How do we use art to process the world around us in ways that science can’t? How are illustrators using their skills to help us understand nature’s most unusual creatures? On Universe of Art, a new podcast from Science Friday, hosted by SciFri producer and art nerd D Peterschmidt, we bring you some of our favorite arts stories from the show, some new ones too, and conversations with the producers who made those segments. We’ll hear from astronomers who integrate space into their artwork, drag pe...
Apr 22, 2023•23 min•Ep. 575
An Explosive End For A Massive Rocket This week, SpaceX attempted the first uncrewed orbital test flight of its massive Super Heavy rocket topped with an experimental crew capsule known as Starship. After one aborted launch earlier in the week, the huge rocket successfully lifted off Thursday morning—but minutes later, the Starship component failed to separate from the Super Heavy booster, and the combined rocket stack exploded . While a setback for the team, SpaceX head Elon Musk said that a lo...
Apr 21, 2023•47 min•Ep. 574
How We Arrived At Current Standards Of Care For Trans Medicine So far this year, 16 states have moved to restrict or completely ban transgender kids access to gender affirming care. And 17 other states are considering similar laws, a handful even trying to restrict care for adults. This political controversy has drawn increased attention to “Standards of Care,” a set of guidelines written by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health or WPATH. Health professionals are encouraged t...
Apr 21, 2023•47 min•Ep. 573
Is Anybody Out There? The Quest For Life In Space It’s one of humanity’s biggest fundamental questions: “Is there life elsewhere in the universe?” But despite years of searching, it’s a query that still has no answer. That conundrum also opens up a whole string of other inquiries, from how to best search for signs of life, to whether we’ll be able to make sense of what we’re seeing. The search for life elsewhere can also help us learn about our own existence. How many of what we consider the bas...
Apr 14, 2023•48 min•Ep. 572
EPA Proposal To Require 60% Of New Cars To Be EVs by 2030 The EPA released a set of proposals this week that would cap C02 emissions for new cars. In order to meet the new stricter targets automakers would need to ramp up electric vehicle manufacturing substantially. By 2030, 60% of new cars would need to be electric. Ira talks with Casey Crownhart, Climate Reporter for the MIT Technology Review, about the new EPA emissions proposals and other top science news of the week including predictions o...
Apr 14, 2023•48 min•Ep. 571
An Open Letter Asks AI Researchers To Reconsider Responsibilities In recent months, it’s been hard to escape hearing about artificial intelligence platforms such as ChatGPT, the AI-enabled version of Bing, and Google’s Bard—large language models skilled at manipulating words and constructing text. The programs can conduct a believable conversation and answer questions fluently, but have a tenuous grasp on what’s real, and what’s not. Last week, the Future of Life Institute released an open lette...
Apr 07, 2023•48 min•Ep. 570
Your Plants Are Trying to Tell You They’re Thirsty Spring is in the air, with flowers blooming and gardens starting. Most people with a green thumb will know a droopy plant is a signal that it needs water. But new research has found another way that plants will signal that they’re thirsty: emitting staccato popping sounds, too high pitched for the human ears . Elsewhere in the world of science journalism, an argument has been made that elephants have self-domesticated. If true, this would make t...
Apr 07, 2023•47 min•Ep. 569
Sewage Is A Biological Necessity, And A Methane Minefield In most cities, once you flush a toilet, the water and waste flows through the sewage system to a water treatment plant. Once it’s there, it goes through a series of chemical and biological processes which clean it up and make the water safe to drink again. But a recent paper in the journal Environmental Science & Technology finds that some of those sewage plants may be having a greater impact on the climate than previously thought. T...
Mar 31, 2023•47 min•Ep. 568
A Supermassive Black Hole The Mass Of 30 Billion Suns This week, astronomers reported that they may have found signs of one of the largest black holes ever detected –a space behemoth the mass of some 30 billion suns. The supermassive black hole, located in part of the Abell 1201 galaxy cluster, was detected using a combination of gravitational lensing and supercomputer simulations. First, the astronomers observed how the images of other more distant objects viewed by the Hubble Space Telescope w...
Mar 31, 2023•47 min•Ep. 567
Can Medicine Move To Animal-Free Testing? Before a new drug can begin clinical trials in humans, it gets tested on animals. But things are changing. Late last year, Congress passed the FDA Modernization Act 2.0, which cleared the way for new drugs to skip animal testing. Can we expect to phase out animal testing altogether? Is it safe? And what technologies might make that possible? Guest host Flora Lichtman talks with Dr. Thomas Hartung, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Alternatives to ...
Mar 24, 2023•47 min•Ep. 566
The Latest IPCC Report Is Full Of Warnings—And Hope It’s that time of year: another IPCC report has hit the presses. These reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are like a check up—to let us know how we’re doing on the climate front and what Earth’s future is projected to look like. And to no one’s surprise, this year’s report is full of warnings. But also, it has a lot of room for hope. Maggie Koerth, senior science writer at FiveThirtyEight , joins guest host Charles Bergq...
Mar 24, 2023•48 min•Ep. 565
Stop Flushing Your Health Data Down The Toilet You could be flushing important information about your health right down the toilet—quite literally. Pee and poop can tell you a lot about your health, so what if your waste…didn’t go to waste? What if, instead, it could tell you more about your health? Like number one, it can catch a condition like diabetes early. Or number two, check out what’s going on in your gut microbiome. That’s the goal of the smart toilet—a device that gets all up in your b...
Mar 17, 2023•47 min•Ep. 564
At Long Last, More Regulations For Forever Chemicals This week, the EPA proposed the first national standards for drinking water that would set limits on the amount of PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) chemicals that would be allowed in water systems. There are thousands of different PFAS chemicals, which are often used industrially for properties such as heat, water and stain resistance—from fire-fighting foams to coatings on clothing and paper plates. They have come to be known as “fo...
Mar 17, 2023•47 min•Ep. 563
Tips And Tricks To Grow Your Garden In A Changing Climate For many of us, spring is right around the corner—or already here—which means it’s time to start thinking about what is going into your garden this year. But largely thanks to climate change, our seasons are getting wonkier every year. Gardens are feeling the heat as climate change affects the timing of the seasons, temperature extremes, the amount of rainfall, the intensity of droughts, and more. So it’s more important than ever to plant...
Mar 10, 2023•48 min•Ep. 562
Despite Superconductor Breakthrough, Some Scientists Remain Skeptical This week, researchers unveiled a new superconductor which they say works at room temperature . Scientists have been working on identifying new superconductors for decades—materials that can transmit electricity without friction-like resistance. However, previously discovered superconductors only work at super cold temperatures, and under incredibly high pressures. The newly discovered superconductor, lutetium, could be much m...
Mar 10, 2023•48 min•Ep. 561
Insulin Maker Eli Lilly Finally Caps The Drug’s Cost In 1923, drug manufacturer Eli Lilly became the first company to commercialize insulin. Since then, its cost has skyrocketed. But this week, the company announced that it is capping the cost of insulin at $35. This comes as a huge relief to many Americans, since insulin has become the face of pharmaceutical price gouging. Over the last 20 years, the price of insulin has grown by six times, making this essential, life-saving drug unaffordable t...
Mar 03, 2023•47 min•Ep. 560
Inside The ‘Chaos Machine’ Of Social Media Despite social media’s early promises to build a more just and democratic society, over the past several years, we’ve seen its propensity to easily spread hate speech, misinformation and disinformation. Online platforms have even played a role in organizing violent acts in the real world, like genocide against the Rohinga people in Myanmar, and the violent attempt to overturn the election at the United States capitol. But how did we get here? Has social...
Mar 03, 2023•48 min•Ep. 559
A Medication Abortion Drug Faces Potential Nationwide Restriction A federal court case underway in Texas this week could have big implications for medication based abortion care across the U.S. The case involves the FDA’s approval of the drug mifepristone, which is used as part of a two-drug combination in most medication abortions. The plaintiffs in the case are arguing that the FDA went against its own guidelines regarding drug safety when it approved the medication in 2000, though the overwhe...
Feb 24, 2023•48 min•Ep. 558
‘All That Breathes:’ A Story Of Two Brothers Saving New Delhi’s Raptors The Oscars are right around the corner, and one of the nominees in the documentary category is called “All That Breathes.” It tells the story of two brothers—Nadeem and Saud—who dedicate their lives to rescuing black kites, a type of raptor that dominates the skies of New Delhi. Since they were children, the brothers have rescued more than 25,000 of these birds, who are quite literally falling out of the thick, polluted, haz...
Feb 24, 2023•48 min•Ep. 557
Eyes In The Sky: The Science Behind Modern Balloons This month, the news cycle has been dominated by updates about suspicious objects being detected in the stratosphere. This bonanza started with a balloon from China, and escalated as four more objects—not all confirmed as balloons— have been shot down from the sky. Although this might sound like a new problem, there are probably thousands of balloons floating above us—some for spying, others for exploring near space, or studying weather pattern...
Feb 17, 2023•47 min•Ep. 556
UFOs? Balloons? Spy Cams? Here’s What’s Going On This week, the saga over UFOs, balloons, and spyware continues. The drama all started with a Chinese surveillance balloon, and then—one by one—governments kept finding others in the U.S. and Canada. Earlier this week, President Biden announced, “We don’t know yet exactly what these three objects were. But nothing right now suggests they are related to China’s spy balloon program or that they were surveillance vehicles from any other country.” So w...
Feb 17, 2023•48 min•Ep. 555
Rethinking The Future Of Dementia Care Scientists estimate that the number of people living with dementia will triple within the next 30 years , but healthcare systems, policies, and public health measures in the US aren’t prepared to accommodate this growing population. This week, we’re digging into dementia care, and taking listener calls live. Alzheimer’s is the leading cause of dementia. Ira talks with Dr. Suman Jayadev, a neurogeneticist at the University of Washington School of Medicine, a...
Feb 10, 2023•46 min•Ep. 554
How Scientists Predict Where Earthquakes Will Strike Next The pair of earthquakes that hit Turkey and Syria this week left the region grappling with death and destruction. Despite the region being seismically active, this particular area hadn’t seen an earthquake of this size for decades. There are ways of knowing where the next big earthquakes will happen —but not when. Scientists use knowledge of fault lines and historical data to make their predictions, but saving areas from mass casualties o...
Feb 10, 2023•46 min•Ep. 553
How Grief Rewires The Brain Being a human can be a wonderful thing. We’re social creatures, craving strong bonds with family and friends. Those relationships can be the most rewarding parts of life. But having strong relationships also means the possibility of experiencing loss. Grief is one of the hardest things people go through in life. Those who have lost a loved one know the feeling of overwhelming sadness and heartache that seems to well up from the very depths of the body. To understand w...
Feb 03, 2023•47 min•Ep. 552
Wind And Solar Were Europe’s Top Energy Sources In 2022 The European Union reached a major renewable energy milestone in 2022. For the first time, wind and solar generated more energy in the European Union than any other power source . Ira talks with science writer Roxanne Khamsi about Europe’s energy future and other top science stories of the week, including deer harboring old COVID strains, an endangered marsupial who’s losing a lot of sleep in search of sex, and why mammals live longer in gr...
Feb 03, 2023•47 min•Ep. 551
Meet The Blind Birder Reimagining Accessibility In The Outdoors For many blind and low vision people, accessing outdoor spaces like parks can be challenging. Trails are often unsafe or difficult to navigate, signs don’t usually have Braille, guides generally aren’t trained to help disabled visitors, and so on. But nature recordist Juan Pablo Culasso, based in Bogata, Colombia, is changing that. He’s designed a system of fully accessible trails in the cloud forests of southwest Colombia that are ...
Jan 27, 2023•47 min•Ep. 550
What’s Behind The Strange Slowing Of The Earth’s Core? Even though some days feel more chaotic than others, the rotation of the surface of the planet proceeds at a pretty constant rate—about one full rotation every 24 hours. But the rotational speed of the inner core is less stable, and has been known to shift over time. Now, researchers are reporting in the journal Nature Geoscience that according to seismic data, the Earth’s inner core may have recently paused its rotation, and could even go o...
Jan 27, 2023•47 min•Ep. 549
Why Are Gas Stoves Under Fire? If you were online at all last week, you probably encountered conversations about gas stoves. The sudden stove discourse was sparked by a comment made by a commissioner on the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) to a Bloomberg reporter, in which the commissioner discussed plans to regulate gas stoves. Those comments morphed via repetition into inaccurate rumors of an impending ban on stoves fueled by ‘natural gas,’ or methane, currently used in around 38% of...
Jan 20, 2023•47 min•Ep. 548
Why Are Children’s Antibiotics So Hard To Find Right Now? Mary Warlo has been extremely worried lately. Her baby Calieb, who is six months old, has sickle cell disease. In early December he went for a few days without liquid penicillin, a medication that he—and thousands of other children in the U.S.—rely on to prevent potentially life threatening infections. Warlo couldn’t easily find a pharmacy in Indianapolis that had the medicine in stock. She and her husband frantically drove around for hou...
Jan 20, 2023•47 min•Ep. 547
Technology Trends to Watch in 2023 The start of a new year is often a time to contemplate the future and what might lie ahead on the horizon. This week, the magazine MIT Technology Review unveiled its annual list of 10 technologies to watch—innovations that it thinks are on the verge of rapid adoption or causing significant cultural changes, or already in the process of creating such a shift. This year’s list includes items from the amazing astronomy enabled by JWST , to the ‘inevitable’ electri...
Jan 13, 2023•47 min•Ep. 546
