Science Friday
638 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 4 hours ago - ★★★★ - 5.1K ratingsBrain fun for curious people.
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Flint’s Water Crisis, 10 Years Later | Underwater Cables Could Help Detect Tsunamis
April 26, 2024 20:00 - 25 minutes - 23.4 MBWhile progress has been made in replacing water pipes in Flint, many residents say they still don’t know if their tap water is clean or not. Also, scientists are adding sensors to an underwater cable network to monitor changes in the ocean and quickly detect earthquakes and tsunamis. 10 Years Later, Flint’s Water Crisis Still Isn’t Over In 2014, city officials in Flint, Michigan, switched their water source to the Flint River, a move that was projected to save the city $5 million. Instead,...
Fighting Banana Blight | Do Birds Sing In Their Dreams?
April 25, 2024 20:00 - 19 minutes - 17.4 MBAmerica’s most-consumed fruit is at risk from a fungal disease. Researchers in North Carolina are on a mission to save Cavendish bananas. Also, birds move their vocal organs while they sleep, mimicking how they sing. Scientists have translated those movements into synthetic birdsong. Fighting Banana Blight In A North Carolina Greenhouse Bananas are the world’s most popular fruit. Americans eat nearly 27 pounds per person every year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A deadly...
Why Is Solving The Plastic Problem So Hard?
April 24, 2024 20:00 - 17 minutes - 16.4 MBOne of the biggest environmental issues in our modern world is plastic, which has become integral in the manufacturing of everything from electronics to furniture. Our reliance on plastic has led to a recycling crisis: A vast amount of plastic that winds up in our recycling bins isn’t actually recyclable, and ultimately winds up in landfills. Large companies have committed to reducing plastic packaging and cutting back on waste. But there’s still no good way to scale up the removal of plast...
What Worsening Floods Mean For Superfund Sites
April 23, 2024 20:00 - 17 minutes - 16.4 MBSuperfund sites are some of the most polluted areas in the country, containing highly toxic waste such as asbestos, lead, and dioxin. Cleaning them up, which follows a systematic, science-based process as required by law, can take decades. There are more than 1,300 of these sites across the US, from Florida’s Panhandle to the banks of the Rio Grande in New Mexico. They’re found in nearly every state, often near residential areas. The EPA estimates that 78 million people live within three mi...
The Global Mental Health Toll Of Climate Change | Capturing DNA From 800 Lakes In One Day
April 22, 2024 20:00 - 18 minutes - 16.6 MBAn explosion of research is painting a clearer picture of how climate change is affecting mental health across the globe. Also, a citizen science project aims to find species that have gone unnoticed by sampling the waters of hundreds of lakes worldwide for environmental DNA. Assessing The Global Mental Health Toll Of Climate Change As the effects of climate change become more visible and widespread, people around the globe are dealing with the mental health impacts. But what are those imp...
Clean Energy Transition Progress | Avian Flu In Cattle And Humans Has Scientists Concerned
April 19, 2024 20:00 - 25 minutes - 23.2 MBGlobal temperature increases are slowing, electric vehicle sales are growing, and renewable energy is now cheaper than some fossil fuels. Also, in a recent outbreak of avian flu, the virus has jumped from birds to cows, and to one dairy worker. A disease ecologist provides context. Progress Toward A Clean Energy Transition In honor of Earth Day, we’re highlighting a few positive trends and some promising solutions to the climate crisis. Globally, a clean energy transition is underway. A re...
A Cheer For The Physics Of Baseball
April 18, 2024 20:00 - 17 minutes - 16.3 MBCollege basketball’s March Madness concluded this week, meaning that now the national sports attention can turn fully to baseball. The next time you’re at the ballpark—whether you’re devoted enough to fill in the box scores by hand, or are just there for the peanuts and crackerjacks—take some time to appreciate the physics of the game. There are tricky trajectories, problems of parabolas, converging velocities, and the all-important impacts. Dr. Frederic Bertley, the president and CEO of t...
Carbon Cost Of Urban Gardens And Commercial Farms | Why There's No Superbloom This Year
April 17, 2024 20:00 - 18 minutes - 17.4 MBSome food has a larger carbon footprint when grown in urban settings than on commercial farms, while for other foods the reverse is true. Also, what’s the difference between wildflowers blooming in the desert each spring, and the rare phenomenon of a “superbloom”? The Carbon Cost Of Urban Gardens And Commercial Farms If you have a home garden, you may be expecting that the food you grow has less of an environmental impact than food grown on large commercial farms. But new research throws s...
Inside The Race To Save Honeybees From Parasitic Mites
April 16, 2024 20:00 - 18 minutes - 16.7 MBLast 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...
The Brain’s Glial Cells Might Be As Important As Neurons
April 15, 2024 19:59 - 15 minutes - 14.6 MBHalf of the cells in the brain are neurons, the other half are glial cells. When scientists first discovered glia over a century ago, they thought that they simply held the neurons together. Their name derives from a Greek word that means glue. In the past decade, researchers have come to understand that glial cells do so much more: They communicate with neurons and work closely with the immune system and might be critical in how we experience pain. They even play an important role in regu...
Limits On ‘Forever Chemicals’ In Drinking Water | An Important Winter Home For Bugs | Eclipse Drumroll
April 12, 2024 20:00 - 25 minutes - 23.7 MBA long-awaited rule from the EPA limits the amounts of six PFAS chemicals allowed in public drinking water supplies. Also, some spiders, beetles, and centipedes spend winter under snow in a layer called the subnivium. Plus, a drumroll for the total solar eclipse. EPA Sets Limits On ‘Forever Chemicals’ In Drinking Water This week, the EPA finalized the first-ever national limits for the level of PFAS chemicals that are acceptable in drinking water supplies. Those so-called “forever chemical...
Investigating Animal Deaths At The National Zoo
April 11, 2024 20:00 - 17 minutes - 16.3 MBWhen a critter meets its end at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo, it ends up on a necropsy table—where one of the zoo’s veterinary pathologists will take a very close look at it, in what is the animal version of an autopsy. They’ll poke and prod, searching for clues about the animal’s health. What they do—or don’t—find can be used to improve the care of living animals, both in the zoo and in the wild. On stage in Washington, D.C., Ira talks with Dr. Kali Holder, veterinary pathologist at the ...
Eating More Oysters Helps Us—And The Chesapeake Bay
April 10, 2024 20:00 - 18 minutes - 17.2 MBThe Chesapeake Bay produces around 500 million pounds of seafood every year, providing delicious blue crabs, striped bass, oysters, and more to folks up and down the coast. It’s one of the most productive bodies of water in the world, but the bay is constantly in flux due to stressors like overfishing, pollution, and climate change. But scientists have a plan to conserve the bay’s biodiversity, support the people who rely on it, and keep us all well fed—and it involves oyster farming. On st...
How Trees Keep D.C. And Baltimore Cool
April 09, 2024 21:03 - 12 minutes - 12 MBSpringtime is a great reminder of just how beautiful trees can be. Cherry blossoms and magnolias put on a gorgeous show, but trees aren’t just there to look good. They play an important role in absorbing heat, sequestering carbon dioxide, and preventing soil erosion. Dr. Mike Alonzo, assistant professor of environmental science at American University, is using satellites to determine just how effective urban trees are at keeping neighborhoods cool. He’s been able to track changes to the tre...
Predicting Heart Disease From Chest X-Rays With AI | Storing New Memories During Sleep
April 08, 2024 20:00 - 18 minutes - 16.9 MBDr. Eric Topol discusses the promise of “opportunistic” AI, using medical scans for unintended diagnostic purposes. Also, a study in mice found that the brain tags new memories through a “sharp wave ripple” mechanism that then repeats during sleep. How AI Could Predict Heart Disease From Chest X-Rays Research on medical uses for artificial intelligence in medicine is exploding, with scientists exploring methods like using the retina to predict disease onset. That’s one example of a growing...
Recipient Of Pig Kidney Transplant Recovering | Answering Your Questions About April 8 Eclipse
April 05, 2024 20:00 - 30 minutes - 28.2 MBA Massachusetts man who received a kidney from a genetically modified pig is recovering well. Also, on April 8, a total solar eclipse will plunge parts of North America into darkness. Scientists answer the questions you asked. Recipient Of Pig Kidney Transplant Leaves The Hospital Last month, Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston announced that a team of doctors had transplanted a kidney from a genetically engineered pig into a living human for the first time. This week, that patient, a...
Our Inevitable Cosmic Apocalypse
April 04, 2024 20:13 - 18 minutes - 16.7 MBWhen it comes to the eventual end of our universe, cosmologists have a few classic theories: the Big Crunch, where the universe reverses its expansion and contracts again, setting the stars themselves on fire in the process. Or the Big Rip, where the universe expands forever—but in a fundamentally unstable way that tears matter itself apart. Or it might be heat death, in which matter and energy become equally distributed in a cold, eventless soup. These theories have continued to evolve as ...
The Complicated Truths About Offshore Wind And Right Whales
April 03, 2024 20:00 - 18 minutes - 16.6 MBBy the time researchers found the dead whale on a Martha’s Vineyard beach, her jet-black skin was pockmarked by hungry seagulls, her baleen had been dislodged from her mouth, and thin rope was wrapped tightly—as it had been for 17 months—around the most narrow part of her tail. Researchers quickly learned this was a 12-ton, 3-year-old female known as 5120, and that she was a North Atlantic right whale, a species with just about 360 members left. A few weeks later, NOAA Fisheries announced ...
The Bumpy Road To Approving New Alzheimer’s Drugs
April 02, 2024 20:00 - 17 minutes - 16.5 MBIn the past few years pharmaceutical companies have developed a string of new Alzheimer’s drugs called anti-amyloids, which target amyloid plaques in patients’ brains. These plaques are one of the key biomarkers of the disease. The first of these drugs, Aduhelm, was approved by the FDA in 2021 amid enormous controversy. The FDA approved the drug despite little evidence that it actually slowed cognitive decline in patients. Biogen, the maker of Aduhelm, pulled the plug on further research or...
‘3 Body Problem’ And The Laws Of Physics | In Defense Of ‘Out Of Place’ Plants
April 01, 2024 20:00 - 23 minutes - 21.2 MBParticle accelerators, nanofibers, and solar physics: The science advisor for the Netflix adaptation breaks down the physics in the show. Also, in her new book, Jessica J. Lee looks at how humans have moved plants around the globe–and how our migrations are intertwined with theirs. How ‘3 Body Problem’ Explores The Laws Of Physics Last week, Netflix released its adaptation of the Hugo Award-winning sci-fi book The 3 Body Problem by Cixin Liu. It follows the journey of several scientists, f...
Baltimore Bridge Collapse | Mapping How Viruses Jump Between Species
March 29, 2024 20:00 - 20 minutes - 18.9 MBWe look into the engineering reasons why the Francis Scott Key bridge collapsed after a ship crashed into it. Also, a new analysis finds that more viruses spread from humans to animals than from animals to humans. The Engineering Behind Why The Bridge In Baltimore Collapsed On Tuesday, a large section of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key bridge collapsed after an enormous container ship lost power and collided with the structure. Two people were rescued from the water, two bodies were recovere...
The Legacy Of Primatologist Frans de Waal
March 28, 2024 20:00 - 18 minutes - 16.7 MBIt wasn’t that long ago that scientists didn’t think animals could rival humans in terms of intelligence, emotions, or empathy. But the groundbreaking work of Dr. Frans de Waal helped change all of that. De Waal spent his life studying the lives of animals — especially our closest cousins, chimpanzees and bonobos. The primatologist died last week at the age of 75, and we wanted to remember him by sharing one of our favorite conversations with him on the show. It’s from 2019, when he publish...
The ‘Asteroid Hunter’ Leading The OSIRIS-REx Mission
March 27, 2024 20:00 - 18 minutes - 17.3 MBEver since we learned that an asteroid slammed into Earth, wiped out the dinosaurs, and changed the course of life on this planet, scientists have wondered if it could happen again. It turns out there is an asteroid, called Bennu, that has a very small chance of colliding with our planet in the year 2182. But beyond that, Bennu could hold information that would help unlock our solar system’s secrets, like how it began and where life originated. NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission launched in 2016 to ...
Swimming Sea Lions Teach Engineers About Fluid Dynamics
March 26, 2024 20:00 - 17 minutes - 16.2 MBThe next time you go to the zoo, take a few minutes by the sea lion habitat to watch the way they swim. While most high-performance swimmers use powerful kicks from hind appendages to power through the water, sea lions instead use their front flippers, moving with a pulling motion. With their propulsion source close to their center of gravity and their flexible bodies, sea lions are extremely agile under water, able to weave in and out among the stalks of an undersea kelp forest. Researcher...
Botanical Rescue Centers Take In Illegally Trafficked Plants
March 25, 2024 20:07 - 17 minutes - 16.2 MBThere’s a thriving black market to buy and sell endangered plants, and the Department of Agriculture and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service monitor endangered species that are brought into the United States illegally. When they are discovered, the plants’ home country has 30 days to accept them. If they aren’t claimed, they get rescued. Then where do they go? To one of 62 plant rescue centers across the country at botanic gardens, zoos, and arboretums, operating according to an agreement through...
2023 Was Hottest Year On Record | The NASA Satellite Studying Plankton
March 22, 2024 20:00 - 24 minutes - 22.7 MBThe World Meteorological Organization’s report confirms last year had the highest temperatures on record and predicts an even hotter 2024. Also, NASA’s new PACE satellite will study how these tiny creatures could affect Earth’s climate, and how aerosols influence air quality. UN Report Confirms 2023 Was Hottest Year On Record A new report from the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization shows that last year had the hottest average global temperatures since recording began 174 yea...
A Strange-Looking Fish, Frozen In Time
March 21, 2024 20:00 - 17 minutes - 16.2 MBThe term “living fossil” has been applied to any number of animals, from sharks to turtles to the coelacanth. It’s the idea that those animals look very much the same way their species may have looked millions of years ago, with limited evolutionary change over that time. After analyzing the genomes of many different species on that “living fossil” list, researchers report they may have found an animal that evolves more slowly than all the others—a group of fish called gar. The rate of mole...
What We Know After 4 Years Of COVID-19
March 20, 2024 20:00 - 18 minutes - 16.7 MBFour years ago this week, the world as we know it changed. Schools shut down, offices shuttered, and we hunkered down at home with our Purell and canned foods, trying to stay safe from a novel, deadly coronavirus. Back then most of us couldn’t fathom just how long the pandemic would stretch on. And now four years later, some 1.2 million people have died in the U.S alone and nearly 7 million have been hospitalized as a result of a COVID-19 infection, according to the CDC. So, what have we l...
Science Unlocks The Power Of Flavor In ‘Flavorama’
March 19, 2024 20:00 - 17 minutes - 16 MBThink about the best meal you’ve ever eaten: Maybe it was in a restaurant in a far-off city, or perhaps it was a home-cooked meal made by someone you love. No matter where or what it was, odds are what made it so memorable was the flavor. Flavor is arguably the most important part of a meal. If the flavor of something is off, or undetectable, it can jeopardize your enjoyment. There’s a lot of chemistry and biological science behind how and what we taste. Flavorama: A Guide to Unlocking the...
Abortion-Restrictive States Leave Ob-Gyns With Tough Choices
March 18, 2024 20:00 - 18 minutes - 16.8 MBRoe v. Wade was overturned almost two years ago, and a lot has changed in terms of abortion choices in the United States. Some states have effectively banned abortion, while others have such confusing laws that it’s difficult for the people who live there to know what their reproductive rights are. The post-Dobbs landscape hasn’t just affected the care people can receive: It’s also changed where physicians choose to work, especially if they’re in states where they can be criminally prosecut...
Nasal Rinsing Safely | How Your Brain Constructs Your Mental Health
March 15, 2024 20:00 - 24 minutes - 22.6 MBA recent study looked into life-threatening Acanthamoeba infections, and a few deaths, linked to the use of tap water with devices like neti pots. And, in ‘The Balanced Brain,’ Dr. Camilla Nord explores the neuroscience behind mental health, and how our brains deal with life’s challenges. Scientists Warn Against Nasal Rinsing With Unboiled Tap Water Researchers at the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention published a study Wednesday that examined 10 cases of life-threatening Acanthamo...
A New Book Puts ‘Math in Drag’
March 14, 2024 20:00 - 18 minutes - 16.7 MBIt’s a common refrain from elementary school to adulthood: “I’m bad at math.” It’s a hard subject for a lot of people, and it has a reputation for being—let’s face it—boring. Math isn’t taught in a flashy way in schools, and its emphasis on memorization for key concepts like multiplication tables and equations can discourage students. It’s not hard to understand why: Math has long been seen as a boy’s club, and a straight, cis boy’s club at that. But Kyne Santos, a drag queen based in Kitch...
With This Rare Disorder, No Amount Of Sleep Is Enough
March 13, 2024 20:00 - 16 minutes - 15.3 MBHumans need sufficient sleep to function. The conventional wisdom is that we need around 8 hours each night to be at peak performance. But for people with idiopathic hypersomnia, or IH, no amount of sleep can shake a profound feeling of sleepiness. Some can sleep for over 24 hours, despite using stimulants and multiple alarm clocks. Others fall asleep while driving or doing other daily activities. IH is rare. It affects just a small fraction of 1% of people, and the underlying cause is unk...
How Election Science Can Support Democracy | The Genetic Roots Of Antibiotic Resistance
March 12, 2024 20:00 - 18 minutes - 17.3 MBHow Election Science Can Support Democracy This week, the election season shifted into full gear with the Super Tuesday slate of primaries. But as the ballot options become more cemented, it’s not just pollsters and campaign operatives who are preparing for the elections—scientists are too. The Union of Concerned Scientists has established what it calls an election science task force, looking at everything from ballot design to disinformation to voting security. Dr. Jennifer Jones, program...
Triple Feature: Dune, Mars, And An Alien On Earth
March 11, 2024 20:00 - 30 minutes - 28.2 MBCould A Planet Like Arrakis From ‘Dune’ Exist? “Dune: Part II” is one of the year’s most highly anticipated films, and it picks up where the first film left off: with Paul Atreides escaping into the desert on the planet Arrakis. It’s a scorching-hot world that’s covered in dunes, and home to giant, deadly sandworms. Obviously “Dune” and its setting are fictional, but could there be a real planet that resembles Arrakis? And if so, could it sustain life? Ira talks with Dr. Mike Wong, astrob...
Could This Be The End Of Voyager 1?
March 08, 2024 21:00 - 12 minutes - 11.6 MBIn 1977, NASA launched Voyager 1 and 2. Their mission? To explore the farthest reaches of our galaxy. Their missions were only supposed to last about four years, but it’s been almost 50. They’re now in interstellar space, navigating the region between stars. But since November, Voyager 1 has been sending unintelligible data back to Earth, raising concerns that it could be nearing the end of its mission. Ira talks with Maggie Koerth, science writer and editorial lead at Carbon Plan, about V...
What It Takes To Care For The US Nuclear Arsenal
March 07, 2024 21:00 - 17 minutes - 16.1 MBFor many people in the US, the threat of nuclear weapons is out of sight and out of mind. But the nuclear complex is alive and well. In fact, the state of nuclear weapons is evolving in the US. The United States, among other countries, is giving its nuclear arsenal—which contains about 5,000 weapons—a makeover. This modernization costs around $50 billion a year, which will amount to more than $1.5 trillion over the next few decades. With the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapon...
A Young Scientist Uplifts The Needs Of Parkinson’s Patients
March 06, 2024 21:00 - 18 minutes - 16.9 MB"I heard elders talk about 'the shakes,' but I now know that language reflects deep historical inequities that have denied us access to healthcare, knowledge, and research that could help us alleviate burdens and strengthen our health—enough with the shakes!" —Senegal Alfred Mabry, in Cell Parkinson’s disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder in the United States. According to a 2022 study, some 90,000 people a year in the US are diagnosed with Parkinson’s. It’s a progres...
Snakes Are Evolutionary Superstars | Whale Song Is All In The Larynx
March 05, 2024 21:00 - 24 minutes - 22.8 MBIn the trees, through the water, and under the dirt: Snakes evolve faster than their lizard relatives, allowing them to occupy diverse niches. Also, researchers are working to understand just how baleen whales are able to produce their haunting songs. Snakes Are Evolutionary Superstars Love ‘em or hate ‘em, new research shows that snakes deserve our recognition as evolutionary superstars. The study, published last week in the journal Science, found that snakes evolve faster than other rept...
What’s Behind The Measles Outbreak In Florida?
March 04, 2024 21:00 - 17 minutes - 16.4 MBThe United States eliminated measles back in 2000, but it still pops up every now and then. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a total of 35 measles cases across 15 states had been reported this year as of February 22. Early last month, a measles outbreak began at an elementary school in Broward County, in southern Florida. As of February 28, the Florida Department of Health reported 9 cases for Broward County—out of 10 for the whole state. Measles is one of the mo...
Pythagoras Was Wrong About Music | Biochar's Potential For Carbon Capture
March 01, 2024 21:00 - 18 minutes - 17.3 MBThe Greek philosopher Pythagoras had specific ideas about the mathematical ratios behind music. It turns out that he was wrong. Also, the charcoal-like substance known as biochar packs carbon into a stable form, making it less likely to escape into the atmosphere. Pythagoras Was Wrong About Music The ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras proposed a mathematical argument for what music sounds best to the ear: According to legend, he said listeners preferred music with chords adhering to perf...
As Space Exploration Expands, So Will Space Law
February 29, 2024 21:00 - 18 minutes - 17 MBAlmost 70 years ago—in the middle of the Cold War—the United States and the Soviet Union kicked off the race to space, and that high-stakes sprint transformed humanity’s relationship with space forever. Ultimately the USSR launched the first satellite, Sputnik, and the U.S. put the first humans on the moon. Now we’re in a different space race. But this time, there are a lot more contenders. There are more satellites in orbit than ever before, NASA is trying to put humans on Mars, countries ...
Blood In The Water: Shark Smell Put To The Test
February 28, 2024 21:17 - 17 minutes - 16.4 MBSharks are somewhat notorious for their sense of smell and ability to sniff out prey deep in the ocean. There’s that persistent myth that sharks can smell a drop of human blood from a mile away. But that’s not exactly true. While sharks can smell human blood, they are more interested in sniffing out what’s for dinner: other fish, crustaceans, and molluscs. Ocean currents also play a role in how far a scent can travel. However, shark noses are just as powerful as any other fish in the sea. ...
How Trivia Experts Recall Facts | One Ant Species Sent Ripples Through A Food Web
February 27, 2024 21:00 - 24 minutes - 22.6 MBHow can some people recall random facts so easily? It may have to do with what else they remember about the moment they learned the information. Also, in Kenya, an invading ant species pushed out ants that protected acacia trees. That had cascading effects for elephants, zebras, lions, and buffalo. A ‘Jeopardy!’ Winner Studied How Trivia Experts Recall Facts When contestants play “Jeopardy!,” it can be amazing to see how quickly they seem to recall even the most random, obscure facts. One ...
OpenAI’s New Product Makes Incredibly Realistic Fake Videos
February 26, 2024 21:00 - 17 minutes - 16 MBOpenAI, the company behind the chatbot ChatGPT and the image generator DALL-E, unveiled its newest generative AI product last week, called Sora, which can produce extremely realistic video from just a text prompt. In one example released by the company, viewers follow a drone’s-eye view of a couple walking hand-in-hand through snowy Tokyo streets. In another, a woman tosses and turns in bed as her cat paws at her. Unless you’re an eagle-eyed AI expert, it’s nearly impossible to distinguish t...
Private Spacecraft Makes Historic Moon Landing | New Cloud Seeding Technique
February 23, 2024 21:00 - 18 minutes - 17.5 MBPrivate Spacecraft Makes Historic Moon Landing Thursday evening, the Odysseus moon lander successfully soft-landed on the moon, becoming the first U.S spacecraft to do so in over 50 years. The lander mission wasn’t created by NASA or another government space agency, but by the company Intuitive Machines, making it the first commercial mission to successfully soft-land on the surface of the moon. The mission was part of a NASA program called the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, whi...
Making Chemistry More Accessible To Blind And Low-Vision People
February 22, 2024 21:00 - 16 minutes - 15.6 MBThe field of chemistry is filled with visual experiences, from molecular diagrams to color-changing reactions to data displayed as peaks and waves on a spectrograph. Those experiences and representations are not very accessible to blind and low-vision people. In a recent article in the journal Science Advances, a group of researchers describes using 3D printing to create translucent raised images known as lithophanes that can represent high-resolution chemical data in a tactile and visual fo...
Understanding And Curbing Generative AI’s Energy Consumption
February 21, 2024 21:05 - 17 minutes - 16.3 MBThe explosion of AI-powered chatbots and image generators, like ChatGPT and DALL-E, over the past two years is changing the way we interact with technology. Their impressive abilities to generate lifelike images from written instructions or write an essay on the topic of your choosing can seem a bit like magic. But that “magic” comes at a steep environmental cost, researchers are learning. The data centers used to power these models consume an enormous amount of not just electricity, but al...
Which Feathered Dinosaurs Could Fly? | Some French Cheeses At Risk Of Extinction
February 20, 2024 21:00 - 22 minutes - 20.7 MBHow Do You Know If A Feathered Dinosaur Could Fly? Not all birds can fly. Penguins, ostriches, and kiwis are some famous examples. It’s pretty easy to figure out if a living bird can fly. But it’s a bit tricker when it comes to extinct birds or bird ancestors, like dinosaurs. Remember, all birds are dinosaurs, but not all dinosaurs evolved into birds. Scientists at Chicago’s Field Museum wanted to figure out if there was a way to tell if a dinosaur could fly or not. They found that the nu...
Climate Scientist Michael Mann Wins Defamation Case
February 19, 2024 21:00 - 17 minutes - 16.5 MBClimate scientist Dr. Michael Mann won a defamation lawsuit against two conservative writers last week. The verdict was 12 years in the making. In 2012 writers Rand Simberg and Mark Steyn accused Mann of manipulating his data related to his famous 1998 “hockey stick” graph, which depicts rising global temperatures after the industrial revolution. Simberg compared him to former Penn State football coach and convicted child sex abuser Jerry Sandusky in a blog post for a libertarian think tank...