Science Friday
Episodes
Electric Fish Communication, Science Crimes, Lighting Cave Art. August 13, 2021, Part 1
13 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This Fish Is The Master Of The Poignant Pause When listening to a well-practiced speaker, like during a lecture, a political event or during a favorit...
Bad Data, CRISPR Therapies, Wildfire Impact, Oilbirds. August 6, 2021, Part 2
06 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How Imperfect Data Leads Us Astray Datasets are increasingly shaping important decisions, from where companies target their advertising, to how govern...
Infrastructure Package, Covid News, Line3 Pipeline. August 6, 2021, Part 1
06 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
President Biden’s Infrastructure Bill Sees The End Of The Road President Biden’s huge infrastructure bill is finally seeing the end of the road. T...
Gut Fungi, Olympic Challenges, Planetary Seismology. July 30, 2021, Part 2
30 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Getting To Know The Fungus Among Us (In Our Guts) Your gut microbiome is composed of more than bacteria—a less populous, but still important, reside...
New CDC Mask Rules, Viral Persistence, Disaster Preparedness. July 30, 2021, Part 1
30 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
With Delta Rising, New Rules On Masks And Vaccines This week, the CDC released new guidelines for mask use in the U.S., just months after many cities ...
Shellfish Deaths, Chemical Safety, Humpback Songs. July 23, 2021, Part 2
23 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Billions Of Sea Creatures, Lost To Heat Waves A couple weeks ago, the Pacific Northwest saw record-breaking temperatures. News coverage captured count...
Surgeon General, Blockchain. July 23, 2021, Part 1
23 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Flooding Worldwide Fits Climate Change Models While the western United States is burning again this summer, other parts of the world are drowning. Ger...
Songbird Mystery, Sweat, Betelgeuse. July 16, 2021, Part 2
16 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Songbirds Suffer Mystery Illness From The East Coast To The Midwest The reports started in late May: Songbirds in Washington, D.C. and neighboring reg...
New Battery Technology, COVID Rise From Unvaccinated Populations. July 16, 2021, Part 1
16 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Research For New Battery Technology Is Gaining Steam As countries around the world set their goals for decarbonizing their economies, it’s becoming ...
African Wild Dogs, Spotted Lanternfly, Seashells. July 9, 2021, Part 1
09 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Sniffing Out How To Save African Wild Dogs One of the most endangered mammals on Earth, African wild dogs are known for their oversized ears, social b...
John McPhee’s Annals Of The Former World. July 9, 2021, Part 2
09 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Writing, Like Geology, Requires A Little Digging When author John McPhee first considered the piece of writing that would become his 1998 book, Annals...
Garden Hotline, Benjamin Franklin. July 2, 2021, Part 2
02 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Science Of Your Summer Vegetable Garden Planting and tending to a vegetable garden is both an art and a science. If all goes well, you’ll be enj...
Extreme Heat, COVID Delta Variant, Poe’s Science. July 2, 2021, Part 1
02 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Alarming Impacts Of Extreme Heat This week, the Pacific Northwest was hit by a record breaking heat wave, with temperatures rising as high as 116 ...
Cephalopod Week Wrap Up, California Carbon Credits Error. June 25, 2021, Part 1
25 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
California’s Climate Program Is Actually Adding Carbon To The Atmosphere California has a reputation as the state that’s doing the most about clim...
UFO Report, Animal Play, Alzheimers and Music. June 25, 2021, Part 2
25 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Is The Truth About UFOs Out There? Over the past several years, U.S. Navy pilots have reported several instances of ”unexplained aerial phenomena”...
Immunocompromised and Covid, Summer SciFi Reading. June 18, 2021, Part 2
18 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
COVID-19 Vaccines May Not Protect Immunocompromised People This week, California and New York, two of the states hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandem...
Marijuana And Medicine, Cephalopod Week, Environmental Antidepressants. June 18, 2021, Part 1
18 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How To Talk About Medical Marijuana With Your Doctor Over the last decade, cannabis has had a moment. Thirty-six states and Washington D.C. have legal...
Health Equity And Trans Health, Human-Robot Relationship. June 11, 2020, Part 1
11 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Biden’s New Assistant Secretary Of Health On Protecting Trans Youth The American healthcare system is facing some incredible challenges: Black and L...
Alzheimer’s Treatment Controversy, Science Mistakes, Chonky Fish. June 11, 2020, Part 2
11 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
FDA’s Approval Of Debated Alzheimer’s Treatment Raises Controversy This week, the FDA gave the green light to a drug for the treatment of Alzheime...
Genetics of Depression, Engineering Humans for Space, Tech Ethics. June 4, 2021, Part 2
04 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Research Reveals 178 Genes Are Associated With Depression If you have a family member that suffers from depression, chances are you may have more than...
Fauci On 40 Years Of HIV/AIDS, Watermelon Origins, Venus Missions. June 4, 2021, Part 1
04 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Anthony Fauci Reflects On 40 Years Of HIV/AIDS Research Every week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) releases its regular report o...
Sand Sustainability, Jane Goodall, Morphing Pasta, Cicada Snacks. May 28, 2021, Part 2
28 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Shifting The Sand Business To Greener Practices Sand is one of the most in-demand natural materials on the planet—some 50 billion tons of sand and g...
Vaccine Hesitancy, Colorado River Drought, Alternative Syrups. May 28, 2021, Part 1
28 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How Do We Overcome Vaccine Hesitancy? This Memorial Day weekend, many people will be traveling to the beach, hitting the road or socializing with frie...
Cybersecurity, Baseball Physics, Opioid Trial. May 21, 2021, Part 2
21 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Americans’ Online Security Needs An Update Last week, all eyes were on the shutdown of a gas pipeline that delivered fuel to large portions of the S...
Global Vaccination, Malaria Vaccine, Zombie Wildfires. May 21, 2021, Part 1
21 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How Do You Solve a Problem Like World Vaccination? Here in the U.S., it feels as if we’ve turned a corner in the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of the popu...
NFTs and Art, Neuralink, Preserving Endangered Foods. May 14, 2021, Part 2
14 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What’s Behind The Blockchain-Based Art Boom? From multi-million dollar art sales to short NBA video clips, non-fungible tokens have taken off as ...
New Mask Rules, Pain Algorithm, Assorted Nuts, Muldrow Glacier. May 14, 2021, Part 1
14 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Fully Vaccinated Can Unmask Often, CDC Says As the number of vaccinated Americans continues to rise and evidence mounts that the vaccines may reduce v...
Beetles, Wildfires, Woodchip Bioreactor. May 7, 2021, Part 2
07 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A Beetle’s Chemical (And Plastic) Romance For many species of beetle, the key to finding a mate is scent: Both females and males give off pheromones...
Herd Immunity, Crossword Program. May 7, 2021, Part 1
07 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Weighing COVID-19 Vaccinations For Teens Federal officials are reporting that the Food and Drug Administration is poised to authorize Pfizer’s COVI...
Viking Metal, Possible Futures, Global Pollination. April 30, 2021, Part 2
30 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Uncovering Metal Crafts Of The Viking Age Vikings are often associated with scenes of boats and fiercely-pitched battles. But new research, published ...
The Past And Future Of Plastics Tech. April 30, 2021, Part 1
30 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Future Of Plastics Plastics do a lot of good. They’re sturdy, they’re clean, and the COVID-19 pandemic has really highlighted their benefits, ...
Gender-Affirming Health Care, Defining ‘Life’. April 23, 2021, Part 2
23 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Proposed Legislation Threatens Trans Rights Nationwide Since the start of the 2021 legislative session, members of more than 30 state legislatures hav...
Climate Summit, Offshore Wind, Hummingbirds. April 23, 2021, Part 1
23 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
World Leaders Gather Virtually For Climate Summit Forty world leaders attended an international summit on climate change to discuss how each country w...
History Of Conservation, Right Whales Decline. April 16, 2021, Part 1
16 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Conserving More Than Just the Planet’s ‘Beloved Beasts’ Historically, “conservation” simply meant not overhunting a game animal, preserving ...
Understanding Caribbean Volcano Eruption, Billions Of T-Rexes, Pterosaur Necks, Lost Feasts. April 16, 2021, Part 2
16 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Understanding St. Vincent’s Volcanic Eruption Since April 9th, the Caribbean island of St. Vincent has been rocked by eruptions at the La Soufrière...
Piano AI, Giraffes, Alzheimer’s, Mime Psychology. April 9, 2021, Part 2
09 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
New AI Composes Songs From Silent Performance Videos There have been many awkward attempts in the quest to train algorithms to do what humans can. Mus...
Future For Long COVID Patients, Getting COVID Info To Sihk Truckers. April 9, 2021, Part 1
09 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What Does The Future Look Like For COVID-19 Long-Haulers? There’s something strange happening with some people who’ve gotten sick with COVID-19: S...
Pollination, Beekeeping How-To, Sunflower Project. April 2, 2021, Part 2
02 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Buzz Over Non-Bee Pollinators When you think of pollinators, bees are probably the first insect that comes to mind. But there are actually all sor...
Unexpected Physics, Controlling Cow Methane, Spring Break. April 2, 2021, Part 1
02 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Signs The Standard Model Of Physics May Be Incomplete The pandemic has slowed many projects around the world, but scientists and engineers are nearing...
Spring Climate Effects, Octopus Sleep, Housing and Health. March 26, 2021, Part 2
26 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In New York, Essential Workers Face Eviction If you walk through many towns during this pandemic, you can tell that something is different just by loo...
Racism And Mental Health, How To Milk Ticks. March 26, 2021, Part 1
26 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Mental Health Costs Of ‘Everyday’ Racism On March 16, a 21-year-old white man killed six Asian women and two other people in multiple shooting...
SciFri Extra: The Origin Of The Word 'Introvert'
20 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Science Diction from Science Friday is back! Their latest episode is all about a recent buzzword: "Introvert." In 2013, introverts staged their come...
Greenland Plants, Privacy and Big Data, Rainbows. March 19, 2021, Part 2
19 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Under A Mile Of Ice, A Climate Clue Scientists studying sediment taken from a core sample of the Greenland ice sheet just 800 miles from the North Pol...
COVID Questions, Introvert Origin. March 19, 2021, Part 1
19 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Rise In Anti-Asian Violence Is At The Intersection Of Racism And Disease Earlier this week, eight people were killed at three Atlanta-area massage par...
Virtual Disease, Daydreaming, Geoengineering. March 12 2021, Part 2
12 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Learning From World Of Warcraft’s Virtual Pandemic The widespread infection of roughly four million virtual characters all started with a giant sn...
Jackson Water Woes, Giant Telescope Mirror, Shark Sex. March 12 2021, Part 1
12 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What Went Wrong With Jackson, Mississippi’s Water? Residents of Jackson, Mississippi have been dealing with a water crisis since a storm rolled thro...
Conversations, Baby Teeth, Tasmanian Tiger. March 5, 2021, Part 2
05 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When Is It Time To Say Goodbye? Imagine you’re having a conversation with someone. You may get the sense that they have somewhere else to be. Or you...
Implementing Oregon’s Drug Policy, Wisconsin Wolf Hunt, Johnson & Johnson Vaccine. March 5, 2021, Part 1
05 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Oregon Just Decriminalized Small Amounts of All Drugs. Now What? On February 1, a big experiment began in Oregon: The state has decriminalized small a...
Texas Storm, NASA Climate Advisor, Mars Sounds. Feb 26, 2021, Part 1
26 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Does A Vaccine Help You If You’ve Already Had COVID-19? Vaccines doses have started to rollout and are getting into the arms of people. We know that...
Lucid Dreaming, Sex As A Biological Variable, Parachute Science, Global Vaccine Access. Feb 26, 2021, Part 2
26 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Memory And The Dreaming Mind If you’ve ever stayed up too late studying for a test, you know that sleep impacts memory—you need that precious shut...
Tech Unions, Color Perception, Fish Vs Birds. Feb 19, 2021, Part 2
19 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Reprogramming Labor In Tech More than 6,000 warehouse workers in Bessemer, Alabama are midway through voting on whether they should unionize. If the ‘...
Fauci On Vaccines and Variants, Mummy Mystery, Texas Power Grid Failure. Feb 19, 2021, Part 1
19 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Fauci Says Majority Of U.S. Adults Likely To Be Vaccinated By Late Summer We’re about a month shy of a big anniversary: one year since the World Hea...
Fish Eye Secrets, Human Genome Project, Science Diction 'Mesmerize.' Feb 12, 2021, Part 2
12 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Seeing The World Through Salmon Eyes The saying goes, “The eyes are the window to the soul.” But for fish, the eyes are the window to the stomach....
The Effectiveness Of Double-Masking, Mars Landing Preview. Feb 12, 2021, Part 1
12 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Two Masks Are Better Than One Masks have been a big issue throughout the pandemic, from supply shortages to debates about when they should be required...
Four Lost Cities, Sourdough Microbiome, Queen Bees, Bison. Feb 5, 2021, Part 2
05 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
National Bison Range Returns To Indigenous Management Hundreds of years ago, tens of millions of bison roamed North America. They were an essential re...
COVID Variants And Vaccines, U.S. Energy Justice. Feb 5, 2021, Part 1
05 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Will Vaccines Work Against New Variants Of The Coronavirus? The rollout of COVID-19 vaccination programs around the world has been anything but smooth...
Medieval Bones, Vaccine Rollout, Florida Panthers. Jan 29, 2021, Part 2
29 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A Skeletal Record Of Medieval England Society If you’ve ever fractured a bone, that skeletal trauma stays with you forever, even after it heals. So ...
Your Questions About COVID-19 Vaccines Answered, Placenta Science. Jan 29, 2021, Part 1
29 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Everything You Want To Know About COVID-19 Vaccines The U.S. has been vaccinating people against COVID-19 for a little over a month. While there have ...
Orange Bat, Greenland Bacteria, COVID Anniversary, Alien Argument. Jan 22, 2021, Part 2
22 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Orange Is The New Black—For Bats For a newly-described bat from West Africa, dubbed Myotis nimbaensis (mouse-eared bat from the Nimba Mountains), ...
Finding Lead Pipes Through Algorithm, How Soil Could Save The Planet. Jan 22, 2021, Part 1
22 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
After Flint’s Crisis, An Algorithm Helps Citizens Find Lead Pipes It’s been nearly seven years since the beginning of Flint, Michigan’s water cr...
Valley Fever And COVID-19, Structure of Conspiracy Theories, New Climate Wars. Jan 15, 2021, Part 2
15 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How The West Is Battling COVID-19 And Valley Fever For the past year, the COVID-19 crisis has taken up much of our attention. But the pandemic can com...
How The COVID-19 Vaccine Was Developed And Is Being Distributed. Jan 15, 2021, Part 1
15 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How Did A Vaccine Get Developed In Less Than A Year? From the first discovery of a strange new respiratory virus in Wuhan, China, in January of 2020, ...
COVID Fact Check, Aging Cells, News Roundup. Jan 8, 2021, Part 1
08 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Fact Check My Feed: What’s Up With These COVID-19 Mutations? It’s a new year, and that means there’s a whole slew of new COVID-19 news to dive i...
Fundamentals of Physics, Giant Ancient Birds, 2021 Space Outlook. Jan 8, 2021, Part 2
08 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Finding New Particles On The Frontier of Physics As a theoretical physicist, Frank Wilczek has made a career out of dreaming up new ways to understand...
They Might Be Giants, Animal Sounds Quiz, Luxury Ostrich Eggs. Jan 1, 2021, Part 2
01 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
They Might Be Giants With A Timely Reminder: “Science Is Real” Fans of the band They Might Be Giants are likely to be familiar with the band’s v...
Christmas Bird Count, Black Birders Week, Science Diction: Vaccine. Jan 1, 2021, Part 1
01 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Where Did The Word ‘Vaccine’ Come From? As we head into 2021, there’s one word on all of our minds: Vaccine. It may be in headlines right and le...
Indigenous Astronomy, Auroras, Inclusive Science. Dec 25, 2020, Part 2
25 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Nature’s Own Holiday Light Show The spectacular glowing green of the Northern Lights is caused by charged particles from the solar wind interacting ...
2020 In Review, Charismatic Tubeworms, Dog Evolution. Dec 25, 2020, Part 1
25 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
2020: The Year In Science, With Wendy Zukerman It’s the end of the year, and time to reflect. While there’s no doubt the coronavirus and efforts t...
Black Holes, Scallop Die-off, River Sound Map. Dec 18, 2020, Part 2
18 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What Would Happen If You Fell Into A Black Hole? A new book, Black Hole Survival Guide, explores different theories of what would happen if you jumpe...
Future Of Climate Change, Tongue Microbiome. Dec 18, 2020, Part 1
18 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How The Past Hints About Our Climate’s Future Ask a climate scientist how much the earth will warm as a result of the carbon dioxide we’re emittin...
Science Books of 2020, ANWR Drilling, Science Diction. Dec 11, 2020, Part 2
11 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Trump Administration Rushes To Sell Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Land For Drilling In a last-minute push, the Trump administration announced Thurs...
Vaccination Logistics, Europe’s Green Deal. Dec 11, 2020, Part 1
11 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
COVID-19 Vaccinations Begin In The U.K. This week, the U.K. began its vaccination effort against COVID-19 with Margaret Keenan, a 90-year-old woman fr...
Virtual Worlds And Wildfire Health Effects. Dec 4, 2020, Part 2
04 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Science Friday’s Second Life: The Voyage Home Do you remember Second Life? That online virtual world where you can create an avatar, build whatever ...
David Attenborough, China’s Moon Mission, COVID Approved In U.K. Dec 4, 2020, Part 1
04 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
David Attenborough Observes A Natural World In Crisis If you were to make a list of celebrities of the natural world, Sir David Attenborough would mos...
Ig Nobel Prizes, Koji Alchemy. Nov 27, 2020, Part 2
27 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Laugh Along At Home With The Ig Nobel Awards We know traditions are different this year. Maybe you’re having a small family dinner instead of a huge...
Your Cheese’s Microbiome, COVID Reinfection Questions, Future Of Meat. Nov 27, 2020, Part 1
27 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Can You Get COVID-19 More Than Once? SciFri producer Elah Feder’s friend tested positive for antibodies a few months ago—but last month, she devel...
Roman Mars, Disinformation, Ancient Female Big Game Hunters. Nov 20, 2020, Part 2
20 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Exploring The Invisible Architecture Of Cities With Roman Mars On a walk through your city or town, there are all sorts of sights and sounds to take i...
Famous Arecibo Observatory Decommissioned, Biden’s Climate Change Plan. Nov 20, 2020, Part 1
20 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Puerto Rico's Famous Arecibo Observatory Decommissioned The astronomical observatory in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, has been standing since 1963. It has wea...
Body Temperature, COVID Vaccines, Dog Genomics. Nov 13, 2020, Part 2
13 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Our Average Body Temperature Is Getting Cooler We’ve all been getting our temperature checked on the regular these days. Most restaurants and busine...
Biden’s COVID Transition Team, Election Drug Policy Reform. Nov 13, 2020, Part 1
13 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The New Biden Administration Plans For COVID-19 It’s been less than a week since it became clear that Joe Biden would be the president elect. While ...
Climate Policy And The Election, COVID Winter Forecast, Murder Hornets. Nov 6, 2020, Part 1
06 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What Will The Pandemic Look Like During The Winter? It’s been almost a year since officials in China announced the spread of a mysterious pneumonia,...
Ancient Algae, COVID Holidays, Accessible Pregnancy Test. Nov 6, 2020, Part 2
06 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How Algae Survived A Mass Extinction Sixty-six million years ago when an asteroid slammed into what is now the Yucatan peninsula, it set off a period ...
Book Club Finale, Floating Nuclear Plants. Oct 30, 2020, Part 2
30 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Pushing Boundaries In Fantastical Fiction The Science Friday Book Club has spent all of October immersed in short stories by Indigenous, Black, Chi...
Science And The Election, Disinformation, Vampire Bats. Oct 30, 2020, Part 1
30 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Choosing the next U.S. president is not the only decision voters will make in the upcoming 2020 elections. Major science policies are also on the ball...
Should We Trust Election Forecasting, COVID Dreams. Oct 23, 2020, Part 1
23 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The first “scientific” election poll was conducted in 1936 by George Gallup, who correctly predicted that Franklin D. Roosevelt would win the pres...
Teaching in a Pandemic, Inheriting Stress, Book Club. Oct 23, 2020, Part 2
23 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Even In A Pandemic, Science Class Is In Session This academic year, school campuses across the United States look very different. Instead of crowded h...
U.S. COVID Spikes, Blockchain Chicken Farm, Book Club: Chicanafuturism. Oct 16, 2020, Part 2
16 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Across The Country, A Spike In Coronavirus Cases Over 217,000 people have died of COVID-19 in the U.S., and many states are seeing an upswing in case ...
The Black Hole At The Center Of The Galaxy, Shipwreck Microbes. Oct 16, 2020, Part 1
16 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The 2020 Nobel Prize winners have been announced, and among them is UCLA astronomer Andrea Ghez, who split the prize with Roger Penrose and Reinhard G...
Science News, Nobel Roundup, Book Club. Oct 9, 2020, Part 1
09 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What Is The Status Of President Trump’s COVID-19 Case? Late last week, President Trump announced that he had tested positive for COVID-19 and was ad...
Solar System Smackdown: Mars v. Venus, Mussel Mystery. Oct 9, 2020, Part 2
09 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Solar System Smackdown: Mars Vs. Venus One of the fiercest hunts in the solar system is the scientific search for signs of extraterrestrial life—whe...
Antarctic Ice, Itching, Ancient Birds. Oct. 2, 2020, Part 2
02 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
New Study Shows No Second Chance For Antarctic Ice Shelves From the heat waves and wildfires in the western U.S. to the active hurricane season in the...
Trump Tests Positive For Coronavirus, COVID-19 Fact Check, SciFri Book Club. Oct. 2, 2020, Part 1
02 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The news hit us overnight: President Trump, the First Lady, and at least one member of the president’s staff tested positive for COVID-19. Just befo...
Feather Communication, Thermal Imaging Wildfires, Tick Saliva. September 25, 2020, Part 2
25 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Thermal Imaging Technology Helps Firefighters See Through Smoke Wildfires are still raging out west, and states are using anything in their arsenals t...
Indigenous Fire Management, Oliver Sacks Film. September 25, 2020, Part 1
25 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Down a long, single-lane road in the most northern part of California is Karuk territory—one of the largest Indigenous tribes in the state. It’s h...
SciFri Extra: After 20 Years, The ‘Cosmic Crisp’ Has Landed
21 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This fall, there’s a new apple all around town. After 20 years of development, the Cosmic Crisp has landed. Today, we're bringing you an episode of...
Nursing Homes, Volcano Science. Sept 18, 2020, Part 2
18 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
America’s Elder Care Has A Problem Since the pandemic began, long-term care facilities across the country have experienced some of its worst effects...
West Coast Fires, Sen. Ed Markey, Deafness Cures. Sept 18, 2020, Part 1
18 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Peak wildfire season is just beginning on the West Coast, but 2020 is already another unprecedented year. In California, more than 2.2 million acres h...
Medium Black Holes, World of Wonders, Warsaw Typhus. Sept 11, 2020, Part 2
11 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Why A Medium-Sized Black Hole Is Surprising Physicists If you’re looking for a black hole, they normally come in two sizes. There’s the basic mode...
The Wonders of Moss, Clean. Sept 11, 2020, Part 1
11 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
These Moss Are Living Their Best Life—Under Rocks Desert mosses live a much different life than their cousins in lush, water-rich forests. In fact, ...
Fact Check Your Feed, Climate And Fungi, Cells Solve A Maze. September 4, 2020, Part 2
04 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Can Fungus Survive Climate Change? One of the most extensive global networks for sharing information and moving around essential nutrients is hidden f...