Science Friday Podcasts

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Weekly podcast of 'Science Friday,' a science and technology news discussion program heard on public radio stations across the USA. Primary Format : Science Language : English Also Listed as: City : New York State/Province : NY Country : USA Region : NA User Tags: User Votes: RSS Feed Website People found this Podcast Searching for: View this Podcast on a Google Map. Podcast iTunes Link Text Only listing of Science Friday Podcasts Methings.com listings of Science Friday Podcasts If you like this podcast, you might also like:

SciFri 121611 Hour 2: Higgs Search, Inflight Science, Wings The search for the elusive Higgs boson, a book on the technology and science of airline travel, and a video about flight physics. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 121611 Hour 1: Music Therapy, Petri Dish Neurologists and therapists discuss how music therapy works. Plus, how Julius Petri created his famous dish. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 120911 Hour 2: Transgenic Salmon, Pythons and Hearts Two scientists discuss food safety and environmental concerns associated with transgenic salmon, and molecular biologist Leslie Leinwand discusses how studying python metabolism could help treat heart disease. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 120911 Hour 1: Rat Empathy, Asian Space Race, Bedbug Breeding, Jump Rope Video A study suggests primates are not the only mammals with empathy, a look at a space race in Asia, bedbug inbreeding, and two engineers giving the jump rope a spin. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 120211 Hour 2: Skyscrapers, Hedy Lamarr Author Kate Ascher dissects the architecture and engineering of a modern skyscraper, and a new book looks at the life of the beautiful and brainy movie star Hedy Lamarr. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 120211 Hour 1: Antibiotic Research, Spontaneous Happiness, Pigeon Flight Next-generation antibiotics that target the bacterial DNA, Dr. Andrew Weil discusses antidepressant alternatives, video of how pigeons fly. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 112511 Hour 2: Big Roads, Giant Pumpkin, Freud and Cocaine, Stethoscope The evolution of the American superhighway system, a 1000-pound pumpkin, An Anatomy of Addiction, and the origins of the stethoscope. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 112511 Hour 1: IgNobel Prizes Salute The Silly In Science An annual awards ceremony salutes dubious and unusual research and inventions. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 111811 Hour 2: Toilet Technology, Stem Cells Tomorrow is World Toilet Day, so we look at the state of toilet technology. Plus, biotech firm Greon says it is getting out of the business of stem cell research. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 111811 Hour 1: Moon and Climate, Solar Update, Oxytocin, Balloon Video Why a moon may not be necessary for life, a battle over solar panel taxes, detecting a genetic difference through observing empathy, and a look at balloon engineering for a major parade. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 111111 Hour 2: Informal Science Education, Meet the Mythbusters How much science do kids learn outside the classroom? Then, Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman talk mythbusting. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 111111 Hour 1: Seasonal Affective Disorder, Walter Isaacson re Steve Jobs, Woodpecker Video Treatments for the winter blues, Walter Isaacson discusses his biography of the Apple leader, and a hunt for an elusive bird. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 110411 Hour 2: Anti-Dengue Mosquitoes, Early Antarctic Expeditions Engineering mosquitoes to crash dengue mosquito populations, and a look back at the Antarctic expeditions of Scott and others. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 110411 Hour 1: Brain Imaging, Dolphins, Constants, Hawk Moth Video Tying to determing brain function by studying structure, dolphin communication and cognition, questioning the constancy of basic physical rules, and a video about moth flight. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 102811 Hour 2: Anthrax Attacks Investigation, Probiotics New reports question whether scientific evidence against the prime suspect was ready for court. And a study suggests good bacteria in yogurt affect digestion, but not by repopulating the gut flora. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 102811 Hour 1: Flu Shot Effectiveness, The Fabric Of The Cosmos A new report says evidence that the flu shot works for seniors is lacking. And a new four-part TV series looks at big questions in cosmology. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 102111 Hour 2: Predicting The Fall of Space Junk, Getting Beyond Fossil Fuels, Origin Of the Bunsen Burner This weekend, another satellite is scheduled to crash to Earth, just a month after the last one. Then, Amory Lovins advocates a mix of energy efficiency and renewables to get society off fossil fuels. And in Science Diction, historian Howard Markel talks about chemist Robert Bunsen and how his namesake apparatus came to be. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 102111 Hour 1: Blue Stragglers, Multiple Personalities, Jack-O-Lantern 2.0 Astronomers have a new theory on how blue straggler stars are formed, an author claims a writer, therapist, and patient created a sensational tale of multiple personality disorder, and a video looks at pumpkin carving. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 101411 Hour 2: Kraken Controversy, Politics Meets Science, Eat Your Fruits and Veggies Could a stash of ancient bones be the work of a giant cephalopod? We look at the controversial idea. Then Sean Otto, author of Fool Me Twice, discusses his idea for an American Science Pledge. And in some people, a fruit and vegetable-filled diet can lower heart attack risk. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 101411 Hour 1: Nanostructure Crystals, Toaster Project, Space Experiments, Eggs In Space Chad Mirkin describes using DNA molecules to shape nanoscale crystal structures, Toaster Project author Thomas Thwaites discusses his quest to build a toaster from scratch, and a student competition seeks space experiments. Plus - eggs in space! Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 100711 Hour 2: Steven Pinker on Violence, Prosthetic Advances In his book The Better Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker argues that violence is decreasing. Plus, a virtual arm tested in monkeys is a step toward artificial limbs that communicate with the brain. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 100711 Hour 1: Rover Update, Physics Nobel, Remembering Steve Jobs, Mapping Flames Opportunity has reached a 14-mile-wide crater on Mars, the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics has gone to three American astronomers, and author Steven Levy remembers the life and contributions of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. Plus the video pick - mapping flames. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 093011 Hour 2: China Lab Launch, Empathy, Science Diction, Contagion China launches a space laboratory, empathy and cruelty, origins of the word epilepsy, and the virology behind the Contagion movie. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 093011 Hour 1: Pterosaurs, Cosmology, Dome Home David Attenborough takes wing with pterosaurs, physicist Lisa Randall on cosmology and the LHC, and living in a geodesic dome home. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 092311 Hour 2: Arizona Remote: Grand Canyon, Lowell Observatory Most geologists agree on the approximate age of the canyon, but puzzles remain about its carving. Plus, Lowell Observatory, famous for spotting Pluto, hunts for exoplanets today. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 092311 Hour 1: Arizona Remote: Wildfires, Science Festival Scientists discuss how to control the fires that have shaped and scarred the Southwest, and a ten-day event in Flagstaff highlights science in Northern Arizona. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 091611 Hour 2: In the Plex, Biofuel Prospecting, Video Pick Steven Levy on Google, bugs found in herbivore guts for use in biofuel production, and a video about using algae to boost water quality. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 091611 Hour 1: Science Budget, Siblings, Hackerspaces Rush Holt on science fuding, Jeffrey Kluger on the science of brothers and sisters, and building a d.i.y club workshop. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 090911 Hour 2: Psychology and 9-11, Video Pick: Stalking the Wild Mushroom Dealing with psychological trauma, and a video about fungi. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 090911 Hour 1: Caterpillar Virus, Australopithecus sediba, Move an Asteroid Virus hypnotizes caterpillars before turning them to goo, an ancient hominid threatens to shake up the family tree, and a contest challenges students to move an asteroid. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 090211 Hour 2: Anti-Cancer Viruses, Big Roads, Space Station Studying whether viruses can combat cancer, engineering our highway system, update on the International Space Station. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 090211 Hour 1: Bacteria and the Brain, Star Formation, Plague DNA Changes in the gut alter brain chemistry and behavior in mice, star chemistry challenges formation theories, DNA detective work and the Black Death. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 082611 Hour 2: Higgs, Tomatoes, NOAA Satellites, Science Diction Update on the Higgs boson hunt, industrial tomato farming, NOAA satellites and forecast ability, and the origins of the word chemistry. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 082611 Hour 1: I Heard the Sirens Scream, Earthquakes, Video Pick A Pulitzer Prize winning science writer gives her account of the days after 9/11, a geologist explains why this weeks East Coast earthquake was felt by so may people, and the video pick: water striders. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 081911 Hour 2: Google+Motorola, Tech and Free Speech, SpaceX A look at plans for Google to acquire the Motorola mobile division, freee speech issues with cell phones and mobile communications, and plans for a private trip to the International Space Station. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 081911 Hour 1: Science Challenge, Charlottes Web, Video Pick Two fourth grade students discuss their award-winning projects, a look at the naturalist behind a classic childrens book, and a voyage to a floating toilet. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 081211 Hour 2: First Robotics Competition, Man of Numbers, Computer Generated Sounds, Flywheel Bike Dean Kamen and will.i.am team up to get kids interested in science, the origin of arithmetic, the futuer of sound effects, and how to give your bike a boost. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 081211 Hour 1: Electronic Skin, Food Security A flexible circuit adheres to skin like a temporary tattoo and monitors vital signs and the future of farming in a hotter, drier world. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 080511 Hour 2: Enviro Spending Bills, 2 Moon Theory, Possible Liquid Mars Water, Baseball Injury Stats Following Congress and the environment, a theory involving lunar collisions, suggestive streaks on Martian cliffs, and mining the disabled list for insights into baseball injuries. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 080511 Hour 1: Lifestyles of the Long-Lived, Retractions, Underwater Camouflage Study into the lifestyles of the very aged, a look at cases of fraud that have led to retractions of scientific studies, and camouflaged cephalopods. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 072911 Hour 2: Trojan Asteroid, Juno Mission, Mars Curiosity A spaceapalooza in this hour. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 072911 Hour 1: Project Nim, Nature-Inspired Materials, Video Pick A documentary about a controversial chimp language experiment, trying to learn from how nature assembles materials, and trip to a green roof. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 072211 Hour 2: Summer Science Road Trip, Anatomy of Addiction book Your tips for a sciency summer vacation, the cocaine habits of Freud and Halsted. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 072211 Hour 1: Stem Cells and Heart Tissue, Wild Life of Our Bodies, Bananas, Video Pick A trial of stem cells for repairing heart attack damage, how the organisms that share our world have shaped us, a potential bananapocalypse, and a video about cilia. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 071511 Hour 2: Editing the Genome, Google Plus, Weeds Search-and-replace on bacterial DNA, a new social network from Google, and the bane of the backyard gardener: weeds. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 071511 Hour 1: Drug-Resistant Gonorrhea, Webb Telescope Funding, Light Bulbs Multi-drug resistant strain of gonorrhea, funding for the successor to the Hubble, and a look at efficiency and lighting. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 070811 Hour 2: San Antonio Energy, Rock Art Shifting to a more renewable energy economy, looking at prehistoric rock art. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 070811 Hour 1: Science of Beef, Longhorn DNA, Compost Using science to raise the perfect porterhouse, the gentics of the iconic longhorn cattle, and a video about a composting king. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website scifri20110701-hr2 scifri20110701-hr2 - Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website scifri20110701-hr1 High-tech recipes for your summer BBQ, a new book about Sex, Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 062411 Hour 2: Sleep and Hammocks, Robopocalypse, Pervious Pavement, Science Diction: Radio Your brain on hammocks, preparing for the robot uprising, greener paving options, and the origins of the word radio. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 062411 Hour 1: Dead Zone, Adventures of the Mind, Student Inventors Summer forecast for the Gulf of Mexico, a summit for top student thinkers, and student inventors create a better wheelchair. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 061711 Hour 2: Voyager 1, History of Information A trip to the outer edge of the solar system, and a look at the history of information and how people interact with it. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 061711 Hour 1: Black Holes, Untested Stem Cell Therapies, Solar Update New research into black holes, use of untested therapies by athletes, solar energy business. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 061011 Hour 2: Disasters, Retooling the Electric Grid Looking at black swan events, how aging infrastructure and outmoded communications hobble the electrical grid. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 061011 Hour 1: Antimatter Trapping, Autism Genetics, Tissue Engineering Video Holding on to antihydrogen for minutes at a time, looking for genetic clues to autism, and building hearts and bones. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 060311 Hour 2: Map of the Universe, Narrative Medicine, Chris Adrian A new 3D map of the local universe, using literature to help doctors, and a conversation with pediatric oncologist and novelist Chris Adrian. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 060311 Hour 1: Social Networks Beyond Facebook, Cyber Attacks, Mosquito Repellant Research, Sunspot Video Moving beyond friending, cyber attacks as an act of war, smells to battle mosquito attacks, and a video about sunspot science. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 052711 Hour 2: Moon Water, Moon Speech Legacy, Hummingbird Tongues New research using Apollo soil samples, 50 years since the JFK moon challenge, and how hummingbirds slurp. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 052711 Hour 1: Microbes and Weather, Math and the Brain, Syphilis How bacteria can influence hail, dyscalculia and your sense for numbers, Science Diction: syphilis. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 052011 Hour 2: Dawn Mission, Exoplanets, Superconductivity A trip to an asteroid, free-floating exoplanets, and 100 years of superconductivity research. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 052011 Hour 1: Japan Nuclear Update, Summer Book List, Cicada Emergence, Desktop Diary Nuclear reactor update, suggestions for summer reading, cicada emergence, Michio Kaku and his desk. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 051311 Hour 2: New Cancer Treatments, Methane in Well Water, Stealth Technology Possible new approaches to cancer treatment, studying the effects of gas drilling on groundwater, and the unusual helicopter used in the raid on the bin Laden hideout. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 051311 Hour 1: Mississippi Flood Control, Schizophrenic Computer, Sun and Lenses Trying to contain a mighty river, modeling schizophrenia in computers, and a video about light and lenses. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 050611 Hour 2: Gravity Probe, Fat, Viruses Space mission provides evidence for Einstein, news about fat and health, and Carl Zimmer on viruses. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 050611 Hour 1: Thomas Dolby, Gadgets and Privacy, Video Pick Musician and techie Thomas Dolby, privacy and mobile gadgets, fluorescent rocks. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 042911 Hour 1: Cape Wind, Electric Cars, Annoying Book Offshore wind power goes ahead, the Revenge of the Electric Car, and a new book looks at the science of what bugs us. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 042911 Hour 2: Napping Neurons, Blood Transfusion History, SETI Napping neurons in the sleepy brain, a book about the history of blood transfusion, and Jill Tarter on SETI funding. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 042211 Hour 1: 30 Years of Shuttles, Video Pick Ira and guests look back on the space shuttle program, and talk about what might come next. Plus, astronaut videos. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 042211 Hour 2: Soundscape Ecology, Solar Update, Alzheimers Diagnosis, Science Diction Listening to ecosystems, progress on a Mojave solar installation, new diagnosis guidelines for Alzheimers, and the origins of the word robot. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 041511 Hour 1: Nuclear Safety, Oil Spill Anniversary, Herpes, Video Pick Nuclear safety standards, Carl Safina on the BP oil spill, herpes virus spread, and balancing bicycles. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 041511 Hour 2: Note-Taking Invention, Human Origins and Human Language A winner of a student technology competition. Plus paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey, and tracing the origins of human language. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 040811 Hour 1: Artificial Leaf, Alzheimers Genetics, Gagarin, Video Pick Splitting water with solar energy, looking for clues to Alzheimers disease, and observing the 50th anniversary of human space flight. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 040811 Hour 2: The Intersection of Art and Science Author Cormac McCarthy, filmmaker Werner Herzog, and physicist Lawrence Krauss discuss art and science. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 040111 Hour 2: Science Humor, Video Pick Looking for the funnier side of science. No fooling. Plus the smaller signs of spring. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 040111 Hour 1: Radiation Vocab, Warmer Planet, Biography of Cancer Radioactivity basics, a book about preparing for climate change, and a biography of cancer. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 032511 Hour 1: Building Blocks of Life, Pre-Clovis Americans, Return of Project Mohole New analysis of an old spark flask biochemistry experiment, hunting for traces of Americas first inhabitants, drilling to the mantle of the Earth. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 032511 Hour 2: Computers and Emotions, Richard Feynman, Spacesuit Design Measuring emotions via technology, a biography of physicist Richard Feynman, and a look at Apollo-era space suit design. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 031811Hour 1: Japan Nuclear Status, Geologic Earthquake Effects A look at the ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan. Plus, how the quake affected planetary rotation. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 031811Hour 2: Camouflaged Blood, Titan, MESSENGER, Orchids. Blood and the immune system, a trip around the solar system, and the strange life of orchids. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 031111 Hour 1: Tsunami / Sweetness / Robot Opera Joe Palca talks with researchers about seismology, taste sensation, and adding robots to a classic art form. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 031111 Hour 2: Human Aging / Sleep / Science Diction: Clone Joe Palca talks with researchers about how primates age, Americans' sleep problems, and the origins of the word 'clone.' Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 030411 Hour 1: HPV and Cancer Risk/Navy and Climate Change/Brian Greene on Multiverses HPV and Cancer Risk/Navy and Climate Change/Brian Greene on Multiverses Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SciFri 030411 Hour 2: Calculating Spaceflight Risks/Data Backup and Storage/Stem Cells and DNA Damage Calculating Spaceflight Risks/Data Backup and Storage/Stem Cells and DNA Damage Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 022511 Hour 1: Neurons, Cell Phone and the Brain, 3rd Arm Illusion, Visual Attention 022511 Hour 1: Neurons, Cell Phone and the Brain, 3rd Arm Illusion, Visual Attention Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 022512 Hour 2: Bilingual Babies, Turkle on Technology, Transgenic Weeds 022512 Hour 2: Bilingual Babies, Turkle on Technology, Transgenic Weeds Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Could Gaming Be Good For You? What if games could help solve, rather than exacerbate, real-world problems? Jane McGonigal, author of the new book, Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World, thinks they can. She explains how games fulfill needs that reality doesn't, and how to make real life more like a game. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Science Funding And The Budget What are President Obama's spending priorities when it comes to science and technology? White House Science Advisor John Holdren discusses the President's proposed 2012 budget. Plus, Congressman Rush Holt on Congress's plans to cut science spending from this year's budget. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Creature Feature: Jumping Fleas, Burrowing Owls Science Friday's video pick is a double feature. Scientists in the U.K. used high-speed photography to reveal how fleas leap. Mac Stone, wildlife photographer and field biologist, stuffed a camera in a traffic cone and got some beauty shots of burrowing owls in south Florida. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Can Science Be Used As A Diplomatic Tool? Some moon craft house instruments from a handful of countries — an example of international scientific collaboration. But how valuable is science in the diplomatic sphere? Biologist Nina Fedoroff, former science adviser to both Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton, talks about her time in Washington. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Rumbling Underground, An Engineering Feat In 2009, 1.6 billion people hopped on the New York City subway. But how was it built? MTA Capital Construction president Michael Horodniceanu and historian Clifton Hood discuss the engineering techniques used to tunnel through Manhattan — from sticks of dynamite to a one-million-pound tunnel-boring machine. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Defining A Data Deluge From overflowing inboxes to portable players brimming with music, the amounts of data in the world are increasing. Martin Hilbert, co-author of a paper in the journal Science on the tidal wave of information, says that in 2007, humanity was able to store some 295 exabytes of information, but that's just a pittance compared with the amounts of data stored in the natural world. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website IBM Computer Faces Off Against 'Jeopardy' Champs Four years in the works, IBM's supercomputer "Watson" will compete against Jeopardy! champions from Feb. 14-16. To win, the computer will have to process often-ambiguous natural language, including irony and wordplay. Stephen Baker, author of Final Jeopardy, talks about Watson's chances. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The 'Science Of Kissing' Socializing is found across the animal kingdom, but osculation — or kissing — seems to a human behavior. How did it start and why? The Science of Kissing author Sheril Kirshenbaum discusses the history and biology behind kissing. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Cracking The Cool Science Of Ice With winter storms continuing across the country, much of the nation may not currently have warm feelings toward the solid form of water. Physicist and water researcher Eugene Stanley and Mariana Gosnell, author of Ice: The Nature, the History, and the Uses of an Astonishing Substance, discuss the cool, slippery science of ice. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Is Preventive Medicine Actually Overtreatment? In Overdiagnosed: Making People Sick in the Pursuit of Health, Dr. H. Gilbert Welch argues that modern medicine is looking too closely for disease, and that unnecessary screenings, MRIs and CT scans turn healthy people into diseased patients, by revealing often harmless abnormalities. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Science Diction: The Origin Of 'Antibiotic' Selman Waksman, the microbiologist who discovered streptomycin, first used the word "antibiotic" in the medical sense in 1943. Science historian Howard Markel talks about how it was actually a naval officer who first coined "antibiotic" in 1860, to describe an opposition to the belief in life beyond Earth. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Is Preventive Medicine Actually Overtreatment? In Overdiagnosed: Making People Sick in the Pursuit of Health, Dr. H. Gilbert Welch argues that modern medicine is looking too closely for disease, and that unnecessary screenings, MRIs and CT scans turn healthy people into diseased patients, by revealing often harmless abnormalities. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Science Diction: The Origin Of 'Antibiotic' Selman Waksman, the microbiologist who discovered streptomycin, first used the word "antibiotic" in the medical sense in 1943. Science historian Howard Markel talks about how it was actually a naval officer who first coined "antibiotic" in 1860, to describe an opposition to the belief in life beyond Earth. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Defining A Data Deluge From overflowing inboxes to portable players brimming with music, the amounts of data in the world are increasing. Martin Hilbert, co-author of a paper in the journal Science on the tidal wave of information, says that in 2007, humanity was able to store some 295 exabytes of information, but that's just a pittance compared with the amounts of data stored in the natural world. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website IBM Computer Faces Off Against 'Jeopardy' Champs Four years in the works, IBM's supercomputer "Watson" will compete against Jeopardy! champions from Feb. 14-16. To win, the computer will have to process often-ambiguous natural language, including irony and wordplay. Stephen Baker, author of Final Jeopardy, talks about Watson's chances. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The 'Science Of Kissing' Socializing is found across the animal kingdom, but osculation — or kissing — seems to a human behavior. How did it start and why? The Science of Kissing author Sheril Kirshenbaum discusses the history and biology behind kissing. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Cracking The Cool Science Of Ice With winter storms continuing across the country, much of the nation may not currently have warm feelings toward the solid form of water. Physicist and water researcher Eugene Stanley and Mariana Gosnell, author of Ice: The Nature, the History, and the Uses of an Astonishing Substance, discuss the cool, slippery science of ice. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Plumbing The Depths Of Aquarium Science What happens if you mix fat puffers with sponges? Do clownfish do better alone or in pairs? What's the best way to prune staghorn coral? Joseph Yaiullo, co-founder of Atlantis Marine World in Riverhead, N.Y., and the curator of the aquarium's 20,000-gallon tank, shares tank tips. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Can Dogs Smell Cancer? Writing in the journal Gut, researchers in Japan say they've trained a dog to detect bowel cancer in humans. Monell Chemical Senses Center Director Gary Beauchamp describes how odor and disease may be related, and why he thinks dogs probably won't be used for diagnosing. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Taking The Politics Out Of Climate Science According to a 2009 Pew survey, 35 percent of Republicans say they saw no solid evidence of global warming, the lowest number of any political group. Climate scientist and conservative Kerry Emanuel discusses why he thinks political views shouldn't sway scientific thinking. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Why The Former Planet Pluto Got Demoted In 2006 the former ninth planet in the solar system, Pluto, got demoted to a mere Kuiper Belt object. The man who was in large part responsible for that demotion, Caltech planetary scientist Mike Brown, discusses the status of Pluto and why it doesn't qualify as a planet. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Recipe For Turning Skin Cells Into Heart Cells Reporting in Nature Cell Biology, researchers say they have turned mouse skin cells directly into beating heart cells — skipping the stem-cell stage that has been required in the past. Leonard Zon, director of the Stem Cell Program at Children's Hospital Boston, explains the findings. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Growing A Bigger Brain Is A Walk In The Park A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that adults who walked for 40 minutes three times a week for a year had brain growth in the hippocampus — an area of the brain associated with spatial memory. Study author Arthur Kramer and psychologist Margaret Gatz discuss their research. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Can Dogs Smell Cancer? Writing in the journal Gut, researchers in Japan say they've trained a dog to detect bowel cancer in humans. Monell Chemical Senses Center Director Gary Beauchamp describes how odor and disease may be related, and why he thinks dogs probably won't be used for diagnosing. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Taking The Politics Out Of Climate Science According to a 2009 Pew survey, 35 percent of Republicans say they saw no solid evidence of global warming, the lowest number of any political group. Climate scientist and conservative Kerry Emanuel discusses why he thinks political views shouldn't sway scientific thinking. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Why The Former Planet Pluto Got Demoted In 2006 the former ninth planet in the solar system, Pluto, got demoted to a mere Kuiper Belt object. The man who was in large part responsible for that demotion, Caltech planetary scientist Mike Brown, discusses the status of Pluto and why it doesn't qualify as a planet. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Recipe For Turning Skin Cells Into Heart Cells Reporting in Nature Cell Biology, researchers say they have turned mouse skin cells directly into beating heart cells — skipping the stem-cell stage that has been required in the past. Leonard Zon, director of the Stem Cell Program at Children's Hospital Boston, explains the findings. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Growing A Bigger Brain Is A Walk In The Park A new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that adults who walked for 40 minutes three times a week for a year had brain growth in the hippocampus — an area of the brain associated with spatial memory. Study author Arthur Kramer and psychologist Margaret Gatz discuss their research. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Plumbing The Depths Of Aquarium Science What happens if you mix fat puffers with sponges? Do clownfish do better alone or in pairs? What's the best way to prune staghorn coral? Joseph Yaiullo, co-founder of Atlantis Marine World in Riverhead, N.Y., and the curator of the aquarium's 20,000-gallon tank, shares tank tips. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Two Cold Winters Don't Make A Climate Trend The polar vortex, a jet stream swirling around the north pole, has weakened the past two winters, allowing plumes of cold air to slip south. But to most climatologists, two years don't make a trend. Atmospheric scientist John Wallace talks about why he is cautious about linking weird weather to global warming. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Privacy At Stake As Sites Track Online Preferences Sites like Bit.ly, which provide a service to users by shortening URLs, also get something in return — users' browsing preferences. Bit.ly's Hilary Mason talks about the services sites hope to provide by collecting such data, and the trade-off of less privacy for a more customized online experience. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Twitter, Facebook As Political Tools In Arab World Tunisian and Egyptian political activists used Facebook and Twitter to organize protests and publicize breaking news. Harvard's Jillian York discusses the use of social media platforms for digital activism, and cases in which governments have blocked the services or compromised user privacy. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Science Diction: The Origin Of 'Physician' In the 13th century, Anglo-Normans appropriated the French physique, or remedy, to coin the English physic, or medicine, which is still in dictionaries today. Science historian Howard Markel discusses how physic became physician, and the parallel evolution of the word physics. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website An Earlier Departure Out Of Africa? A cache of stone tools found in the United Arab Emirates suggests that modern humans may have left Africa earlier — and via a different route — than previously thought. Anthropologist Will Harcourt-Smith describes the finding and how it may change thinking on human origins. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Blood Spotting Made Easier A new camera may make finding and sampling blood spots easier for crime scene investigators. Chemist Stephen Morgan describes a thermal infrared camera developed by researchers at the University of South Carolina that can spot blood spatter not visible to the naked eye. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Digital Music Sampling: Creativity Or Criminality? The advent of the sampler in the '80s brought a long tradition of musical borrowing into the digital age. Today, "sampling," or repurposing a snippet of another artist's music, is mainstream. Is sampling theft, or is copyright law making creativity a crime? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Twitter, Facebook As Political Tools In Arab World Tunisian and Egyptian political activists used Facebook and Twitter to organize protests and publicize breaking news. Harvard's Jillian York discusses the use of social media platforms for digital activism, and cases in which governments have blocked the services or compromised user privacy. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Blood Spotting Made Easier A new camera may make finding and sampling blood spots easier for crime scene investigators. Chemist Stephen Morgan describes a thermal infrared camera developed by researchers at the University of South Carolina that can spot blood spatter not visible to the naked eye. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Digital Music Sampling: Creativity Or Criminality? The advent of the sampler in the '80s brought a long tradition of musical borrowing into the digital age. Today, "sampling," or repurposing a snippet of another artist's music, is mainstream. Is sampling theft, or is copyright law making creativity a crime? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Two Cold Winters Don't Make A Climate Trend The polar vortex, a jet stream swirling around the north pole, has weakened the past two winters, allowing plumes of cold air to slip south. But to most climatologists, two years don't make a trend. Atmospheric scientist John Wallace talks about why he is cautious about linking weird weather to global warming. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Privacy At Stake As Sites Track Online Preferences Sites like Bit.ly, which provide a service to users by shortening URLs, also get something in return — users' browsing preferences. Bit.ly's Hilary Mason talks about the services sites hope to provide by collecting such data, and the trade-off of less privacy for a more customized online experience. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Twitter, Facebook As Political Tools In Arab World Tunisian and Egyptian political activists used Facebook and Twitter to organize protests and publicize breaking news. Harvard's Jillian York discusses the use of social media platforms for digital activism, and cases in which governments have blocked the services or compromised user privacy. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Science Diction: The Origin Of 'Physician' In the 13th century, Anglo-Normans appropriated the French physique, or remedy, to coin the English physic, or medicine, which is still in dictionaries today. Science historian Howard Markel discusses how physic became physician, and the parallel evolution of the word physics. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website An Earlier Departure Out Of Africa? A cache of stone tools found in the United Arab Emirates suggests that modern humans may have left Africa earlier — and via a different route — than previously thought. Anthropologist Will Harcourt-Smith describes the finding and how it may change thinking on human origins. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Twitter, Facebook As Political Tools In Arab World Tunisian and Egyptian political activists used Facebook and Twitter to organize protests and publicize breaking news. Harvard's Jillian York discusses the use of social media platforms for digital activism, and cases in which governments have blocked the services or compromised user privacy. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Changing Climate Means Changing Oceans Scientists who study the oceans say the effects of climate change are already being seen in the world's oceans. From acidification and warming temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice loss, Ira Flatow and guests look at how the oceans are changing with changes in climate. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Assessing The Health Of The Gulf, Post-Spill The Macondo spill was just the latest insult to a Gulf Coast already suffering from decades of oil and gas development, river diversions and Hurricane Katrina. Ira Flatow and guests discuss long-term restoration plans for Gulf wetlands and wildlife, and the oil's impact on human health. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Young Filmmakers Make Litter Scary In the style of a 1950s horror film, Esteban Valencia, Eduardo Hernandez and Randi Levey, students from Miami Beach Senior High, created a cautionary tale about trashing the beach. The video, Garbage Monsters, got top honors in the Oceans 2030: Youth Outlook Multimedia Contest. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Assessing The Health Of The Gulf, Post-Spill The Macondo spill was just the latest insult to a Gulf Coast already suffering from decades of oil and gas development, river diversions and Hurricane Katrina. Ira Flatow and guests discuss long-term restoration plans for Gulf wetlands and wildlife, and the oil's impact on human health. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Young Filmmakers Make Litter Scary In the style of a 1950s horror film, Esteban Valencia, Eduardo Hernandez and Randi Levey, students from Miami Beach Senior High, created a cautionary tale about trashing the beach. The video, Garbage Monsters, got top honors in the Oceans 2030: Youth Outlook Multimedia Contest. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Changing Climate Means Changing Oceans Scientists who study the oceans say the effects of climate change are already being seen in the world's oceans. From acidification and warming temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice loss, Ira Flatow and guests look at how the oceans are changing with changes in climate. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Visual Biography Explores Love And Radium The story of Marie and Pierre Curie is one of love, scientific partnership and one of the most important discoveries of the 20th century. Artist and author Lauren Redniss discusses her new book, Radioactive, an illustrated biography of the pair and a look at their complicated legacy. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Following A Wandering North Pole The location of the magnetic North Pole is moving toward Siberia at about 40 miles per year -- and every few hundred thousand years, the North and South poles switch positions entirely. Geophysicist Ronald Merrill explains what's known about the inner workings of the Earth's magnetic field. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Adding Smarts To The Electrical Grid The nation's electrical distribution system has been getting less reliable over time, according to an article by electrical engineering professor Massoud Amin. How dependable is our electrical infrastructure, and will plans for a more intelligent "smart grid" improve its reliability? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website New Fossil From The Dawn Of Dinosaurs Reporting in the journal Science, Paul Sereno, Ricardo Martinez and colleagues describe Eodromaeus murphi. This dinosaur was 4 feet long, weighed 15 pounds and lived 230 million years ago, just a few million years after dinosaurs first evolved. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website What Does '4G' Really Mean, Anyway? Mobile phone companies are rolling out faster wireless data networks with names like LTE, WiMax and HSPA+, marketing them all under the name "4G." But are they really much faster than 3G? Engadget senior mobile editor Chris Ziegler talks about how the new networks measure up. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Tracking Carbon Through Your Gut And Beyond In a recent survey, many college students said body fat is "burned off." Few knew that gymgoers actually break down fat molecules into carbon dioxide and water, extracting energy in the process. Ira Flatow and guests discuss the basics of energy, matter and the carbon cycle. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website How Many Social Network Identities Is Too Many? There are social networks for every application, from location-based services like FourSquare to photo-sharing networks like Instagram. Liz Gannes, senior editor at AllThingsDigital, explains the way Internet users are splintering their online identities to exploit the strengths of different platforms. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website New Fossil From The Dawn Of Dinosaurs Reporting in the journal Science, Paul Sereno, Ricardo Martinez and colleagues describe Eodromaeus murphi. This dinosaur was 4 feet long, weighed 15 pounds and lived 230 million years ago, just a few million years after dinosaurs first evolved. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website What Does '4G' Really Mean, Anyway? Mobile phone companies are rolling out faster wireless data networks with names like LTE, WiMax and HSPA+, marketing them all under the name "4G." But are they really much faster than 3G? Engadget senior mobile editor Chris Ziegler talks about how the new networks measure up. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Tracking Carbon Through Your Gut And Beyond In a recent survey, many college students said body fat is "burned off." Few knew that gymgoers actually break down fat molecules into carbon dioxide and water, extracting energy in the process. Ira Flatow and guests discuss the basics of energy, matter and the carbon cycle. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website How Many Social Network Identities Is Too Many? There are social networks for every application, from location-based services like FourSquare to photo-sharing networks like Instagram. Liz Gannes, senior editor at AllThingsDigital, explains the way Internet users are splintering their online identities to exploit the strengths of different platforms. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Visual Biography Explores Love And Radium The story of Marie and Pierre Curie is one of love, scientific partnership and one of the most important discoveries of the 20th century. Artist and author Lauren Redniss discusses her new book, Radioactive, an illustrated biography of the pair and a look at their complicated legacy. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Following A Wandering North Pole The location of the magnetic North Pole is moving toward Siberia at about 40 miles per year -- and every few hundred thousand years, the North and South poles switch positions entirely. Geophysicist Ronald Merrill explains what's known about the inner workings of the Earth's magnetic field. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Adding Smarts To The Electrical Grid The nation's electrical distribution system has been getting less reliable over time, according to an article by electrical engineering professor Massoud Amin. How dependable is our electrical infrastructure, and will plans for a more intelligent "smart grid" improve its reliability? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Weaving Batteries And Solar Cells Into Textiles Reporting in the journal Science, researchers write of a way to create nanoscale yarns that function as superconductors, batteries or solar cells. Study author Ray Baughman discusses how to twist up these functional yarns, and how they could revolutionize future fabrics. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Doing Real-World Science, But Skipping The Ph.D. As big science projects generate more and more data, researchers are recruiting citizen scientists to help sift through the information overload. And in the case of new astronomical discoveries, amateur collaborators are even scoring authorship credits on peer-reviewed papers. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Doing Real-World Science, But Skipping The Ph.D. As big science projects generate more and more data, researchers are recruiting citizen scientists to help sift through the information overload. And in the case of new astronomical discoveries, amateur collaborators are even scoring authorship credits on peer-reviewed papers. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Now In Every Living Room, A Homemade 3-D Printer Jim Smith, a 23-year-old in Wappingers Falls, N.Y., is taking citizen science to another level. He designed and built his own 3-D printer, which sits in the corner of his living room. Science Friday visited with Smith, got a tour of the machine and did some printing. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Apollo-Era Moon Data Get a Fresh Look By re-examining seismic data collected from Apollo-era moon missions, scientists say they're able to more precisely describe the makeup of the moon's core. Planetary scientist Renee Weber explains how the old data were initially interpreted and what the new analysis shows. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Paul Offit On The Anti-Vaccine Movement In his new book, vaccine researcher Paul Offit contends that some parents' decisions not to vaccinate their kids are harming others. Offit discusses the anti-vaccine movement, and weighs in on a new report calling a 1998 study linking autism and vaccines an "elaborate fraud." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Watching More Than TV On TV Apple TV, Google TV, Xbox ... There's no shortage of accessories to add to that 50-inch plasma. Two technology journalists run down the options for accessing the Web or streaming movies on your television. Plus, the latest from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Weaving Batteries And Solar Cells Into Textiles Reporting in the journal Science, researchers write of a way to create nanoscale yarns that function as superconductors, batteries or solar cells. Study author Ray Baughman discusses how to twist up these functional yarns, and how they could revolutionize future fabrics. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Paul Offit On The Anti-Vaccine Movement In his new book, vaccine researcher Paul Offit contends that some parents' decisions not to vaccinate their kids are harming others. Offit discusses the anti-vaccine movement, and weighs in on a new report calling a 1998 study linking autism and vaccines an "elaborate fraud." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Year In Review: Science Stories Of 2010 From the Gulf oil spill and the earthquake in Haiti to the creation of synthetic life and the Icelandic volcano eruption, a lot of science stories made headlines in 2010. Science writers Ron Cowen, Robin Lloyd, Andrew Revkin and Paul Raeburn join Ira Flatow to discuss the year's top stories in science. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website What Happens When Leaf-Cutters Can't Cut It? Leaf-cutter ants rely on their razor-sharp mandibles to snip leaves to pieces. But over time, their mandibles dull. Physicist Robert Schofield of the University of Oregon looked at what happens when the aging ants struggle with their snipping. He found they take on a new job. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Amir Aczel Looks At The LHC In his new book, Present at the Creation, Amir D. Aczel tells the story of the European Organization for Nuclear Research's Large Hadron Collider. With the multibillion-euro collider, researchers hope to recreate the conditions that existed just after the Big Bang. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website A Visit To Antarctica In his new book Fraser's Penguins, writer Fen Montaigne describes the effect climate change is having on Antarctica's penguins. Montaigne, ecologist Bill Fraser and Science Friday blogger Kayla Iacovino (currently in Antarctica) recount their experiences on the continent. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Don't Cork That Champagne There may be more mythology about pouring, drinking and storing Champagne than there is about any other fermented grape juice. Chemist Richard Zare and food writer Harold McGee set the record straight on the proper protocol for enjoying sparkling wines this New Year's Eve. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Bee Bonanza: From Hive Politics To Beekeeping This Christmas marks the 200th birthday of Lorenzo Langstroth, the "Father of American Beekeeping." May Berenbaum discusses Langstroth's life and his beekeeping inventions, and Tom Seeley talks about the collective decision-making of honeybees, the subject of Seeley's new book, Honeybee Democracy. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Remembering Worry Over Y2K On New Year's Eve in 1999, many people were celebrating the arrival of the year 2000. Some computer experts, however, were on alert, hoping that work reprogramming computers to deal with a date change bug would pay off. Science Friday opens the archives for a look back at worry over Y2K. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website How Science and Technology Influence Language Have you ever been Plutoed (demoted)? Is your inbox clogged with "bacn" (spam by personal request)? Are you a lifehacker (master at optimizing everyday routines)? Jonathon Keats, artist and author of Virtual Words, explains how science and technology influence language, and vice versa. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Tallying America's Tweeters--The Feathered Ones Every year, volunteers throughout the Americas grab their notepads and binoculars to take an inventory of local birds for the National Audubon Society's Christmas Bird Count. Greg Butcher, Audubon's director of bird conservation, talks about this year's tallies and species to look for. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Searching For The Origins of Creativity From Darwin's theory of evolution to the invention of YouTube, what factors play a role in innovation? Is there such a thing as an idea whose time has come? Steven Johnson, author of Where Good Ideas Come From, talks about great conceptual advances and how to foster creativity. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Eggnog: Spike And Let It Sit, For Safety A perennial holiday dilemma: Will alcohol kill bacteria like salmonella in homemade eggnog? Microbiologists Vincent Fischetti and Raymond Schuch, from The Rockefeller University, ran an experiment in the lab to see whether salmonella can survive in a vat of spiked eggnog. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Lunar Eclipse Is A Winter Sky Highlight The shadow of the Earth will pass over the moon late Monday, Dec. 20, into Tuesday morning. Meteorologist and sky watcher Joe Rao discusses the lunar eclipse, and other astronomical events to look out for this winter, including an early dawn visit by Venus on Christmas Day. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Living Without Fear Doctors at University of Iowa have been studying a female patient they call "SM" for more than 20 years. SM has a damaged amygdala, a part of the brain. As a result, she doesn't experience fear. Daniel Tranel explains what doctors have learned from SM and how that information might be useful. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Visions Of Energy Efficiency Danced In Their Heads Homeowners hoping to save on utility bills may want to ask Santa for a storm door or insulation. Dec. 31 is the deadline for the energy tax credits that could cut your tax bill by up to $1,500. Science Friday runs down how to save some green this winter. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Science Diction: The Origin Of The Word 'Comet' Although comets were sighted at least as early as 1000 B.C., Greek natural philosophers named them sometime around 500 B.C., using the Greek word kometes for "a head with long hair." Science historian Howard Markel discusses the word's origins and the study of comets through the centuries. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Who's Tracking You Online? Many top websites deposit tracking tools on Internet surfers' computers, in order to help online marketers target ads. Ira Flatow and guests discuss Internet tracking, and the Federal Trade Commission's suggestion that browser makers build in a sort of "do not track" button. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Man Who Turned Taxidermy Into An Art Form In Kingdom Under Glass, author Jay Kirk tells the life story of Carl Akeley, the pioneering taxidermist and adventurer who once killed a leopard with his bare hands. Taxidermist David Schwendeman runs his family's 90-year-old studio and describes the techniques and hazards of modern taxidermy. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Chemistry Keeps Christmas Trees Alive, For Longer Just as an avocado ripens quickly in a paper bag, bathed in the ethylene gas it releases, Christmas trees may lose their needles because of a similar "ripening" process. Raj Lada, of Nova Scotia's Christmas Tree Research Center, discusses how to block this process to prolong the life of cut firs. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Thinking About Eating May Mean Eating Less Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University say that repeatedly thinking about eating a certain food -- M&Ms or cheese -- led study participants to eat less of the food once it was presented to them. Researcher Carey Morewedge describes the work and its implications for dieters. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Celebrating The Royal Society Britain's premier science institution, the Royal Society, turns 350 this year. A new collection of essays called Seeing Further, edited by Bill Bryson, looks at the society's history. Writer Richard Holmes and outgoing society President Martin Rees discuss the institution. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Growing Snowflakes In A Bottle Are you dreaming of a white Christmas? Try making your own winter wonderland. Ken Libbrecht, Caltech physicist and author of The Secret Life of a Snowflake, devised an experiment to grow a snow crystal in an old plastic bottle. Dry ice required. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Teaching Computers To Be More Empathetic High school juniors Matthew Fernandez and Akash Krishnan took the grand prize in the Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology for designing software that decodes emotions in human speech. They say the software could be used by call centers, to direct angry callers to a human. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Rossellini's 'Seduce Me' Looks At Animal Courtship Actress and model Isabella Rossellini's video series, Seduce Me, investigates the strange and fascinating mating behaviors of animals. Rossellini plays a diverse cast of characters from the animal kingdom -- from hermaphroditic earthworms to swinging deer to asexual lizards. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Military Goes Green For An Edge On The Battlefield The Navy is developing biofuel-burning F-18 fighter jets and hybrid-electric warships to increase energy independence. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus discusses those initiatives, and retired Army Gen. Steve Anderson talks about what he learned about energy-efficient camps while in Iraq. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Arsenic-Eating Bacteria Challenge View Of How Life Works All known life on Earth is made up mainly of six elements -- carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, sulfur and phosphorus. Felisa Wolfe-Simon talks about a strain of bacteria described in the journal Science that appears to be able to use arsenic instead of phosphorus in that mix. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Searching For Science In A Glass of Beer Yeast, hops, grain and water all need to combine with biology, chemistry and physics to make a great glass of beer. Charlie Bamforth, University of California, Davis professor of brewing science and author of the new book Beer Is Proof God Loves Us, offers a toast to honor the beverage. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Oliver Sacks Discusses Vision and 'The Mind's Eye' Normally the eyes and brain work together in a seamless, intricate system. But what happens when the brain can no longer make sense of visual information? Neurologist Oliver Sacks talks about his new book, The Mind's Eye, and what visual disorders reveal about how the brain processes sight. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Americans Fail The Climate Quiz A recent survey suggests many Americans mistakenly believe the ozone hole is causing global warming. Yale's Anthony Leiserowitz, leader of that study, discusses America's climate change knowledge, and outgoing Republican Rep. Bob Inglis talks about climate skeptics on Capitol Hill. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website A Trip Back To The Future of The Internet Science Friday made history in 1993, when it became the first national radio show to be broadcast live over the Internet. Traffic on the 'net slowed that day, as listeners from around the world logged on to try to talk to Ira Flatow and guests Brewster Kahle and Carl Malamud. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Remembering The Scent Of A Meal How does the way something smells influence the way it tastes? And why are smell memories more emotional than other types of memories? Brown University professor of psychiatry and human behavior Rachel Herz describes the relationship between the smell of food and its taste. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Silly Science Honored With Ig Nobel Prizes The winners of this year's Ig Nobel Prizes include work on the pain-relieving effects of swearing, researchers who studied techniques to collect whale snot, and more. The Igs honor research that "first, makes you laugh, then, makes you think," according to Marc Abrahams, the master of ceremonies and the editor of Annals of Improbable Research. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website From The Vault: Discovering The Ozone Hole On Science Friday's first broadcast in 1991, Ira Flatow spoke with Michael Oppenheimer and F. Sherwood Rowland about what caused the ozone hole, and what should be done about it. Rowland went on to share a Nobel Prize for the research a few years later. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Remembering The Scent Of A Meal How does the way something smells influence the way it tastes? And why are smell memories more emotional than other types of memories? Brown University professor of psychiatry and human behavior Rachel Herz describes the relationship between the smell of food and its taste. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Silly Science Honored With Ig Nobel Prizes The winners of this year's Ig Nobel Prizes include work on the pain-relieving effects of swearing, researchers who studied techniques to collect whale snot, and more. The Igs honor research that "first, makes you laugh, then, makes you think," according to Marc Abrahams, the master of ceremonies and the editor of Annals of Improbable Research. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website From The Vault: Discovering The Ozone Hole On Science Friday's first broadcast in 1991, Ira Flatow spoke with Michael Oppenheimer and F. Sherwood Rowland about what caused the ozone hole, and what should be done about it. Rowland went on to share a Nobel Prize for the research a few years later. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website A Trip Back To The Future of The Internet Science Friday made history in 1993, when it became the first national radio show to be broadcast live over the Internet. Traffic on the 'net slowed that day, as listeners from around the world logged on to try to talk to Ira Flatow and guests Brewster Kahle and Carl Malamud. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Computers And Babies, Listening Carefully The speech-recognition algorithms behind Google Voice Search analyze thousands of hours of human speech to pick out patterns. Babies may use the same technique. Google speech recognition guru Mike Cohen and linguist Sheila Blumstein discuss how humans and computers learn language. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website How The X-Box Kinect Tracks Your Moves Kinect uses depth sensors, cameras and microphones to track the movements of players, and it's surprisingly good at weeding out distractions. Ira Flatow and guests discuss the development of the gaming technology -- and how movement can influence players' moods. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Science Diction: The Origin Of The Word 'Atom' The British poet and alchemist Thomas Norton used the word "attoms" in his 1477 poem, The Ordinal of Alchemy. Historian Howard Markel explains how Norton came to use the word, and points out earlier philosophers who raised the concept of indivisible units of matter. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Are Airport Scanners Safe? Some airport body scanning machines use X-rays to generate images. How much radiation is a traveler exposed to? Should frequent fliers opt for a pat down instead? Radiation expert David Brenner explains the possible public health concerns of scanning millions of passengers. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website From Bach To Beer Bottles, The Physics of Music Why does a saxophone sound different from an oboe? How do tiny flutes produce such loud sounds? Dr. John Powell, author of How Music Works: The Science and Psychology of Beautiful Sounds explains musical acoustics and more. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Locking Up Antimatter Scientists at CERN, the European nuclear research facility, say they have produced and trapped molecules of antihydrogen, a form of antimatter. Physicist Jeffrey Hangst explains how they were made and captured. Will trapping antimatter help scientists learn about the construction of the universe? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Untangling The Hairy Physics Of Rapunzel Kelly Ward, senior software engineer for Walt Disney Animation Studios, was tasked with bringing Rapunzel's locks to life in Disney's new movie, Tangled. The hair had to look realistic, but not too real -- otherwise Rapunzel would be towing 80 pounds of hair behind her. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Untangling The Hairy Physics Of Rapunzel Kelly Ward, senior software engineer for Walt Disney Animation Studios, was tasked with bringing Rapunzel's locks to life in Disney's new movie, Tangled. The hair had to look realistic, but not too real -- otherwise Rapunzel would be towing 80 pounds of hair behind her. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Computers And Babies, Listening Carefully The speech-recognition algorithms behind Google Voice Search analyze thousands of hours of human speech to pick out patterns. Babies may use the same technique. Google speech recognition guru Mike Cohen and linguist Sheila Blumstein discuss how humans and computers learn language. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website How The X-Box Kinect Tracks Your Moves Kinect uses depth sensors, cameras and microphones to track the movements of players, and it's surprisingly good at weeding out distractions. Ira Flatow and guests discuss the development of the gaming technology -- and how movement can influence players' moods. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Science Diction: The Origin Of The Word 'Atom' The British poet and alchemist Thomas Norton used the word "attoms" in his 1477 poem, The Ordinal of Alchemy. Historian Howard Markel explains how Norton came to use the word, and points out earlier philosophers who raised the concept of indivisible units of matter. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Are Airport Scanners Safe? Some airport body scanning machines use X-rays to generate images. How much radiation is a traveler exposed to? Should frequent fliers opt for a pat down instead? Radiation expert David Brenner explains the possible public health concerns of scanning millions of passengers. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website From Bach To Beer Bottles, The Physics of Music Why does a saxophone sound different from an oboe? How do tiny flutes produce such loud sounds? Dr. John Powell, author of How Music Works: The Science and Psychology of Beautiful Sounds explains musical acoustics and more. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Locking Up Antimatter Scientists at CERN, the European nuclear research facility, say they have produced and trapped molecules of antihydrogen, a form of antimatter. Physicist Jeffrey Hangst explains how they were made and captured. Will trapping antimatter help scientists learn about the construction of the universe? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website How To Hunt For Lichens Lichens grow practically everywhere, but they have been neglected by scientists for years, says James Lendemer, a lichenologist with New York Botanical Garden. Lendemer took Science Friday on a trip to the Tannersville Cranberry Bog in Pennsylvania to explore the diversity of lichens living there. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Spookiness Of Quantum Mechanics It's been 75 years since Albert Einstein decried the "spooky action at a distance" of quantum entanglement. Tom Siegfried, editor-in-chief of Science News, explains how quantum mechanics is being put to use, even though scientists still don't quite understand how it works. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Evolving Minds Of Humans Why do humans have consciousness? In his new book, Self Comes To Mind, neurologist Antonio Damasio argues that consciousness gave humans an evolutionary advantage. Damasio describes the differences between self and mind, and traces the evolutionary path of the human brain. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Quantifying Happiness Harvard researchers have developed a Web tool for volunteers to record what they're doing and how they feel while doing it. The goal? To measure happiness. Doctoral student Matt Killingsworth describes some early results suggesting many people aren't "living in the moment." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website A Conversation With The New NSF Director Subra Suresh, former dean of engineering at MIT, was sworn in last month as director of the National Science Foundation, which doles out billions of dollars for basic research each year. Suresh talks about his priorities and how the NSF's budget is likely to fare with the new Congress. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Bye, Bye Ivory Tower. Scientists Pledge To Speak Out This week, a group of scientists called the "rapid response team" has promised to speak up about climate change and take skeptics head-on, even if that means participating in political debates. But does this verge on advocacy? And is that a problem? Ira Flatow and guests discuss. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Flying By A Small, Hyperactive Comet When it comes to comets, gassy is good, or at least informative, says astronomer Michael A'Hearn. NASA's Deep Impact probe has been snapping pictures of Hartley 2 -- a small comet that is spewing a lot of gas and dust for its size. What do researchers hope to learn from the comet? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Spookiness Of Quantum Mechanics It's been 75 years since Albert Einstein decried the "spooky action at a distance" of quantum entanglement. Tom Siegfried, editor-in-chief of Science News, explains how quantum mechanics is being put to use, even though scientists still don't quite understand how it works. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Evolving Minds Of Humans Why do humans have consciousness? In his new book, Self Comes To Mind, neurologist Antonio Damasio argues that consciousness gave humans an evolutionary advantage. Damasio describes the differences between self and mind, and traces the evolutionary path of the human brain. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Quantifying Happiness Harvard researchers have developed a Web tool for volunteers to record what they're doing and how they feel while doing it. The goal? To measure happiness. Doctoral student Matt Killingsworth describes some early results suggesting many people aren't "living in the moment." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website A Conversation With The New NSF Director Subra Suresh, former dean of engineering at MIT, was sworn in last month as director of the National Science Foundation, which doles out billions of dollars for basic research each year. Suresh talks about his priorities and how the NSF's budget is likely to fare with the new Congress. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Bye, Bye Ivory Tower. Scientists Pledge To Speak Out This week, a group of scientists called the "rapid response team" has promised to speak up about climate change and take skeptics head-on, even if that means participating in political debates. But does this verge on advocacy? And is that a problem? Ira Flatow and guests discuss. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Flying By A Small, Hyperactive Comet When it comes to comets, gassy is good, or at least informative, says astronomer Michael A'Hearn. NASA's Deep Impact probe has been snapping pictures of Hartley 2 -- a small comet that is spewing a lot of gas and dust for its size. What do researchers hope to learn from the comet? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website How To Hunt For Lichens Lichens grow practically everywhere, but they have been neglected by scientists for years, says James Lendemer, a lichenologist with New York Botanical Garden. Lendemer took Science Friday on a trip to the Tannersville Cranberry Bog in Pennsylvania to explore the diversity of lichens living there. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Can Science Shape Human Values? And Should It? Ira Flatow talks with scientists and philosophers about the origins of human values, and the influence of modern scientific thought on human values. Even if science can shape human morals, should it? Or does science bring its own set of preconceptions and prejudices to moral questions? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website A Time-Out For Athletes And Concussions A new position statement from the American Academy of Neurology includes the recommendation that any athlete suspected of having a concussion be removed from play and evaluated. Neurologist Jeffrey Kutcher describes the new recommendations and the reasons for the changes. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Scientist Gets Her Due in ‘Photograph 51’ In 1952, scientist Rosalind Franklin took a clear X-ray photo of DNA. Nobel Prize winners Watson and Crick used the image, in part, to determine the double helix -- but did Franklin get the credit she deserved? Actress Kristen Bush and playwright Anna Ziegler discuss a new play on Franklin. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Counting Crowds: Results May Vary How many people attended Jon Stewart's rally last weekend, or Glenn Beck's rally last summer? It depends on who you ask. Two crowd-counting experts explain the "gold standard" for measuring crowd size, and discuss why some rally organizers might disagree with the counts. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website These Babies Can Out-Climb Their Parents Australian brush turkeys (Alectura lathami) fend for themselves the day they hatch, says Ken Dial of the University of Montana Flight Lab. The birds fly the day they hatch, and hatchlings can climb vertical ledges better than adults, according to Dial's latest research. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website These Babies Can Out-Climb Their Parents Australian brush turkeys (Alectura lathami) fend for themselves the day they hatch, says Ken Dial of the University of Montana Flight Lab. The birds fly the day they hatch, and hatchlings can climb vertical ledges better than adults, according to Dial's latest research. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Can Science Shape Human Values? And Should It? Ira Flatow talks with scientists and philosophers about the origins of human values, and the influence of modern scientific thought on human values. Even if science can shape human morals, should it? Or does science bring its own set of preconceptions and prejudices to moral questions? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website A Time-Out For Athletes And Concussions A new position statement from the American Academy of Neurology includes the recommendation that any athlete suspected of having a concussion be removed from play and evaluated. Neurologist Jeffrey Kutcher describes the new recommendations and the reasons for the changes. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Scientist Gets Her Due in ‘Photograph 51’ In 1952, scientist Rosalind Franklin took a clear X-ray photo of DNA. Nobel Prize winners Watson and Crick used the image, in part, to determine the double helix -- but did Franklin get the credit she deserved? Actress Kristen Bush and playwright Anna Ziegler discuss a new play on Franklin. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Counting Crowds: Results May Vary How many people attended Jon Stewart's rally last weekend, or Glenn Beck's rally last summer? It depends on who you ask. Two crowd-counting experts explain the "gold standard" for measuring crowd size, and discuss why some rally organizers might disagree with the counts. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Slip Into The Secret Life of Eels In his new book Eels, writer James Prosek describes the life history and cultural significance of this slimy, snake-like and often misunderstood fish, introducing the reader to an eel fisherman on the Delaware River and to the myths of the Maori of New Zealand along the way. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Taste Receptors In Lungs May Help Asthmatics Writing in Nature Medicine, researchers report on discovering bitter taste receptors in human lungs, and that bitter compounds expand airways in asthmatic mice. Stephen Liggett talks about the possibility of treating asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease with bitter compounds. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Is Genome Sequencing Surpassing Medical Knowledge? The cost of sequencing a human genome is plummeting, and soon many people may obtain a copy of their own. But how useful is that information to patients, especially if their genes predict untreatable, fatal diseases? Hank Greely discusses the promise and the pitfalls of genetic testing. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Mysterious Life Of The Cholera Bacterium Scientists have long known that cholera is caused by a bacterium transmitted through food or water. But where does the bacterium live between epidemics, and what dictates the timing of new outbreaks? CDC cholera expert Eric Mintz discusses the bacterium behind the Haiti outbreak. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 'Goat Sucker' May Just Be A Mangy Coyote The legend of the ferocious chupacabra, or goat sucker, has circulated around Central America since the 1990s. But the supernatural chimeric beast -- described by some as half dog, half bat -- may just be a coyote suffering from mange, says entomologist Barry OConnor of the University of Michigan. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Past, Locked In Amber Scientists excavating an Indian amber deposit say it dates back more than 50 million years, and contains the remains of at least 100 previously undocumented species of insects. American Museum of Natural History curator David Grimaldi describes the amber, and the organisms trapped within it. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Is Genome Sequencing Surpassing Medical Knowledge? The cost of sequencing a human genome is plummeting, and soon many people may obtain a copy of their own. But how useful is that information to patients, especially if their genes predict untreatable, fatal diseases? Hank Greely discusses the promise and the pitfalls of genetic testing. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Mysterious Life Of The Cholera Bacterium Scientists have long known that cholera is caused by a bacterium transmitted through food or water. But where does the bacterium live between epidemics, and what dictates the timing of new outbreaks? CDC cholera expert Eric Mintz discusses the bacterium behind the Haiti outbreak. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 'Goat Sucker' May Just Be A Mangy Coyote The legend of the ferocious chupacabra, or goat sucker, has circulated around Central America since the 1990s. But the supernatural chimeric beast -- described by some as half dog, half bat -- may just be a coyote suffering from mange, says entomologist Barry OConnor of the University of Michigan. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Past, Locked In Amber Scientists excavating an Indian amber deposit say it dates back more than 50 million years, and contains the remains of at least 100 previously undocumented species of insects. American Museum of Natural History curator David Grimaldi describes the amber, and the organisms trapped within it. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Slip Into The Secret Life of Eels In his new book Eels, writer James Prosek describes the life history and cultural significance of this slimy, snake-like and often misunderstood fish, introducing the reader to an eel fisherman on the Delaware River and to the myths of the Maori of New Zealand along the way. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Taste Receptors In Lungs May Help Asthmatics Writing in Nature Medicine, researchers report on discovering bitter taste receptors in human lungs, and that bitter compounds expand airways in asthmatic mice. Stephen Liggett talks about the possibility of treating asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease with bitter compounds. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Physics Of Giant Pumpkins Pumpkins of the Atlantic Giant variety can weigh more than 1,800 pounds. For a mechanical engineer with an interest in plus-sized fruit, like Georgia Tech's David Hu, this raises an interesting physics question: How can the pumpkin get so big without breaking? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Decoding Lunar Crash Data Just over a year ago, the LCROSS mission deliberately crashed into a lunar crater, kicking up a cloud of debris --and signs of water. Michael Wargo, NASA's chief lunar scientist, describes other ingredients scientists have identified in lunar soil, a material called regolith. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Science Diction: The Origin Of The Word 'Cancer' Around 400 B.C., Hippocrates is said to have named masses of cancerous cells karkinos -- Greek for crab. Science and medical historian Howard Markel discusses a few hypotheses on why Hippocrates named the disease after a crab, and how well cancer was understood in the ancient world. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Dean Kamen Explores Invention His personal list of inventions includes everything from an insulin pump to the Segway Transporter. He started the FIRST Robotics engineering challenges for students. Now, inventor Dean Kamen also has his own television show, aimed at spreading the excitement of invention. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Ira Asks: How Are Eyeglasses Made? After a prescription leaves the optometrist's office, how are eyeglasses actually made to order? Larry Enright, general manager of Perferx Optical, talks about the shaping, sanding, polishing, cutting and beveling behind each lens' journey into a pair of finished frames. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 'Yellow Dirt': The Legacy of Navajo Uranium Mines In her book Yellow Dirt: An American Story of a Poisoned Land and a People Betrayed, former Los Angeles Times reporter Judy Pasternak documents the toxic legacy of uranium mining in the Navajo lands of northeastern Arizona, where radioactive dust wound up in Navajo homes and drinking water. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Geek Out To Freak Out On Halloween Halloween may be the biggest do-it-yourself holiday in America, where creative types turn their cars into Batmobiles and their jack-o'-lanterns into computerized Silly String squirters. Instructables founder and CEO Eric Wilhelm talks about these and other crafty projects for Halloween. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Science Diction: The Origin Of The Word 'Cancer' Around 400 B.C., Hippocrates is said to have named masses of cancerous cells karkinos -- Greek for crab. Science and medical historian Howard Markel discusses a few hypotheses on why Hippocrates named the disease after a crab, and how well cancer was understood in the ancient world. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Puzzling Over A Man And His Cube Professor Erno Rubik's iconic puzzle, a simple, yet complex multicolored cube, took the world by storm in the 1980s and sold millions of copies. The inventor will receive a Lifetime Science Education Achievement Award from the USA Science & Engineering Festival this weekend. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Decoding Lunar Crash Data Just over a year ago, the LCROSS mission deliberately crashed into a lunar crater, kicking up a cloud of debris --and signs of water. Michael Wargo, NASA's chief lunar scientist, describes other ingredients scientists have identified in lunar soil, a material called regolith. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Dean Kamen Explores Invention His personal list of inventions includes everything from an insulin pump to the Segway Transporter. He started the FIRST Robotics engineering challenges for students. Now, inventor Dean Kamen also has his own television show, aimed at spreading the excitement of invention. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Physics Of Giant Pumpkins Pumpkins of the Atlantic Giant variety can weigh more than 1,800 pounds. For a mechanical engineer with an interest in plus-sized fruit, like Georgia Tech's David Hu, this raises an interesting physics question: How can the pumpkin get so big without breaking? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website How Do Immune Cells Find Wounds? Reporting in the journal Science, Paul Kubes and colleagues filmed immune cells called neutrophils finding their way to a mouse's wounded liver. The researchers wanted to understand how neutrophils locate sterile injuries when bacteria aren't around to signal the damage. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Carrying Wind Power, Underwater This week, investors including Google announced a $5 billion plan to build an underwater transmission line off the East Coast. The line will tie power from offshore wind farms to the Eastern power grid. Willett Kempton, of the University of Delaware, explains the project. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 'Pot Book' Explores History And Science Of Marijuana Next month, voters in four states will consider whether to change laws regulating marijuana use. But how much is known about marijuana's effects on the body? Ira Flatow talks with psychiatrist Julie Holland, editor of a new collection of essays titled The Pot Book, about the plant. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Punk Rock Professor Talks Anarchy And Evolution At the same time Greg Graffin was starting the legendary punk rock band Bad Religion, he was becoming fascinated by evolutionary biology. Both would become lifelong pursuits. He talks about the connection in his new book, Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Celebrating The MIT Media Lab's 25th Birthday In 1985, when high-tech computing meant a Commodore 128, Jerome Wiesner and Nicholas Negroponte formed the MIT Media Lab, the birthplace of innovations such as e-ink for digital readers and the technology behind the game Guitar Hero. Negroponte talks about the lab's past, present and future. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Google Isn't The First To Dream Of Robotic Cars In May 1958, Popular Science published an article titled "The Car that Drives Itself: The Car in Your Future Will Be Run By Black Boxes While You Watch." Sound familiar? Harry McCracken, founder and editor of Technologizer.com, discusses Google's self-piloted car, and dreams that came before it. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website A History of Space Science, In Ink Science Friday listener Josh Scott is on a mission: He wants to get a pictorial history of space exploration tattooed on his arm. What missions or satellites should be included? Apollo? Hubble? Call in with your suggestions and help Scott get sleeved in space science style. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 4-H Clubs Conduct Nationwide Science Experiments Add an extra "H" for "hypothesis" to the head, heart, hands, and health that make up the 4-H club motto. This week, 4-H chapters across the country are taking part in science experiments that aim to teach kids in rural and urban areas about water use and carbon footprints. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Does Sleep (Or Lack Of It) Affect Weight Loss? A new study in the Annals of Internal Medicine suggests that dieters' sleep duration affects weight loss. Those who slept less lost more muscle than fat, while dieters who slept more took off more fat. Sleep researcher Michael Lacey explains how sleep relates to weight. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Tracking The 'Truthiness' Of Tweets Computer scientists at Indiana University in Bloomington have developed a tool to track the flow of information in Twitter. The goal is to identify deliberately deceptive tweets, and trace them back to their origins. Researcher Johan Bollen explains how the analysis works. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Take A Spin In An Electric Car Ira Flatow took Nissan's new electric-powered Leaf for a drive around New York City. This car runs on a rechargeable lithium-ion battery -- no oil or gas -- and with a new battery, the car can go between 60 and 130 miles on a charge. The car is set to go into production in the next few months, with deliveries in December. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Few Americans Finish Their Vegetables A recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says two-thirds of Americans don't get the recommended two servings of fruit a day; three-quarters miss the target for vegetables. Ira Flatow and guests discuss ways Americans might be persuaded to eat more fresh produce. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Graphene: A Sandbox For Physicists, 1 Atom Thick Two Russian scientists won the Nobel Prize in physics this week for their work on graphene, a chicken-wire-like lattice of carbon atoms. Joseph Stroscio, of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, talks about why physicists are so fascinated by the material. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website A Fizzy Ocean May Lie Beneath Enceladus' Icy Crust The Cassini spacecraft spotted icy plumes jetting from Saturn's moon Enceladus in 2005. Now researchers say a carbonated ocean may fuel the plumes. Science News reporter Ron Cowen talks about this and other news from a meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Few Americans Finish Their Vegetables A recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says two-thirds of Americans don't get the recommended two servings of fruit a day; three-quarters miss the target for vegetables. Ira Flatow and guests discuss ways Americans might be persuaded to eat more fresh produce. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Take A Spin In An Electric Car Ira Flatow took Nissan's new electric-powered Leaf for a drive around New York City. This car runs on a rechargeable lithium-ion battery -- no oil or gas -- and with a new battery, the car can go between 60 and 130 miles on a charge. The car is set to go into production in the next few months, with deliveries in December. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Tracking The 'Truthiness' Of Tweets Computer scientists at Indiana University in Bloomington have developed a tool to track the flow of information in Twitter. The goal is to identify deliberately deceptive tweets, and trace them back to their origins. Researcher Johan Bollen explains how the analysis works. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Does Sleep (Or Lack Of It) Affect Weight Loss? A new study in the Annals of Internal Medicine suggests that dieters' sleep duration affects weight loss. Those who slept less lost more muscle than fat, while dieters who slept more took off more fat. Sleep researcher Michael Lacey explains how sleep relates to weight. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 4-H Clubs Conduct Nationwide Science Experiments Add an extra "H" for "hypothesis" to the head, heart, hands, and health that make up the 4-H club motto. This week, 4-H chapters across the country are taking part in science experiments that aim to teach kids in rural and urban areas about water use and carbon footprints. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website A History of Space Science, In Ink Science Friday listener Josh Scott is on a mission: He wants to get a pictorial history of space exploration tattooed on his arm. What missions or satellites should be included? Apollo? Hubble? Call in with your suggestions and help Scott get sleeved in space science style. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website A Fizzy Ocean May Lie Beneath Enceladus' Icy Crust The Cassini spacecraft spotted icy plumes jetting from Saturn's moon Enceladus in 2005. Now researchers say a carbonated ocean may fuel the plumes. Science News reporter Ron Cowen talks about this and other news from a meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Graphene: A Sandbox For Physicists, 1 Atom Thick Two Russian scientists won the Nobel Prize in physics this week for their work on graphene, a chicken-wire-like lattice of carbon atoms. Joseph Stroscio, of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, talks about why physicists are so fascinated by the material. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Mark Twain And Science: It's Complicated Did you know Mark Twain tried his hand at science fiction? In the book The Disappearing Spoon, author Sam Kean writes about Twain's prescient story "Sold to Satan." In the story, Satan’s problems stem, in part, from the fact that he is made entirely of the newly discovered radioactive element radium. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Celebrating Carl Sagan And 'Cosmos' The television series Cosmos, which first aired 30 years ago this week, made a celebrity of science communicator Carl Sagan. In this archival 1994 Science Friday interview, Sagan discusses his book The Pale Blue Dot and shares his thoughts on manned space exploration. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Are 'Stuxnet' Worm Attacks Cyberwarfare? Computer experts say a sophisticated computer worm dubbed "Stuxnet" exploits vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows to attack industrial control systems, including one at an Iranian nuclear power plant. Computer security experts discuss the worm and its impact on security. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website New Species Of Extinct Giant Penguin Discovered Scientists report finding the fossilized remains of a new species of giant penguin in a Peruvian desert. Paleontologist Julia Clarke of the University of Texas, Austin describes what these huge birds looked like and how the new finding can help explain penguin evolution. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Smelly Invaders Want To Crawl Into Your Home The brown marmorated stink bug, which hails from Asia, had a population boom this year -- terrorizing farmers and homeowners up and down the Eastern U.S. USDA entomologist Tracy Leskey explains what's known about the bug and how to cope. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Newly Discovered Exoplanet Ripe For Life Gliese 581g, a planet orbiting the dwarf star Gliese in the constellation Libra, is Earth-like in a few key ways. It's not much bigger than Earth, and its temperature seems mild enough for liquid water. Steven Vogt, of the University of California, Santa Cruz, explains how he found the planet. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website What Are The Challenges Of 'Trailblazing Mars'? What grows best in Martian soil? How do you get oxygen out of thin air? Pat Duggins, author of Trailblazing Mars: NASA’s Next Giant Leap, talks about the questions NASA will face if it sends astronauts to the Red Planet and how to choose the right people for the job. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website How Do You Catch An Atom And Pin It Down? Mikkel Andersen, a physicist at New Zealand's University of Otago, isolated a single atom of rubidium and then used a special astronomical camera to snap its picture. Andersen describes the process of turning lasers into optical tweezers and what catching atoms means for quantum computing. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website New Species Of Extinct Giant Penguin Discovered Scientists report finding the fossilized remains of a new species of giant penguin in a Peruvian desert. Paleontologist Julia Clarke of the University of Texas, Austin describes what these huge birds looked like and how the new finding can help explain penguin evolution. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Are 'Stuxnet' Worm Attacks Cyberwarfare? Computer experts say a sophisticated computer worm dubbed "Stuxnet" exploits vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows to attack industrial control systems, including one at an Iranian nuclear power plant. Computer security experts discuss the worm and its impact on security. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Celebrating Carl Sagan And 'Cosmos' The television series Cosmos, which first aired 30 years ago this week, made a celebrity of science communicator Carl Sagan. In this archival 1994 Science Friday interview, Sagan discusses his book The Pale Blue Dot and shares his thoughts on manned space exploration. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Mark Twain And Science: It's Complicated Did you know Mark Twain tried his hand at science fiction? In the book The Disappearing Spoon, author Sam Kean writes about Twain's prescient story "Sold to Satan." In the story, Satan’s problems stem, in part, from the fact that he is made entirely of the newly discovered radioactive element radium. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website How Do You Catch An Atom And Pin It Down? Mikkel Andersen, a physicist at New Zealand's University of Otago, isolated a single atom of rubidium and then used a special astronomical camera to snap its picture. Andersen describes the process of turning lasers into optical tweezers and what catching atoms means for quantum computing. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website What Are The Challenges Of 'Trailblazing Mars'? What grows best in Martian soil? How do you get oxygen out of thin air? Pat Duggins, author of Trailblazing Mars: NASA’s Next Giant Leap, talks about the questions NASA will face if it sends astronauts to the Red Planet and how to choose the right people for the job. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Newly Discovered Exoplanet Ripe For Life Gliese 581g, a planet orbiting the dwarf star Gliese in the constellation Libra, is Earth-like in a few key ways. It's not much bigger than Earth, and its temperature seems mild enough for liquid water. Steven Vogt, of the University of California, Santa Cruz, explains how he found the planet. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Smelly Invaders Want To Crawl Into Your Home The brown marmorated stink bug, which hails from Asia, had a population boom this year -- terrorizing farmers and homeowners up and down the Eastern U.S. USDA entomologist Tracy Leskey explains what's known about the bug and how to cope. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website From White Paper To Wanted Sign Stephen Mancusi worked for the New York Police Department for 27 years as a forensic artist. He specializes in composite sketching -- the process of interviewing victims and witnesses to create a drawing of a perpetrator that is released to help police find suspects. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Forensic Artists Use Talent To Solve Crimes Many police departments use forensic artists to help solve crimes. From composite sketches to facial reconstructions, the work of these artists combines creativity, science and detective skills. Artist Karen T. Taylor and anthropologist Mary Manhein discuss the science behind forensic art. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Drilling Down To Rescue Miners Three separate rigs are drilling escape shafts to free the 33 miners trapped half a mile beneath the Atacama desert in Chile. Mine safety advocate Davitt McAteer and drilling engineer Rudy Lyon discuss the technology being used in the rescue and how miners can be kept out of harm's way. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Who Decides The Price Of Human Life? Personalized medicine promises to deliver more tailored health care. But what if a person's genes reveal he won't get much benefit from the only available treatment? Ethicist Leonard Fleck discusses the tough decisions Americans face in deciding whether to pay for others' expensive treatments. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Defining Human Uniqueness In 'Almost Chimpanzee' Humans and chimpanzees share very similar genes -- some analyses peg the differences at just 1 percent. But in his book Almost Chimpanzee, science writer Jon Cohen focuses on our differences, from the way we eat and communicate to our susceptibilities to disease and aging. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website World's Most Precise Clocks Test Relativity The world's most precise clocks can reveal tiny time dilations predicted by Einstein's theory of relativity -- but that's not all. Tom O'Brian of the National Institute for Standards and Technology talks about using these precise clocks in everything from cell phones to satellites. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Forensic Artists Use Talent To Solve Crimes Many police departments use forensic artists to help solve crimes. From composite sketches to facial reconstructions, the work of these artists combines creativity, science and detective skills. Artist Karen T. Taylor and anthropologist Mary Manhein discuss the science behind forensic art. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website From White Paper To Wanted Sign Stephen Mancusi worked for the New York Police Department for 27 years as a forensic artist. He specializes in composite sketching -- the process of interviewing victims and witnesses to create a drawing of a perpetrator that is released to help police find suspects. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website World's Most Precise Clocks Test Relativity The world's most precise clocks can reveal tiny time dilations predicted by Einstein's theory of relativity -- but that's not all. Tom O'Brian of the National Institute for Standards and Technology talks about using these precise clocks in everything from cell phones to satellites. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Defining Human Uniqueness In 'Almost Chimpanzee' Humans and chimpanzees share very similar genes -- some analyses peg the differences at just 1 percent. But in his book Almost Chimpanzee, science writer Jon Cohen focuses on our differences, from the way we eat and communicate to our susceptibilities to disease and aging. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Who Decides The Price Of Human Life? Personalized medicine promises to deliver more tailored health care. But what if a person's genes reveal he won't get much benefit from the only available treatment? Ethicist Leonard Fleck discusses the tough decisions Americans face in deciding whether to pay for others' expensive treatments. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Drilling Down To Rescue Miners Three separate rigs are drilling escape shafts to free the 33 miners trapped half a mile beneath the Atacama desert in Chile. Mine safety advocate Davitt McAteer and drilling engineer Rudy Lyon discuss the technology being used in the rescue and how miners can be kept out of harm's way. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Origins Of The Word 'Cell' In the 1660s, Robert Hooke looked through a primitive microscope at a thinly cut piece of cork. He saw a series of walled boxes that reminded him of the tiny rooms, or cellula, occupied by monks. Medical historian Dr. Howard Markel discusses Hooke's coining of the word "cell." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Calculus Around You In her new book The Calculus Diaries, writer Jennifer Ouellette describes the development of calculus, from Archimedes to Newton, and shows how calculus is a part of everyday life -- from amusement park rides and Vegas craps tables, to dieting and figuring out gas mileage. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Does The Universe Have a 'Dark Flow?' Using measurements of the cosmic microwave background, researchers say, there’s evidence that galaxy clusters are being pulled along by a force outside the visible universe. Theoretical physicist Michael Turner explains this “dark flow” and other recent cosmology news. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website White House Says ‘No’ To Solar Panel Environmentalist Bill McKibben was hoping the Obama administration would reinstall a solar panel President Jimmy Carter once had on the White House. McKibben took the panel to Washington, D.C., but administration officials declined to put the panel back on the White House roof. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Why Are These Crows So Good With Tools? New Caledonian crows are among only a handful of species that have been shown to use tools. They use twigs to fish out beetle larvae from dead trees. Reporting in Science, Christian Rutz and colleagues explore why the birds evolved this rare trait. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website To Spur Innovation, Offer Millions In Cash Prizes Just as Charles Lindbergh was tempted to fly nonstop to Paris in hopes of winning a $25,000 prize, the U.S. government is offering millions of dollars in prize money to lure innovators into building better lightbulbs, cheaper satellite-launching spacecraft and more fuel-efficient cars. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website How We Pay Attention Can you remember everything you see when you walk into a room? Why does our memory deceive us, even when we're confident we're paying attention? Psychologists Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons discuss what grabs our focus, and why. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Teaching Doctors To Be Better Listeners If doctors listen more carefully to patients' conversations about work and family life, they can pick up clues that lead to better treatment, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Author Dr. Alan Schwartz talks about training doctors to be better listeners. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website White House Says ‘No’ To Solar Panel Environmentalist Bill McKibben was hoping the Obama administration would reinstall a solar panel President Jimmy Carter once had on the White House. McKibben took the panel to Washington, D.C., but administration officials declined to put the panel back on the White House roof. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Does The Universe Have a 'Dark Flow?' Using measurements of the cosmic microwave background, researchers say, there’s evidence that galaxy clusters are being pulled along by a force outside the visible universe. Theoretical physicist Michael Turner explains this “dark flow” and other recent cosmology news. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Calculus Around You In her new book The Calculus Diaries, writer Jennifer Ouellette describes the development of calculus, from Archimedes to Newton, and shows how calculus is a part of everyday life -- from amusement park rides and Vegas craps tables, to dieting and figuring out gas mileage. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Origins Of The Word 'Cell' In the 1660s, Robert Hooke looked through a primitive microscope at a thinly cut piece of cork. He saw a series of walled boxes that reminded him of the tiny rooms, or cellula, occupied by monks. Medical historian Dr. Howard Markel discusses Hooke's coining of the word "cell." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website How We Pay Attention Can you remember everything you see when you walk into a room? Why does our memory deceive us, even when we're confident we're paying attention? Psychologists Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons discuss what grabs our focus, and why. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website To Spur Innovation, Offer Millions In Cash Prizes Just as Charles Lindbergh was tempted to fly nonstop to Paris in hopes of winning a $25,000 prize, the U.S. government is offering millions of dollars in prize money to lure innovators into building better lightbulbs, cheaper satellite-launching spacecraft and more fuel-efficient cars. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Why Are These Crows So Good With Tools? New Caledonian crows are among only a handful of species that have been shown to use tools. They use twigs to fish out beetle larvae from dead trees. Reporting in Science, Christian Rutz and colleagues explore why the birds evolved this rare trait. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Intelligence Of Crowds In 'The Perfect Swarm' In his book The Perfect Swarm, Len Fisher talks about swarm intelligence -- where the collective ideas of a group add up to better solutions than any individual could have dreamed up, including an example of how UPS reorganized its driving routes using the logic of an ant colony. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Does The 'Energy Star' Label Need An Update? A review in Consumer Reports says it's good news so many products have become energy efficient but calls for strengthening Energy Star standards to guide consumers to truly efficient products. Ira Flatow and guests discuss that report and overlooked ways people can save energy at home. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Cure For Malaria Could Be In A Mosquito's Gut Reporting in the journal Science, researchers write that mosquitoes can fight off infection by the malaria parasite, and that their immune response is even more efficient the second time. Study author Carolina Barillas-Mury discusses whether mosquitoes themselves could help eradicate malaria. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Scientists Study What Makes A Man A Good Dancer Evolutionary psychologist Nick Neave filmed men dancing, converted the videos into dancing avatars and asked women to rate the avatars' dancing ability. The researchers found that the highly rated male dancers had some moves in common. Some advice: Shake that right knee. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Happy Birthday, Buckyballs! Twenty-five years ago this month, researchers first identified buckminsterfullerenes -- a previously undiscovered form of carbon shaped like a tiny soccer ball. Harry Kroto, who shared the Nobel Prize for the discovery, explains what's been learned about fullerenes since. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website When To Test For Prostate Cancer? Ads urge men of a certain age to get screened for prostate cancer. But is "test early, test often" the best approach? Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society and Mark Scholz, author of Invasion Of The Prostate Snatchers, discuss other approaches. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Tracking Coastal Erosion From Storms New data from sensitive airborne altimetry combined with undersea sensors is giving scientists better insight into how major storms can rapidly reshape coastlines. Reporter Sid Perkins discusses his Science News article on the scouring power of major storms. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Intelligence Of Crowds In 'The Perfect Swarm' In his book The Perfect Swarm, Len Fisher talks about swarm intelligence -- where the collective ideas of a group add up to better solutions than any individual could have dreamed up, including an example of how UPS reorganized its driving routes using the logic of an ant colony. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Does The 'Energy Star' Label Need An Update? A review in Consumer Reports says it's good news so many products have become energy efficient but calls for strengthening Energy Star standards to guide consumers to truly efficient products. Ira Flatow and guests discuss that report and overlooked ways people can save energy at home. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Scientists Study What Makes A Man A Good Dancer Evolutionary psychologist Nick Neave filmed men dancing, converted the videos into dancing avatars and asked women to rate the avatars' dancing ability. The researchers found that the highly rated male dancers had some moves in common. Some advice: Shake that right knee. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Happy Birthday, Buckyballs! Twenty-five years ago this month, researchers first identified buckminsterfullerenes -- a previously undiscovered form of carbon shaped like a tiny soccer ball. Harry Kroto, who shared the Nobel Prize for the discovery, explains what's been learned about fullerenes since. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website When To Test For Prostate Cancer? Ads urge men of a certain age to get screened for prostate cancer. But is "test early, test often" the best approach? Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society and Mark Scholz, author of Invasion Of The Prostate Snatchers, discuss other approaches. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Tracking Coastal Erosion From Storms New data from sensitive airborne altimetry combined with undersea sensors is giving scientists better insight into how major storms can rapidly reshape coastlines. Reporter Sid Perkins discusses his Science News article on the scouring power of major storms. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Studying Computers To Learn About Ourselves Clifford Nass, a communications professor at Stanford University, has been studying the ways humans interact with computers to tease out some of the intricacies of how people relate to each other. He talks about those findings in his new book The Man Who Lied to His Laptop. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Is Organically Produced Food More Nutritious? Reporting in the journal PLoS ONE, researchers write that organically grown strawberries contain more antioxidants and vitamin C than conventional berries. Ira Flatow and guests discuss the findings, and whether the differences would have any meaningful impact on Americans' health. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Stocky Dinosaur With Menacing Toes Unearthed Reporting in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers describe a new predatory dinosaur from the late Cretaceous period in Europe. Balaur bondoc (Romanian for "stocky dragon") is huskier than its relative the Velociraptor. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Can Cognitive Exercise Speed Up Dementia? New research suggests that seniors who did mentally stimulating activities such as crossword puzzles postponed the loss of thinking skills, but had an accelerated rate of decline once dementia set in later in life. Neuropsychologist Robert S. Wilson explains the finding. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Insomnia Means More Than A Bad Night's Sleep A new study says men who reported having insomnia and who slept less than 6 hours a night were four times more likely to die over a 14-year period when compared to men who reported sleeping well. Sleep researcher and psychiatrist Alexandros Vgontzas explains the finding. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Time To Get Tough, Environmentalists Say With no climate change legislation coming out of the Senate, Sierra Club head Michael Brune says it's time to try a new strategy to fight global warming. Author Bill McKibben says it's time to get angry. Brune and McKibben discuss their ideas for curbing climate change. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Sniffing Out The Science Of Smell There are hundreds of receptors in the human nose that can pick up thousands of odors with each sniff. But how do we make sense of the scents? Smell researchers Stuart Firestein and Donald Wilson discuss the complexities of olfaction and how the brain sorts out what the nose picks up. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Gulf Spill Reveals New Oil-Eating Bacteria Researchers reporting in the journal Science say they have discovered a new species of oil-eating bacteria living half a mile down in the Gulf of Mexico. Study author Terry Hazen discusses the finding and what these bacteria might mean for future oil spills. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Sci-Fi High Tech Comes To Life The future as imagined in science fiction sometimes becomes a reality. Michael and Denise Okuda, graphic designers for Star Trek, and John Underkoffler, science adviser on Minority Report , talk about envisioning the future. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Conquering Your Fear Of Bedbugs With daily reports of bedbugs in movie theaters and clothing stores -- let alone apartment buildings -- bedbug hysteria seems to be reaching new heights. Psychologist Kevin Ochsner studies how people regulate emotion and shares tips for how to get your bedbug fear under control. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Regulators Give Green Light To Solar, Wind Construction is now under way on the world's biggest wind farm in California's Mojave Desert. Federal and state regulators have given the green light to several large solar thermal projects in the Mojave as well. Ira Flatow and guests discuss the future of clean energy in the U.S. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website What Now For Federally Funded Stem Cell Work? A federal judge has blocked President Obama's 2009 executive order expanding embryonic stem cell research. U.S. Rep. Diana DeGett (D-Colo.) and stem cell researcher Rudolph Jaenisch discuss the ruling's impact on scientists, and whether Congress can pass stem cell legislation. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Atwood On Science, Fiction And 'The Flood' Margaret Atwood's new book The Year of the Flood describes a dystopic world full of evil corporations, barbaric criminals and science gone wrong. She talks about the real science in the novel and what can be done to keep her fiction from becoming reality. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Going Green At College It's back-to-school season and college kids have a lot on their minds: can you compost pizza? What's more sustainable: kegs or cans? Can you have a party with low-flush toilets? Ira Flatow and guests discuss how students and universities are making the college life greener. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Plastics Piling Up In Atlantic Ocean Tiny pieces of plastic are aggregating hundreds of miles offshore in concentrations equivalent to those in the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch," according to a Science study. Oceanographer and study author Kara Lavender Law talks about the new questions the study raises. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Meditation For A Stronger Brain Researchers say a type of meditation called integrative mind-body training can strengthen connections in certain areas of the brain, even when practiced for as little as 11 hours. Psychologist Michael Posner describes the study, and explains the brain changes he documented. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Should Science Take Sides In The Gulf? Some scientists say they're being locked out of research on the oil spill because they refuse to sign confidentiality agreements. Ira Flatow and guests discuss the problems of doing scientific research when a lawsuit is pending. Is there a way to keep science independent? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Images Show A Shrinking Moon Scientists say images taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been circling the moon for more than a year, show that the moon contracted about a billion years ago, relatively recently in geologic time. Space scientist Thomas Watters describes the lunar images. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Science Diction: The Origin Of ’Evolution’ Although Charles Darwin's tome The Origin of Species is associated with the theory of evolution today, Darwin himself preferred terms such as "transmutation by means of natural selection." Science historian Howard Markel discusses how “evolution“ entered the scientific -- and popular -- vocabulary. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website SETI Throws A Party The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute -- SETI -- turns 25 this year, and it's celebrating with "SETIcon." Participants, including SETI father Frank Drake and the director of the Center for SETI Research, Jill Tarter, discuss the conference and their work. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Study Suggests Earlier Meat-Eating In Hominids A new study in the journal Nature suggests that the butchering of animals with tools by hominids occurred nearly a million years earlier than thought. Study author Zeresenay Alemseged and anthropologist David DeGusta discuss the finding and what it might mean for human evolution. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Discovering The Secret, Speedy Life Of Plants Plants have a reputation for being sedentary, unmoving, planted. But some plants are moving so quickly, their motion is invisible to human eyes. Biologist Joan Edwards and physicist Dwight Whitaker broke out the high-speed cameras to capture the story of exploding peat moss. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Nissan And GM Bet Americans Ready To Go Electric By the end of 2010, two mass-market electric cars will be rolling on American highways: the Nissan Leaf and the Chevy Volt. The Volt is a gas-electric hybrid, with an all-electric range of 40 miles, and the Leaf is pure electric, with a range of 100 miles. Are Americans ready to plug in? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website White Shark Sightings On The Rise On East Coast Marine biologist Greg Skomal of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries says the increase in white shark sightings on the East Coast may be due to booming gray seal populations, which lure the sharks closer to shore, as well as bigger crowds on beaches -- meaning more potential shark-spotters. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website New Ruling Says Users Can Hack Their iPhones A new government ruling issued last month makes it legal for iPhone users to "jailbreak" their phones so they can potentially choose a different carrier. Harvard Law professor Lawrence Lessig discusses that and other recent changes to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Actress Danica McKellar Solves For 'X' In her new book Hot X: Algebra Exposed, actress and math advocate Danica McKellar shares her secrets for solving algebra problems -- and navigating high school social life. McKellar discusses the book, and explains why she tailors her math teaching techniques toward girls. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Register Receipts May Be A Source of Bisphenol-A Three studies point to receipts as a possibly significant source of the chemical bisphenol-A, according to Science News. While bisphenol-A isn't regulated, the government has suggested minimizing exposure to it. Science News senior editor Janet Raloff discusses the finding. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website New Frontier For Geeks: The Kitchen In Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Hacks, and Good Food, software engineer Jeff Potter discusses using the hacker mindset in the kitchen, from cooking salmon in the dishwasher to a warranty-voiding experiment on his oven to get the scorching temperatures necessary for perfect pizza crust. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Little Brown Bats Could Disappear In The Northeast Reporting in Science, researchers write that little brown bats, or Myotis lucifugus, are likely to disappear from the Northeast over the next 16 years. Study author Winifred Frick discusses white-nose syndrome, which is associated with die-offs and caused by a fast-moving fungus. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Will Reading The Doc's Notes Improve Your Health? The Open Notes project connects some 25,000 patients with their doctors' medical notes through secure online portals. Participating doctors Tom Delbanco and Sara Fazio of Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center discuss the program, and why it has some doctors worried. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website With Well Capped, How Long Will The Oil Linger? The Gulf of Mexico has a few ways of cleansing oil from its waters: it hosts legions of microbes adapted to dine on natural oil seepages, and its warm water temperatures favor the evaporation of oil. But scientists say it's still too early to know how long it will take the Gulf to recover. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Vertebrate Genomes Hide Ancient Viruses Reporting in the journal PLOS Pathogens, researchers write opossums have bits of the Ebola virus mixed into their genetic code and human genomes contain snippets of the Borna virus. Study author Anna Skalka says some of the virus genetic code was inserted 40 million years ago. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Spinning Some Silken Science Spiders and silkworms make silk by the yard. Why can’t we copy them? Silk is strong, light and flexible and is being examined for use in everything from medical sutures to advanced electronics. Silk researcher David Kaplan explains the challenges in bioengineering silk. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website How Scientists Can Police Themselves How do scientists deal with sloppy or shoddy science? A survey found that researchers were often able to deal with minor misconduct informally. Gerald Koocher, one of the scientists behind the survey and co-author of a handbook for dealing with research misconduct, explains. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Goodbye, Dr. Schneider Influential and outspoken climatologist Stephen Schneider died this week of an apparent heart attack. Schneider's friend and colleague Dan Kammen describes Schneider's contributions to climate change research, and recalls the man he knew as "a wonderful, fearless soul." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Exploring The Geology Of Gulf Oil How much oil is under the Gulf of Mexico and how did it get there? Columbia University geophysicist Roger Anderson, an expert in deepwater exploration and drilling, explains how the oil formed millions of years ago, and how companies go about finding and extracting it. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Scientists Say A Gel Can Slow HIV Spread Researchers meeting at the 18th international AIDS conference this week say a new vaginal gel can cut HIV transmission rates in half, if used properly. AIDS experts Anthony Fauci and Kevin Fenton join Ira Flatow to discuss the gel study, and other news from the conference. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Robots That Swim With The Fishes, Intentionally Based on mathematical models of the movement of fish, Maurizio Porfiri, engineering professor at Polytechnic Institute of NYU, built a robofish. When Porfiri let the robot go for a dip in the lab pool, the real fish started to mill about the robot and even follow it around. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Remembering The Race To The South Pole In 1911, two groups of explorers set out to be first to reach the South Pole. One claimed victory, and the other perished on the return trip. Ross MacPhee of the American Museum of Natural History and polar explorer John Huston discuss these scientific pioneers. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Why Do We Like What We Like? Why do we enjoy things like bitter foods and horror films? And are we the only species that likes art? Paul Bloom, professor of psychology at Yale University and author of How Pleasure Works, explains our penchant for art and why we find some unpleasant things so enjoyable. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Climate Scientists Move Forward After Scandal Last December, e-mails written by climate scientists raised suspicion of scientific misconduct and conspiracy. International investigations have since exonerated the scientists of accusations of manipulating data. New York Times contributor Andrew Revkin explains what happened. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Harold Varmus Returns To Politics The Nobel Prize winner and former NIH director has received another presidential appointment: director of the National Cancer Institute. Ira Flatow and Varmus discuss the intersection of politics and science, the genetics of cancer and the process by which basic research becomes medicine. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Are Protons Even Smaller Than We Thought? An international team of physicists reexamined the radius of a proton, and found it to be 4 percent smaller than previously thought. Are they mistaken, or is something missing from the long-held theory of quantum electrodynamics? Physicist Brian Odom of Northwestern University discusses. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Beach Season For Horseshoe Crabs Each summer, horseshoe crabs (Limulus polyphemus) along the Atlantic shore crawl onto beaches to mate and lay eggs -- making now a good time for marine scientists like John Tanacredi to monitor population size. Science Friday visits a New York beach to catch a glimpse of the action. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Smart Fibers Could Bring Smarter Clothes We have smart cars and smart phones, why not smart clothes? They might be coming soon. Materials scientist Yoel Fink describes his work developing fibers that take photos, listen and transmit sound. He says a shirt may one day monitor your health by tracking body sounds. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Where Are The 'Hackers' Now? In his 1984 book, Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, author Steven Levy profiled some of the personalities whose work brought PCs to the people, including Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Levy discusses his book, recently reissued, and hacker ethics in the Internet age. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Who Is Tracking Spilled Oil In The Gulf? A team of ocean scientists has a plan to track the oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill, but so far they have no funding. Team leader Ira Leifer explains the proposed study. He says basic questions about the oil spill, such as where the oil is going, are not being answered. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Where The Word 'Genome' Came From In 1920, a botanist named Hans Winkler merged the Greek words "genesis" and "soma" to describe a body of genes. On this episode of Science Diction, historian Howard Markel discusses the word "genome" and how it became the most popular way of describing all of our genetic material. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Spotting Summer Sickness In The Garden It’s summertime but the living isn’t easy for everything. Plants are under attack by blight, wilt, rust and newcomer downy mildew, which kills basil. Plant pathologist Margaret McGrath runs through symptoms of plant sickness and shares tips for preserving pesto prospects. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Swimming Pool Chemistry ... Not Pretty With a heat wave scorching the Northeast, a dip in the pool may sound like just what the doctor ordered. But before diving in, consider the chemistry. Engineer Ernest Blatchley reveals many things you didn't want to know about swimming pools and the chemical reactions occurring in them. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Amygdaloids Mix Neuroscience And Rock 'N' Roll A group of New York University neuroscientists leads an unlikely double life -- as rockers. The songs on their new album, Theory of My Mind, are based on the members' research. The musicians play selections from the album and talk about the science behind the lyrics. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website A Chemical Nurtures New Brain Cells In Rodents Scientists screened nearly 1,000 chemicals and found one that nurtures new neurons in rat and mice brains. University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center biochemist Steven McKnight describes the work and explains what has to happen before the chemical can be tried in humans. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Presidential Panel Scrutinizes Synthetic Biology Scientists are cutting and pasting genes to create engineered organisms that may yield new vaccines and biofuels, but what are the ethical implications of toying with DNA? Geneticist George Church discusses synthetic biology, and why scientists need to be careful with the technology. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website More Evidence Of A Wet Past On Mars Using data collected by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, researchers say they’ve found evidence that more of Mars than previously thought was once covered by water. Science News astronomy writer Ron Cowen describes the research and other recent news about Mars and its watery past. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Meteors And A Trio Of Planets Highlight Night Sky For the next few weeks, Venus, Saturn and Mars move closer together in the night sky, culminating in what astronomers call a "trio" in early August. The Hayden Planetarium's Joe Rao describes where to find the planets, and other night sky sights to look out for this summer. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Exploring The Stinky Science Of Alliums Onions and garlic have evolved chemical weapons to protect themselves from predation and disease. In his book Garlic and Other Alliums: The Lore and the Science, chemist Eric Block describes that intricate chemistry, and writes of alliums in kitchens, medicine cabinets and opera houses. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Extraordinarily Old People Share Similar Genes Reporting in the journal Science, researchers write of finding certain sets of genes that are more common in centenarians than in the average population. Study author Dr. Thomas Perls, founder and director of the New England Centenarian Study, discusses the results. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Solar Scientists Say Sun Behaving Strangely The sun has cycles -- periods of high activity, when it has a lot of sunspots, and low activity, when things on the surface seem calm. NASA astronomer David Hathaway says activity is unusually low right now. A new solar observatory may shine light on the mystery. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Recalling The Life Of Benjamin Franklin, Scientist Benjamin Franklin was a printer, politician, diplomat and journalist. But, despite only two years of schooling, he was also an ingenious scientist. Nobel Prize-winning chemist Dudley Herschbach and Franklin biographer Philip Dray discuss the achievements of America's first great scientist. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Helping Those With Hearing Loss Get In The Loop A simple technology called a magnetic hearing loop allows wearers of specially outfitted hearing aids to get a wireless signal transmitted directly to their ear. The technology transforms garbled PA sounds into clear announcements. Hearing-impaired user David Myers explains. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Next 'Geek?' We Asked. You Answered. In what seems like an unlikely turn of events, "geek" has suddenly gone chic. Last week, Science Friday wondered if there should be a new word for geek, one without a hip connotation, and asked listeners to weigh in. After combing through the submissions, we reveal the top terms. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Should Joints Be In The Medicine Cabinet? Fourteen states now allow marijuana smoking for medical purposes, and more states are deciding whether or not to do the same. Ira Flatow and guests look at the research on inhaled marijuana as a medication and discuss whether or not doctors should be prescribing pot smoking. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Medicare Funding Cut Affects Practices And Patients The House last night passed a measure to prevent a 21-percent cut in Medicare fees paid to doctors, at least for the next 6 months. Dr. Michael Newman, a Washington DC-area physician explains how the yearly threat of cuts affects his practice and patients. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Before Liftoff, A Space Telescope Tours Earth A full-scale model of the James Webb Space Telescope, the planned successor to Hubble, is on the circuit -- making appearances at science conferences and festivals. Science Friday caught up with the observatory and spoke to its handlers in New York City's Battery Park. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website How The Sense Of Touch Influences The Mind Reporting in Science, researchers describe how the sense of touch influences the mind's judgments and decision-making processes. John Bargh, a professor of psychology and cognitive science at Yale, discusses the findings, including why sitting on a hard wooden chair may turn people into tougher negotiators. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Building Living, Breathing Lungs In The Lab Laura Niklason engineered working lungs in the lab by stripping the cells from rat lungs and repopulating the remaining structure with fresh cells. Don Ingber created a "lung on a chip," which mimics the chemistry and mechanics of a working lung and could be used for drug testing. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 'Lucy' Predecessor Turns Back The Clock On Walking Anthropologist Yohannes Haile-Selassie talks about a recently unearthed Australopithecus afarensis skeleton nicknamed "Kadanuumuu." He says the individual predates "Lucy" by about 400,000 years, and that the bones suggest upright walking originated earlier than previously thought. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Science Diction: How 'X-Ray' Got Its 'X' Dr. Howard Markel, a medical historian at the University of Michigan, discusses how the German physicist William Roentgen stumbled across the phenomenon of X-rays while playing with a cathode tube in his lab, and why Roentgen gave the electromagnetic beams the name "X-rays." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website New Film Investigates 'Fracking' For Natural Gas The natural gas industry says hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," could supply the U.S. with domestic energy for almost 100 years. But environmentalists are worried it may not be safe. Josh Fox, the director of the new documentary Gasland, talks about the potential dangers of fracking. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Can The Gulf Spill Push Americans To Rethink Oil? In The Fate of Nature, former Anchorage Daily News reporter Charles Wohlforth writes that cleaning up oil spills is impossible, saying they're merely the cost of doing business. But how much destruction will it take to persuade Americans to embrace energy alternatives? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website In Afghanistan, High-Tech Tools Replace The Hammer Geology surveys in Afghanistan don't just rely on the trusty map and hammer. John Brozena of the Naval Research Laboratory discusses how geologists there have mapped mineral deposits from planes carrying various sorts of cameras as well as gravity and magnetic sensors. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Geek Your Father's Day This Sunday, forget the BBQ and try constructing a balloon-powered sky-cam or folding some electronic origami. Ken Denmead, author of Geek Dad: Awesomely Geeky Projects and Activities for Dads and Kids to Share, describes projects for science enthusiasts of all ages. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The History And Future Of Blimp Technology Airships were once the giants of the skies. They were soaring before the airplane and were used as the first strategic bombers in World War I. What happened? Blimp technology has come a long way since the Hindenburg. Ira Flatow and guests discuss airships of the past and future. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website A Man-Made, Plastic Antibody Works In Mice Researchers say they've created nano-sized antibodies out of chemical components and used them to clear a toxin injected into mice. The antibodies latched on to and "disarmed" the toxin in much the same way natural antibodies do. Chemist Kenneth Shea describes the work. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Brains, Like Red Wine, Get Better With Age In The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain: The Surprising Talents of the Middle-Aged Mind, New York Times health and medical science editor Barbara Strauch writes about ways the brain actually improves with age, and discusses what recent studies say about keeping the brain in tip-top shape. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Does Multitasking Lead To A More Productive Brain? Multitasking is a trademark of modern office work, but is it really more productive? Research suggests the brain is actually more efficient when focusing on one task at a time. Ira Flatow and guests discuss the benefits and drawbacks of multitasking, and ways to limit distractions. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Scientists Forever Blowing Bubbles James Bird estimates that he watched thousands of bubbles pop while he was getting his doctorate at Harvard University. With the help of high-speed cameras, he and his colleagues discovered that bubbles birth baby bubbles when they burst, with implications ranging from hot tubs to global climate. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Research Tries To Lessen Food Allergies' Bite A recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found flaws in how food allergies -- abnormal responses to foods triggered by the body's immune system -- are diagnosed. New guidelines on dealing with food allergies are scheduled for publication this fall. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Distant Chemistry Sparks Thoughts Of Life Researchers studying the chemical makeup of the atmosphere around Saturn's moon Titan have detected imbalances that, some say, could be signs of life. Jonathan Lunine, a scientist on the Cassini mission to Saturn, says it's too soon to plan a solar-system-wide block party. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Tips For Coping With Bad-News Burnout Is the slick of bad news about the oil spill bringing you down? Psychologist and "compassion fatigue" expert Charles Figley, of Tulane University’s School of Social Work, explains why negative news can be overwhelming and suggests strategies for taking a mental vacation. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Oil Spill: Can Science Clean Up This Mess? After a string of engineering failures, the most consistent mitigation strategy for the oil spill has been dumping hundreds of thousands of gallons of potentially toxic dispersant into the Gulf. Ira Flatow and guests discuss whether scientists should be able to provide better solutions. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Strikingly Little Is Known About Lightning For as common as lightning is, scientists have yet to completely understand what causes it. Physicist and lightning researcher Joseph Dwyer is learning more about lightning by causing lightning strikes and recording the X-rays and gamma rays that the lightning produces. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Will Breast Cancer Ever Be Preventable? Two research papers out this week tackle breast cancer prevention. A study in Nature Medicine describes a possible cancer vaccine; the other, in The Lancet, looks at the influence of lifestyle on genes. Immunologist Vincent Tuohy and oncologist Cliff Hudis explain the work. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Man Meets Animal In The New Film Splice Human-animal hybrids have been a part of mythology for millennia. But what if it were actually possible to create half-human creatures in the lab? Vincenzo Natali, director and screenwriter of the science fiction film Splice, talks about the ethics of splicing human and animal DNA. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Vegetable Gardening On A Budget Wondering what to do with that old PC case? You could turn it into a planter, and grow strawberries in winter. "Cheap vegetable gardener" Shawn Verrall describes how he gardens in his limited backyard space, in a less-than-ideal climate, without spending a lot of money. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Nesting With A Naturalist Bernd Heinrich started collecting birds and eggs when he was a child. The Nesting Season is a collection of his observations of nests, eggs and the birds that make them, illustrated with his watercolors and photographs. Heinrich describes his life-long interest in nature. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Struggles of 'Life' Unfold On Screen An 11-part television documentary series highlights the tactics plants and animals use to survive in nature. Mike Gunton, executive producer for the Life series describes how his team got the shots -- from cheetahs taking down an ostrich, to the mating run of humpback whales. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Ahoy: Meet The Navy's Humanoid Robot This year, the Navy brought more than ships and sailors to Fleet Week in New York City. Octavia, the Navy's "MDS" robot (for mobile, dexterous, social), is on display. Science Friday spoke with Greg Trafton, section head of intelligent systems at the Naval Research Laboratory, about the challenges of designing a robot that acts like a person. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Oil Spill Cleanup Technology Stuck In 20th Century Thirty-one years ago, the Ixtoc I well blew out in the Gulf of Mexico after its blowout preventer failed. Cleanup crews responded with oil booms, skimmers and detergents. Ira Flatow and guests discuss why, three decades later, oil cleanup crews still rely on the same technology. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Solving The Riddle Of Why Matter Exists Throughout the millenia, philosophers, theologians and scientists have pondered the simple question: Why are we here? Science News writer Ron Cowen discusses results from the Fermi Lab's particle collider which may help explain the preponderance of matter, not anti-matter, in the universe. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website How The Word 'Scientist' Came To Be In 1834, Cambridge University historian and philosopher of science William Whewell coined the term "scientist" to replace such terms as "cultivators of science." Historian Howard Markel discusses how "scientist" came to be, and lists some possibilities that didn't make the cut. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Protecting Your Privacy On Social Networking Sites Now that the Library of Congress is archiving tweets and lawyers are using Facebook status updates in cross-examinations, how private are our online musings? Ira Flatow and guests discuss the ethical, legal and social issues associated with increasingly public social networking sites. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Red-Eyed Treefrogs Rumble In The Jungle They look cuddly, but red-eyed treefrogs have a secret dark side. When Michael Caldwell, Smithsonian postdoctoral fellow, filmed the frogs under infrared light he saw a curious behavior: they started shaking. Caldwell and colleagues decode the shakes in Current Biology. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Is Stem Cell Research Making Progress? Scientists working with mice are reporting success in using stem cells to regrow cells related to hearing loss. Three researchers join host Ira Flatow to discuss the latest adult and embryonic stem cell research news, and explain how the research may be used in humans. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Manmade Genome Controls A Cell Scientists are reporting that they have designed and created a genome and then used it to control a cell. Genome pioneer Craig Venter explains how the genome was made and how, one day, it might help scientists engineer bacteria for specific purposes, such as making fuel. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Can MRIs Help Solve Crimes? What if police could scan a suspect's brain to see if he was lying? Some companies claim the technology works, and it should be allowed as evidence at trial. Law professor Hank Greely explains the state of the technology and the ethical questions surrounding its use. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Behind the Piles: A Look At Why People Hoard The new book Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things looks at the nature of hoarders, and the reasons why some people hoard. Co-author and professor of psychology Randy Frost describes his work, and explains why changing a hoarder's behavior is difficult. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Doctors Seek Compromise On Female Genital Cutting In a new policy statement, the American Academy of Pediatrics says a "ritual nick" to the genitals of newborn females might "save some girls from undergoing disfiguring and life-threatening procedures in their native countries." Law Professor Dena Davis explains the policy. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website This Field Rocks Tucked in a shallow valley in northeastern Pennsylvania is a mysterious geologic feature: 16 acres of sandstone boulders. Science Friday speaks with Megan Taylor, environmental education specialist at Hickory Run State Park, to hear the geologic history of the boulder field. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Is The Planet Facing A Mass Extinction? Plants and animals must adapt or go extinct as the climate changes. Paul Raeburn and guests talk about new research on populations of frogs and lizards, and discuss ways that conservation strategies may have to change as habitats shift towards the poles or creep up mountain slopes. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Fixing Oil Rig Blowout No Easy Task Crews are lowering a 100-ton box over a portion of the gushing Deepwater Horizon oil platform in an attempt to capture some of the oil and funnel it to the surface. It's unclear whether the attempt will work, and engineers are examining other options. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Bracing For Disaster In The Gulf Ecosystem Oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico has begun to make landfall in Louisiana's Chandeleur Islands. Nancy Rabalais, director of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, says the spill's effects on the larger Gulf ecosystem could last for years. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Finding Light In The Sea's Dark Depths Edith Widder, of the Ocean Research and Conservation Association, has been exploring the deep sea for 30 years. When Widder descended for the first time, she says she wasn't prepared for the light show she encountered and has been building tools to document bioluminescence ever since. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Looking Ahead To A Busy Hurricane Season Many forecasts for the 2010 hurricane season predict more named storms and major hurricanes than an average year. Phil Klotzbach, lead forecaster on the Hurricane Forecast Team at Colorado State University, discusses the climate factors that may stir up more Atlantic hurricanes this year. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Neanderthal Genome Offers Clues On Early Humans Researchers present a draft of the Neanderthal genome in the journal Science this week. Ira Flatow talks with researchers about the results of the genetic analyses, including a new finding that some modern humans have Neanderhtal DNA in their genomes. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Study Suggests Hand Washing Cleanses The Mind Reporting in the journal Science, researchers write that hand washing seems to lower the amount of second-guessing and rationalization that occur after making a decision. Study author Spike W.S. Lee discusses the paper, and why the simple act of washing one's hands could ease the mind. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Meeting The Nation's Bioenergy Goals A federal renewable fuel standard calls for mixing 36 billion gallons of biofuels into transportation fuel by 2022. But the U.S. produces only one-third of that amount today. Ira Flatow and guests talk about meeting that goal with products like cellulosic ethanol or oil squeezed from algae. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Finding The Notes Among Us The honk of a horn and the rumble of a truck sound like noise to most people. But to Lucy Fitz Gibbon, and others with absolute pitch, there are notes embedded in the noise. Exactly why some people have this mysterious ability to recognize pitch isn't well understood. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Why Laughter May Be Medicinal A new study of 14 people finds that the body's response to laughter is similar in some ways to its response to repetitive exercise. For example, watching humorous videos lowered blood pressures, the researchers report. Preventive care expert Lee Berk explains the findings. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Offshore Wind Farm Gets Government Go-Ahead After years of delay, the Interior Department has given Cape Wind Associates the go-ahead to develop a 130-turbine wind farm off the coast of Massachusetts. Ira Flatow and guests discuss the project and what it might mean for wind farm development in other parts of the country. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Driving Cars Toward Complexity Safety features such as stability control are adding to the complexity of car electronics and the software that controls them. Engineer Ingold Krueger explains how electronics have changed car operation and maintenance, and how, in rare instances, some systems fail. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 'Anthill' Profiles Struggles Of Ants And Humans — Biologist and Pulitzer Prize winner E.O. Wilson discusses his first novel.Anthill is a portrait of conflict in the ant and human worlds of southern Alabama, from the rise and fall of battling ant colonies to a nature-loving boy's conviction to save the wilderness they inhabit. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 'Into Eternity' Examines Nuclear Waste Dilemma Nevada's Yucca Mountain is no longer an option for long-term storage of nuclear waste. But construction of a similar project is under way in Finland. In his film Into Eternity, director Michael Madsen questions the feasibility of safely storing waste for hundreds of thousands of years. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Record High Pollen Levels? Here's Why Sniffling and sneezing your way through spring? Record high pollen levels in some places may be to blame. But why do plants produce more pollen in some years? Aerobiologist Estelle Levetin explains the biology of pollen production and the reasons for the yearly variation. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Hubble Turns 20 The Hubble telescope has an impressive resume for a 20-year-old. It has helped scientists zero in on the age of the universe, and figure out that the universe is expanding. Ira Flatow and guests look back at the telescope's contributions to science and pop culture. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Gathering The Past In 'Obselidia' In this film by writer and director Diane Bell, a movie projectionist and a librarian documenting the obsolete grapple with themes of love and extinction in the shadow of climate change. Bell previews her film, which won the Alfred P. Sloan award at this year's Sundance. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Finding Ways To Mark Earth Day's 40th Author and environmentalist Bill McKibben talks about small steps people can take to reduce carbon emissions. Climatologist Kevin Trenberth discusses research suggesting that the Earth's atmosphere is trapping more heat than before, and the mystery of where excess heat is being stored. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website What's In The Stars For NASA? Addressing the Kennedy Space Center Thursday, President Obama laid out his plan for the space program. He expects NASA to put astronauts in Mars orbit by the mid-2030s, but is counting on private companies to run trips closer to home. Ira Flatow and guests discuss NASA's future. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Bacterial Infections Defy Treatment A new government report finds little progress in lowering rates of infections associated with health care institutions. And many of those infections are becoming increasingly difficult to treat. Ira Flatow and guests discuss the problem of drug-resistant bacteria, including MRSA. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Pulling Power From The Plains The Department of Energy wants 20 percent of America's power to come from wind by the year 2030. What role will the Plains states play? Ira Flatow and guests look at wind power development in Oklahoma and the region, and the plans for transmitting that power to the coasts. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website TV Weathercasters Skeptical Of Climate Science A survey of nearly 600 broadcast meteorologists revealed that just over half believe global warming is real; even fewer believe humans are behind it. Ira Flatow and guests discuss how TV weathercasters present issues in science, and why they may doubt scientific consensus. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Scientists Chase Tornadoes to Solve Mysteries Scientists still don't understand why some supercell thunderstorms form twisters and others don't. Ira Flatow and guests discuss the new VORTEX2 project, in which scientists hope to solve twister mysteries by using mobile weather stations to chase tornadoes around the plains. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Western States Brace For Grasshopper Invasion A federal survey suggests some states may face a grasshopper infestation this year. Slade Franklin, weed and pest coordinator for the Wyoming Department of Agriculture, says numbers could get as high as 50 hoppers per square yard. Franklin describes how his state is preparing. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Compiling Bug Tales In 'Insectopedia' Author Hugh Raffles, professor of anthropology at The New School in New York, traveled the globe meeting insects and the people who love them. From deep-fried grasshoppers to cricket fights, Raffles recounts some of the stories from his new book Insectopedia. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website What's The Buzz On Beekeeping This Year? A new study found honeybee hives laced with pesticides. Is this a clue to Colony Collapse Disorder? Entomologist Jeff Pettis, of the USDA Bee Research Lab, and beekeeper Richard Blohm, of High Meadow Honey Farm in Long Island, discuss the latest bee news from lab and field. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Large Hadron Collider Smashes A Record The world’s largest particle smasher is running again. After being closed down for repairs, the CERN supercollider (which sits on the French-Swiss border) sent particle beams smashing into each other again this week, setting a new world record for high energy collisions. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Science And Crime Mix In 'The Poisoner’s Handbook' In her book The Poisoner’s Handbookwriter Deborah Blum catalogs the myriad poisons that took the lives of Jazz Age New Yorkers. Part history, part chemistry, part crime novel, the book also chronicles the evolution of forensic medicine in the early 20th century. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Court Rules Against Myriad Gene Patents A federal judge in New York has ruled that seven patents related to breast cancer gene mutations licensed by Myriad Genetics are invalid. Genome policy expert Robert Cook-Deegan explains what the ruling might mean for patients, genetic testing and biotech research. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Caterpillar Of Land And Stream Discovered Reporting in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, entomologist Daniel Rubinoff describes 12 new species of caterpillar (Hyposmocoma). These Hawaiian moth larvae are the first insects shown to be able to live for weeks underwater or in bone-dry conditions. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website States Battle Over Solutions To Invading Fish The U.S. Supreme Court has denied the state of Michigan's request for an injunction that would have closed two boat locks leading to Lake Michigan. The request was aimed at blocking invasive carp from entering the Great Lakes. Environmental lawyer Nicholas Schroeck explains why the state of Illinois, city of Chicago and local shipping interests were against the proposed closure. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Fossil Finger Points To New Human Relatives Genetic analysis of mitochondrial DNA taken from a single prehistoric finger bone found in a Siberian cave may signal a new branch of the human family tree, separate from Neanderthals and modern humans. Anthropologist Ian Tattersall discusses the significance of the find. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Trade In Endangered Species Debated Negotiators met this week at the CITES talks in Doha, Qatar to debate rules for trade in endangered species. Kaiser's Spotted Newt got international protection, but red coral and bluefin tuna did not. Crawford Allan of the trade-monitoring group TRAFFIC gives a scorecard. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Scientific Disciplines Mix At Chemistry Meeting At the American Chemical Society meeting in San Francisco this week, scientists presented work on everything from the greenhouse gas emissions of livestock to the effect of human skin oils on office air quality. Ira Flatow and guests discuss these stories and other news from the meeting. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Keeping The Russian Revolution Alive When Vladimir Lenin — leader of the Russian Revolution — died, Stalin hired two scientists to preserve his body. A new play called Lenin's Embalmers explores the story. Stuart Firestein and Vern Thiessen explain how the play brings together science, politics and, strangely enough, humor. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Taking 3-D To TV Movie theaters are full of 3-D flicks, but now the technology is moving to television. When can viewers expect to watch the Super Bowl in 3-D on a flat screen? Ira Flatow and guests discuss the frontier of this technology, and what it might look like when it hits the market. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Scientists Study Dancing Babies ... Enough Said? In perhaps the cutest study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, psychologist Marcel Zentner and Tuomas Eerola found that babies will spontaneously groove to music. While babies are not great dancers, they smile more when they do hit the beat. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Fingertips Leave A Bacterial Fingerprint Researchers studying the microbes that inhabit human skin say the bacteria left behind when an object is touched can be used to identify who did the touching. Microbe researcher Rob Knight explains how these bacterial "fingerprints" could one day be used in solving crimes. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Tired Of Commuting By Car? Try An Electric Bike Tens of millions of Chinese commuters ride electric bicycles to work. But will car-centric Americans give them a whirl? Edward Benjamin, chairman of the Light Electric Vehicle Association, and Bert Cebular, founder of NYCeWheels, discuss the safety and environmental impact of the bikes, and how culture influences their adoption. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website High School Scientist Develops Spacecraft Software New Mexico high school student Erika DeBenedictis took first place in this year's Intel Science Talent Search. DeBenedictis discusses how she won $100,000 in prize money by designing a software system to guide spacecraft along the most fuel-efficient route to Venus. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Living Spaces That Stress Less From switching to energy-efficient light bulbs and appliances, to collecting rainwater and installing photovoltaic panels, how are experts making buildings that use less energy and generate less waste? Ira Flatow and guests explore the latest in green materials and design. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Secret Life Of Caves Pigmentless grotto salamanders, blind Ozark cavefish and parasitic horsehair worms are a few of the animals living in Missouri's 6,000-plus caves. Ira Flatow and three expert spelunkers look at the biology, geology and history of underground attractions in the "Cave State." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Can Biotech Crops Feed The Developing World? Biotech has promised innovations like drought-resistant corn and vitamin-packed cassava to the developing world. But how has it delivered on those dreams? Ira Flatow and guests discuss the status of those projects, and how "technologies in a seed" fit in with other agricultural improvements. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Yucca Mountain As Metaphor in About A Mountain When writer John D'Agata moved his mother to the suburbs of Las Vegas, he began looking at the history of the government’s plan to store nuclear waste deep in Nevada's Yucca Mountain. The resulting boo—-- About a Mountai—-- is a reporter's notebook that reads like poetry. Listen