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PODCAST

Science Friday

Science Friday, as heard on PRI, is a weekly discussion of the latest news in science, technology, health, and the environment hosted by Ira Flatow. Ira interviews scientists, authors, and policymakers, and listeners can call in and ask questions as well.

society & culture

All Episodes

26:18

1051: Are We Prepared To Fight ‘The New Polio’?

Science Friday ·

2025/06/06

A mysterious disease called acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) has been appearing in emergency rooms for about a decade. The disease has caused otherwise healthy children to lose the ability to move their arms and legs, and some become completely paralyzed. AFM is caused by a virus that's a cousin of the polio virus, earning it the nickname "the new polio.” Journalist and physician Eli Cahan joins Host Flora Lichtman to explain what doctors have been observing, the research efforts toward developing a

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19:43

1049: How Cannibalistic Tadpoles Could Curb Invasive...

Science Friday ·

2025/06/04

South American cane toads were brought to Australia in 1935 to help eradicate native beetles that were destroying sugar cane crops. The toads didn’t care much for the beetles, but they did spread across the coast of Queensland and beyond, with no natural predators to stop them. Their own deadly toxin devastated local reptiles along the way, and they now number over 200 million.Invasive biologists have long tried to curb Australia’s cane toad population. The newest approach uses CRISPR gene-editing

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20:52

1040: What Huge Cuts To NSF Funding Mean For Science

Science Friday ·

2025/05/30

Grant funding by the National Science Foundation has been cut by more than half this year, bringing the foundation’s science funding to its lowest level in decades. Katrina Miller, who covers science for the New York Times, joins Host Flora Lichtman to unpack the cutbacks and discuss where the funding changes might lead.And, the FDA has cleared a blood test to help diagnose Alzheimer’s disease. The first-of-its-kind test measures the levels of amyloid and tau proteins in a patient’s blood, two

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19:27

1035: Meet A Pioneer Of Modern Weather Prediction

Science Friday ·

2025/05/22

Climate scientist Jagadish Shukla grew up in a small village in rural India, where people starved if the monsoon season didn’t bring rain. To help his village, he set out to become a scientist and discover a way to predict the seasons—an unthinkable idea at the time, in the 1960s and ‘70s. Shukla became a pioneer in modern weather forecasting, and he tells his unlikely story in his new memoir, A Billion Butterflies: A Life in Climate and Chaos Theory. He talks with Host Flora Lichtman about his

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20:46

1034: Are Physical Buttons And Knobs Making A Comeback?

Science Friday ·

2025/05/21

In recent years, digital touchscreens have replaced many of the buttons and knobs that control various functions in cars. But when Host Ira Flatow went shopping for a new car, he noticed that physical controls seemed to be making a comeback. But will the rise of technologies like voice recognition and automation make cars more button-centric, or less? Ira talks with car ergonomics engineer James Forbes and buttonologist Rachel Plotnick about the advantages and disadvantages of the physical button or

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18:58

1033: Scientists Identify Genes For Tomato And...

Science Friday ·

2025/05/20

Tomatoes come in all kinds of colors, sizes, and flavors. But what’s going on at the genetic level? What makes a tomato red or yellow? Tiny or giant?Researchers are mapping the genomes of 22 varieties of nightshades—the family of plants that includes tomatoes, potatoes, and eggplants. They located the genes that control the size of tomatoes and eggplants and then used CRISPR gene editing to grow bigger fruits without sacrificing flavor. Geneticist Michael Schatz joins Host Ira Flatow to talk about

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28:53

1032: The Leap: The Volcano Whisperer

Science Friday ·

2025/05/19

As a teenager living in St. Vincent, Richie Robertson saw first-hand what a volcanic eruption did to life on the island. Forty years later, he was the scientist the community turned to when the same volcano roared back to life. Richie’s colleague, Stacey Edwards of the UWI Seismic Research Centre, explains how Richie earned the trust of the community, and why it was important to have a Vincentian leading the way in a crisis. Guests: Dr. Richard Robertson, geologist at the UWI Seismic Research

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17:44

1028: Designing Hyperrealistic Body Parts, From...

Science Friday ·

2025/05/13

Medical sculptor Damon Coyle walks around with a Mary Poppins bag of body parts. Fake ones, that is. At the University of Missouri, his lab creates hyperrealistic body parts designed to help medical providers practice for real-world surgeries and procedures. They make things like lifelike arms for practicing blood draws or a set of eyeballs for ocular trauma training. On stage in Columbia, Missouri, Damon talks with Host Flora Lichtman about how he creates these eerily realistic body parts and how

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27:18

1026: The Leap: I Was Considered A Nobody

Science Friday ·

2025/05/12

Biochemist Kati Karikó spent decades experimenting with mRNA, convinced that she could solve the problems that had kept it from being used as a therapeutic. Her tireless, methodical work was dismissed and she was ridiculed. But that work laid the foundation for the rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines that saved millions of lives, and was recognized by a Nobel Prize in 2023. Kati shares her secret weapon for dealing with stress and naysayers. Plus, neurologist David Langer describes Kati’s

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25:21

1027: Cuts To NASA And A Fast-Track For Deep Sea Mining

Science Friday ·

2025/05/09

Proposed budget cuts for NASA would jeopardize space research. And an executive order could change the political tides for deep sea mining.On May 2, the Trump Administration proposed a 24% budget cut for NASA. It would slash funding for science while setting billions aside for initiatives to send humans to the moon and Mars. New Scientist editor Sophie Bushwick joins us to talk about this, as well as other news in science, like how many U.S. cities are sinking, the search for geologic hydrogen

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19:07

1023: Ancient Iguanas Floated 5,000 Miles Across The...

Science Friday ·

2025/05/06

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 Desert. But far, far away from where these iguanas are found is another group of

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18:42

1022: Are There Things That We Know We Can’t Know?

Science Friday ·

2025/05/05

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 describes some of those concepts, and sketches out ways to try to wrap

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18:45

1019: A New Book On The Horrifying, Creative World Of...

Science Friday ·

2025/04/30

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 brains and bodies, and turns them into spore factories. But this isn’t

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20:52

1016: $8 Billion Of Climate Tech Projects Were...

Science Friday ·

2025/04/25

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 climate change related efforts, from enacting layoffs at large

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19:13

1014: Advances In Brain-Computer Interfaces For...

Science Friday ·

2025/04/23

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 cursor on a screen. But this work has advanced, and in a recent

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24:38

1011: Possible Signature Of Life Detected On...

Science Friday ·

2025/04/18

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 our galaxy. Is this one of the best hints we’ve gotten that alien life

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32:29

1009: The Navajo Researcher Reviving A Desert Peach |...

Science Friday ·

2025/04/16

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 is a variety—the Southwest peach—that grows in this arid landscape, and

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29:59

1004: What Artificial General Intelligence Could Mean...

Science Friday ·

2025/04/09

What happens when AI moves beyond convincing chatbots and custom image generators to something that matches—or outperforms—humans?Each week, tech companies trumpet yet another advance in artificial intelligence, from better chat services to image and video generators that spend less time in the uncanny valley. But the holy grail for AI companies is known as AGI, or artificial general intelligence—a technology that can meet or outperform human capabilities on any number of tasks, not just chat or

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16:38

1003: Climate Change Has Made Allergy Season Worse....

Science Friday ·

2025/04/08

In many parts of the United States, spring has sprung. There’s nothing quite like those first few beautiful days of spring. They’re delightful—until the sneezing starts.According to the CDC, a quarter of US adults deal with seasonal allergies. And if you think they’re getting worse, it’s not just in your head. Previous research has shown that climate change is making pollen seasons start earlier and become more intense, a problem that’s expected to get worse. Joining Host Ira Flatow to discuss the

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18:00

1002: Microdosing Peanut Butter Could Alleviate Some...

Science Friday ·

2025/04/07

Over the past two decades, rates of peanut allergies in children have more than tripled. A variety of theories has been proposed to explain this, from a rise in industrialization keeping kids away from the germs that develop the immune system, to the previous pediatric guidelines that urged parents to restrict access to peanuts early in life. Whatever the cause, higher rates of peanut allergies means effective treatments are in higher demand. New research published in NEJM Evidence shows that a

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716 results

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