Science Friday – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Several states have reported cases of the rare but serious mosquito-borne illness eastern equine encephalitis. And, the new sci-fi movie "Slingshot," about an astronaut’s mental breakdown, prompts questions about how to prepare humans for long-term space travel.

This week, a New Hampshire man died of eastern equine encephalitis (EEE), a rare but extremely serious disease caused by a mosquito-borne virus. Human cases of EEE have also been reported in Wisconsin, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Vermont, causing some municipalities to step up mosquito control efforts or attempt to limit outdoor activities during peak mosquito times at dawn and dusk.

Other mosquito-borne diseases are on the rise as well. Oropouche fever, a viral disease typically found in South America, has been spotted in the US—and in Brazil, health officials are reporting an 800% increase in the disease. Dengue fever, also spread by mosquitoes, has been increasing across Europe. Experts attribute all the surges to climate change, which has brought warmer, wetter weather that has allowed mosquito populations to thrive and expand their ranges.

Sophie Bushwick of New Scientist joins guest host Rachel Feltman to talk about climate, mosquitoes, and disease, and how communities are trying to curb the spread. They also tackle other stories from the week in science, including a puzzling result in a dark matter search, how fruit flies change their threat perception during courtship, and investigations into how marmoset monkeys call each other by name.

The new movie “Slingshot,” a sci-fi thriller about a yearslong mission to Saturn’s moon Titan, is out in theaters today. It follows the crew members, played by Casey Affleck, Laurence Fishburne, and Tomer Capone, as they start to unravel, highlighting how long, lonely missions can put astronauts’ well-being in peril.

While the movie is certainly a work of science fiction, it does remind us that a lot can go wrong in space, both physically and mentally. So as humans get closer to embarking on long missions to places like Mars and beyond, how are real space agencies thinking about keeping them happy and safe?

Science Friday’s digital producer of engagement Emma Gometz sat down with “Slingshot” director Mikael Håfström, and former NASA organizational psychologist Dr. Kelley Slack, to answer those questions and more.

Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Your teeth don’t just chew your food—they connect you to the deepest of deep history on Earth. Teeth have existed, in some form, for half a billion years, making them more than 250 million years older than dinosaurs. They came before the evolution of warm bloodedness, eggs, and even limbs. From that very first set of chompers emerged a bewildering and diverse group of teeth, including narwhal tusks, sharks’ pearly teeth, snake fangs, and, of course, ours.

Now teeth are the subject of a new book called Bite: An Incisive History of Teeth from Hagfish to Humans. Guest host Maggie Koerth talks with zoologist and author Dr. Bill Schutt about how teeth evolved, why they’re so neat, and what we can learn from studying them.

Read an excerpt of Bite: An Incisive History of Teeth from Hagfish to Humans.

Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Data from the Mars InSight lander points to the presence of liquid water underneath its crust. Also, some national and state parks are changing the way they open up campsite reservations online to make them more accessible to everyone.

Scientists discovered that there could be oceans’ worth of liquid water hidden underneath Mars’ surface. More than 3 billion years ago, Mars had lakes, rivers, and maybe even oceans on its surface. It was very different from the arid red planet we know today.

But the question remains—when Mars’ atmosphere changed, where did all that water go? This discovery could offer up new clues and possibly spur on the search for life on Mars.

Ira talks with Maggie Koerth, science writer and editorial lead for Carbon Plan, about this discovery and other science news of the week, including why the WHO declared mpox a global health emergency, the microbiome of your microwave, a green-boned dinosaur named Gnatalie, and how love is in the air for brown tarantulas.

Back in 2022, Science Friday discussed how campsites in state and national parks were virtually impossible to reserve, unless you had a lot of time on your hands and knew exactly when those reservations were going online. Research had shown that the people able to reserve these sites were often wealthy, educated, and white, leaving lots of other people out of the fun of camping.

But two years later, the same team that found those results says there’s good news: Many state and federal campgrounds have changed how their booking windows work, and as a result, camping has become more equitable.

For example, Saddlehorn Campground near Grand Junction, Colorado, was identified as a campground with an inequitable reservation system in a 2022 study. After its publication, campground managers reached out to the study authors to see how they could do better.

“They’ve created what I would call the gold standard in an equitable recreation rationing spectrum for these campsites,” said Dr. Will Rice, assistant professor of outdoor recreation and wildland management at the University of Montana in Missoula.

This method is to release campsites in waves: Some become available six months in advance, some two weeks in advance, and some day-of. This allows more flexibility for people to book, and is an easy fix on the part of the campgrounds.

Rice joins Ira Flatow to talk about these advancements. Since his first appearance on Science Friday, Rice has testified before Congress about the importance of camping reservation equity, and has helped both federal and state campgrounds change their booking reservation windows.

Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

A long-awaited rule from the EPA limits the amounts of six PFAS chemicals allowed in public drinking water supplies. Also, some spiders, beetles, and centipedes spend winter under snow in a layer called the subnivium. Plus, a drumroll for the total solar eclipse.

This week, the EPA finalized the first-ever national limits for the level of PFAS chemicals that are acceptable in drinking water supplies. Those so-called “forever chemicals,” per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, have long been used in products like fire retardants and oil-and water-repellent coatings, and are now ubiquitous in the global environment. Water treatment plants will now have to test and treat for several varieties of the chemicals, which have been linked to a variety of health problems in people.

Sophie Bushwick, senior news editor at New Scientist, joins SciFri producer Kathleen Davis to talk about the rule and its potential impact on water agencies. They’ll also talk about other stories from the week in science, including research into a new vaccine against urinary tract infections, theories that extend the multiverse into a many-more-worlds interpretation, the passing of particle physicist Peter Higgs, and a new front in the war on pest rats: rodent contraceptives.

When winter rolls around and snow piles up, many insects head down to a small layer called the subnivium for the season.. This space, between snowpack and soil, shelters small insects, amphibians,and mammals from freezing temperatures.

Arthropods as a whole are understudied, says Chris Ziadeh, graduate of the University of New Hampshire and lead author of a recent study about the distinct communities that live in the subnivium. Better understanding which creatures call the subnivium home in the winter, as well as their behavior, could help us conserve them as the climate warms.

Guest host Kathleen Davis talks to Ziadeh about winter arthropod activity, species diversity, and why we should all care about protecting insects in our communities.

People found all manner of ways to celebrate the solar eclipse that happened earlier this week, but one Science Friday listener found a particularly musical way to take in the experience.

Matt Kurtz, a sound artist and musician based in Akron, Ohio, realized his town would be in the path of totality for the April 8 eclipse. So with some funding from Akron Soul Train, a local artist residency, he put together a percussion section (complete with a gong) to perform a drumroll and build suspense up until the moment of totality. They performed in Chestnut Ridge Park to a crowd of onlookers.

“When you hear a [drumroll], it forces you to be like, something’s about to happen,” he said in an interview. “It’s a way to pay attention.”

As the gong rang out and the crowd cheered, Kurtz put down his sticks and experienced his first solar eclipse totality. “It was a release,” he said. “I had a couple minutes of peace where I got to look at the stars and feel where all this work went to.”

Transcripts for each segment will be available the week after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

When a critter meets its end at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo, it ends up on a necropsy table—where one of the zoo’s veterinary pathologists will take a very close look at it, in what is the animal version of an autopsy. They’ll poke and prod, searching for clues about the animal’s health. What they do—or don’t—find can be used to improve the care of living animals, both in the zoo and in the wild.

On stage in Washington, D.C., Ira talks with Dr. Kali Holder, veterinary pathologist at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, about her work, and they embark on a case of CSI: Zoo.

Transcripts for each segment will be available the week after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

The Chesapeake Bay produces around 500 million pounds of seafood every year, providing delicious blue crabs, striped bass, oysters, and more to folks up and down the coast. It’s one of the most productive bodies of water in the world, but the bay is constantly in flux due to stressors like overfishing, pollution, and climate change. But scientists have a plan to conserve the bay’s biodiversity, support the people who rely on it, and keep us all well fed—and it involves oyster farming.

On stage in Washington, D.C., Ira talks with Imani Black, aquaculturist, grad student at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, and founder of the nonprofit Minorities in Aquaculture, as well as Dr. Tara Scully, biologist and associate professor at George Washington University. They discuss the bay’s history, the importance of aquaculture, and how food production and conservation go hand in hand.

Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Springtime is a great reminder of just how beautiful trees can be. Cherry blossoms and magnolias put on a gorgeous show, but trees aren’t just there to look good. They play an important role in absorbing heat, sequestering carbon dioxide, and preventing soil erosion.

Dr. Mike Alonzo, assistant professor of environmental science at American University, is using satellites to determine just how effective urban trees are at keeping neighborhoods cool. He’s been able to track changes to the tree canopy over time, and identify when during the day trees do their best cooling work.

In Baltimore, Ryan Alston with the Baltimore Tree Trust has been working with the community to help residents understand the importance of planting trees. The city has a history of redlining, which affected the number of big trees in historically Black neighborhoods, leading to major differences in how hot certain neighborhoods get in the summer.

Alonzo and Alston join Ira Flatow live on stage at George Washington University to discuss the power of urban trees.

The transcript for this segment will be available the week after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Dr. Eric Topol discusses the promise of “opportunistic” AI, using medical scans for unintended diagnostic purposes. Also, a study in mice found that the brain tags new memories through a “sharp wave ripple” mechanism that then repeats during sleep.

Research on medical uses for artificial intelligence in medicine is exploding, with scientists exploring methods like using the retina to predict disease onset. That’s one example of a growing body of research on “opportunistic” AI, the practice of analyzing medical scans in unconventional ways and for unintended diagnostic purposes.

Now, there’s some evidence to suggest that AI can mine data from chest x-rays to assess the risk of cardiovascular disease and detect diabetes.

Ira talks with Dr. Eric Topol, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute and professor of molecular medicine.

All day long we’re taking in information and forming memories. Some stick around, others quickly fade away. But how does your brain push those memories into long term storage? And how does our brain recognize which memories should be kept and which should be discarded?

This topic has been debated for decades, and a recent study in mice may help scientists understand this process.

Researchers found that during the day, as the mice formed memories, cells in the hippocampus fired in a formation called “sharp wave ripples.” These are markers that tell the brain to keep those memories for later. Then, while the mice slept, those same sharp wave ripples activated again, and locked in those memories.

Ira talks with Dr. György Buzsáki, professor of neuroscience at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, about the findings of the study, which was published in the journal Science.

Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. 

Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

A Massachusetts man who received a kidney from a genetically modified pig is recovering well. Also, on April 8, a total solar eclipse will plunge parts of North America into darkness. Scientists answer the questions you asked.

Last month, Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston announced that a team of doctors had transplanted a kidney from a genetically engineered pig into a living human for the first time. This week, that patient, a 62-year-old man living with end-stage kidney disease, was sent home from the hospital, having recovered enough to be discharged. Sixty-nine genes were edited in the donor pig, including three that coded for a certain sugar found on the surface of pig cells. The edits, hopefully, will make it less likely for the human recipient to reject the transplant.

Umair Irfan, senior correspondent at Vox, joins Ira Flatow to talk about the xenotransplantation advance, and how it could affect patients awaiting donor organs. They’ll also talk about other stories from the week in science, including how power grid operators are preparing for the upcoming solar eclipse, NASA’s search for a new lunar rover, an advance in getting robots to make appropriate faces, research into using a drug similar to the obesity medication Ozempic to delay Parkinson’s symptoms, and plans for a new time zone—on the moon.

After months of excitement, the 2024 total solar eclipse is almost here! On Monday, April 8, the moon will line up perfectly between the Sun and the Earth. For a few short minutes, it’ll plunge parts of North America into total darkness—right in the middle of the day.

More than 30 million people live in the path of totality—where the moon will completely block off the sun. It stretches from northwest Mexico, across the US, and into southeastern Canada. Depending how far you are from the path, you might experience a partial eclipse. Magical, nonetheless.

Ira talks with Dr. Padi Boyd, astrophysicist at NASA and host of the agency’s podcast Curious Universe, and Mark Breen, meteorologist and planetarium director at the Fairbanks Museum & Planetarium in Vermont. They answer questions our readers and listeners have submitted about the eclipse, and discuss why we should be excited, how to prepare, and what scientists can learn from this phenomenon.

For more eclipse-day tips and facts, visit our website.

Transcripts for each segment will be available the week after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

When it comes to the eventual end of our universe, cosmologists have a few classic theories: the Big Crunch, where the universe reverses its expansion and contracts again, setting the stars themselves on fire in the process. Or the Big Rip, where the universe expands forever—but in a fundamentally unstable way that tears matter itself apart. Or it might be heat death, in which matter and energy become equally distributed in a cold, eventless soup.

These theories have continued to evolve as we gain new understandings from particle accelerators and astronomical observations. As our understanding of fundamental physics advances, new ideas about the ending are joining the list. Take vacuum decay, a theory that’s been around since the 1970s, but which gained new support when CERN confirmed detection of the Higgs Boson particle. The nice thing about vacuum decay, writes cosmologist Dr. Katie Mack in her book The End of Everything: (Astrophysically Speaking), is that it could happen at any time, and would be almost instantaneous—painless, efficient.

The End Of Everything is our SciFri Book Club pick for April—you can join in on the community conversation and maybe even win a free book on our book club page. In this interview from 2020, Mack joins Ira to talk about the diversity of universe-ending theories, and how cosmologists like her think about the big questions, like where the universe started, how it might end, and what happens after it does.

Also, Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Dr. Daniel Kahneman died this week at the age of 90. His work turned many traditional ideas about economics upside-down, arguing that people often make bad decisions that go against their own self-interest. It’s something he continued to study throughout his career, and that he wrote about in the 2022 book Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment. At the end of this segment, we revisit an interview from 2022 with Kahneman in remembrance of his long career studying cognitive biases.

Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.