Science Friday

Can Better Equipment Eliminate Concussions In Sports?

29 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Football season is well underway, and fans know those athletes get hit hard. Could better helmets and guidelines around concussion prevention someday ...

Is Tylenol Use During Pregnancy Connected To Autism?

26 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

At a news conference on September 22, President Trump claimed that taking acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, during pregnancy “can be ...

How AI Advances Are Improving Humanoid Robots

25 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Robots are just about everywhere these days: circling the grocery store, cleaning the floor at the airport, making deliveries. Not to mention the robo...

The High-Tech Lab Unlocking Secrets Of Coral Reproduction

24 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the heart of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, scientists are on the cutting edge of growing coral. Rising ocean temperatures have caused mass co...

The Humble Microbe Could Help Us Understand Life Itself

23 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Sift through your memories and excavate an image of a fossil. Maybe you’re picturing dinosaur bones, the imprint of an ammonite, or the fronds of a ...

Raising A New Generation Of Bat Conservationists In West Africa

22 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Nigeria is home to 100 known species of bats—about a third of Africa’s bat species—but scientists don’t know much about them. Ecologists Iroro...

How Conservation Efforts Brought Rare Birds Back From The Brink

19 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The overall state of birds can seem rather grim. Almost a third of North American bird species are in decline, and in the last five decades, more than...

Teamwork Between Species Is The Key To Life Itself

18 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Codependency between humans gets a bad rap. But in nature, species often rely on each other for survival. While humans think they’re in control of r...

If An Asteroid Were Headed For Earth, Would We Be Ready?

17 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

You might remember news reporting from earlier this year that a 180-foot asteroid had about a 3% chance of hitting Earth in 2032. And if it did, it wo...

A Trailblazing Geneticist Reflects On Her Life And Work

16 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It’s common knowledge that many diseases and conditions have some kind of genetic link. But that wasn't always the case. In 1990, long before the Hu...

What The Label Of ‘Genius’ Tells Us About Our Society

15 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What makes someone a genius? Are they the smartest, most creative, most innovative people? Those with the highest IQ? Who we consider a genius may act...

The Human Obsession With Aliens Goes Way, Way Back

12 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A video shown on Capitol Hill on September 9 reportedly shows an American hellfire missile attacking and simply bouncing off a UAP (the military term ...

A Delicious But Invasive Mushroom Could Affect Fungal Diversity

11 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It all started harmlessly enough: People bought kits to grow mushrooms at home. But then, scientists in the upper Midwest noticed something strange. T...

A Photographer Captures Nature In Mind-Boggling Detail

10 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

If you’ve flipped through an issue of National Geographic or scrolled through their social media, and caught a stunningly detailed photo of a tiny c...

How Shoddy Science Is Driving A Supplement Boom

09 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Dietary supplements are big business, with one recent estimate showing the industry is worth almost $64 billion in the United States alone. Take a cas...

Octopuses Use Suckers To ‘Taste’ Harmful Microbes

08 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Put on your party hat and wet suit because it is Cephalopod Week, Science Friday’s annual celebration of all things, octopuses, squid, and cuttlefis...

After CDC Director Is Ousted, More Senior Officials Resign

05 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On August 27, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the White House fired CDC director Susan Monarez after only a month on the job. Right after s...

Meet 3I/Atlas, An Object From Another Solar System

04 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Earlier this summer, astronomers discovered something strange whizzing past Jupiter: an interstellar object. Scientists named it 3I/ATLAS. It’s only...

How Common Household Products Pollute Our Indoor Air

03 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

You have probably given some thought to outdoor air pollution, whether it’s wildfire smoke or smog from traffic. You may even check AQI measurements...

The Shape-Shifting Science Of Sand Dunes

02 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In some places, sand dunes protect shorelines from the onslaught of ocean waves. In other places, the dunes themselves are on the move, and threaten h...

Food Science Experts On Perfecting At-Home Ice Cream

01 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Summer may be winding down, but we’re not quite ready to let go of beach days, backyard cookouts, or ice cream cones. We love ice cream here at SciF...

An ER Doctor Reflects On Hurricane Katrina, 20 Years Later

29 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Twenty years ago, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana, and the levees designed to protect New Orleans failed. Huge swaths of the city flooded...

An Archaeologist And A Tattoo Artist Decipher Ancient Ink

28 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Researchers recently used near-infrared photography to get a detailed look at ancient artwork showing scenes of wild animals tangled in a fight. But t...

What Lies Beneath The Outer Layers Of A Star?

27 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

You might think of a star as a mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace where hydrogen is turned into helium at a temperature of millions ...

How Have Gray Wolves Fared 30 Years After Reintroduction?

26 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Gray wolves are native to the Rocky Mountains, but decades of hunting nearly eradicated them from the western United States by the 1940s. In 1995, wol...

Are Food Dyes Really Bad For You?

25 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What do Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, lime Jell-O, and Kraft Creamy French Salad dressing have in common? They've all gotten a glow-up from artificial food d...

mRNA Vaccine For Pancreatic Cancer Continues To Show Promise

22 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This month, the Department of Health and Human Services terminated almost $500 million in mRNA vaccine development grants and contracts. While HHS has...

Can The Rise In Solar Power Balance Out Clean Energy Cuts?

21 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Since President Trump returned to office, his administration has been aggressive in rolling back clean energy initiatives. But that isn’t the whole ...

Decoding Fireflies’ Smelly Signals And Blinking Butts

20 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Fireflies’ magical blinking lights are tiny beacons in the warm dark night. Who can resist catching one? Not scientists.Because their light comes fr...

The Uncertain Science Behind What We Understand As ‘Truth’

19 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Throughout history, humans have been on a search for truth. From the ancient Greeks and their belief in a universal truth, to our Founding Fathers wri...

How Agatha Christie Used Chemistry To Kill (In Books)

18 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Did you know that murder mystery writer Agatha Christie had a background in chemistry? In about half of her stories, the murder is committed using poi...

What Do mRNA Funding Cuts Mean For Future US Research?

15 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On August 5, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that the Department of Health and Human Services would terminate almost $500 million in ...

Breast Milk Is Understudied. What Are Scientists Learning Now?

14 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

If you’ve found yourself scrolling through the breastfeeding world online, you know that people have a lot of strong opinions about breast milk. But...

When Headaches Are Ruining Your Life, Where Can You Turn?

13 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Science journalist Tom Zeller Jr. has suffered from debilitating cluster headaches for three decades. Like other cluster headache sufferers, his episo...

Remembering Apollo 13 Astronaut James Lovell

12 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Last week, astronaut James Lovell died at the age of 97. In April of 1970, he was the commander of the Apollo 13 mission, which launched with three as...

‘Underground Atlas’ Shows How Vulnerable Fungal Networks Are

11 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Fungal networks in the soil are arguably the basis of much of life on Earth, but they’re understudied and underappreciated in the conservation world...

Lithium May Have A Role In Causing—And Treating—Alzheimer’s

08 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The mechanisms behind Alzheimer’s disease have eluded scientists for decades. But a new breakthrough points to lithium as a possible explanation—n...

Are Cold Plunges Actually Good For You?

07 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

If social media and certain influential podcast hosts are to be believed, cold plunges can do everything from boosting your immune system to reducing ...

A Nagasaki Survivor And Physician Recounts His Life's Work

06 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Masao Tomonaga was only 2 years old when the United States bombed his home city of Nagasaki. He survived, and grew up to become a physician for ot...

65 Genomes Expand Our Picture Of Human Genetics

05 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The first complete draft of the human genome was published back in 2003. Since then, researchers have worked both to improve the accuracy of human gen...

How The Moon Transformed Life On Earth

04 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

For almost their entire 4.5 billion-year existence, Earth and its moon have been galactic neighbors. And the moon isn’t just Earth’s tiny sidekick...

EPA Seeks To Revoke Scientific Basis For Greenhouse Gas Rules

01 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This week the Trump administration indicated that it would seek to roll back a key EPA finding that allows the agency to regulate greenhouse gas emiss...

You Can Whistle While You Work—But How Does A Whistle Work?

31 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Whistling is a skill used to communicate over distances—a whistle can mean anything from “you’re cute” to “time to come home for dinner.” ...

A Reptile’s Baffling Backfin And The Math Of Dashing Dinos

30 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Paleontologists have identified an ancient reptile with a towering crest made not of skin, or scales, or feathers, or antler—but something else enti...

NASA Employees Protest Cuts In Formal Dissent Letter

29 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Trump administration has proposed cutting NASA’s budget by almost 25% and shutting down 19 currently operating science missions. On July 21, sev...

Where Are We On The Science Of Menopause?

28 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Menopause is having a moment. Celebrities like Halle Berry, Naomi Watts, and Michelle Obama have recently shared their personal menopause experiences....

EPA To Shut Down Scientific Research Arm

26 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The EPA recently announced that it’s going to shut down its scientific research arm, called the Office of Research and Development. Since the agency...

Parker Solar Probe Captures Closest-Ever Images Of The Sun

25 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In December, the Parker Solar Probe made history when it made the closest-ever approach to the sun by a spacecraft. As it whizzed by, a camera recorde...

Climate Change Is Upending The Home Insurance Market

24 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

You can’t get a mortgage without home insurance. But in some parts of the country, it’s becoming harder and harder to find a plan, as insurance co...

What The Sigma Is Algospeak?

23 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Gen Alpha slang can seem unintelligible to adults, but linguist and TikToker Adam Aleksic argues language development in the internet age is worth leg...

How Millions Of Flies Can Help Stop The New World Screwworm

22 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The New World screwworm has cattle ranchers, entomologists, and the federal government on edge. The pest was successfully eradicated from the US decad...

Why Is The Scopes Trial Still Relevant 100 Years Later?

21 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In July 1925, the Scopes “Monkey” Trial captivated the nation. On its face, the case was relatively straightforward: A Tennessee biology teacher n...

Why Don’t We Have A Vaccine For Lyme Disease?

18 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It’s shaping up to be one of the worst tick years yet, and concerns about Lyme disease—which is transmitted through the bites of some species—ar...

Is This PTSD Treatment Too Good To Be True?

17 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

About 7% of veterans experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and that number can be closer to 30% for those who have served in a war zone.  ...

Is It Time For A New Model Of The Universe?

16 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

For decades, astronomers have been trying to nail down the value of the Hubble constant—a measure of how fast the universe is expanding. But some co...

How PFAS From A Military Base Has Sickened Nearby Residents

15 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

For decades, residents of the small city of Newburgh, New York, were unknowingly drinking water contaminated with toxic PFAS—also known as forever c...

The Leap: And Then The Sub Went Silent

14 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Oceanographer Victoria Orphan’s dream was coming true. She was sitting in the Alvin submersible, on one of its deepest science dives ever. But the t...

How These Spiders At The Bottom Of The Sea Run On Methane

13 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Researchers found a new sea spider with a giant nose, leg cannons, and—most remarkably—a novel way of surviving in the lightless, freezing environ...

As Disasters Escalate, What’s The Future Of FEMA?

11 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

President Trump has said that he wants to phase out FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and move responsibility for dealing with major disa...

Spaghetti Science And Mouth Taping Myths

10 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Most pasta is made from just two ingredients—flour and water. For decades this humble food has prompted physicists around the world to try to unders...

The Goo In Your Home Could Help Science Address Climate Change

09 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We live in a world filled with microbes—they’re inside our bodies, in soil, in deep sea hydrothermal vents, and in your window AC unit. Some micro...

How Do GLP-1 Drugs Override Our Biology?

08 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

GLP-1 medications like Ozempic have dominated headlines over the past couple of years. When writing his new book, Diet, Drugs and Dopamine: The New Sc...

The Leap: Everything Else Is Boring

07 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In both her life and her work, researcher Karmella Haynes has never followed the pack. Karmella explains why she created her own area of research at t...

The Seafaring Life Of ‘Modern-Day Captain Nemo,’ Robert Ballard

04 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In excerpts of two conversations from the Science Friday archives (originally recorded in 2000 and 2009), oceanographer Robert Ballard joins Host Ira ...

Understanding Sunscreen Ingredients And Which Ones You Need

03 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Summer is here, which means it’s the season for soaking up the sun. But it’s important to do so responsibly, considering the strong link between s...

In ‘Jurassic World Rebirth,’ Paleontology Is Still The Star

02 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The latest Jurassic World movie, “Jurassic World Rebirth,” is out today. The movie stars Scarlett Johansson (“The Avengers”) and Mahershala Al...

What Does It Mean To Have A Chatbot Companion?

01 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

AI is not just for automating tasks or coming up with new recipe ideas. Increasingly, people are turning to AI chatbots for companionship. Roughly hal...

The Leap: Mars? It Was A Miracle We Got To Florida

30 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Geologist Steve Squyres risked his career and millions of dollars to get two rovers roaming on Mars. But the mission almost didn’t make it to the la...

After Her Grants Got Cut, This Researcher Is Suing The NIH

27 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Since January, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has made sweeping cuts to science. It's hard to keep track of how many research grants were can...

New Telescope Captures The Cosmos In Groundbreaking Detail

26 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The first images from the brand new Vera C. Rubin Observatory have finally been unveiled, and they show us the cosmos like never before. The camera ca...

How Scientists Made The First Gene-Editing Treatment For A Baby

25 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Last month, scientists reported a historic first: they gave the first personalized gene-editing treatment to a baby who was born with a rare life-thre...

Ancient Bone Proteins May Offer Insight On Megafauna Extinction

24 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Australia is known for its unusual animal life, from koalas to kangaroos. But once upon a time, the Australian landscape had even weirder fauna, like ...

The Leap: You Do Realize… That’s Impossible

23 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As a grad student, Suchitra Sebastian wasn’t sure she wanted to be a physicist. But when one of her experiments gave an unexpected result, she was h...

What We’re Learning From The James Webb Space Telescope

20 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) started collecting data nearly three years ago, and it has already transformed our understanding of the universe...

How ‘Super Agers’ Stay Sharp And Active Longer Than Their Peers

19 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Ever noticed how some people get to their 80s and 90s and continue to be healthy and active? They spend their days playing mahjong, driving to lunch, ...

A Dino’s Last Dinner And Eavesdropping Birds

18 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

While there are a lot of dinosaur fossils, and a lot of plant fossils, the precise connection between the two has been something of a mystery. Now, re...

What Are The Best Practices For Prostate Cancer Screening?

17 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Last month, former President Joe Biden announced that he had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer. The news sparked a larger conv...

The Leap: Garbage In, Garbage Out

16 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Biochemist Virginia Man-Yee Lee has spent a lifetime in the lab, figuring out what happens in the brains of people with neurodegenerative diseases. Sh...

RFK Jr. Reshuffles CDC Vaccine Panel With Vaccine Skeptics

13 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On Monday, US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired all 17 members of the panel that advises the CDC on who should get certain vaccines and whe...

What’s Next For China’s Space Program?

12 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This week, China’s Tianwen-2 spacecraft sent back its first image from space. It’s headed to a rendezvous with the asteroid Kamoʻoalewa, one of E...

The Ruin And Redemption Of The American Prairie

11 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The prairie might just be the most underappreciated landscape in the United States. Beginning in the early 1800s, the majority of these grasslands wer...

Bedbugs Have Been Bugging Us Since Before Beds

10 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Bedbug infestations are not just a modern problem—these pests have been with early human ancestors for 245,000 years, causing problems long before t...

The Leap: A Scientist’s Quest To See Every Organism On Earth

09 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Manu Prakash is many things—biologist, engineer, inventor, philosopher—but what he isn’t is conventional. Following his instincts has led Manu t...

Are We Prepared To Fight ‘The New Polio’?

06 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A mysterious disease called acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) has been appearing in emergency rooms for about a decade. The disease has caused otherwise he...

How Science Communication Can Step Up Amid Federal Cuts

05 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It’s a precarious time for science in the United States. Federal funding is being slashed, career scientists are being laid off, and researchers are...

How Cannibalistic Tadpoles Could Curb Invasive Cane Toads

04 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

South American cane toads were brought to Australia in 1935 to help eradicate native beetles that were destroying sugar cane crops. The toads didn’t...

Turning The Binoculars On Birders

03 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Birding is a hobby that attracts a very particular group of people: the kind who get up at sunrise, go into the woods, and wait for hours for a little...

The Leap: Be Bold Or Just Don't Do It

02 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As a young plant scientist, Joanne Chory shook up the research establishment with her unconventional approach to figuring out how plants work. Her met...

What Huge Cuts To NSF Funding Mean For Science

30 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Grant funding by the National Science Foundation has been cut by more than half this year, bringing the foundation’s science funding to its lowest l...

What Happens When Air Traffic Control Systems Go Dark?

29 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

At the end of April, air traffic control radar surveillance and radio communication systems at Newark Liberty International Airport went dark for over...

Could The NIH Plan For A ‘Universal Vaccine’ Really Work?

28 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

At the beginning of May, the National Institutes of Health, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, announced a plan to develop a univers...

The Leap: This Is Going To Kill Your Career

27 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Betül Kaçar started her scientific career as a biochemist, working on an enzyme found in zebrafish. But then she found her calling: investigating so...

The Science Of That Big Stunt From The New ‘Mission: Impossible’

23 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The “Mission: Impossible” franchise is known for its big stunts, and the newest film is no exception. Producer Kathleen Davis talks to the film’...

Meet A Pioneer Of Modern Weather Prediction

22 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Climate scientist Jagadish Shukla grew up in a small village in rural India, where people starved if the monsoon season didn’t bring rain. To help h...

Are Physical Buttons And Knobs Making A Comeback?

21 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In recent years, digital touchscreens have replaced many of the buttons and knobs that control various functions in cars. But when Host Ira Flatow wen...

Scientists Identify Genes For Tomato And Eggplant Size

20 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Tomatoes come in all kinds of colors, sizes, and flavors. But what’s going on at the genetic level? What makes a tomato red or yellow? Tiny or giant...

The Leap: The Volcano Whisperer

19 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

As a teenager living in St. Vincent, Richie Robertson saw first-hand what a volcanic eruption did to life on the island. Forty years later, he was the...

Lesser Prairie Chicken May Lose Endangered Species Status

16 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The lesser prairie chicken was granted endangered species status in 2023. Now the Department of the Interior is moving to revoke those protections. Wh...

Tracking The Hidden Dangers Of Fighting Fires

15 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Firefighting is a career with an inherent cancer risk, but a full understanding of what those risks are has been elusive. An important registry design...

Identifying New Plants, And The Scientific Secrets Of Superfoods

14 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What does it take to create and maintain one of the largest repositories of botanical information in the world? For starters, it can mean helicopter-i...