Science Friday

Bacteria have been around for billions of years. Could they have come up with complex behaviors that we just don’t understand yet? Could they have their own language? Their own culture? Their own complex societies playing out right under, and in, our noses? 

Microbiologist Bonnie Bassler has been studying these questions for more than 30 years. She talks with Host Flora Lichtman about the wild world of bacterial communication, and h...

A passion for fashion among the “bone collector caterpillar,” who wears a coat of body parts, and an artist who makes fabrics that remember.

We inch into the world of extreme outerwear with the newly-discovered “bone collector caterpillar,” which wears a coat of many co…llected body parts. Why, Hanipillar Lecter? Entomologist Dan Rubinoff, who along with his team found the species on a mountainside in Oahu, Hawaii, shares the juicy ...

Millions of years ago, iguanas somehow got from North America to Fiji. Scientists think they made the trip on a raft of fallen vegetation. Also, the marine reptile’s fossilized fetus is cluing paleontologists into the lives of ancient sea creatures.

Ancient Iguanas Floated 5,000 Miles Across The Pacific

If you picture iguanas, you might imagine them sunbathing on hot sand in the Caribbean or skittering around the Mojave Dese...

In “Into the Unknown,” an astronomer explores the mysteries of the cosmos and the limits of what science can test.

What is time? If the universe is expanding, what is it expanding into? What happened just before the Big Bang?

Some of the most head-scratching ideas in physics strain the limits of what science can test. In her book Into the Unknown: The Quest to Understand the Mysteries of the Cosmos, astronomer Dr. Kelsey Johnson desc...

Scientists bring us a lab-grown chicken nugget and texturally accurate, plant-based calamari. We’ll bite.

There’s a movement in the world of science to find alternatives to meat and dairy products that don’t involve killing animals. Two avenues for this are by using animal cells in a lab, or going plant-based. Two breakthroughs in this field of food science were published in journals recently: the largest lab-grown chicken nugget an...

Being able to belt out a tune like Adele or Pavarotti is not just about raw talent. The best singers in the world have to work on their technique—like how to control their breath and develop the stamina to hit note after note for a two-hour concert. But pop stars and opera singers aren’t the only vocalists who have figured out how to harness their voices for maximum impact.

Death metal vocalists also train their voices to hit that u...

It’s zombie season! At least if you’re watching the new season of the fungal thriller “The Last of Us,” airing right now on Max, which chronicles what happens after a fungus turns most of humanity into zombies.

It’s fiction for us, but for some organisms on the planet, it’s more like a documentary. The fungus that zombifies humanity in the show is based on Ophiocordyceps, a real fungal group that infects ants, takes over their brain...

Research suggests that better understanding the psychological and neurological components of chronic pain may lead to better treatments.

Chronic pain is remarkably common: Roughly 20% of adults in the US live with it. And people with chronic pain are more likely to have depression, anxiety, and substance abuse disorders. But this relationship between physical and mental health is not as straightforward as you might think, and there’...

Researchers isolated one kind of cone in the eye and aimed lasers at it to allow subjects to see a super vibrant teal shade they call “olo.”

Think about the colors of the world around you—the blue of a cloudless sky, the green of a new leaf, the blazing red of a tulip’s petals. We see these colors because of the way our eyes work. But what if we could change how our eyes respond to light, and present them with light in a form they’d...

How will market uncertainty and a lack of federal support for climate efforts affect the future of clean energy in the United States? Plus, many wetlands are disappearing, but Louisiana’s “accidental” Wax Lake Delta is growing—and informing coastal restoration techniques.

$8 Billion Of Climate Tech Projects Were Canceled In 3 Months

In the first three months of the Trump administration, officials have been aggressive in cancelling cl...

With the help of cat owners, a new project investigates cats’ biology and aims to link some of their behaviors to their genes.

Calling all cat people: This one’s for you. Despite humans’ long history of welcoming felines into their homes and delis, research on cats lags far behind research on dogs. Now, scientists behind the project Darwin’s Ark are working to close the cat gap by enlisting cat caretakers from across the country to ...

An evolving technology is changing the lives of people with paralysis: brain-computer interfaces (BCI). These are devices that are implanted in the brain and record neural activity, then translate those signals into commands for a computer. This allows people to type, play computer games, and talk with others just by thinking, allowing more freedom to communicate.

For decades, this technology has looked like a person controlling a c...

In Connecting Dots: A Blind Life, inventor Josh Miele recounts his life story and path to becoming an accessibility designer.

When inventor and scientist Josh Miele was 4 years old, a neighbor poured sulfuric acid on his head, burning and permanently blinding him. In his new book Connecting Dots: A Blind Life, Miele chronicles what happened afterwards, growing up as a blind kid, and how he built his career as an inventor and designe...

Are traffic engineering decisions based on evidence-based research? Not as much as you might think.

If you’ve seen a car crash on the side of the road, you might look at it and think that the person at fault is the driver. But how much blame should be shared by the people who designed those roads in the first place?

Well, some traffic engineers are calling for the field to accept more blame for the crashes and the tens of thousands o...

The Webb Space Telescope picked up traces of dimethyl sulfide on planet K2-18b. On Earth, the molecule comes from microbes and phytoplankton. Also, researchers captured the first confirmed video of a colossal squid swimming in its natural habitat—almost 2,000 feet deep.

Possible Signature Of Life Detected On Exoplanet—Maybe

In major galactic news, scientists may have detected possible signs of life on a planet right here in ...

Imagine you’re diving into a cell. You’re paddling around in the cytoplasm, you’re climbing up a mitochondria. If you’re having a hard time picturing this, that’s okay! There are professionals who do this for a living.

We wanted to learn more from expert science interpreters, who take the results section of a research paper and translate it into something tangible, like a 40-foot dinosaur skeleton or a 3D animation of cellular machi...

Bringing back Southwest peach orchards won’t be easy, but researchers are on the lookout for remaining trees—and they need help. And, the newly discovered Lokiceratops is challenging paleontologists’ understanding of how horned dinosaurs evolved and existed together. 

How A Navajo Plant Researcher Is Reviving A Desert Peach

When you think of states known for their peaches, Utah might not be at the top of your list. But there...

We are rounding up your questions about roads. What confounds you about traffic, or how interstates are laid out? Are there certain road design elements that ignite your road rage? Tell us about it: we’ve got a traffic engineer in the passenger seat this week, ready to answer your questions. Call us at (877) 4-SCIFRI or 877-472-4374.

In this episode, utterances like “um,” “wow,” and “mm-hmm” aren’t just fillers—they keep conversatio...

On Wednesday, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation heard testimony from Jared Isaacman, President Trump’s nominee to lead NASA. During the confirmation hearing, Isaacman indicated a priority of sending humans to Mars—while maintaining the agency’s plans to return people to the lunar surface.

In response to a question from Senator Ted Cruz, Isaacman said “I don’t think we have to make any tough trades here, Se...