Science Friday

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 physicist F...

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 Dormant and How They...

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 ...

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 for nearly 10...

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 the New York Botanical Garden, jo...

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 ‘technosignatures’. These...

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 and Stephanie Jones. 

Guest...

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 treatment. 

So what are we...

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 treating celiac disease. 

G...

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 admission from a top lab t...

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 Americas.

Joining Flora to tal...

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 playing out along Hawaiʻi&...

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, a pacemaker smaller than a ...

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? Flora gets some answers with t...

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 the p...

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 hominid fossils, including the bone...

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 these historical losses ...

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, carnivore ecolog...

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 cause debilitating chron...