Science Friday

Inside The ‘Chaos Machine’ Of Social Media Despite social media’s early promises to build a more just and democratic society, over the past several years, we’ve seen its propensity to easily spread hate speech, misinformation and disinformation. Online platforms have even played a role in organizing violent acts in the real world, like genocide against the Rohinga people in Myanmar, and the violen...

A Medication Abortion Drug Faces Potential Nationwide Restriction A federal court case underway in Texas this week could have big implications for medication based abortion care across the U.S. The case involves the FDA’s approval of the drug mifepristone, which is used as part of a two-drug combination in most medication abortions. The plaintiffs in the case are arguing that the FDA went against...

‘All That Breathes:’ A Story Of Two Brothers Saving New Delhi’s Raptors The Oscars are right around the corner, and one of the nominees in the documentary category is called “All That Breathes.” It tells the story of two brothers—Nadeem and Saud—who dedicate their lives to rescuing black kites, a type of raptor that dominates the skies of New Delhi. Since they were children, the brothers have resc...

Eyes In The Sky: The Science Behind Modern Balloons This month, the news cycle has been dominated by updates about suspicious objects being detected in the stratosphere. This bonanza started with a balloon from China, and escalated as four more objects—not all confirmed as balloons— have been shot down from the sky. Although this might sound like a new problem, there are probably thousands of ball...

UFOs? Balloons? Spy Cams? Here’s What’s Going On This week, the saga over UFOs, balloons, and spyware continues. The drama all started with a Chinese surveillance balloon, and then—one by one—governments kept finding others in the U.S. and Canada. Earlier this week, President Biden announced, “We don’t know yet exactly what these three objects were. But nothing right now suggests they are related...

Rethinking The Future Of Dementia Care Scientists estimate that the number of people living with dementia will triple within the next 30 years , but healthcare systems, policies, and public health measures in the US aren’t prepared to accommodate this growing population. This week, we’re digging into dementia care, and taking listener calls live. Alzheimer’s is the leading cause of dementia. Ira t...

How Scientists Predict Where Earthquakes Will Strike Next The pair of earthquakes that hit Turkey and Syria this week left the region grappling with death and destruction. Despite the region being seismically active, this particular area hadn’t seen an earthquake of this size for decades. There are ways of knowing where the next big earthquakes will happen —but not when. Scientists use knowledge o...

How Grief Rewires The Brain Being a human can be a wonderful thing. We’re social creatures, craving strong bonds with family and friends. Those relationships can be the most rewarding parts of life. But having strong relationships also means the possibility of experiencing loss. Grief is one of the hardest things people go through in life. Those who have lost a loved one know the feeling of overwh...

Wind And Solar Were Europe’s Top Energy Sources In 2022 The European Union reached a major renewable energy milestone in 2022. For the first time, wind and solar generated more energy in the European Union than any other power source . Ira talks with science writer Roxanne Khamsi about Europe’s energy future and other top science stories of the week, including deer harboring old COVID strains, an...

Meet The Blind Birder Reimagining Accessibility In The Outdoors For many blind and low vision people, accessing outdoor spaces like parks can be challenging. Trails are often unsafe or difficult to navigate, signs don’t usually have Braille, guides generally aren’t trained to help disabled visitors, and so on. But nature recordist Juan Pablo Culasso, based in Bogata, Colombia, is changing that. He...

What’s Behind The Strange Slowing Of The Earth’s Core? Even though some days feel more chaotic than others, the rotation of the surface of the planet proceeds at a pretty constant rate—about one full rotation every 24 hours. But the rotational speed of the inner core is less stable, and has been known to shift over time. Now, researchers are reporting in the journal Nature Geoscience that accordin...

Why Are Gas Stoves Under Fire? If you were online at all last week, you probably encountered conversations about gas stoves. The sudden stove discourse was sparked by a comment made by a commissioner on the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) to a Bloomberg reporter, in which the commissioner discussed plans to regulate gas stoves. Those comments morphed via repetition into inaccurate rumor...

Why Are Children’s Antibiotics So Hard To Find Right Now? Mary Warlo has been extremely worried lately. Her baby Calieb, who is six months old, has sickle cell disease. In early December he went for a few days without liquid penicillin, a medication that he—and thousands of other children in the U.S.—rely on to prevent potentially life threatening infections. Warlo couldn’t easily find a pharmacy...

Technology Trends to Watch in 2023 The start of a new year is often a time to contemplate the future and what might lie ahead on the horizon. This week, the magazine MIT Technology Review unveiled its annual list of 10 technologies to watch—innovations that it thinks are on the verge of rapid adoption or causing significant cultural changes, or already in the process of creating such a shift. This...

Early Migration To North America Likely Wasn’t A One-Way Road The story of how early humans migrated to North America might not be as simple as we once thought. The prevailing theory was that ancient peoples traveled from Siberia to modern-day Alaska using the Bering strait as a land bridge. But new genomic research, published in Current Biology, reveals movement in the opposite direction, back to...

FDA Expands Pharmacy Options for Abortion Pills This week, the FDA finalized rules that would allow more retail pharmacies to stock and fill prescriptions for the abortion drug mifepristone . Previously, the medication had been available only via certain specialty pharmacies or via mail order. Now, major retail pharmacies such as CVS and Walgreens can apply for permission to fill prescriptions for...

How Redlining Shaped Baltimore’s Tree Canopy Redlining was pervasive in American cities from the 1930s through the late 1960s. Maps were drawn specifically to ensure that Black people were denied mortgages. These discriminatory practices created a lasting legacy of economic and racial inequality which persists today. Less obvious is how redlining has shaped nature and the urban ecosystem. A recent...

This Soundscape Artist Has Been Listening To The Planet For Decades Jim Metzner is one of the pioneers of science radio—he’s been making field recordings and sharing them with audiences for more than 40 years. He hosted shows such as “Sounds of Science” in the 1980s, which later grew into “Pulse of the Planet,” a radio show about “the sound of life on Earth.” Over the decades, Metzner has created...

Keeping The Bubbly In Your Holidays, With Fizzical Science As the year winds to a close, you may be attending gatherings where a festive flute of champagne is offered. Champagne production starts out with a first fermentation process that turns ordinary grape juice into alcoholic wine. A second fermentation in the wine bottle produces the dissolved carbon dioxide responsible for the thousands of f...

A Look Back At The Top Science Stories of 2022 2022 was chock full of big science news. Scientists announced an important milestone toward the feasibility of nuclear fusion. Doctors transplanted a pig heart into a human for the very first time. And NASA returned to the moon with the successful launch of the Artemis I mission. Ira recaps the year in science news with Tim Revell , deputy United Stat...

Glitter Gets An Eco-Friendly Glimmer Glitter—it’s everywhere this time of year. You open up a holiday card, and out comes a sprinkle of it. And that glitter will seemingly be with you forever, hugging your sweater, covering the floor. But glitter doesn’t stop there. It washes down the drain, and travels into the sewage system and waterways. Since it’s made from microplastics, it’s never going away...

Scientists Reach Breakthrough In Nuclear Fusion This week, researchers announced a big breakthrough in the field of nuclear fusion . Scientists have been slamming atoms into each other for decades in the hope that they will fuse together, and release more energy than was put in. And for the first time ever, scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory did just that in early December, u...

Medicine Is Failing Disabled Patients. Meet The Doctors Pushing For Change “More than sixty-one million Americans have disabilities, and increasing evidence documents that they experience health care disparities.” That’s the conclusion of a series of studies, in which researchers pulled back the curtain on how doctors perceive disabled patients. A study from last year  found that more than half of...

The Science Behind The Psychedelics Boom There’s been an explosion of new research into therapeutic uses for psychedelics. This includes drugs like psilocybin, the hallucinogenic chemical found in “magic mushrooms,” and ketamine—which was originally used as an anesthetic, and later became a popular party drug also known as “special K.” Esketamine, a form of ketamine, was approved by the FDA in 201...

Wish A Happy 190th Birthday To Jonathan The Tortoise A birthday should always be celebrated. For Jonathan the tortoise, who turned 190 this week , that celebration involved a salad cake and a three-day party. Jonathan is the oldest known living animal, hatched in 1832. Jonathan, who calls the island of St. Helena home, may be blind and unable to smell, but he maintains a good quality of life and e...