jessica Zitter), about families facing end-of-life decisions in Highland Hospital’s ICU. Read some of Dr. Zitter’s articles about life support tech (here and here) and the tough decisions doctors and patients face in the ICU (here and here)   Credits This episode of Undiscovered was reported and produced by Annie Minoff and Elah Feder. Editing by Christopher Intagliata. Original music by Daniel Peterschmidt. Fact-checking help from Michelle Harris. Our theme music is by I Am Robot And Proud. Our mid-break theme for this episode, “No Turning Back,” is by Daniel Peterschmidt and I am Robot and Proud. Thanks to the entire Science Friday staff, the folks at WNYC Studios, and CUNY’s Sarah Fishman. Special thanks to Michele Kassemos of UCSF Medical Center, Lorna Fernandes of Highland Hospital, and the entire staff at Highland.

Since the 1980s, Gerta Keller, professor of paleontology and geology at Princeton, has been speaking out against an idea most of us take as scientific gospel: That a giant rock from space killed the dinosaurs. Nice story, she says—but it’s just not true. Gerta's been shouted down and ostracized at conferences, but in three decades, she hasn’t backed down. And now, things might finally be coming around for Gerta’s theory. But is she right? Did something else kill the dinosaurs? Or is she just too proud to admit she’s been wrong for 30 years?   GUESTS Gerta Keller, professor of paleontology and geology at Princeton James Powell, geologist and author of Night Comes to the Cretaceous: Dinosaur Extinction and the Transformation of Modern Geology (St. Martin's Press)   FOOTNOTES Michael Benton reviews the many, sometimes hilarious explanations for the (non-avian) dinosaurs’ extinction. Note: Ideas marked with asterisks were jokes! More in Benton’s book. Walter Alvarez tells his own story of the impact hypothesis in T. Rex and the Crater of Doom. The New York Times interviews Luis Alvarez before he dies, and he takes some parting shots at his scientific opponents. The impact and the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary were simultaneous according to this paper. Learn more about how volcanoes are major suspects in mass extinctions. Read more about Gerta Keller, the holdout.   CREDITS This episode of Undiscovered was reported and produced by Elah Feder and Annie Minoff. Our senior editor is Christopher Intagliata. Original music by Daniel Peterschmidt. Fact-checking help from Robin Palmer. Lucy Huang polled visitors to AMNH about what killed the dinosaurs. Our theme music is by I Am Robot And Proud. Excerpts from All Things Considered used with permission from NPR.