Science Friday

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 information in DNA. This developing technology has been used on mice, with the hope that these light-up molecules can help illuminate how viruses replicate or even how memories form in the brain.Flora Litchtman talks with Dr. Andrej Lupták, professor of pharmaceutical sciences at the University of California Irvine and Dr. Jennifer Prescher, professor of chemistry at the University of California Irvine, about their research on the topic.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

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 fall, told businesses to get “quantum-ready” for 2025, saying that “we are right on the cusp of seeing quantum computers solve meaningful problems.”So, are we on the cusp? Flora Lichtman is joined by Dr. Shohini Ghose, a quantum physicist and professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Canada and CTO of the Quantum Algorithms Institute, for a quantum computing check-in and a look at when this futuristic technology could start to have an impact on our lives. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

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 give some of the results of those experiments. Researchers found minerals that could have arisen from the drying of an icy brine, and a soup of organic molecules, including ammonia and 14 of the 20 amino acids necessary for life on Earth.Dr. Danny Glavin and Dr. Dante Lauretta join Flora Lichtman to talk about the samples, what their analysis is revealing, and what those findings could mean for the hunt for life elsewhere in the solar system.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

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. Rima Habre, associate professor of environmental health and spatial sciences at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles; and Dr. Mark Wilson, director of exposure science at Chemical Insights Research Institute (CIRI) in Marietta, Georgia.Transcript for this segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

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 CaliforniaThis 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 before seen in the United States: H5N9. The dominant bird flu strain circulating currently, H5N1, has led to massive culling of bird flocks, has infected dairy cattle, and has killed almost 500 people around the world since 2003. The US reported its first human death from bird flu earlier this month.Experts stressed that the new strain did not itself appear to be an immediate human threat. But the rise of a new strain is troubling and points to the risk of a viral phenomenon known as “reassortment,” in which different viruses mingled in a host can sometimes exchange bits of viral code, forming new strains.SciFri’s Charles Bergquist joins Flora Lichtman to talk about H5N9 and other stories from the week in science, including a spacewalk that was meant to include a search for microbes on the outside of the International Space Station, a possible positive side effect of scratching an itch, and the discovery of 66 million-year-old fossilized vomit.Understanding Bipolar Disorder Through The GenomeBipolar disorder is one of the most common mental illnesses—it affects an estimated 40 million people worldwide, about 2.8% of the population. Bipolar disorder can cause extreme mood swings, and be debilitating without treatment.In an effort to untangle the mysteries of where bipolar disorder originates, researchers studied the genomes of more than 40,000 people with the condition. When comparing these genomes to those of people without bipolar disorder, the researchers were able to pinpoint 298 different parts of the genome associated with the mental illness. With this better understanding of the genome, better, more targeted treatments for bipolar disorder may be possible.Joining Flora to talk about this research is Dr. Niamh Mullins, assistant professor of psychiatric genomics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

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 to make winter a season to look forward to rather than dread. Plus, she responds to some of our audience’s own tips to make the season enjoyable.What Would You Call The Fun Parts Of Winter?Do you think “winter doldrums” needs a positive rebrand? Let us know what you would call the winter experience instead by leaving us a voicemail at 1-646-767-6532.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.  Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

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 recently published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.Flora Lichtman talks with Dr. Zuzana Burivalova, assistant professor of forest & wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison about her latest research.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

It’s been five years since the first laboratory-confirmed case of COVID-19 in the U.S., a bleak milestone in the early days of a pandemic that touched the lives of everyone. For the lucky ones, the virus mainly meant more precautions: mask-wearing, the occasional COVID test. But for others, a COVID-19 infection turned into long COVID. This is a chronic condition that lingers long after a COVID infection, and can reduce one’s ability to live their day-to-day life.It’s been estimated that about 400 million people worldwide have had long COVID. Some researchers say that number is much higher. But there’s a lack of research on successful treatments for long COVID.Some patients living with the condition have taken things into their own hands. A recent investigation documented the experiences of 13 long COVID patients who tried taking Paxlovid for longer than the typical 5-day course. The patients had mixed results, adding to a growing body of evidence that there will not be one silver bullet for treating the condition.Joining Ira to talk about the results are two authors of the study, who have both had long COVID for years: Dr. Alison Cohen, assistant professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California San Francisco, and Dr. Julia Moore Vogel, senior program director at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

A recent study in the journal Nature unveiled new proteins that can neutralize the deadliest of snake venoms. They’re “new” in that they aren’t found in nature—they were created in a lab, dreamed up by AI.Using AI to discover, or design, the building blocks of drugs is a fast-growing area of research. Another team of scientists out of Philadelphia is using AI to discover new antibiotics by resurrecting long-lost molecules from extinct species like neanderthals and woolly mammoths.We know what you’re thinking: It sounds too sci-fi to be true.Flora Lichtman talks with two pioneers in the field about how AI is supercharging drug discovery: Dr. César de la Fuente, bioengineer and presidential associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and Nobel laureate Dr. David Baker, director of the Institute for Protein Design and professor at the University of Washington in Seattle.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.For our Los Angeles listeners: We’re working on a story about the toxins left behind by the fires and we want to hear from you. How is this affecting you? Are you worried about the air and water and soil? How are you approaching clean-up? And what questions do you have?Leave us a voicemail at 1-646-767-6532 or send us an email at scifri@sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health say the move has sent fear and confusion throughout the agency. Plus, what's the technology behind meme coins?Trump Administration Cancels Meetings, Freezes Hiring At NIHThis was President Trump’s first week back in the Oval Office. Along with issuing a flurry of executive orders, his administration has imposed a range of restrictions on the National Institutes of Health, affecting meetings, travel, hiring, funding, and communications. Scientists expressed alarm about what this could mean for ongoing research, with no clear timeline for if or when the freeze would be lifted.Flora Lichtman is joined by Casey Crownhart, climate editor at the MIT Technology Review, to catch up on this and other big science stories of the week, including what’s coming next this year for nuclear power, why a record amount of snow fell in the Southeast this week, and new research on the surprisingly complex biology of a manta ray tail.What Exactly Is A Meme Coin And How Does It Work?A few days before President Trump’s inauguration, he hosted a “crypto ball” in Washington, D.C. That night, he unveiled his very own meme coin—a kind of digital asset that has gained a reputation for facilitating scams. Soon after, first lady Melania Trump also launched her own meme coin. After its launch, Trump’s coin’s market capitalization reached billions of dollars.This isn’t the first time meme coins have gotten a lot of attention—you might remember Elon Musk joked about another one called Dogecoin on SNL in 2021—but it is the first time that this technology has been used by a sitting president. So what exactly is a meme coin anyway? How does the blockchain play into all this? And how might a president use it differently than an internet celebrity?To find out more, Flora Lichtman talks with Liz Lopatto, a senior writer at The Verge who covers cryptocurrency and business, about how this market started, how Trump could use meme coins, and where the crypto market could go next.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.  Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Editors at scientific journals are quitting in droves. According to Retraction Watch, a watchdog publication, there have been at least 20 mass resignations since 2023.So, what’s going on? If you look closely, you’ll notice a common pattern—publishers are cutting back on the number of editors, increasing the number of papers, and charging hefty fees for authors to publish their work.The most recent mass resignation happened at the Journal of Human Evolution at the end of 2024. Both co-editors in chief and the entire editorial board quit, except for one person.What does this mean for the future of scientific publishing? Have these resignations made the big publishers change their ways? Is the strict academic publishing system we know in danger?To answer those questions and more, Ira talks with Dr. Andrea Taylor, former co-editor in chief of the Journal of Human Evolution; and Ivan Oransky, co-founder of Retraction Watch and editor in chief of The Transmitter.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Rejoice, amateur and professional astronomers: This January is a fantastic time for looking up at the sky.The flashiest event of the season is also one of the easiest to see without binoculars or a telescope. A “parade of planets”—Venus, Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars—will be visible, and recognizable by their incredible brightness against the night sky. Uranus and Neptune will also be visible, but with a telescope. This string of planets will be visible for all of January.Additionally, the ATLAS comet, discovered last year by NASA’s Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, has come close enough to the sun—8.3 million miles away—to be visible with binoculars or a telescope. Be careful, though: looking at sunrise or sunset could hurt your eyes.Astronomer Dean Regas, host of the podcast “Looking Up with Dean Regas,” joins Ira from Cincinnati, Ohio, to discuss the best things the winter night sky has to offer this year, with or without a telescope.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.  Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

From down here on Earth, life on the International Space Station seems magnificent: floating through the day, enjoying stunning views out your window, having an experience only a handful of other people will ever get.But what’s it really like to live up there? How does experiencing 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets every day change your perception of time? How do you cope with being so far from the people you love?Those are some of the questions explored in the novel Orbital, which won the Booker Prize late last year. In the book, author Samantha Harvey imagines the inner life of astronauts aboard the ISS.Host Flora Lichtman is joined by Samantha Harvey, along with astronaut Dr. Cady Coleman, who spent almost six months on the Space Station, and is an author herself. They talk about the unexpected mundanities of living in space, how Harvey was inspired to write the book during lockdown, and how astronauts make sense of their new reality when separated from the rest of humanity.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Since January 7, wildfires have been devastating the Los Angeles area. In the span of 10 days, several different fires, including the Palisades and Eaton fires, have burned more than 40,000 acres and destroyed more than 12,000 structures. At least 25 people have died.The threat of fire is growing, especially in zones known as the wildland-urban interface, or WUI. That’s where unoccupied wildland and human developments meet and mingle. Think of a city sprawling around a forest, for example. In the US, around one in three homes is in this type of high-risk zone.So what’s the science behind urban fires? And how do we protect ourselves in the face of them?Ira Flatow talks with Dr. Kimiko Barrett, senior wildfire researcher and policy analyst at the research group Headwaters Economics in Bozeman, Montana; and Dr. Alexandra Syphard, senior research scientist at the Conservation Biology Institute in San Diego, California.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

The SpaceX rocket carries lunar landers from companies based in Texas and Japan. They could arrive at the moon in the coming months. HPV can cause a variety of cancers, including cervical. New mortality data for women under 25 point to the success of the HPV vaccine.Rocket Launches With Lunar Landers From 2 Private CompaniesOn Wednesday, a SpaceX rocket launched carrying payloads from two separate private companies hoping to achieve lunar landings. The pair of landers—one from Japanese company ispace, and one from Texas-based Firefly Aerospace—will take months to reach the moon. Firefly’s lander is scheduled to arrive first, in March, with ispace’s lander planned for a touchdown in late May or early June.Another SpaceX launch on Thursday, a test flight of the company’s Starship system, had mixed results. The booster returned to earth and was successfully “caught,” but the spacecraft exploded over the Caribbean shortly after launch. That explosion is under investigation.Jason Dinh, climate editor at Atmos in Washington, D.C., joins Ira to talk about the Wednesday launch and plans for private lunar exploration. They also discuss other stories from the week in science, including the ban of Red Dye #3 an AI approach to snake antivenom, and a study predicting a rise in US dementia cases by 2060.As Cervical Cancer Deaths Plummet, Experts Credit HPV VaccineIn 2006, a vaccine for the human papillomavirus (HPV) became widely available to adolescents. HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection, and it can cause cancers of the mouth, throat, and sexual organs. It’s also the cause of nearly every case of cervical cancer.Now, almost 20 years after the HPV vaccine was introduced, a study published in JAMA noted a 62% drop in deaths due to cervical cancer in women under 25 in the US: from 50 or 60 deaths per year to 13. This follows earlier research that noted a decrease in cervical precancer and cancer since the introduction of the vaccine.With HPV vaccine uptake at about 60% for adolescents aged 13-15, a higher uptake could virtually eliminate cervical cancer, experts say. However, childhood vaccination rates have dwindled since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, sparking concerns about the spread of preventable disease.Joining Flora Lichtman to talk about this latest study is lead author Dr. Ashish Deshmukh, professor of public health sciences and co-leader of the Cancer Prevention and Control Program at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, South Carolina.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

For years, artificial intelligence companies have heralded the coming of artificial general intelligence, or AGI. OpenAI, which makes the chatbot ChatGPT, has said that their founding goal was to build AGI that “benefits all of humanity” and “gives everyone incredible new capabilities.”Google DeepMind cofounder Dr. Demis Hassabis has described AGI as a system that “should be able to do pretty much any cognitive task that humans can do.” Last year, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said AGI will arrive sooner than expected, but that it would matter much less than people think. And earlier this week, Altman said in a blog post that the company knows how to build AGI as we’ve “traditionally understood it.”But what is artificial general intelligence supposed to be, anyway?Ira Flatow is joined by Dr. Melanie Mitchell, a professor at Santa Fe University who studies cognition in artificial intelligence and machine systems. They talk about the history of AGI, how biologists study animal intelligence, and what could come next in the field.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Scientists investigated how the shape of the human body makes hula hooping possible—and what hips and a waist have to do with it. And, the decision for how to proceed with NASA's Mars Sample Return Mission will fall to the incoming administration.What Makes A Hula Hoop Stay Up?Hula hooping might appear to be a simple physical activity. But there’s some complex math and physics at play as the hoop goes around your body, and scientists haven’t had a clear understanding of those hidden forces—until now. A team of mathematicians at New York University recently published research into the science of hula hooping in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.Flora Lichtman is joined by Olivia Pomerenk, a PhD candidate in mathematics at New York University, and a coauthor of that paper. She talks with Flora about why the motion of hula hooping prevents the hoop from falling down and which body types make for the best hooper.NASA Considers Cheaper, Faster Ways To Retrieve Mars SamplesNASA’s Mars Sample Return mission is an ambitious project that aims to use the Perseverance rover to collect Martian rocks, sand, and even gulps of Martian air. Then, through a complicated handoff between different spacecraft, it would ferry those samples to Earth.A 2023 assessment found that the original plan to retrieve the samples would be much more expensive, and take much longer, than initially expected.This week, NASA announced two options for how to cut costs and bring the samples to Earth by the late 2030s. But the agency did not solidify a plan, leaving it to the next administration to sort out around 18 months from now. Is the project on the rocks?To get up to speed on the mission, Flora Lichtman talks with Dr. Jim Bell, professor of earth and space exploration at Arizona State University, and distinguished visiting scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.   Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Alcohol poses many risks to our health, including liver damage and driving under the influence.Now, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy has highlighted another risk of drinking alcohol: cancer. In his latest advisory, Murthy detailed the growing body of research showing that drinking alcohol can increase the risk of at least seven types of cancers, those of the mouth, throat, voice box, esophagus, breast, liver, and colon.He’s also recommended adding a warning to alcohol outlining the connection between alcohol use and cancer.Ira talks with Dr. Murthy about the science that informed his latest advisory and his parting message for the nation as he ends his term as Surgeon General.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

On January 6, the U.S. reported its first human death from the bird flu. According to the CDC, more than 60 people were diagnosed with bird flu in the US last year, up from just one case in 2022.If you look at global cases over the last two decades, of the nearly 900 reported cases in people, roughly half the patients died.H5N1 avian influenza has been circulating in birds—and even some mammals—for years. But in the spring of 2024, the virus turned up in dairy cattle. Since then, over 900 herds have been affected, according to the CDC.This might bring back memories from early in the COVID-19 pandemic—but is that the right way to think about this? Should we be concerned? And what steps should we be taking?To unpack this, host Flora Lichtman talks with Dr. Seema Lakdawala, co-director for the Center for Transmission of Airborne Pathogens and associate professor studying influenza viruses at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia; and Dr. Richard Webby, director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Studies on the Ecology of Influenza in Animals and Birds and virologist at St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

After her SciFri internship 20 years ago, Flora went on to become a beloved science journalist, video producer, and podcaster. Now she’s back! Also, several different fires are causing extreme damage in the Los Angeles area. Strong Santa Ana winds are one factor behind their rapid spread.Science Friday Now Has Two Hosts: Meet Flora Lichtman!Big news! Science Friday now has two hosts—Ira Flatow, the program’s founder, and veteran science journalist Flora Lichtman. Going forward, you’ll hear both of them regularly on the air and on our podcast. Flora joins Ira to introduce herself and talk about her background, from her start as an intern at Science Friday 20 years ago to her role as a video producer, then a writer for Bill Nye, and as creator of the podcast “Every Little Thing.”Los Angeles Wildfires Burn For Days, Stoked By Santa Ana WindsThis week, the Los Angeles area has been battered by at least five separate wildfires. Tens of thousands of acres have burned, and thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes. Fire experts had warned on January 2 that conditions were ideal for wildfires in parts of Southern California. One factor that has helped these fires spread rapidly? Unusually strong Santa Ana winds.On the other side of the country, Winter Storm Blair has caused freezing temperatures and up to a foot of snow across the Midwest and up into the East Coast, putting more than 60 million people under weather alerts.Joining Ira Flatow to discuss these and other top stories of the week is Umair Irfan, science correspondent at Vox, based in Washington, D.C.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.