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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

47:02

Historic Big Bang Debate, Black Hole Sounds, Plant...

Science Friday ·

2022/01/14

A Debate Over How The Universe Began Even though it’s commonly accepted today, the Big Bang theory was not always the universally accepted scientific explanation for how our universe began. In fact, the term ‘Big Bang’ was coined by a prominent physicist in 1948 to mock the idea. In the middle of the 20th century, researchers in the field of cosmology had two warring theories. The one we would come to call the Big Bang suggested the universe expanded rapidly from a primordial, hot, and ultra-dense

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48:45

Omicron And Kids, Ivermectin Origins, Icefish Nests....

Science Friday ·

2022/01/14

A Replacement Heart, From A Pig This week, doctors reported that they had successfully transplanted a heart taken from a pig into a human being, a type of procedure known as xenotransplantation. The pig had been genetically modified to lack a certain protein thought to be responsible for organ rejection in previous transplant attempts. The patient, a 57 year-old man, will be monitored for any sign of rejection or infection with a porcine virus—but doctors are hopeful that the work will lead to

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48:28

Omicron News, COVID Severity Questions, Bird Count....

Science Friday ·

2022/01/07

Omicron Variant Drives Winter COVID Surge The United States set a global record this week, recording roughly one million new coronavirus tests in a single day. The current surge in cases is mostly driven by Omicron. The highly contagious variant accounted for about 95% of new cases last week. And, to top it all off, tests are in short supply, the CDC changed its quarantine guidelines, and some schools have returned to remote learning. Virologist Angela Rasmussen joins Ira to help make sense of the

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54:51

Pizza Science, Remembering E.O. Wilson And Richard...

Science Friday ·

2022/01/07

How A Former Microsoft Exec Mastered The Perfect Slice—Using Science Who doesn’t love pizza? It’s a magical combination of sauce, cheese, crust, and maybe even a topping or two. Depending on where you eat it, the ratio of sauce and cheese and toppings changes: Neapolitan, NY Style, and Chicago Deep Dish each have a slightly different recipe. And different methods of baking impart their signature flavor on the end result—whether that’s coal, wood, or gas-fired ovens. Nearly every country in the

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49:08

Celebration Of Weird Ice, Non-Melting Jelly, Former...

Science Friday ·

2021/12/31

From the Arctic To Enceladus: A Celebration Of Unusual Ice With the Arctic’s annual summer ice cover hovering at record lows; and a new record low in global sea ice coverage recorded earlier this year; and a large crack threatening the collapse of a large ice shelf in Antarctica, it can feel like the news about earth’s polar ice caps is all bad. But for researchers who spend time in the frigid polar seas, ice is also a beautiful and unique phenomenon. Ever heard of frazil ice? How about pancake

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48:36

Best Science Books Of 2021, Glitter Bad For...

Science Friday ·

2021/12/31

Glitter Gets An Eco-Friendly Glimmer Glitter—it’s everywhere this time of year. You open up a holiday card, and out comes a sprinkle of it. And that glitter will seemingly be with you forever, hugging your sweater, covering the floor. But glitter doesn’t stop there. It washes down the drain, and travels into the sewage system and waterways. Since it's made from microplastics, it’s never going away. As it turns out, all that glitters is not gold—or even biodegradable. But what if you could make

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48:44

Looking Back On A Century Of Science, Holiday Math....

Science Friday ·

2021/12/24

Looking Back On A Century of Science In 1921, the discovery of radium was just over 20 years in the past. And the double helix of DNA was still over thirty years in the future. That year, a publication that came to be the magazine Science News started publication, and is still in operation today. Editors Nancy Shute and Elizabeth Quill join Ira to page through the magazine’s archives, with over 80,000 articles covering a century of science—from the possibilities of atomic energy to discussions of

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49:22

American Chestnut, ‘Don’t Look Up’ Movie, Aurora...

Science Friday ·

2021/12/24

The Resurrection Of The American Chestnut At the turn of the 20th century, the American chestnut towered over other trees in forests along the eastern seaboard. These giants could grow up to 100 feet high and 13 feet wide. According to legend, a squirrel could scamper from New England to Georgia on the canopies of American chestnuts, never touching the ground. Then the trees began to disappear, succumbing to a mysterious fungus. The fungus first appeared in New York City in 1904—and it spread

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49:20

Big Trees, Masks And Singing, Capturing Holiday...

Science Friday ·

2021/12/17

Big Trees, Big Benefits When you think about big trees, likely what comes to mind are some of the Earth’s biggest trees, like giant sequoias or redwoods, which can grow to roughly 25 stories tall. But big trees are actually an essential part of every forest ecosystem. Big trees capture a disproportionate share of carbon, provide important animal habitats, propel new tree growth and provide much needed shade. The largest one percent of trees or those which measure roughly 2 feet or larger in

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49:08

James Webb Space Telescope, Vaccination And Church,...

Science Friday ·

2021/12/17

A Spike In Winter COVID Cases Begins The United States reached a grim milestone this week: 800,000 total deaths from COVID-19. A winter spike in COVID cases is beginning across the country. And Omicron is making up an increasing share of new cases. Early data shows that the new variant is likely more transmissible than previous ones. Joining guest host John Dankosky to discuss this and other science news this week is Rachel Feltman, Executive Editor of Popular Science and host of the podcast, The

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47:37

Vocal Fry, Indigenous Tribes And The Colorado River,...

Science Friday ·

2021/12/10

The Why Of Vocal Fry For decades, vocal fry lived a relatively quiet existence. A creaky or breathy sound that occurs when your voice drops to its lowest register, this phenomenon was long known to linguists, speech pathologists, and voice coaches—but everyday people didn’t pay much attention to it. Then in 2011, people started noticing it everywhere. So, what happened? What’s going on in our vocal chords when we fry? And why does it bother so many people so very much? “Science Diction” host

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48:00

Michael Pollan On Mind-Altering Plants, A Second...

Science Friday ·

2021/12/10

How America Is Preparing For Another Pandemic Winter The weather is getting colder, the days are getting shorter, and the world is approaching the two year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic. Like last year, experts are wary that a winter surge in cases could happen again this year, even with the protection of vaccinations. The Biden administration is trying to get ahead of this possibility, especially as the Omicron variant looms. A new plan prioritizing booster shots and testing has been

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48:51

Omicron Variant, Quantum Computing, Xenobots, SciFri...

Science Friday ·

2021/12/03

Decoding Quantum Computing The computer chips that are delivering these words to you work on a simple, binary, on/off principle. There’s either a voltage, or there’s not. The ‘bits’ encoded by the presence or absence of electrons form the basis for much of our online world. Now, physicists and engineers are working to create systems based on the strange rules of quantum physics—in which quantum bits can exist simultaneously in a range of possible states, and two separated bits can be linked

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49:03

Ralph Nader On 55 Years Of Car Safety, Spinal Cord...

Science Friday ·

2021/12/03

Travel Bans Do Little To Slow Spread Of Omicron After South African researchers first detected the new COVID variant Omicron last week, it’s already been found in dozens of countries around the world, including in the United States. Travel restrictions imposed by the Biden administration and others have done little to slow its spread. Instead, experts say that increasing global vaccination rates is critical to stopping future troubling mutations from occurring and spreading. In other news,

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47:59

Futuristic Freezing, Koji, Cheese Microbiome,...

Science Friday ·

2021/11/26

New Cold Storage Method Solves Freezer Burn—And Saves Energy Have you ever pulled a long-anticipated pint of ice cream out of the freezer, only to find the strawberries crunchy and the normally creamy substance chalky and caked with ice? Freezer burn, a phenomenon caused by water in food crystallizing into ice inside the ice cream or fruit or meat during freezing, is a menace to taste buds, a driver of food waste, and even damages some of the nutritional benefits of food. And it’s always a risk as

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49:48

Candy COVID Test, Ig Nobel Prizes 2021. November 26,...

Science Friday ·

2021/11/26

A More Delicious COVID Screener One of the most bizarre symptoms of COVID-19—a nearly surefire way to know if you have been infected—is a loss of taste or smell. Estimates of how many people are impacted range wildly, with the highest estimates reaching 75 to 80% of COVID-19 survivors. There’s still a lot scientists don’t understand about why this happens and what part of the olfactory system or brain is actually responsible for this change. Researchers at Ohio State University are trying to figure

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50:20

Thanksgiving Food Science, Force of Infection, Food...

Science Friday ·

2021/11/19

Blunting The Force Of Disease Is Complicated COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective at preventing severe disease. But their efficacy in lab-controlled trials may not exactly correlate to how well they work in the real world. David Kaslow, chief scientific officer at the global public health nonprofit PATH, explains that a factor known as the “force of infection” plays a role in determining how well vaccines work. The force of infection describes the attack rate of a pathogen—the amount of time it

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50:00

Picking Right COVID Test For Holidays, “Big Bang...

Science Friday ·

2021/11/19

Here’s How Biden’s Infrastructure Bill Addresses Science President Joe Biden signed a massive bipartisan infrastructure bill into law this Monday. The measure focuses on a range of sectors. It would funnel billions into cleaning up pollution in the air and water with efforts that include eliminating lead service lines and cleaning up old, polluted manufacturing sites. The bill will also invest $7.5 billion to create a large-scale network of electric vehicle chargers across the country. In other big

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53:55

Mammoth Pool Fire, Fun Squirrel Facts, Soil...

Science Friday ·

2021/11/12

As Wildfire Intensity Rises, So Does The Human Toll Of Blazes It was Labor Day 2020, and Mammoth Pool Reservoir, in California’s Sierra Nevada, was buzzing with campers. Karla Carcamo and her parents, siblings, cousins, and countless others, mostly from the Los Angeles area, have been coming here every Labor Day for 17 years. “Most of it is my family, and family that’s invited family, and those family friends have invited friends of theirs,” she says. “I’m telling you, we have over 200

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48:35

Psychedelics Can Treat Depression, Climate Meeting,...

Science Friday ·

2021/11/12

Psilocybin Effective In Treating Serious Depression Depression is often treatable with medication, therapy, or a combination of the two. But some 30% of patients don’t respond well to existing medications—and may try multiple antidepressant drugs with little or no improvement. This week, researchers reported that a new trial suggests psychedelics may be an effective therapy for treatment-resistant depression. A randomized, controlled, double-blind trial found that people with treatment-resistant

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