There are products on the market that monitor your brain waves through caps or headbands: Some aim to improve mental health, sleep, or focus, while others can plunge users into virtual reality for gaming. What happens to the neural data that neurotechnology companies collect from these devices? Consumers may be accustomed to their personal data from apps and social media being sold to third parties. However, the potential sale of brain data to a third party raises additional privacy concerns. Th...
May 01, 2024•18 min•Ep. 761
The words “black hole” might bring to mind an infinite darkness. But the area right around a black hole, called the accretion disk, is actually pretty bright, with matter compressing hotter and hotter into a glowing plasma as it is sucked in. And amid that maelstrom, there are even brighter areas—bursts of energy that astronomers call flares. Scientists are trying to better understand what those flares are, and what they can tell us about the nature of black holes. This week in the journal Natur...
Apr 30, 2024•18 min•Ep. 760
Silk is one of the most luxurious fabrics for clothing and bedding. Unlike cotton or linen, silk is made most commonly by insects—often the Bombyx mori , a domesticated moth that feeds on the leaves of mulberry trees. Humans have a 4,000-year history with the textile and the creatures that make it, as documented in the new book Silk: A World History . Since silk has an unconventional origin as a secretion rather than a plant product, it has unique biological qualities that make it strong and end...
Apr 29, 2024•17 min•Ep. 759
While progress has been made in replacing water pipes in Flint, many residents say they still don’t know if their tap water is clean or not. Also, scientists are adding sensors to an underwater cable network to monitor changes in the ocean and quickly detect earthquakes and tsunamis. 10 Years Later, Flint’s Water Crisis Still Isn’t Over In 2014, city officials in Flint, Michigan, switched their water source to the Flint River, a move that was projected to save the city $5 million. Instead, the w...
Apr 26, 2024•25 min•Ep. 758
America’s most-consumed fruit is at risk from a fungal disease. Researchers in North Carolina are on a mission to save Cavendish bananas. Also, birds move their vocal organs while they sleep, mimicking how they sing. Scientists have translated those movements into synthetic birdsong. Fighting Banana Blight In A North Carolina Greenhouse Bananas are the world’s most popular fruit. Americans eat nearly 27 pounds per person every year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A deadly fungu...
Apr 25, 2024•19 min•Ep. 757
One of the biggest environmental issues in our modern world is plastic, which has become integral in the manufacturing of everything from electronics to furniture. Our reliance on plastic has led to a recycling crisis: A vast amount of plastic that winds up in our recycling bins isn’t actually recyclable, and ultimately winds up in landfills. Large companies have committed to reducing plastic packaging and cutting back on waste. But there’s still no good way to scale up the removal of plastic th...
Apr 24, 2024•18 min•Ep. 756
Superfund sites are some of the most polluted areas in the country, containing highly toxic waste such as asbestos, lead, and dioxin. Cleaning them up, which follows a systematic, science-based process as required by law, can take decades. There are more than 1,300 of these sites across the US , from Florida’s Panhandle to the banks of the Rio Grande in New Mexico. They’re found in nearly every state, often near residential areas. The EPA estimates that 78 million people live within three miles ...
Apr 23, 2024•18 min•Ep. 755
An explosion of research is painting a clearer picture of how climate change is affecting mental health across the globe. Also, a citizen science project aims to find species that have gone unnoticed by sampling the waters of hundreds of lakes worldwide for environmental DNA. Assessing The Global Mental Health Toll Of Climate Change As the effects of climate change become more visible and widespread, people around the globe are dealing with the mental health impacts. But what are those impacts e...
Apr 22, 2024•18 min•Ep. 754
Global temperature increases are slowing, electric vehicle sales are growing, and renewable energy is now cheaper than some fossil fuels. Also, in a recent outbreak of avian flu, the virus has jumped from birds to cows, and to one dairy worker. A disease ecologist provides context. Progress Toward A Clean Energy Transition In honor of Earth Day, we’re highlighting a few positive trends and some promising solutions to the climate crisis. Globally, a clean energy transition is underway. A recent c...
Apr 19, 2024•25 min•Ep. 753
College basketball’s March Madness concluded this week, meaning that now the national sports attention can turn fully to baseball. The next time you’re at the ballpark—whether you’re devoted enough to fill in the box scores by hand, or are just there for the peanuts and crackerjacks—take some time to appreciate the physics of the game. There are tricky trajectories, problems of parabolas, converging velocities, and the all-important impacts. Dr. Frederic Bertley, the president and CEO of the Cen...
Apr 18, 2024•18 min•Ep. 752
Some food has a larger carbon footprint when grown in urban settings than on commercial farms, while for other foods the reverse is true. Also, what’s the difference between wildflowers blooming in the desert each spring, and the rare phenomenon of a “superbloom”? The Carbon Cost Of Urban Gardens And Commercial Farms If you have a home garden, you may be expecting that the food you grow has less of an environmental impact than food grown on large commercial farms. But new research throws some co...
Apr 17, 2024•19 min•Ep. 752
Last year, almost half of the honeybee colonies in the U.S. died, making it the second deadliest year for honeybees on record. The main culprit wasn’t climate change, starvation, or even pesticides, but a parasite: Varroa destructor. “The name for this parasite is a very Transformer-y sounding name, but … these Varroa destructor mites have earned this name. It’s not melodramatic by any means. [They are] incredibly destructive organisms,” says Dr. Sammy Ramsey , entomologist at the University of ...
Apr 16, 2024•18 min•Ep. 751
Half of the cells in the brain are neurons, the other half are glial cells . When scientists first discovered glia over a century ago, they thought that they simply held the neurons together. Their name derives from a Greek word that means glue. In the past decade, researchers have come to understand that glial cells do so much more : They communicate with neurons and work closely with the immune system and might be critical in how we experience pain. They even play an important role in regulati...
Apr 15, 2024•16 min•Ep. 750
A long-awaited rule from the EPA limits the amounts of six PFAS chemicals allowed in public drinking water supplies. Also, some spiders, beetles, and centipedes spend winter under snow in a layer called the subnivium. Plus, a drumroll for the total solar eclipse. EPA Sets Limits On ‘Forever Chemicals’ In Drinking Water This week, the EPA finalized the first-ever national limits for the level of PFAS chemicals that are acceptable in drinking water supplies. Those so-called “forever chemicals,” pe...
Apr 12, 2024•26 min•Ep. 749
When a critter meets its end at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo, it ends up on a necropsy table —where one of the zoo’s veterinary pathologists will take a very close look at it, in what is the animal version of an autopsy. They’ll poke and prod, searching for clues about the animal’s health. What they do—or don’t—find can be used to improve the care of living animals, both in the zoo and in the wild. On stage in Washington, D.C., Ira talks with Dr. Kali Holder, veterinary pathologist at the Smit...
Apr 11, 2024•18 min•Ep. 748
The Chesapeake Bay produces around 500 million pounds of seafood every year, providing delicious blue crabs, striped bass, oysters, and more to folks up and down the coast. It’s one of the most productive bodies of water in the world, but the bay is constantly in flux due to stressors like overfishing, pollution, and climate change. But scientists have a plan to conserve the bay’s biodiversity , support the people who rely on it, and keep us all well fed—and it involves oyster farming. On stage ...
Apr 10, 2024•19 min•Ep. 745
Springtime is a great reminder of just how beautiful trees can be. Cherry blossoms and magnolias put on a gorgeous show, but trees aren’t just there to look good. They play an important role in absorbing heat , sequestering carbon dioxide, and preventing soil erosion. Dr. Mike Alonzo, assistant professor of environmental science at American University, is using satellites to determine just how effective urban trees are at keeping neighborhoods cool. He’s been able to track changes to the tree ca...
Apr 09, 2024•13 min•Ep. 747
Dr. Eric Topol discusses the promise of “opportunistic” AI, using medical scans for unintended diagnostic purposes. Also, a study in mice found that the brain tags new memories through a “sharp wave ripple” mechanism that then repeats during sleep. How AI Could Predict Heart Disease From Chest X-Rays Research on medical uses for artificial intelligence in medicine is exploding, with scientists exploring methods like using the retina to predict disease onset. That’s one example of a growing body ...
Apr 08, 2024•18 min•Ep. 744
A Massachusetts man who received a kidney from a genetically modified pig is recovering well. Also, on April 8, a total solar eclipse will plunge parts of North America into darkness. Scientists answer the questions you asked. Recipient Of Pig Kidney Transplant Leaves The Hospital Last month, Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston announced that a team of doctors had transplanted a kidney from a genetically engineered pig into a living human for the first time. This week, that patient, a 62-ye...
Apr 05, 2024•31 min•Ep. 746
When it comes to the eventual end of our universe, cosmologists have a few classic theories: the Big Crunch, where the universe reverses its expansion and contracts again, setting the stars themselves on fire in the process. Or the Big Rip, where the universe expands forever—but in a fundamentally unstable way that tears matter itself apart. Or it might be heat death, in which matter and energy become equally distributed in a cold, eventless soup. These theories have continued to evolve as we ga...
Apr 04, 2024•18 min•Ep. 743
By the time researchers found the dead whale on a Martha’s Vineyard beach, her jet-black skin was pockmarked by hungry seagulls, her baleen had been dislodged from her mouth, and thin rope was wrapped tightly—as it had been for 17 months—around the most narrow part of her tail. Researchers quickly learned this was a 12-ton, 3-year-old female known as 5120, and that she was a North Atlantic right whale , a species with just about 360 members left. A few weeks later, NOAA Fisheries announced that ...
Apr 03, 2024•18 min•Ep. 742
In the past few years pharmaceutical companies have developed a string of new Alzheimer’s drugs called anti-amyloids, which target amyloid plaques in patients’ brains. These plaques are one of the key biomarkers of the disease. The first of these drugs, Aduhelm, was approved by the FDA in 2021 amid enormous controversy. The FDA approved the drug despite little evidence that it actually slowed cognitive decline in patients. Biogen, the maker of Aduhelm, pulled the plug on further research or sale...
Apr 02, 2024•18 min•Ep. 741
Particle accelerators, nanofibers, and solar physics: The science advisor for the Netflix adaptation breaks down the physics in the show. Also, in her new book, Jessica J. Lee looks at how humans have moved plants around the globe–and how our migrations are intertwined with theirs. How ‘3 Body Problem’ Explores The Laws Of Physics Last week, Netflix released its adaptation of the Hugo Award-winning sci-fi book The 3 Body Problem by Cixin Liu. It follows the journey of several scientists, from th...
Apr 01, 2024•23 min•Ep. 740
We look into the engineering reasons why the Francis Scott Key bridge collapsed after a ship crashed into it. Also, a new analysis finds that more viruses spread from humans to animals than from animals to humans. The Engineering Behind Why The Bridge In Baltimore Collapsed On Tuesday, a large section of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key bridge collapsed after an enormous container ship lost power and collided with the structure. Two people were rescued from the water, two bodies were recovered, and...
Mar 29, 2024•20 min•Ep. 739
It wasn’t that long ago that scientists didn’t think animals could rival humans in terms of intelligence, emotions, or empathy. But the groundbreaking work of Dr. Frans de Waal helped change all of that. De Waal spent his life studying the lives of animals — especially our closest cousins, chimpanzees and bonobos. The primatologist died last week at the age of 75, and we wanted to remember him by sharing one of our favorite conversations with him on the show. It’s from 2019, when he published hi...
Mar 28, 2024•18 min•Ep. 738
Ever since we learned that an asteroid slammed into Earth, wiped out the dinosaurs, and changed the course of life on this planet, scientists have wondered if it could happen again. It turns out there is an asteroid, called Bennu, that has a very small chance of colliding with our planet in the year 2182. But beyond that, Bennu could hold information that would help unlock our solar system’s secrets, like how it began and where life originated. NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission launched in 2016 to colle...
Mar 27, 2024•19 min•Ep. 737
The next time you go to the zoo, take a few minutes by the sea lion habitat to watch the way they swim. While most high-performance swimmers use powerful kicks from hind appendages to power through the water, sea lions instead use their front flippers, moving with a pulling motion. With their propulsion source close to their center of gravity and their flexible bodies, sea lions are extremely agile under water , able to weave in and out among the stalks of an undersea kelp forest. Researchers ar...
Mar 26, 2024•18 min•Ep. 736
There’s a thriving black market to buy and sell endangered plants, and the Department of Agriculture and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service monitor endangered species that are brought into the United States illegally. When they are discovered, the plants’ home country has 30 days to accept them. If they aren’t claimed, they get rescued. Then where do they go? To one of 62 plant rescue centers across the country at botanic gardens, zoos, and arboretums, operating according to an agreement through the...
Mar 25, 2024•18 min•Ep. 735
The World Meteorological Organization’s report confirms last year had the highest temperatures on record and predicts an even hotter 2024. Also, NASA’s new PACE satellite will study how these tiny creatures could affect Earth’s climate, and how aerosols influence air quality. UN Report Confirms 2023 Was Hottest Year On Record A new report from the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization shows that last year had the hottest average global temperatures since recording began 174 years ago...
Mar 22, 2024•25 min•Ep. 734
The term “living fossil” has been applied to any number of animals, from sharks to turtles to the coelacanth. It’s the idea that those animals look very much the same way their species may have looked millions of years ago, with limited evolutionary change over that time. After analyzing the genomes of many different species on that “living fossil” list, researchers report they may have found an animal that evolves more slowly than all the others —a group of fish called gar. The rate of molecula...
Mar 21, 2024•18 min•Ep. 731
