Science Friday

SciFri producer Kathleen Davis talks with Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett-Helaire, assistant professor of immunology and infectious diseases at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health to help answer our listeners’ top questions about the updated COVID-19 vaccines .This Q&A, which includes questions from our audience members, has been adapted from our interview with Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett-Helaire. It...

Part of the reason it’s difficult to talk about climate change is that it can be hard to see a long-term positive outcome for people and the planet. But Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, a marine biologist and co-founder of the Urban Ocean Lab, argues that to prevent the worst effects of climate change, we have to start by asking ourselves, what if we get it right? She’s the author of a new book with t...

Kids and teens are back in school, and the battle over the smartphones in their pockets is becoming more prominent. For years, teachers and parents have lamented about the distractions these devices cause in and out of the classroom. Last year, the US surgeon general declared a youth mental health crisis , citing social media as a significant factor, and more than 40 US states are suing Meta, owne...

SpaceX Crew Completes First Citizen SpacewalkBig news in the world of commercial space flight: On Thursday morning, Jared Iasaacman and Sarah Gillis, members of SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission, became the first civilians to complete a spacewalk. The mission is a collaboration between Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Isaacman, a billionaire tech entrepreneur. While outside the spacecraft, the two crew members...

Samples of 2.5 billion-year-old mantle rocks found at spreading ocean ridges could put bounds on models of how the planet formed. And, researchers decreased the amount of lignin in poplar tree wood, making it stronger and slower to deteriorate. ‘Time Capsule’ Rocks Provide Clues About Earth’s Mantle If you’re looking to really learn about the history of our planet, look to geology. Ancient rocks c...

If you’ve ever seen a cute cow video on social media, you might notice they seem to have a lot in common with dogs. They can wag their tails, they love to gobble down tasty treats, and if you’re lucky, they might flop over for a nice belly or neck scratch. Cows are clearly emotional animals, but how smart are they exactly? That’s the question that neuroscientist and author Dr. Gregory Berns had wh...

Shark fishing is alive and well, but the fishermen who do it are increasingly prioritizing conservation. And, an unknown ant was spotted in Manhattan in 2011, and it quickly spread through New York City. We now know what it is. Fishing For—And Saving—Sharks off the Jersey Shore At an undisclosed beach at 5:30 p.m. in New Jersey, shark fisherman AJ Rotondella and two clients wait for beachgoers to...

You might be familiar with a gigabyte, one of the most popular units of measure for computer storage. A two-hour movie is 3 gigabytes on average, while your phone can probably store 256 gigabytes. But did you know that your body also stores information in its own way? We see this in DNA, which has the instructions needed for an organism to develop, survive, and reproduce. In computing storage term...

ESA officials said it was only the ninth time an asteroid was spotted before reaching Earth’s atmosphere. And, as the climate changes and summer temperatures linger, educators are increasingly worried about keeping kids safe from heat exhaustion. An Asteroid Impact, Spotted In AdvanceOn Wednesday, an asteroid named 2024 RW1 burned up in the atmosphere above the Philippines. As asteroids go, it was...

A new study suggests that the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs may have originated from the outer parts of the solar system. And, invasive spotted lanternflies often lay eggs on vehicles and shipped goods. Now researchers are training dogs to sniff them out before they hatch. Asteroid That Killed The Dinosaurs Was A Carbon-Rich RockAround 66 million years ago, an asteroid slammed into the Earth,...

Eels have fascinated humans for thousands of years, even captivating big thinkers like Aristotle and Freud. Despite having been around for some 200 million years , eels are still rather mysterious creatures. For example, scientists still aren’t sure exactly how they spawn. But those unanswered questions haven’t stopped humans from wanting to eat them. So much so that they’re now endangered in some...

Did you know that almost every star you see in the night sky has at least one planet orbiting it? Here’s something even wilder: There are some celestial bodies that look a lot like planets, but just float around freely in the cosmos, unattached to any particular star. They’re called rogue worlds . With data from the James Webb Space Telescope, astrophysicists just identified six right here in our...

You might have noticed that the seasons don’t quite behave like they used to. In some places, fall and spring seem to fly by, while winter and summer are much longer and feel more intense. This shift is known as season creep, where the timing of the seasons starts to shift .This phenomenon is mostly due to climate change creating temperature imbalances and throwing weather patterns off kilter year...

Several states have reported cases of the rare but serious mosquito-borne illness eastern equine encephalitis. And, the new sci-fi movie "Slingshot," about an astronaut’s mental breakdown, prompts questions about how to prepare humans for long-term space travel. Mosquito-Borne Diseases Are Spreading As Temperatures RiseThis week, a New Hampshire man died of eastern equine encephalitis (EEE), a rar...

Your teeth don’t just chew your food—they connect you to the deepest of deep history on Earth. Teeth have existed, in some form, for half a billion years, making them more than 250 million years older than dinosaurs. They came before the evolution of warm bloodedness, eggs, and even limbs. From that very first set of chompers emerged a bewildering and diverse group of teeth, including narwhal tusk...

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the maternal mortality rate in the United States is very high compared to other wealthy countries: About 22.3 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. This is on par with China and Iran, based on UNICEF data. So why is the US maternal mortality rate so high? It may have to do with how we fill out death certificates. A study from ea...

There’s a phenomenon known as the “overview effect,” a changed perspective some people experience after seeing the Earth from space. Retired astronaut Dr. Cady Coleman says that for her, it was a sense of home and connection . “First of all, I just don’t feel that far away,” she said. “I feel like home is bigger than we thought and I just happened to be the one of the furthest out people. But the...

Sequoia National Park is largely designated as wilderness. That complicates efforts to protect its iconic trees from worsening wildfires. Also, archaeologists keep finding older and older cave art. Here’s what it could tell us about how humans evolved over time. Protecting Sequoias From Wildfire Raises Tricky QuestionsSequoia National Park in California is known for its towering, iconic sequoia tr...

A new study measuring microplastics in organs of the recently deceased found that about two dozen brain samples were 0.5% plastic by weight. Also, having an IUD inserted in the uterus is extremely painful for some people. The CDC now recommends that doctors use local anesthetics. Study Finds A Staggering Amount Of Plastic In Human Brains It only takes a quick look at our streets and waterways to b...

It’s been a hot and rainy summer in many parts of the US, and it’s been hard to spend as much time in nature as many of us would like. Heat waves and unpredictable weather have sometimes made it riskier to be outside. Maybe you’ve chosen an easier hike, or doubled up on water bottles, or stayed inside when you’d much rather be outdoors with friends and family. If you’ve been feeling apathetic abou...

The space elevator has been a staple of science fiction for decades, from The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke to the Apple TV show “Foundation.” But the work and theories to make it a reality have been in development since the late 19th century. It’s a simple concept: Imagine a long cable, stretching from the Earth’s surface to a satellite locked in orbit 22,000 miles high. It would work...

A new potential Alzheimer’s therapy uses 40-hertz frequencies of light and sound to stimulate the brain. Research applying this treatment to mice showed a substantial decrease in amyloid plaques, a key biomarker for the disease, and an improvement in cognitive function . Clinical trials testing the efficacy of this method in humans are underway. But how exactly does this treatment work? Could it b...

Dr. Anthony Fauci has a long history with Science Friday. Ira first met him in the early 1980s while covering the HIV/AIDS epidemic. He has been a frequent guest on the program, discussing everything from the common cold to SARS, food allergies to Ebola, and malaria to the recent COVID-19 pandemic. After leading the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for 38 years, Fauci stepped...

Data from the Mars InSight lander points to the presence of liquid water underneath its crust. Also, some national and state parks are changing the way they open up campsite reservations online to make them more accessible to everyone. Scientists Find Strong Evidence For Liquid Water On MarsScientists discovered that there could be oceans’ worth of liquid water hidden underneath Mars’ surface. Mor...

To gaze upon a full T. rex skeleton is to be transported back in time. Dinosaur fossils are key to understanding what these prehistoric creatures looked like, how they moved, and where they lived. But there’s one type of dinosaur fossil that’s sometimes overlooked: poop. Its scientific name is coprolite. These fossilized feces are rarer than their boney counterparts, but they’re key to better unde...