Eels have fascinated humans for thousands of years, even captivating big thinkers like Aristotle and Freud. Despite having been around for some 200 million years , eels are still rather mysterious creatures. For example, scientists still aren’t sure exactly how they spawn. But those unanswered questions haven’t stopped humans from wanting to eat them. So much so that they’re now endangered in some areas—and a lucrative criminal enterprise has risen up to poach baby eels from the wild. Guest host...
Sep 04, 2024•18 min•Ep. 852
Did you know that almost every star you see in the night sky has at least one planet orbiting it? Here’s something even wilder: There are some celestial bodies that look a lot like planets, but just float around freely in the cosmos, unattached to any particular star. They’re called rogue worlds . With data from the James Webb Space Telescope, astrophysicists just identified six right here in our own Milky Way galaxy. So what can we learn from these rogue worlds? Can they teach us anything about...
Sep 03, 2024•18 min•Ep. 851
You might have noticed that the seasons don’t quite behave like they used to. In some places, fall and spring seem to fly by, while winter and summer are much longer and feel more intense. This shift is known as season creep, where the timing of the seasons starts to shift . This phenomenon is mostly due to climate change creating temperature imbalances and throwing weather patterns off kilter year-round. And it can cause problems for plants and animals as their natural cycles fall out of sync. ...
Sep 02, 2024•18 min•Ep. 850
Several states have reported cases of the rare but serious mosquito-borne illness eastern equine encephalitis. And, the new sci-fi movie "Slingshot," about an astronaut’s mental breakdown, prompts questions about how to prepare humans for long-term space travel. Mosquito-Borne Diseases Are Spreading As Temperatures Rise This week, a New Hampshire man died of eastern equine encephalitis (EEE), a rare but extremely serious disease caused by a mosquito-borne virus. Human cases of EEE have also been...
Aug 30, 2024•24 min•Ep. 849
Your teeth don’t just chew your food—they connect you to the deepest of deep history on Earth. Teeth have existed, in some form, for half a billion years, making them more than 250 million years older than dinosaurs. They came before the evolution of warm bloodedness, eggs, and even limbs. From that very first set of chompers emerged a bewildering and diverse group of teeth, including narwhal tusks, sharks’ pearly teeth, snake fangs, and, of course, ours. Now teeth are the subject of a new book ...
Aug 29, 2024•18 min•Ep. 848
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the maternal mortality rate in the United States is very high compared to other wealthy countries: About 22.3 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. This is on par with China and Iran, based on UNICEF data. So why is the US maternal mortality rate so high? It may have to do with how we fill out death certificates. A study from earlier this year found that misfiling of information in death certificates may be inflating the numbe...
Aug 28, 2024•19 min•Ep. 847
There’s a phenomenon known as the “overview effect,” a changed perspective some people experience after seeing the Earth from space. Retired astronaut Dr. Cady Coleman says that for her, it was a sense of home and connection . “First of all, I just don’t feel that far away,” she said. “I feel like home is bigger than we thought and I just happened to be the one of the furthest out people. But the overwhelming sort of sentiment that I have is if only everyone knew how connected they could be, the...
Aug 27, 2024•19 min•Ep. 846
Sequoia National Park is largely designated as wilderness. That complicates efforts to protect its iconic trees from worsening wildfires. Also, archaeologists keep finding older and older cave art. Here’s what it could tell us about how humans evolved over time. Protecting Sequoias From Wildfire Raises Tricky Questions Sequoia National Park in California is known for its towering, iconic sequoia trees, some of which are thought to be thousands of years old. Severe wildfires fueled by climate cha...
Aug 26, 2024•21 min•Ep. 845
A new study measuring microplastics in organs of the recently deceased found that about two dozen brain samples were 0.5% plastic by weight. Also, having an IUD inserted in the uterus is extremely painful for some people. The CDC now recommends that doctors use local anesthetics. Study Finds A Staggering Amount Of Plastic In Human Brains It only takes a quick look at our streets and waterways to be reminded that plastic pollution is a big problem. But that’s just the plastic that we can see. An ...
Aug 23, 2024•23 min•Ep. 844
It’s been a hot and rainy summer in many parts of the US, and it’s been hard to spend as much time in nature as many of us would like. Heat waves and unpredictable weather have sometimes made it riskier to be outside. Maybe you’ve chosen an easier hike, or doubled up on water bottles, or stayed inside when you’d much rather be outdoors with friends and family. If you’ve been feeling apathetic about the outdoors, a new book called Forest Walking, Discovering the Trees and Woodlands of North Ameri...
Aug 22, 2024•18 min•Ep. 843
The space elevator has been a staple of science fiction for decades, from The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke to the Apple TV show “Foundation.” But the work and theories to make it a reality have been in development since the late 19th century. It’s a simple concept: Imagine a long cable, stretching from the Earth’s surface to a satellite locked in orbit 22,000 miles high. It would work like elevators here on Earth, enabling us to send things—and people—up into space. And it would mak...
Aug 21, 2024•17 min•Ep. 842
A new potential Alzheimer’s therapy uses 40-hertz frequencies of light and sound to stimulate the brain. Research applying this treatment to mice showed a substantial decrease in amyloid plaques, a key biomarker for the disease, and an improvement in cognitive function . Clinical trials testing the efficacy of this method in humans are underway. But how exactly does this treatment work? Could it be a game changer in Alzheimer’s patients? And what potential does it have for other degenerative dis...
Aug 20, 2024•13 min•Ep. 841
Dr. Anthony Fauci has a long history with Science Friday. Ira first met him in the early 1980s while covering the HIV/AIDS epidemic. He has been a frequent guest on the program, discussing everything from the common cold to SARS, food allergies to Ebola, and malaria to the recent COVID-19 pandemic. After leading the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for 38 years, Fauci stepped down in December 2022. But he certainly hasn’t disappeared from the public eye. He’s been called to ...
Aug 19, 2024•26 min•Ep. 840
Data from the Mars InSight lander points to the presence of liquid water underneath its crust. Also, some national and state parks are changing the way they open up campsite reservations online to make them more accessible to everyone. Scientists Find Strong Evidence For Liquid Water On Mars Scientists discovered that there could be oceans’ worth of liquid water hidden underneath Mars’ surface. More than 3 billion years ago, Mars had lakes, rivers, and maybe even oceans on its surface. It was ve...
Aug 16, 2024•22 min•Ep. 839
To gaze upon a full T. rex skeleton is to be transported back in time. Dinosaur fossils are key to understanding what these prehistoric creatures looked like, how they moved, and where they lived. But there’s one type of dinosaur fossil that’s sometimes overlooked: poop. Its scientific name is coprolite. These fossilized feces are rarer than their boney counterparts, but they’re key to better understanding dino diets and ecosystems. This all raises an important question: How scientists know if s...
Aug 15, 2024•19 min•Ep. 838
Solar holds great promise as a clean energy solution, as the sun is an incredibly abundant resource, and panels can be placed unobtrusively on roofs and in fields. And solar panel technology has advanced quite a bit over the past few decades: panels have become less expensive, more efficient, and more widely used. Panels also generally fare well, considering that they’re outside in inclement weather year after year. Recent advancements with perovskite solar cells —a type of cell whose name refer...
Aug 14, 2024•18 min•Ep. 837
It’s become clear to farmers and home gardeners alike that climate change is affecting the gardening landscape, literally. The climate is warming, pests are moving into different regions, and there’s a growing need for vegetable varieties that are resilient to the stresses of this new age. In the world of organic farming, the job of creating those new varieties falls to a plant breeder : someone who, often painstakingly, crosses plants until they create a new variety. Dr. Jim Myers, one of the m...
Aug 13, 2024•17 min•Ep. 836
On July 17, Apex the stegosaurus was sold at Sothebys in New York City for a record $44.6 million. The buyer was billionaire Ken Griffin, CEO of the hedge fund Citadel, who says he plans to loan the fossil to American institutions for display. But despite Griffin’s statement, some paleontologists aren’t too happy about the trend of fossils going up for auction. The sale of dinosaur fossils has become more and more profitable in recent years. Eight out of the ten most expensive fossils have been ...
Aug 12, 2024•17 min•Ep. 835
The Boeing capsule is having issues with its thrusters and cannot bring astronauts back to Earth. Also, move over, Farmer’s Almanac. A more accurate long-term weather forecast could be on the horizon. Boeing’s Starliner Leaves Astronauts Stuck On The Space Station In another blow to Boeing’s Starliner program, which is meant to ferry astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station, NASA announced Wednesday that the troubled spacecraft would not be able to take astronauts Suni Williams...
Aug 09, 2024•26 min•Ep. 834
It may seem like everyone is either getting COVID-19 this summer , or knows someone who has. That’s because for the fourth year in a row, COVID cases are experiencing a summer surge. The CDC now tracks COVID-19 mostly through wastewater and found that viral activity has multiplied more than four times from the beginning of May to now. The CDC classifies the viral activity level as “high.” So what’s behind this surge? And why does it keep happening in the summer? SciFri’s John Dankosky talks with...
Aug 08, 2024•18 min•Ep. 833
New research suggests that polymetallic nodules found 13,000 feet deep produce “dark oxygen” by electrolyzing water. Also, at higher altitudes, the air is less dense, which makes it harder for birds in flight to generate lift. The turkey vulture has a solution. Deep-Sea ‘Nodules’ May Produce Oxygen, Study Finds An international team of researchers recently discovered that some 13,000 feet below the ocean’s surface, oxygen may be produced through natural electrolysis. The group found that small l...
Aug 07, 2024•23 min•Ep. 832
One of the hottest fields in astronomy right now is the search for exoplanets. NASA’s Exoplanet Archive currently lists over 5,700 confirmed planets orbiting distant stars. And more discoveries will be on the way. PLATO, which stands for PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars , is a satellite made by the European Space Agency that will help put more exoplanets on the map. Scheduled for launch in late 2026, it will look at around 200,000 sun-like stars to categorize them and the planets tha...
Aug 06, 2024•18 min•Ep. 831
“Cancer” is a dreaded word in the doctor’s office. But about 40% of us will be diagnosed with cancer at some point during our lives, the most common being breast, prostate, and lung cancer, according to the National Institutes of Health. But in the last few decades, major progress has been made in the world of cancer treatment and prevention. Cancer death rates have decreased by about 30% over the last quarter century, with some of the largest decreases seen in lung, melanoma, and myeloma cancer...
Aug 05, 2024•18 min•Ep. 830
The University of Hawaiʻi study will be the largest of its kind to investigate the health and social impacts of the Maui wildfires. Also, fiberglass is washing up on Nantucket’s shores, and residents are concerned about the long-term environmental impact of this debris. Hawaiʻi Wildfire Survivors To Join Long-Term Health Study Nearly a year ago, Maui experienced a series of wildfires that caused major destruction and anguish for residents. More than 100 people died and thousands of structures we...
Aug 02, 2024•20 min•Ep. 829
You know that disappointing feeling when you’re ready to make a delicious meal, but you crack open the refrigerator only to find mushy tomatoes, dried-out bread, or oozing strawberries? Refrigeration fundamentally changes the chemistry of our food, but at this point, most of the United States’ food system relies on the use of refrigerators. Almost three-quarters of the food on an average American’s plate has been refrigerated during production, shipping, and storage. So how did we end up relying...
Aug 01, 2024•18 min•Ep. 828
If nations are to meet their sustainable energy goals, experts argue that batteries will be a crucial part of the equation. Not only are batteries key for many technologies, they’ll also be necessary to meet energy demands with a power grid that is mainly supplied by renewable energy sources like wind and solar. Without batteries, power from those sources can’t be stored for use when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing. Right now, many technologies depend on lithium-ion batteries . W...
Jul 31, 2024•18 min•Ep. 827
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 C...
Jul 30, 2024•18 min•Ep. 826
What A Rodent Brain Shows Us About Love–And Loss Love has the reputation of being a fairly unique human emotion. If we’re lucky, we can experience lots of love in our lives: with romantic partners, children, family, friends. But with love comes the possibility of another, less desirable emotion: heartbreak. Neuroscientists at the University of Colorado Boulder have found that these feelings seem to actually leave a mark on the brain, with dopamine and other feel-good chemicals flooding to the br...
Jul 29, 2024•18 min•Ep. 825
In a first, NASA's Curiosity rover has discovered pure sulfur on Mars. And, we revisit a conversation from 2015 about Alexander von Humboldt and Andrea Wulf's “The Invention of Nature,” which is our August book club pick. Curiosity Rover Discovers Pure Sulfur On Mars NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover ran over a rock, which cracked open to reveal pure sulfur crystals . This was the first time pure sulfur has been discovered on the planet. The rover found many other similar rocks nearby, raising questio...
Jul 26, 2024•25 min•Ep. 824
According to a 2022 study, just over 4% of Americans said they had consumed raw milk in the past year. That might not sound like a lot, but it adds up to around 15 million people. And those numbers seem to be increasing. According to data from the market research agency NielsenIQ from May, sales of raw milk increased by as much as 65% compared to that time last year. This increase coincides with a recent trend of influencers and other public figures promoting raw milk as a completely safe and he...
Jul 25, 2024•17 min•Ep. 823
