NPR: Science Friday Podcast
NPR: Science Friday Podcast
Science Friday, as heard on NPR, is a weekly discussion of the latest news in science, technology, health, and the environment hosted by Ira Flatow. Ira interscientists, authors, and policymakers, and listeners can call in and ask questions as well. Hear it each week on NPR stations nationwide -- ...
Considering Values In The Health Care Debate
As health care legislation moves through Congress, bioethicist Thomas H. Murray asks if enough attention is being paid to concepts such as justice, fairness and liberty. Murray and health care economist Len Nichols discuss the role of values in the ...
Considering Values In The Health Care Debate
As health care legislation moves through Congress, bioethicist Thomas H. Murray asks if enough attention is being paid to concepts such as justice, fairness and liberty. Murray and health care economist Len Nichols discuss the role of values in the ...
Giving Athletes A Heads-Up On Concussions
Football players take a lot of hits, but when does hard-headed play go too far? New research suggests that head trauma can do lasting damage. Two brain researchers talk about what happens in the brain when a player gets hit, and how athletes can better ...
Students Build Living Microbial Machines
At the 2009 International Genetically Engineered Machine competition, undergraduates from all over the world unveiled the living machines they'd created with snippets of DNA, from bacteria that change color when they detect pollutants to ones that ...
Students Build Living Microbial Machines
At the 2009 International Genetically Engineered Machine competition, undergraduates from all over the world unveiled the living machines they'd created with snippets of DNA, from bacteria that change color when they detect pollutants to ones that ...
Can Oceans Survive The Human Appetite For Seafood?
Faced with declining fish stocks, many nations are looking for sustainable ways to have their fish — and eat it too. But how much fishing is too much? Oceanographer Sylvia Earle discusses this and other topics in her book The World is Blue: How Our ...
Can Oceans Survive The Human Appetite For Seafood?
Faced with declining fish stocks, many nations are looking for sustainable ways to have their fish — and eat it too. But how much fishing is too much? Oceanographer Sylvia Earle discusses this and other topics in her book The World is Blue: How Our ...
Building A Better Lightbulb
The U.S. Department of Energy is offering $10 million to the first individual or company to develop an energy-efficient LED replacement for the standard 60-watt incandescent bulb. DOE lighting program manager James Brodrick discusses the L Prize, and ...
A Head-Shrinker Studies The Zombie Brain
Psychiatrist Steven Schlozman recently expanded his practice from humans to the inhuman. Poring over his library of classic zombie films, he came up with neurobiological explanations for the behavior of the undead, such as lack of a frontal lobe and an ...
Halloween: A Holiday For Gadgets
For gadget lovers, Halloween is more geeky than spooky. Mark Frauenfelder, editor-in-chief of Make Magazine, talks about the geekiest do-it-yourself Halloween costumes and decorations, from spray foam guts and singing pumpkins to a fortune-teller costume ...
People ... People Who Eat People
In her book Dinner With a Cannibal, writer Carole Travis-Henikoff documents the long — and often hidden — history of cannibalism in humans. Travis-Henikoff notes that cannibalism wasn't always taboo, whether it be eating loved ones out of ...
Why Runners Like To Feel The Burn
What compels hundreds of thousands of runners to compete in marathons every year? Ira Flatow and guests discuss running research — from how humans are adapted specifically for long-distance running to why working up a sweat might be good for the ...
Happy Birthday, Internet
On Oct. 29, 1969, around 10:30 P.M., a message from one computer was sent over a modified phone line to another computer hundreds of miles away. Some say the Internet was born that day. UCLA computer scientist Leonard Kleinrock, who was there, gives his ...
Examining Gene Therapy As Treatment For Blindness
Reporting in The Lancet, doctors found success in treating Leber's congenital amaurosis, a rare type of blindness, with gene therapy. Study author Katherine High explains how injecting a gene-carrying virus into the eye has improved vision in a handful ...
Did Algae Contribute To Mass Extinctions?
Forget asteroids — a new theory says algae were the key to the dinosaurs' extinction millions of years ago. Ecotoxicologist John Rodgers details the evidence for the theory and explains why some algae can be harmful in large quantities, even to ...
Seeing The Softer Side Of Nature
In his new book, The Age of Empathy, Frans de Waal says nature has been wrongly depicted to justify a "survival of the fittest" attitude in humans. Drawing on examples from his primate observations, de Waal says it's time for humans to rethink how we ...
Natural Selection Works On Humans, Too
Mining data from the Framingham Heart Study, scientists say they've been able to tease out the effects of natural selection on humans. Evolutionary biologist Stephen Stearns explains how evolutionary forces may produce shorter, rounder, more fertile ...
Seeing Through The Eyes Of An Armadillo
Sam Easterson has refined the art of the critter cam. He is the curator of the Museum of Animal Perspectives — an online repository of "remotely sensed wildlife imagery." All the footage comes from cameras implanted in the landscape or strapped to ...
Searching For The Right Hand-Scrubbing Message
Researchers tried various slogans to encourage travelers to lather up after using rest stop toilets, from the disgusting — "Soap it off or eat it later" — to the educational — "Water doesn't kill germs, soap does." Hygiene expert Val ...