Science Friday

This year, October 13 marks Ada Lovelace Day , an observance that calls attention to the role of women in computing and technology. In this conversation from 2018 , Ira talks with Claire Evans, author of “Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet,” about some of the women who played key roles in the development of computing. Then, Stacy Horn joins the conversation to describe...

In the past few years, the idea of attachment styles has taken off, both online and in therapy offices. It’s gone from a niche psychological concept to a shorthand to describe how we show up in relationships. Here’s a crash course: Anxious attachment is when you seek constant reassurance. Avoidant attachment is when you flee when someone tries to get close. Fearful-avoidant, also called disorganiz...

A new mRNA flu vaccine made by Moderna was approved by the FDA in August, and is currently available for people aged 50 and over. The promise of an mRNA vaccine for flu is that it can be spun up more quickly than a traditional vaccine, meaning it could better match the flu strain that’s circulating.   Is that what happened this year? How are the side effects? And how has dysfunction at t...

A Kelvin wave has reached California and is creeping up the West Coast, raising both sea levels and concerns from government officials. This kind of massive internal wave begins in the western Pacific Ocean and then travels eastward to the Americas along the equator, and then up and down the coastline. While it might raise sea levels up to 12 inches, it stays below the surface instead of crashing...

Cephalopods have a reputation for being smart and majestic. And while that may be true, the life of a cephalopod can also be dark and gritty. Have you heard of octopus death spirals? How about cephalopod cannibalism?  Host Flora Lichtman is joined by cephalopod experts Heather Judkins and Z. Yan Wang for a conversation about the weirdest parts of being a cephalopod, and to answer some listene...

It’s Nobel Prize week, and this year's prize in physics went to Francis Halzen “for decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin.” The IceCube is a massive neutrino detector that covers a cubic kilometer of Antarctic ice, and looks for high-energy neutrinos coming from deep space.  In 2013, Ira spoke with physici...

On Science Friday, we love to talk about ideas, especially ideas that have the power to shape the future. But there are plenty of groundbreaking ideas that almost don’t make it out of the lab or the art studio: ideas that are birthed but then fall into a deep slumber until, years later, they’re reawakened. Why this happens is the subject of the new book, “Sleeping Beauties: Why Good Ideas Go Dorma...

John Wilson’s new documentary, “The History of Concrete,” has a subject matter that to most people may seem gray, drab, and boring. The film is anything but . Alongside facts about concrete’s reliance on dwindling sand reserves and New York City’s crumbling infrastructure, there are unexpected tangents. Following the idiosyncratic format of Wilson’s hit HBO show “How To,” he tells the stories of a...

Big news for tiny cats: an itty-bitty three-pound spotted cat from Bolivia —called the tilcayo—is the first new wild cat species described in more than a hundred years.  Tilcayo pics have been all over the news and social media, but there’s much more to tilcayo’s tale, including the surprising story behind its discovery.  Flora chats with Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz, the biologist who worked...

Leaders of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University say they can’t afford to keep the museum open to visitors. And there are rumors that another natural history museum , in Hays, Kansas, may be closing its doors. What happens to the collections, and are museums going the way of the dinosaurs?  Jason Cryan, from the Natural History Museum of Utah, and Barbara Thiers, formerly of th...

In 2024, scientists using instruments on board the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft spotted a new large impact crater on the surface of the moon. Tyler Powell joins host Flora Lichtman to describe what they found, and what scientists are learning about the lunar surface from studying it.  After, Sofia Sheikh describes different approaches to hunting for intelligent alien life through ‘...

It’s a conversation at playgrounds and in classrooms: parents and teachers worry that kids who spent formative years at home during the COVID-19 pandemic are set back, emotionally, socially or academically. But what does science say ? Did stay-at-home life permanently impact kids who lived through it? Joining host Flora Lichtman to dig into the research are child development experts Anna Johnson a...

Football season is upon us and a new study is making headlines. Researchers found that roughly 1 in 4 NFL players will develop CTE, a neurodegenerative disease, in their lifetime. While most of us are not professional athletes, concussions are still a relatively common injury. Millions of Americans get concussions each year, but the exact number is hard to pin down because many people don’t seek t...

For celiac disease sufferers, avoiding gluten is the only way to avoid symptoms. But that’s not always easy to do. Researchers are working on new treatments , including one that targets interleukin-15, a chemical that can cause some of the damage in celiac sufferers. Will the drugs be available to patients soon?  Celiac expert Maureen Leonard joins Host Ira Flatow for a look at the latest in...

AI safety has dominated the news cycle for weeks, precipitated in part by an AI attack where a bunch of OpenAI’s agents teamed up and hacked another AI platform, Hugging Face, without humans knowing. Since then, multiple AI researchers have come forward to say they’re worried this tech is unsafe.  It seems every day there’s a new development: another warning from an AI researcher, an admissio...

During the last ice age, America’s coastlines and waterways looked much different than they do today. When glaciers melted, coasts and shorelines were inundated, burying early human settlements underwater. This is where underwater archeology comes in. Donning scuba gear and trowels, researchers are finding remarkably well-preserved artifacts that tell us more about what life was like in the early...

The Hawaiian Islands tend to be insulated from the worst effects of hurricanes, but this summer has been different. In mid-August, Hurricane Lala pummeled the Big Island, damaging homes and roads and causing flooding and power outages. Then a few weeks later, Hurricane Lowell hit the islands of Ni‘ihau and Kaua‘i.  What do scientists make of this hurricane season ? And how is climate change p...

A lot of things in life are squishy, including your skin, your organs, and all the goo inside you. But technology tends to be rigid and hard. Figuring out how to get those two worlds to work together can be challenging. How do you connect an electronic sensor to a soft, beating heart?  As an inventor of biocompatible electronic devices, John A. Rogers has designed things like flexible probes,...

There’s a new wellness trend focused on an obscure capillary system that moves fluid around the body. Things like lymphatic walking, vibration plates, and compression boots have been touted as ways to stimulate the lymphatic system to combat bloating, flush away toxins, and generally promote health.  So what is the lymphatic system, and what does it do? And is there anything to these claims?...

Perimenopause affects more than 4 billion people, but has historically been neglected by medicine. It’s the time before menopause when hormones start fluctuating wildly, leaving women with brain fog, hot flashes, dropping bone density, and mood changes. Thanks in part to social media, it’s more prominent in public discourse than it used to be. But it’s not just awareness that’s blown up: It’s also...

Where did we come from? How did humanity, with our complicated civilizations and all our human quirks and foibles, come to be? Much of what we know about those questions traces back to important fossil finds in Ethiopia.   Paleoanthropologist Yohannes Haile-Selassie has been key in that hunt for answers. A skilled fossil-finder, he’s helped discover some of the most important known homin...

In 48 B.C.E., a massive fire ripped through the Library of Alexandria in Egypt, one of the largest and most significant ancient libraries. An estimated 100,000 works of literature were lost. Throughout history, there are lots of examples of things being “lost”: cities, like Pompeii, graves of figures like Genghis Khan, and works of art from masters like Leonardo da Vinci. Author Sam Kean explores...

Living with black bears is complicated. They’re huge, hungry, and they really don’t care about your hostas. After a long period of being overhunted, black bears are on the rebound. And as they begin returning to parts of their native ranges, they’re finding humans there, too. Reporter Cassandra Stephenson joins Flora to talk about how these interactions are playing out in southeastern states. Then...

You’ve probably been warned that if you don’t finish that course of antibiotics, you could wind up battling antibiotic-resistant bacteria. But a growing body of research suggests that the opposite might be true. What does this mean for you and your next sinus infection? Flora talks with antimicrobial resistance expert Amy Mathers to find out. Plus, the driver of fibromyalgia, a condition that can...

When states began legalizing recreational cannabis a couple decades ago, 25 million Americans said they used the drug. That number nearly tripled to 70 million by 2023. There are a lot of open questions about how it affects us. Why do some people find more pain relief from THC than traditional painkillers? Is it really better for sleep? What are the effects of long-term use? Host Flora Lichtman is...