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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

47:40

Medieval Bones, Bird Ancestors And Dinosaurs. August...

Science Friday ·

2021/08/27

A Skeletal Record Of Medieval England Society Whether you like it or not, a record of your life is constantly being chronicled. No, not through the internet or on social media—through your bones. If you’ve ever fractured a bone, that skeletal trauma stays with you forever, even after it heals. So researchers across the pond are using bones from medieval times to put together a picture of what life was like. The bones in the study came from ordinary people in medieval Cambridge in the United

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48:12

Pfizer Vaccine Approval, Making Solar Power For...

Science Friday ·

2021/08/27

Pfizer’s Vaccine Is Now Fully Approved. What’s Next For The Pandemic? This week, the COVID-19 vaccine marketed by Pfizer finally received full FDA approval, moving out of the realm of “emergency use” to the status of a regular drug. In the wake of that change, many organizations—from the Pentagon to Ohio State University to the city of Chicago—are moving to require vaccinations against the coronavirus. It remains to be seen just how much the status change will move the needle on vaccination

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48:03

Third Thumb, Nostalgia, Orcas. Aug 20, 2021, Part 2

Science Friday ·

2021/08/20

You, Too, Can Be All Thumbs. Or At Least Three. Take a look at your hand and fingers—and imagine that instead of five digits, you had an additional thumb, approximately opposite your natural thumb. Researchers at University College London built what they call the “Third Thumb”—a flexible, 3D-printed prosthetic device, controlled by pressure on sensors under the wearer’s big toes.The researchers studied how people wearing the thumb adapted their mental models of the world to incorporate their new,

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47:26

Delta Variant in Kids, Myers-Briggs Personality Test,...

Science Friday ·

2021/08/20

Why The Delta Variant Will Make More Kids Sick As cases of the highly contagious Delta variant of COVID-19 continue to spike around the U.S., children are one of the hardest-hit groups. As children under 12 remain ineligible for vaccination, they and other unvaccinated groups are facing the highest rates of infection and hospitalization of the entire pandemic. Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control announced Wednesday that adults in the general population would be eligible for a third booster

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46:36

Elephantquakes and Margaret Atwood. August 13, 2021,...

Science Friday ·

2021/08/13

A Stomp, A Roar, An Elephantquake? An adult African elephant, the largest land animal on Earth, can weigh as much as two tons. Their activities—walking, playing, even bellowing—might shake the ground beneath them. But research in the journal Current Biology finds that the signals from an elephant’s walk are capable of traveling as far as three kilometers, while a roaring bull, or male elephant, might be detectable a full six kilometers away with just seismological monitoring tools. Biologist Beth

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47:09

Electric Fish Communication, Science Crimes, Lighting...

Science Friday ·

2021/08/13

This Fish Is The Master Of The Poignant Pause When listening to a well-practiced speaker, like during a lecture, a political event or during a favorite public radio show, you may notice they use pauses for dramatic effect. This type of nuance in communication may seem distinctly human, but we’re not the only species that takes advantage of pauses in speech to make a point. Enter the electric fish: It discharges electric pulses nearly constantly, which tells other fish basic identifying

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48:06

Bad Data, CRISPR Therapies, Wildfire Impact,...

Science Friday ·

2021/08/06

How Imperfect Data Leads Us Astray Datasets are increasingly shaping important decisions, from where companies target their advertising, to how governments allocate resources. But what happens when the data they rely on is wrong or incomplete? Ira talks to technologist Kasia Chmielinski, as they test drive an algorithm that predicts a person’s race or ethnicity based on just a few details, like their name and zip code, the Bayseian Improved Surname Geocoding algorithm (BISG). You can check out one

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47:43

Infrastructure Package, Covid News, Line3 Pipeline....

Science Friday ·

2021/08/06

President Biden’s Infrastructure Bill Sees The End Of The Road President Biden’s huge infrastructure bill is finally seeing the end of the road. The nearly 2,000 page bill covers infrastructure improvements—everything from roads to broadband. The package also includes funding for projects that would build up the country’s climate change resilience. Some climate change experts say the budget doesn’t go far enough and other analysis says the bill would not pay for itself. Umair Irfan, staff writer at

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49:14

Gut Fungi, Olympic Challenges, Planetary Seismology....

Science Friday ·

2021/07/30

Getting To Know The Fungus Among Us (In Our Guts) Your gut microbiome is composed of more than bacteria—a less populous, but still important, resident is fungi. Many people’s lower digestive tract is home to the yeast Candida albicans, the species implicated in vaginal yeast infections and oral thrush. But new research published in the scientific journal Nature this month suggests that Candida in the gut may also be related to severe cases of inflammatory bowel disease, or IBD. Candida comes in

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48:04

New CDC Mask Rules, Viral Persistence, Disaster...

Science Friday ·

2021/07/30

With Delta Rising, New Rules On Masks And Vaccines This week, the CDC released new guidelines for mask use in the U.S., just months after many cities and towns relaxed mask mandates. The guidance says that “to reduce their risk of becoming infected with the Delta variant and potentially spreading it to others: CDC recommends that fully vaccinated people wear a mask in public indoor settings if they are in an area of substantial or high transmission.” Right now, many parts of the country fall under

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48:19

Shellfish Deaths, Chemical Safety, Humpback Songs....

Science Friday ·

2021/07/23

Billions Of Sea Creatures, Lost To Heat Waves A couple weeks ago, the Pacific Northwest saw record-breaking temperatures. News coverage captured countless people suffering, and dying, during triple-digit heat the region had never seen before. Portland and Seattle reached their highest temperatures ever recorded. Canada set a new record for the highest temperature ever seen in the country with a measurement of 118 degrees Fahrenheit in British Columbia. However, there are still more victims of the

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48:32

Surgeon General, Blockchain. July 23, 2021, Part 1

Science Friday ·

2021/07/23

Flooding Worldwide Fits Climate Change Models While the western United States is burning again this summer, other parts of the world are drowning. Germany, Belgium, and China saw floods this week after intense rainstorms that dropped many inches of rain in matters of hours, killing hundreds and displacing thousands. In Turkey and Nigeria, less deadly rain events throughout July have still flooded streets and destroyed homes. And as climate change continues around the globe, scientists say these

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48:23

Songbird Mystery, Sweat, Betelgeuse. July 16, 2021,...

Science Friday ·

2021/07/16

Songbirds Suffer Mystery Illness From The East Coast To The Midwest The reports started in late May: Songbirds in Washington, D.C. and neighboring regions were being found dead, often with swollen and crusty eyes. In the days that followed, similar sightings came from many states, including Kentucky, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. Now, the symptoms have been seen as far west as Indiana—but wildlife experts still aren’t sure what’s causing the deaths. The illness has affected many species,

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47:27

New Battery Technology, COVID Rise From Unvaccinated...

Science Friday ·

2021/07/16

Research For New Battery Technology Is Gaining Steam As countries around the world set their goals for decarbonizing their economies, it’s becoming clear that batteries may play a pivotal role in smoothing out the peaks and valleys of solar and wind power productions, as well as driving a shift to electric vehicles, and providing power for other parts of our lives. Lithium-ion batteries are now the standard. They run electric cars and power your laptop and cell phone. But they have major drawbacks,

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47:24

John McPhee’s Annals Of The Former World. July 9,...

Science Friday ·

2021/07/09

Writing, Like Geology, Requires A Little Digging When author John McPhee first considered the piece of writing that would become his 1998 book, Annals of the Former World, he envisioned a short, un-bylined article in The New Yorker, in which he would visit a road cut on Route 80—a piece that could probably be completed in a few days. Instead, that idea became a 700-page coast to coast exploration of the geology of North America, a project that took over 20 years to complete. In this archival

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48:19

African Wild Dogs, Spotted Lanternfly, Seashells....

Science Friday ·

2021/07/02

Sniffing Out How To Save African Wild Dogs One of the most endangered mammals on Earth, African wild dogs are known for their oversized ears, social bonds, and highly efficient hunting style. That predatory nature is now contributing to their threatened status, as their territory in sub-Saharan Africa increasingly overlaps with human farmers, who often use poison or other lethal deterrents to protect their livestock from wild dogs and other predators. Producer Christie Taylor talks to carnivore

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47:51

Garden Hotline, Benjamin Franklin. July 2, 2021, Part 2

Science Friday ·

2021/07/02

The Science Of Your Summer Vegetable Garden Planting and tending to a vegetable garden is both an art and a science. If all goes well, you’ll be enjoying delicious homemade salads all summer long. But if your tomatoes get too little water, or if the soil is too acidic, or if pests get to the lettuce before you do, then all that hard work may have been for nothing. Whether you’re a seasoned grower or first-time gardener, it’s never a bad idea to hear what the experts have to say. Years ago there was

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47:45

Extreme Heat, COVID Delta Variant, Poe’s Science....

Science Friday ·

2021/07/02

The Alarming Impacts Of Extreme Heat This week, the Pacific Northwest was hit by a record breaking heat wave, with temperatures rising as high as 116 degrees Fahrenheit in Portland, Oregon. Experts say of all the extreme weather events brought on by climate change and heat waves stand to do the most damage to the environment, infrastructure, and human health. Umair Irfan, staff writer for Vox, joins Ira to share more about the alarming impacts of such extreme heat. Plus, as record-breaking heat

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47:39

Cephalopod Week Wrap Up, California Carbon Credits...

Science Friday ·

2021/06/25

California’s Climate Program Is Actually Adding Carbon To The Atmosphere California has a reputation as the state that’s doing the most about climate change. And the lynchpin of those efforts is California’s Cap-and-Trade program, where the state’s biggest polluters—like ExxonMobil, BP, and others—are required to offset their carbon dioxide emissions by investing in carbon reduction strategies. But according to a recent investigation by ProPublica and others, this climate solution is actually

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47:47

UFO Report, Animal Play, Alzheimers and Music. June...

Science Friday ·

2021/06/25

Is The Truth About UFOs Out There? Over the past several years, U.S. Navy pilots have reported several instances of ”unexplained aerial phenomena” while in flight. They’ve recorded videos that show shapes that appear to move in unusual ways, zooming and turning in ways beyond the capabilities of our own aircraft. After several members of Congress requested an explanation for the videos, the government put together a report on the phenomena. The report, however, doesn’t definitively answer the

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