The mighty Mississippi is shackled and constrained by a series of channels, locks, and levees. The height of those levee walls is regulated by the Army Corps of Engineers to ensure that riverside districts equally bear the risk of flooding. But some districts have piled more sand atop their levees to protect against imminent flood risk during emergency conditions—and then left those sandbags there after the danger passed, leaving a system of levees with irregular heights. A team of investigative...
Apr 06, 2018•46 min•Ep. 19
On April 3, 1968, hundreds of audience members walked out of the theatrical premier of a strange, long, dialogue-sparse science fiction film. Now regarded as one of the greatest science fiction films of all time, Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey was first met with harsh reviews from critics. Writer and filmmaker Michael Benson, author of the new book Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece, reflects on the film’s 50-year legacy , painstaking hand-...
Apr 06, 2018•46 min•Ep. 18
According to CDC data, more than 13,000 people die from gun homicides every year—and most of them are people of color who live in urban areas. Many of them are children. But as scientists seek to understand the causes and solutions for gun deaths, can we also learn to predict them…and even intervene before they happen? One researcher may have the answer : social media analysis. Friendly neighbors. Olympic divers. Little horses with wings. No matter what you call the commonly misunderstood bat, t...
Mar 30, 2018•47 min•Ep. 17
Planting tomatoes in the garden this year? Better hope you have bumblebees too, because tomato flowers need a good shaking to get the pollen out. “What the bumblebee does is grab a tomato flower, curve its abdomen around the bottom of the tomato flower, and then shiver its wing muscles at a specific frequency, shaking pollen out of the holes like a salt shaker,” says Paige Embry , author of Our Native Bees: North America’s Endangered Pollinators and the Fight to Save Them . This week, a panel of...
Mar 30, 2018•47 min•Ep. 16
Guns kill more people in the United States than alcohol —from homicides and suicides, to mass shootings like the one that left dead 17 high school students in Parkland, Florida last month. But public health researchers will tell you that studying alcohol-related deaths is much easier. Gun research is so fraught politically that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doesn’t fund it (though the National Institutes of Health did for three years during the Obama presidency), and a pair of C...
Mar 23, 2018•47 min•Ep. 15
A report issued last week by the Department of Homeland Security said that throughout 2016 and 2017, Russian hackers had worked to gain access to control systems at unidentified power plants and were in a position to shut them down. Their actions have finally given Washington the political will to address vulnerabilities in the U.S. power grid. A new bill sponsored by Senator Angus King of Maine will establish a two year pilot program to develop techniques and technologies to better secure the g...
Mar 23, 2018•47 min•Ep. 14
Theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking died this week at the age of 76. Hawking challenged and inspired a generation of physicists, and we remember his life and legacy. Plus, blockchain is the technology that makes possible every transaction made with Bitcoin—or any digital currency, for that matter. And when Bitcoin skyrocketed on the stock market last year, it turned average Joes into millionaires. Why just Joes? Most surveys show that 95 percent of blockchain enthusiasts and cr...
Mar 16, 2018•48 min•Ep. 12
Scientists have been trying for a long time to piece together a question: When did traits of modern humans—like complex thinking and behaviors—first develop? Anthropologists have uncovered tools in Kenya that date to 280,000 years ago that contained non-local materials, indicating that early humans developed social networks and advanced technology tens of thousands of years earlier than previously thought. What would daily life be like on the Red Planet? We called a couple experts from NASA, MIT...
Mar 16, 2018•46 min•Ep. 13
In the history of male-dominated computer science, there are a few women who have gotten attention and credit for their contributions. Famously, Ada Lovelace wrote the first algorithm designed for a computer, and foresaw that such machines could do much more than math alone. Grace Hopper, after programming Harvard’s Mark 1 computer during World War II, went on to develop the first program compiler and helped make software programming accessible to more people. But as Claire Evans writes in her n...
Mar 09, 2018•47 min•Ep. 11
Overuse of antibiotics has lead to bacteria becoming resistant to the drugs. In the United States, at least two million people become infected with antibiotic resistant bacteria each year, according to the Center for Disease Control. While some researchers are looking for new sources of antibiotics, other scientists are looking for new strategies to treat bacterial infections. One strategy is the use of bacteriophages— viruses that infect and kill bacteria . In 2013, the Food and Drug Administra...
Mar 09, 2018•47 min•Ep. 10
If you like to read about the psychology around food and eating, you’ve probably come across stories based on research from Cornell’s Food and Brand Lab, directed by Brian Wansink. In an article published this week by Buzzfeed News , science reporter Stephanie Lee reports on a history of shoddy research practices in the lab, and a chain of emails that indicates a practice of “p-hacking”—a statistical wrangling of data aimed at making a borderline result appear to be statistically significant. Le...
Mar 02, 2018•47 min•Ep. 9
Currently, the International Space Station is the only destination for astronauts traveling into lower-earth orbit. It’s also the only way for scientists to conduct experiments in microgravity. After two decades, it’s still proving to be incredibly useful to researchers. But time is running out. President Trump has indicated he wants to defund the station as scheduled by 2025, it’s nearing the end of its expected lifetime, and private companies have indicated that they, too, want to invest in th...
Mar 02, 2018•47 min•Ep. 8
The gentle curve of a beam. The particular shape of a clay brick. The sharp angles of a series of trusses. You might view these elements of buildings, bridges, and structures as part of the aesthetic and artistic design, or maybe you have overlooked them completely. But for London-based structural engineer Roma Agrawal, these visual charms play an important role not only in the beauty of a building, but in the physics that keep a structure from tumbling down. Agrawal reveals the hidden engineeri...
Feb 23, 2018•47 min•Ep. 7
A group of engineers are building softer, squishier robots—ones you might knowingly invite into your home to hang out. Instead of sporting bodies of rigid plastic and metal, biohybrid robots often consist of 3D-printed scaffolds laced with lab-grown muscles, sourced from the cells of mice, insects, and even sea slugs. Some "bio-bots" can even heal themselves after an injury, and get back to work. A roundup of engineers talk about the growing fleet of biohybrid robots . Plus, since the first foss...
Feb 23, 2018•47 min•Ep. 6
While oohing and ahhing at the powerful leaps and nimble spins on the ice at the Olympics, you may not realize you’re watching physics in action . Each jump requires a careful balance of matching the time in air to the speed and number of rotations. From spray can to ocean spray, it's time to talk about aerosols. They do play a role in climate change , but not the one you might think. There's a new urban air polluter on the block. Volatile organic compounds like wall paints and cleaning agents a...
Feb 16, 2018•46 min•Ep. 5
One woman’s dubious dance with a cow parasite left her rubbing her eyes—and medical experts scratching their heads . The Idaho legislature is debating how to address human-induced climate change in revised science education standards. A collection of AI-assisted tools could allow the average person to create videos of anyone saying or doing anything. The latest hacking could be used to steal your computer’s CPU power without you knowing it. Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram...
Feb 16, 2018•47 min•Ep. 4
Do you know the difference between a poisonous creature and a venomous one? One distinction is that poisons are often ingested or absorbed by the skin, while venoms have to be injected through a wound. Mandë Holford tells us more about her research studying these dangerous creatures. 25 years ago, all-female crayfish species originated from a hobbyist tank in Germany. In the wild, the crustacean developed a mutation that allowed it to pick up a third set of chromosomes and reproduce clonally. Si...
Feb 09, 2018•47 min•Ep. 3
The Science Friday Book Club nerds out about ‘Frankenstein’ one last time. A menagerie of insects thrive among cacao trees—and that biodiversity might help boost yields . While the ozone layer above the poles is on the mend, the health of the layer in middle latitudes is less clear . SpaceX successfully launched the Heavy Falcon rocket with two of the three boosters safely landing back onto the launch pad. Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram , TikTok , Facebook , and Bluesky ...
Feb 09, 2018•47 min•Ep. 2
Dinosaurs existed all over the world—fossils have been found on every continent. Africa is no exception, but far fewer fossils have been found there from the late Cretaceous era—the period before the dinosaurs went extinct. But a new discovery in Egypt could provide clues about the evolution of dinosaurs in Africa. Click here to learn more. Last weekend, an Australian researcher pointed out on Twitter that a “heat map” of popular running locations released by the fitness app Strava could be used...
Feb 02, 2018•47 min•Ep. 1
China's thirst for energy is rising. But to save its cities from suffocating pollution, leaders are looking to carbon-free energy sources and electric vehicles. Click here for more information about China's energy future. We need domestic bees. But what happens to wild bees when they share a space? We discuss the good and the bad in the latest installment of Good Thing, Bad Thing . Plus, Ira checks in with the SciFri Book Club . This week, the club receives a call for help and discuss how Franke...
Feb 02, 2018•48 min0
