This conversation discusses suicide and suicidal ideation in young people. Please take care while listening. If you or a loved one is thinking about suicide or self-harm, text TALK to 741-741 or call 9-8-8 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. In the United States, suicide is the second leading cause of death for young people aged 10 to 24. One in five high school students seriously considered attempting suicide in 2023, according to the latest data from the CDC. Doctors, researchers, and ...
Oct 02, 2024•18 min•Ep 872•Transcript available on Metacast Emissions from anesthesia are one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases from hospitals. This anesthesiologist wants to change that. And, a cultural anthropologist discusses the Mariana Islands’ long history of colonization and why demilitarization matters for climate progress. A Major Source Of Greenhouse Gases In Hospitals? Anesthesia Did you know that some of the gases used in anesthesia are strong greenhouse gases? A few years ago, Seattle Children’s Hospital analyzed its carbon footprin...
Oct 01, 2024•18 min•Ep 871•Transcript available on Metacast If you’re a baby boomer, you may remember the first Earth Day, the Civil Rights Movement, anti-war protests, and the first Pride parade. The list goes on, because the 1960s and 70s were packed with social revolutions. But the organization Third Act has a message for boomers: Your work isn’t done yet. Third Act empowers folks over the age of 60 to get involved in the climate movement. It aims to leverage older generations’ access to power, money, and life experiences to create change. Ira Flatow ...
Sep 30, 2024•17 min•Ep 870•Transcript available on Metacast The company is betting big on nuclear energy to meet increasing power needs of data centers and new technologies like AI. Also, new research into a strange fish known as the sea robin finds that leg-like appendages can “taste” prey buried in the sand. Microsoft Makes Deal To Restart Three Mile Island Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania has quite a reputation in the world of nuclear energy: One of its reactors suffered a catastrophic partial meltdown in 1979 , earning the title of the largest nucle...
Sep 27, 2024•25 min•Ep 869•Transcript available on Metacast In 2021, Dr. Francis Collins stepped down after a dozen years leading the National Institutes of Health. He had just overseen the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic,in the early days of changing public health guidance as scientists learned more about this new virus. He was also involved in the quickest development of a vaccine in history. Now, he’s had some time to reflect on how the US arrived at such a divisive place about COVID-19 and vaccines, how trust in science has dwindled, a...
Sep 26, 2024•24 min•Ep 868•Transcript available on Metacast Since ChatGPT was released to the public almost three years ago, generative AI chatbots have had many impacts on our society: They played a large role in the recent Hollywood strikes, energy usage is spiking because of them, and they’re having a chilling effect on various writing-related industries. But they’re also affecting the world of research papers and scientific publishing. They do offer some benefits, like making technical research papers easier to read, which could make research more ac...
Sep 25, 2024•18 min•Ep 867•Transcript available on Metacast Would you be interested in a cookie infused with smog from your favorite city? Maybe a loaf of sourdough made from wheat tainted by wildfires? Those are just a few of the projects from the Center for Genomic Gastronomy , based in Amsterdam and Portugal, where artists use innovative ingredients to represent environmental crises and imagine what the future of food could look like. Ira talks with Zack Denfeld, co-founder of the Center for Genomic Gastronomy, about how art and food can help us envis...
Sep 24, 2024•13 min•Ep 866•Transcript available on Metacast Parenting is a tough job. Some days are absolutely overwhelming, balancing a job, a home, and a child’s needs. One thing goes wrong and it’s like a house of cards falling apart. Not to mention, being keenly aware of how the parents around you are doing. Are you keeping up? Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy is paying close attention. His most recent advisory is about parental stress and mental health. It’s been a busy summer for Dr. Murthy. He’s called for a warning label on social media because o...
Sep 23, 2024•26 min•Ep 865•Transcript available on Metacast The ring would have gradually fallen to Earth as meteorites, correlating to a spike of impacts seen in the geological record. Also, a new AI tool can judge whether sand came from a beach, a river, a glacial deposit, or a wind-blown dune. Earth May Once Have Had A Ring Like Saturn Hundreds of millions of years ago, Earth may have looked quite different when viewed from space: Scientists propose it may have had a Saturn-like ring , made up of lots of smaller asteroids. The new paper, published in ...
Sep 20, 2024•23 min•Ep 864•Transcript available on Metacast The heaviest antimatter nucleus to date was spotted in a particle accelerator. It could provide new insights into the nature of matter. And, research indicates different songbird species might intentionally travel together during migration, giving each other a possible boost in survival. Physicists Create Heaviest Antimatter Nucleus Yet Antimatter is one of science’s great mysteries. It is produced all around us for fractions of a second, until it collides with matter, and the particles annihila...
Sep 19, 2024•19 min•Ep 863•Transcript available on Metacast SciFri producer Kathleen Davis talks with Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett-Helaire, assistant professor of immunology and infectious diseases at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health to help answer our listeners’ top questions about the updated COVID-19 vaccines . This Q&A, which includes questions from our audience members, has been adapted from our interview with Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett-Helaire. It has been edited for clarity and brevity. If I’ve already had COVID and it wasn’t so bad, why should I e...
Sep 18, 2024•18 min•Ep 862•Transcript available on Metacast Part of the reason it’s difficult to talk about climate change is that it can be hard to see a long-term positive outcome for people and the planet. But Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, a marine biologist and co-founder of the Urban Ocean Lab, argues that to prevent the worst effects of climate change, we have to start by asking ourselves, what if we get it right? She’s the author of a new book with that same title, What If We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures . In the book, she poses that qu...
Sep 17, 2024•18 min•Ep 861•Transcript available on Metacast Kids and teens are back in school, and the battle over the smartphones in their pockets is becoming more prominent. For years, teachers and parents have lamented about the distractions these devices cause in and out of the classroom. Last year, the US surgeon general declared a youth mental health crisis , citing social media as a significant factor, and more than 40 US states are suing Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, arguing that the company intentionally manipulated their apps to addict...
Sep 16, 2024•18 min•Ep 860•Transcript available on Metacast SpaceX Crew Completes First Citizen Spacewalk Big news in the world of commercial space flight: On Thursday morning, Jared Iasaacman and Sarah Gillis, members of SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission, became the first civilians to complete a spacewalk. The mission is a collaboration between Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Isaacman, a billionaire tech entrepreneur. While outside the spacecraft, the two crew members conducted mobility tests on their spacesuits. SciFri Producer Kathleen Davis talks with Jason Dinh,...
Sep 13, 2024•24 min•Ep 859•Transcript available on Metacast Samples of 2.5 billion-year-old mantle rocks found at spreading ocean ridges could put bounds on models of how the planet formed. And, researchers decreased the amount of lignin in poplar tree wood, making it stronger and slower to deteriorate. ‘Time Capsule’ Rocks Provide Clues About Earth’s Mantle If you’re looking to really learn about the history of our planet, look to geology. Ancient rocks can provide a time capsule of the conditions in which they formed. But even the geologic record has i...
Sep 12, 2024•18 min•Ep 858•Transcript available on Metacast If you’ve ever seen a cute cow video on social media, you might notice they seem to have a lot in common with dogs. They can wag their tails, they love to gobble down tasty treats, and if you’re lucky, they might flop over for a nice belly or neck scratch. Cows are clearly emotional animals, but how smart are they exactly? That’s the question that neuroscientist and author Dr. Gregory Berns had when he and his wife moved from Atlanta to the Georgia countryside in 2020, and started raising cows o...
Sep 11, 2024•18 min•Ep 857•Transcript available on Metacast Shark fishing is alive and well, but the fishermen who do it are increasingly prioritizing conservation. And, an unknown ant was spotted in Manhattan in 2011, and it quickly spread through New York City. We now know what it is. Fishing For—And Saving—Sharks off the Jersey Shore At an undisclosed beach at 5:30 p.m. in New Jersey, shark fisherman AJ Rotondella and two clients wait for beachgoers to leave. Once the beach is empty, Rotondella cuts up some chunks of fish as bait , and casts lines int...
Sep 10, 2024•18 min•Ep 856•Transcript available on Metacast You might be familiar with a gigabyte, one of the most popular units of measure for computer storage. A two-hour movie is 3 gigabytes on average, while your phone can probably store 256 gigabytes. But did you know that your body also stores information in its own way? We see this in DNA, which has the instructions needed for an organism to develop, survive, and reproduce. In computing storage terms, each cell of our body contains about 1.5 gigabytes worth of data . And with about 30 trillion cel...
Sep 09, 2024•18 min•Ep 855•Transcript available on Metacast ESA officials said it was only the ninth time an asteroid was spotted before reaching Earth’s atmosphere. And, as the climate changes and summer temperatures linger, educators are increasingly worried about keeping kids safe from heat exhaustion. An Asteroid Impact, Spotted In Advance On Wednesday, an asteroid named 2024 RW1 burned up in the atmosphere above the Philippines. As asteroids go, it was not especially notable. Astronomers say objects the size of 2024 RW1, which was about a meter in d...
Sep 06, 2024•25 min•Ep 854•Transcript available on Metacast A new study suggests that the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs may have originated from the outer parts of the solar system. And, invasive spotted lanternflies often lay eggs on vehicles and shipped goods. Now researchers are training dogs to sniff them out before they hatch. Asteroid That Killed The Dinosaurs Was A Carbon-Rich Rock Around 66 million years ago, an asteroid slammed into the Earth, blasted debris everywhere, plummeted the planet into cold darkness, and ended the age of dinosaurs...
Sep 05, 2024•20 min•Ep 853•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 
