Science Friday

Many of us have gotten sucked into the tiny dramas unfolding in our backyards, or on the bird feeder or the fire escape. But not everyone can turn those observations into a best-selling book. Author M...

Move over, Drosophila. Step aside, C. elegans. Scientists are working to establish a new model organism. It’s a tiny species of glassfish called Danionella cerebrum, and its claim to fame is that it's...

It’s impossible to ignore the latest nutrition trend: protein-maxxing. Stroll through the grocery store and you’ll find protein chips, protein-packed ice cream, and even sparkling protein water. Not t...

Almost all matter particles have corresponding particles of antimatter: Protons have antiprotons, neutrons have antineutrons, and so on. When matter and antimatter bump into each other they destroy ea...

Armadillos have been crawling up the southern U.S. as the climate warms, making themselves at home as far north as Kentucky and Indiana. They’re what wildlife biologists call a “signal species,” one w...

A consortium of researchers from around the world has sequenced the genomes of 103 bat species, tracing the evolutionary origin of bats back in time. Using both genetic samples and fossil records, the...

There’s a new trend in the world of weight loss: microdosing GLP-1 drugs. Online health clinics are promising big results with microdoses drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, and Zepbound. Many source their dr...

In a matter of months, AI has transformed the field of mathematics. In September, OpenAI claimed that an AI model solved the million-dollar Navier-Stokes equation. Then, a few weeks later, OpenAI shar...

While Tyrannasaurus rex has reached celebrity status in pop culture thanks to movies like “Jurassic Park” and famous fossils, it can be difficult to imagine what everyday life was like for this charis...

Pass the cocktail napkins and refill your glass because we’re having a dinner party. You’ll be between Isabella Rossellini, the Italian model, movie star, and director; and ecologist Carl Safina, auth...

The time we see on our phones and clocks is based on the Earth’s rotation. But that rotation speed varies, so if it speeds up or slows down, our time measurements get thrown off. To solve this problem...

The movie “Klara and the Sun,” in theaters now, is based on the 2021 novel of the same name by Kazuo Ishiguro. The story is set in the future and is narrated by Klara, a robotic “Artificial Friend,” w...

Have you ever wondered what it means for something to be bear resistant? How do manufacturers know that the cooler you take camping or the compost bin in your backyard will keep hungry bears out? Wond...

In 2020, Jennifer Doudna shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry for the development of the gene-editing technique CRISPR. Along with related techniques, it has become an essential tool in genetics, allow...

In late September 2026, NASA announced that a new telescope called PRIMA was getting a green light and advancing to something called Phase B of the development process. But what does that mean exactly...

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is one of the most prominent voices in the climate movement. She’s a marine biologist by training, but as she saw the effects of the climate crisis intensify, she took on more...

In the new movie “Whalefall,” a scuba diver (Austin Abrams) gets accidentally swallowed by a sperm whale. What follows is a tense battle against time and the whale’s digestive system, to escape before...

With the midterms approaching, politicians are out in full force to convince voters to elect them. And that means that we’re hearing a lot of “politician speak.” You know it when you hear it: those fo...

An unwelcome visitor is arriving on beaches from West Africa to the Caribbean, and Brazil to Florida. It’s brown, it’s stinky, and it’s more abundant than ever: sargassum. This free-floating seaweed h...

This year, October 13 marks Ada Lovelace Day, an observance that calls attention to the role of women in computing and technology. In this conversation from 2018, Ira talks with Claire Evans, author o...

In the past few years, the idea of attachment styles has taken off, both online and in therapy offices. It’s gone from a niche psychological concept to a shorthand to describe how we show up in relati...

A new mRNA flu vaccine made by Moderna was approved by the FDA in August, and is currently available for people aged 50 and over. The promise of an mRNA vaccine for flu is that it can be spun up more...

A Kelvin wave has reached California and is creeping up the West Coast, raising both sea levels and concerns from government officials. This kind of massive internal wave begins in the western Pacific...

Cephalopods have a reputation for being smart and majestic. And while that may be true, the life of a cephalopod can also be dark and gritty. Have you heard of octopus death spirals? How about cephalo...

It’s Nobel Prize week, and this year's prize in physics went to Francis Halzen “for decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysic...

On Science Friday, we love to talk about ideas, especially ideas that have the power to shape the future. But there are plenty of groundbreaking ideas that almost don’t make it out of the lab or the a...

John Wilson’s new documentary, “The History of Concrete,” has a subject matter that to most people may seem gray, drab, and boring. The film is anything but. Alongside facts about concrete’s reliance...

Big news for tiny cats: an itty-bitty three-pound spotted cat from Bolivia—called the tilcayo—is the first new wild cat species described in more than a hundred years. Tilcayo pics have been all over...

Leaders of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University say they can’t afford to keep the museum open to visitors. And there are rumors that another natural history museum, in Hays, Kansas, ma...

In 2024, scientists using instruments on board the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft spotted a new large impact crater on the surface of the moon. Tyler Powell joins host Flora Lichtman to descr...