A sweeping new study on one of the most beloved insects, maybe the only truly beloved insect—the butterfly—details its rapid population decline in the United States. The new research, published in the journal Science widens the butterfly net and looks at how more than 500 species have fared over the past 20 years . Researchers found that many populations are taking a nosedive. What’s causing the downswing, and is there anything we can do? Host Flora Lichtman talks with two of the study authors, ...
Mar 11, 2025•18 min•Ep 983•Transcript available on Metacast On the very first day of Donald Trump’s second term, he signed an executive order targeting foreign aid programs , especially the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Comprising less than 0.1% of the federal budget , USAID provides international humanitarian and development aid for poverty eradication, education, disease prevention, and medical programs. The Trump administration has cut off funding for these programs and most of the USAID staff was placed on leave or laid off. Sinc...
Mar 10, 2025•18 min•Ep 982•Transcript available on Metacast Scientists aren’t always encouraged to be politically active. But recent political interference by the Trump administration has many fired up. And, the Blue Ghost lunar lander, part of NASA’s CLPS initiative, completed the first fully successful commercial moon landing. Protesters ‘Stand Up For Science’ At Rallies Across The Country Scientists and defenders of science are gathering in cities across the U.S. today as part of Stand Up for Science rallies , events to protest recent political interf...
Mar 07, 2025•28 min•Ep 981•Transcript available on Metacast Last year, 9,000 deceased donor kidneys were discarded due to storage and time limitations. A kidney “life support” machine could change that. Also, the SS United States will join Florida’s 4,300 artificial reefs—human-made places for fish and other marine life to live. How do these reefs work? The Effort To Save Thousands Of Donor Kidneys From Being Wasted Sylvia Miles was diagnosed with lupus in 2006, a chronic autoimmune disease that causes the body’s immune system to attack healthy tissue—in...
Mar 06, 2025•19 min•Ep 980•Transcript available on Metacast A journalist traveled to five continents to learn about the afterlife of our trash, and why most “recyclable” plastic actually isn’t. Have you ever gotten to the end of, say, a jar of peanut butter and wondered if it should go in trash or recycling? If it’s worth rinsing out? And where will it actually end up? Journalist Alexander Clapp had those same questions, and went to great lengths to answer them—visiting five continents to chronicle how our trash travels. Along the way, he discovered a mu...
Mar 05, 2025•18 min•Ep 979•Transcript available on Metacast A study finds that Peto’s Paradox, which states that larger animals are no more likely to get cancer than smaller ones, may not hold up. Also, a nearly complete predator skull was found in the Egyptian desert. Its lineage indicates that it was a top carnivore of the age. What Does An Animal’s Size Have To Do With Its Cancer Risk? If you throw a huge party, there’s more of a chance of problems than if you host a quiet get-together for a couple of friends. The logic is simple: Having more people a...
Mar 04, 2025•18 min•Ep 978•Transcript available on Metacast Changes limiting programs, grants, and even the nature of studies are already underway at the NIH, NSF, FDA, CDC, and more. On President Trump’s first day in office, he signed an executive order to end what he calls “illegal and immoral discrimination programs,” referencing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the federal government. The repercussions of this are already being felt across science agencies. Things are changing fast: Last week, a federal judge in Maryland temporarily blocked ...
Mar 03, 2025•19 min•Ep 977•Transcript available on Metacast The acting head of the NIH reportedly pushed back against legal guidance to resume grant funding, leaving federal workers in the lurch. Also, though fungi make up a tiny part of the human microbiome, they play an important role in both the prevention and development of many diseases. Cuts And Conflicting Directives Sow Confusion For NIH Workers Just over a month after President Trump’s inauguration, federal science in the US is in a state of disarray . Executive orders to halt grant funding at t...
Feb 28, 2025•25 min•Ep 976•Transcript available on Metacast The bone and joint structures in mammal tails help them keep their balance. Could those benefits be adapted for robots? And, in her first children’s book, conservationist Bindi Irwin takes little readers on a journey through Australia Zoo. In Search Of The Best Tail For Balance If you have met a cat, you’ve probably at some point been amazed by how acrobatic they are. They’re able to reorient themselves effortlessly, even in midair. It turns out that a lot of that twistiness comes down to having...
Feb 27, 2025•23 min•Ep 975•Transcript available on Metacast Pancreatic cancer is notoriously difficult to treat, and about 90% of diagnosed patients die from the disease. A team at Memorial Sloan Kettering has been working to improve those outcomes by developing a new mRNA vaccine for pancreatic cancer . A few years ago, the team embarked on a small trial to test the vaccine’s safety. Sixteen patients with pancreatic cancer received it, and even though it was a small study, the results were promising: Half the participants had an immune response, and in ...
Feb 26, 2025•18 min•Ep 974•Transcript available on Metacast It’s been an unusually tough winter virus season. Rates of flu-like infections are higher than they’ve been in nearly 30 years. And for the first winter since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, flu deaths have surpassed COVID deaths. Add to that a higher-than-average year for norovirus, a nasty type of stomach bug. Then there’s the emerging threat of avian flu. While there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission of the virus, about 70 people in the US have contracted the virus from livest...
Feb 25, 2025•18 min•Ep 973•Transcript available on Metacast Last week, some 3,500 people from across scientific fields gathered in Boston for the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) . The organization’s CEO, Dr. Sudip Parikh, gave a rousing speech to attendees. “Destruction for the ill-conceived notion of cutting costs didn’t put an American on the moon, and it didn’t wipe smallpox from the face of the Earth,” Parikh said in opening remarks. He was referring, of course, to the huge funding cuts and mass firing...
Feb 24, 2025•18 min•Ep 972•Transcript available on Metacast Finding the original tomb of the royal is one of the most significant developments in Egyptian archeology in recent history. Also, a video of a gloriously creepy anglerfish inspired tears and poetry online. But why was this deep-sea dweller near the surface at all? Royal Tomb Of Egyptian King Thutmose II Unearthed A British-Egyptian team has made one of the most significant Egyptian archeological finds in recent history: the tomb of pharaoh King Thutmose II , who ruled sometime between 2000 and ...
Feb 21, 2025•20 min•Ep 971•Transcript available on Metacast We have lots of expressions to describe the pain of loss—heartache, a broken heart, a punch in the gut. These aren’t just figures of speech: While grief is an emotional experience, it’s also a physical one. Studies show that grief can change your physiology , most dramatically in the cardiovascular and immune systems. One staggering finding? A heart attack is 21 times more likely to happen in the 24 hours after the death of a loved one. And after the death of a parent, risk of ischemic heart dis...
Feb 20, 2025•18 min•Ep 970•Transcript available on Metacast Can Men and Women (Baboons) Really Just Be Friends? In the romantic comedy “When Harry Met Sally,” the central premise, as Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan’s characters stay friends throughout the years, is, can men and women really just be friends? In the movie, the answer is no, not really. Spoiler alert: They do get together in the end. But what if we take that concept and bring it to the animal kingdom, specifically to primates? The Kinda baboon is known for its distinct social behaviors. Individu...
Feb 19, 2025•19 min•Ep 969•Transcript available on Metacast The North and South Poles, also known as Earth’s iceboxes, help cool the planet, store fresh water, influence weather patterns, and more. They’re also the fastest warming places on Earth. A new book called Ends of The Earth: Journeys to the Polar Regions in Search of Life, the Cosmos, and Our Future illustrates the wonders of Antarctica and the Arctic—and the lengths scientists go to to study them before it’s too late. Host Ira Flatow talks with author Dr. Neil Shubin, an evolutionary biologist ...
Feb 18, 2025•18 min•Ep 968•Transcript available on Metacast It’s the first FDA approval for a pain medication in 25 years. How does the drug work, and who is it for? Also, non-mixing layers of water and hydrocarbons thousands of miles deep could explain the icy planets’ strange magnetic fields. The FDA Approves A New, Non-Opioid Painkiller In January, the Food and Drug Administration approved a new pain medicine called Journavx (suzetrigine) , made by Vertex Pharmaceuticals. It’s the first time in 25 years the agency has given the green light to a new pa...
Feb 17, 2025•24 min•Ep 967•Transcript available on Metacast Most Powerful Neutrino Ever Is Detected In the Mediterranean Neutrinos are sometimes called “ghost particles,” because they are nearly weightless, rarely interact with any other matter, and have very little electric charge. Now, scientists have discovered a neutrino with a recording-breaking level of energy , which could bring us closer to understanding physics underpinning the creation of the universe. Host Ira Flatow is joined by Sophie Bushwick, senior news editor at New Scientist , to talk m...
Feb 14, 2025•17 min•Ep 966•Transcript available on Metacast In "Common Side Effects," the starring scientist finds a mushroom that can heal any ailment. But powerful people will do anything to stop him from cultivating it. And, a combination of environmental factors and the way our bodies function play a role in how we perceive the smell of snow. In ‘Common Side Effects,’ A Clash Over An All-Healing Mushroom In the new Adult Swim show “Common Side Effects,” an eccentric scientist has a secret: He’s discovered a strange mushroom that can cure any illness ...
Feb 13, 2025•18 min•Ep 965•Transcript available on Metacast Every year, billions of dollars are funneled into Alzheimer’s research. And yet, so far, there’s no treatmen t that’s been able to reverse the disease, or even meaningfully slow the cognitive decline of patients. Part of the reason is that the disease is complex, and brain disorders are notoriously difficult to understand. But in a new book, an investigative science reporter makes the case that there’s another reason progress toward Alzheimer’s treatments has stalled: scientific fraud . Host Flo...
Feb 12, 2025•19 min•Ep 964•Transcript available on Metacast In late September, firefighters in flame-resistant Nomex were strung out along a fireline. It ran midslope through a pine and hardwood forest above the Klamath River and the small northern California town of Orleans. Several members of the Karuk tribe were laying down strands of fire with drip torches. Aja Conrad, who runs the tribal natural resource department’s environmental education field institute, was the firing boss trainee. She kept a close eye as the strips burned together and smoke fil...
Feb 11, 2025•17 min•Ep 963•Transcript available on Metacast The harms of smoking cigarettes are pretty clear. Smoking causes cancer as well as heart and lung diseases, and it’s the leading cause of preventable death in the United States. When it comes to vaping, or electronic cigarettes, the risks are a bit more tricky to parse, especially if you read media reports about them. The outbreak of Vaping Use-Associated Lung Injury, also known as EVALI , in 2019 and 2020 made things even more confusing. The founders of Juul, the company that mainstreamed vapin...
Feb 10, 2025•19 min•Ep 962•Transcript available on Metacast Scientists determined that Lucy, a human ancestor from 3.2 million years ago, couldn’t have beaten modern humans in a foot race. Also, the Chinese AI company DeepSeek startled industry observers with an efficient new system. But how does it compare with the leading tech? How Lucy, Our Famous Ancestor, Runs On A Virtual Treadmill Lucy is one of the most famous fossils—an Australopithecus afarensis who lived about 3.2 million years ago. Her skeleton is about 40% complete, and has been studied sinc...
Feb 07, 2025•26 min•Ep 961•Transcript available on Metacast The inner workings of our bodies, particularly what’s happening inside our cells, can be kind of a black box—with countless tiny molecules constantly working and churning to keep us alive. A new technology that blends bioluminescence with cellular machinery may shine some light on the details of their comings and goings and interactions that can be hazy. Scientists had the bright idea to take that same enzyme that makes fireflies glow and tie it to RNA, the molecule that reads the genetic inform...
Feb 06, 2025•18 min•Ep 960•Transcript available on Metacast It seems that every few months, there’s an exciting breakthrough in quantum computing , a kind of computing that takes advantage of quantum physics to perform calculations exponentially faster than our most advanced supercomputers. Last December, Google announced that its quantum computer solved a math problem in five minutes—a problem that would’ve taken a normal supercomputer longer than the age of the universe to solve. And earlier this month, Microsoft, coming off a quantum advance in the fa...
Feb 05, 2025•18 min•Ep 959•Transcript available on Metacast About four and a half years ago, a spacecraft called OSIRIS-REx touched down on the surface of an asteroid called Bennu . It drilled down and scooped up samples of rock and dust and, after several years of travel, delivered those samples back to Earth. Since then, researchers around the world have been analyzing tiny bits of that asteroid dust, trying to tease out as much information as they can about what Bennu is like and where it might have come from. Two scientific papers published this week...
Feb 04, 2025•19 min•Ep 958•Transcript available on Metacast After nearly four weeks of burning, the fires in Los Angeles are almost fully contained , and cleanup is underway. But as the dust literally settles, people in LA are left with major questions, like: What is actually in the ash? What’s in the air? And how do I stay safe? Flora Lichtman talks with two experts in public health and toxic substance exposure about the chemicals left behind after an urban fire as well as what science needs to be done to fully understand the issue. She speaks with Dr. ...
Feb 03, 2025•19 min•Ep 957•Transcript available on Metacast The outbreak of H5N9 avian influenza occurred at a California duck farm in November 2024. Also, new research pinpoints 298 parts of the genome associated with higher risk of bipolar disorder. This could lead to better treatments. Another Strain Of Bird Flu Discovered In California This week, the World Organization for Animal Health reported that it had been notified by the USDA that a November outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza on a California duck farm was caused by a strain not befo...
Jan 31, 2025•24 min•Ep 956•Transcript available on Metacast Health psychologist Dr. Kari Leibowitz traveled to some of the coldest, darkest places on earth to learn how people there don’t just survive, but thrive in winter. She says that one of the key ingredients is adopting a positive wintertime mindset by focusing on and celebrating the good parts of winter. Flora Lichtman talks with Dr. Kari Leibowitz, author of How to Winter: Harness Your Mindset to Thrive on Cold, Dark, or Difficult Days , about saunas, cold plunges, candles, and other small ways t...
Jan 30, 2025•19 min•Ep 955•Transcript available on Metacast Birds are the master vocalists of the animal kingdom. They can make a remarkable variety of sounds. But why is a barred owl more of a baritone, while a cedar waxwing is a soprano? And what influences a bird’s vocal range , and the kinds of sounds it can make? Beak size? Body size? Geography? To answer some of these questions, researchers analyzed over 140,000 bird vocalizations from all over the world to try to peck out some kernels of knowledge about bird calls and songs. Their research was rec...
Jan 29, 2025•17 min•Ep 954•Transcript available on Metacast 
