Sharks are somewhat notorious for their sense of smell and ability to sniff out prey deep in the ocean. There’s that persistent myth that sharks can smell a drop of human blood from a mile away. But that’s not exactly true. While sharks can smell human blood, they are more interested in sniffing out what’s for dinner: other fish, crustaceans, and molluscs. Ocean currents also play a role in how far a scent can travel. However, shark noses are just as powerful as any other fish in the sea. SciFri...
Feb 28, 2024•18 min•Ep. 717
How can some people recall random facts so easily? It may have to do with what else they remember about the moment they learned the information. Also, in Kenya, an invading ant species pushed out ants that protected acacia trees. That had cascading effects for elephants, zebras, lions, and buffalo. A ‘Jeopardy!’ Winner Studied How Trivia Experts Recall Facts When contestants play “Jeopardy!,” it can be amazing to see how quickly they seem to recall even the most random, obscure facts. One multi-...
Feb 27, 2024•25 min•Ep. 714
OpenAI, the company behind the chatbot ChatGPT and the image generator DALL-E, unveiled its newest generative AI product last week, called Sora , which can produce extremely realistic video from just a text prompt. In one example released by the company, viewers follow a drone’s-eye view of a couple walking hand-in-hand through snowy Tokyo streets. In another, a woman tosses and turns in bed as her cat paws at her. Unless you’re an eagle-eyed AI expert, it’s nearly impossible to distinguish thes...
Feb 26, 2024•17 min•Ep. 716
Private Spacecraft Makes Historic Moon Landing Thursday evening, the Odysseus moon lander successfully soft-landed on the moon, becoming the first U.S spacecraft to do so in over 50 years. The lander mission wasn’t created by NASA or another government space agency, but by the company Intuitive Machines, making it the first commercial mission to successfully soft-land on the surface of the moon. The mission was part of a NASA program called the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, which ai...
Feb 23, 2024•19 min•Ep. 715
The field of chemistry is filled with visual experiences, from molecular diagrams to color-changing reactions to data displayed as peaks and waves on a spectrograph. Those experiences and representations are not very accessible to blind and low-vision people. In a recent article in the journal Science Advances , a group of researchers describes using 3D printing to create translucent raised images known as lithophanes that can represent high-resolution chemical data in a tactile and visual form ...
Feb 22, 2024•17 min•Ep. 713
The explosion of AI-powered chatbots and image generators, like ChatGPT and DALL-E , over the past two years is changing the way we interact with technology. Their impressive abilities to generate lifelike images from written instructions or write an essay on the topic of your choosing can seem a bit like magic. But that “magic” comes at a steep environmental cost , researchers are learning. The data centers used to power these models consume an enormous amount of not just electricity, but also ...
Feb 21, 2024•18 min•Ep. 712
How Do You Know If A Feathered Dinosaur Could Fly? Not all birds can fly. Penguins, ostriches, and kiwis are some famous examples. It’s pretty easy to figure out if a living bird can fly. But it’s a bit tricker when it comes to extinct birds or bird ancestors, like dinosaurs. Remember, all birds are dinosaurs, but not all dinosaurs evolved into birds. Scientists at Chicago’s Field Museum wanted to figure out if there was a way to tell if a dinosaur could fly or not . They found that the number a...
Feb 20, 2024•23 min•Ep. 711
Climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann won a defamation lawsuit against two conservative writers last week. The verdict was 12 years in the making. In 2012 writers Rand Simberg and Mark Steyn accused Mann of manipulating his data related to his famous 1998 “hockey stick” graph, which depicts rising global temperatures after the industrial revolution. Simberg compared him to former Penn State football coach and convicted child sex abuser Jerry Sandusky in a blog post for a libertarian think tank. Ste...
Feb 19, 2024•18 min•Ep. 710
If successful, Odysseus will be the first U.S. spacecraft to land on the moon since the Apollo mission. And, in East Palestine, Ohio, the stream that flows under residents’ houses is still polluted following a train derailment and chemical spill. Odysseus Lander Is On Its Way To The Moon Just after 1:00 a.m. on Thursday, February 15, SpaceX successfully launched a commercial spacecraft from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Its destination? The moon. If the lander—named Odysseus—makes it a...
Feb 16, 2024•21 min•Ep. 709
Over the past few years, many cities around the world have changed dramatically as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, with shifts in office use and commuting patterns as well as where people choose to live, work, and play. But there are other major changes to communities on the horizon as well—such as the need to adapt to the changing climate and sea level rise, and move urban infrastructure away from dependence on fossil fuels. Andy Cohen and Diane Hoskins are co-CEOs of Gensler, a global archi...
Feb 15, 2024•18 min•Ep. 708
Looking into space can be pretty daunting. How do we make sense of the vast expanse above our heads, the millions of stars we might be able to see, and the billions more we can’t? Now, what about listening to space ? That’s the task that Sam Harnett and Chris Hoff gave themselves, for their series “Cosmic Visions.” They’re the team behind “ The World According to Sound, ” a podcast that’s brought our listeners close to the sounds of science over the last few years. This new series takes listener...
Feb 14, 2024•18 min•Ep. 707
Colorectal Cancer Rates Are Rising In Young People Gastrointestinal medicine practitioners have noticed something strange in recent years: More and more young people are being diagnosed with colorectal cancer. It used to be incredibly rare for anyone under the age of 50 to be diagnosed with colorectal cancer. Cases were generally limited to people with excess weight who live a sedentary lifestyle. But practitioners are increasingly seeing people in their 40s, 30s, and even 20s without prior risk...
Feb 13, 2024•24 min•Ep. 706
Uché Blackstock always knew she wanted to be a doctor. Her mother was a physician at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, New York. Uché and her twin sister, Oni, would often visit their mother at work, watching her take care of patients. And they loved to play with their mother’s doctor’s bag. The sisters went on to become the first Black mother-daughter legacy students to graduate from Harvard Medical School. SciFri producer Kathleen Davis talks with Dr. Uché Blackstock, emergency physician and ...
Feb 12, 2024•18 min•Ep. 705
Hycean planets were thought to be covered by oceans of water, but a new study suggests it could be magma instead. And, author Rafi Kohan explains the psychological and physiological responses to trash talk, ahead of Super Bowl Sunday. Faraway Planets Could Have Oceans Of Magma Far beyond our solar system are hycean planets —planets that have hydrogen-rich atmospheres and are covered in giant oceans. Scientists have long believed that those oceans were made of water, but a new study throws a wren...
Feb 09, 2024•20 min•Ep. 704
A new study uses artificial intelligence to show that each of our ten fingerprints are remarkably similar to one another. Plus, honey could be the secret ingredient in building a more eco-friendly “memristor,” which transmits data through malleable pathways. Is Each Fingerprint On Your Hand Unique? We often think about each fingerprint as being completely unique, like a snowflake on the tip of your finger. But a new study shows that maybe each person’s fingerprints are more similar to each other...
Feb 08, 2024•19 min•Ep. 701
Last month the FDA approved a new treatment for sickle cell disease, the first medical therapy to use CRISPR gene editing technology. It works by identifying the gene or genes causing the disorder, modifying those genes and then returning them to the patient’s body. There are now two gene therapies offered by pharmaceutical companies for sickle cell disease : Casgevy from Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics, and Lyfgenia from BlueBird Bio. But prices for these one-time treatments are ...
Feb 07, 2024•18 min•Ep. 700
A team of scientists in Ecuador is on a mission to describe new-to-science tarantula species to help secure conservation protections. And, undergraduate researchers pasted striped capes onto termites’ backs to see if a well-known warning sign would fend off predators. Protecting The ‘Satan’ Tarantula and Other Lovable Giant Spiders A team of scientists in Ecuador is on a mission to find and describe species of an understudied, often unpopular group of critters: mygalomorphs, a group of large, st...
Feb 06, 2024•18 min•Ep. 703
Cancer, at its core, is a genetic disease: the result of DNA mutations that cause cells to grow out of control and develop tumors. And over the years, scientists have identified certain chemicals, called carcinogens , that are directly linked to those cancer-causing mutations, like those found in cigarettes. But the rates of some cancers, like colorectal and lung, are rising dramatically in certain populations, leaving scientists to wonder what carcinogens they might be missing, and how traditio...
Feb 05, 2024•18 min•Ep. 699
There has been a boom of syphilis cases, including a 180% increase in congenital syphilis cases, despite other STI levels staying stable. Also, the world's largest deep-sea reef stretches for hundreds of miles in near-freezing waters and total darkness, but it’s bustling with life. Syphilis Cases Are Up 80% Since 2018 Syphilis is rearing its ugly head again in the United States. A new report on sexually transmitted infections (STIs) from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows a sho...
Feb 02, 2024•25 min•Ep. 702
Take a quick moment to think about your surroundings. Tune into your senses, and contemplate what’s happening around you. What do you see, hear, and smell? Now take a moment to imagine: What if you were a bat? How would you experience your environment differently? Maybe you could sense a nearby spider through echolocation, or feel minute changes in air pressure and temperature to know where to fly next. This world of perception is unique to each organism . It’s what scientists call umwelt, from ...
Feb 01, 2024•17 min•Ep. 698
This radio interview is an abbreviated version of the full video interview, available with ASL interpretation on Youtube. Think back to your favorite childhood TV show—was it “Blue’s Clues”? “Little Bear”? “Winnie the Pooh”? Animated TV shows are important for kids because they can teach them to read, draw, spell, and talk. Plus, the ways these shows tell stories and create colorful, fictitious worlds can broaden children’s knowledge and capacity to imagine. But children’s shows aren’t accessibl...
Jan 31, 2024•18 min•Ep. 695
Over the past few months, there have been reports about a mysterious canine respiratory illness. It’s easy to get a little scared: Some dogs are developing a severe illness that lasts a long time and doesn’t respond to treatment. And in some cases, dogs have died. In the age of social media, it’s hard to know just how widespread this actually is, and how it compares to a more familiar canine illness like kennel cough. Joining guest host Arielle Duhaime-Ross to break down this potential new patho...
Jan 30, 2024•18 min•Ep. 696
Irth is a “Yelp-like” app to help expectant parents make informed decisions by exposing bias and racism in healthcare systems. Also, a new video camera system shows the colors of the natural world as different animals see them. An App For People Of Color To Rate Their Birthing Experiences For some patients, finding a good doctor can be as simple as looking up a doctor’s degrees and accolades. But for people who are more likely to experience discrimination in a medical setting—perhaps due to thei...
Jan 29, 2024•18 min•Ep. 694
Engineers had to design bespoke tools to open the OSIRIS-REx capsule nearly four months after it arrived back on Earth. Also, prescription rates for ADHD drugs rose by 30% from 2020-2022, with large increases among women and young people. NASA Finally Opens Canister Containing Asteroid Sample NASA’s OSIRIS-REx was the first U.S. mission to retrieve fragments of an asteroid , which arrived in September 2023. There was just one small issue: NASA technicians couldn’t open the capsule, which held sp...
Jan 26, 2024•25 min•Ep. 697
Researchers in Michigan modeled a prehistoric land bridge and used AI to predict where caribou–and humans–might have traveled along it. Also, artist Sarah Rosalena uses Indigenous weaving, ceramics, and sculpture practices to create art that challenges tech’s future. Using AI To Help Find Ancient Artifacts In The Great Lakes At the bottom of Lake Huron there’s a ridge that was once above water. It’s called the Alpena Amberley Ridge and goes from northern Michigan to southern Ontario. Nine thousa...
Jan 25, 2024•18 min•Ep. 693
When Steve Jobs unveiled the Apple Macintosh in January of 1984, the visual user interface, all-in-one design, and mouse-controlled navigation were revolutionary. Design team member Andy Hertzfeld and industry observer Steven Levy look back on the early days of personal computing , and talk about how the Macintosh came to be. Transcripts for each segment are available on sciencefriday.com Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram , TikTok , Facebook , and Bluesky @scifri and sign u...
Jan 24, 2024•31 min•Ep. 691
For almost their entire 4.5 billion-year existence, Earth and its moon have been galactic neighbors. And the moon isn’t just Earth’s tiny sidekick—their relationship is more like that of siblings, and they’re even cut from similar cosmic cloth. Without the moon, Earth and its inhabitants wouldn’t be what they are today: The climate would be more extreme, lunar tides wouldn’t have given rise to life on Earth, biological rhythms would be off-beat, and even timekeeping and religion would have evolv...
Jan 23, 2024•27 min•Ep. 690
Researchers continue to test out new ways to use artificial intelligence in medicine . Some research shows that AI is better at reading mammograms than radiologists. AI can predict and diagnose disease by analyzing the retina, and there’s even some evidence that GPT-4 might be helpful in making challenging diagnoses, ones missed by doctors. However, these applications can come with trade-offs in security, privacy, cost, and the potential for AI to make medical mistakes. Ira and guest host Sophie...
Jan 22, 2024•34 min•Ep. 692
This week, a research team in China reported that it had successfully cloned a rhesus monkey , which has lived normally for over two years and reached maturity. It marks the first time that a rhesus monkey has been successfully cloned. Rhesus monkeys are used widely in medical research, making the advance potentially useful for medical trials. Cloning of primates in general has been difficult. Six years ago researchers cloned long-tailed macaques using the technique originally used for Dolly the...
Jan 19, 2024•13 min•Ep. 689
In October 2023, an international group of scientists released an impressively detailed cell atlas of the human brain, published in 21 papers in the journals Science, Science Advances and Science Translational Medicine. The human brain has roughly 171 billion cells, which makes it a herculean task to categorize them all. Scientists collected samples from different parts of the brain and have identified 3,000 different types of cells . Each cell contains thousands of genes and each cell type only...
Jan 18, 2024•19 min•Ep. 688
