Science Friday

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When Headaches Are Ruining Your Life, Where Can You Turn? Aug 13, 2025

Show notes

Science journalist Tom Zeller Jr. has suffered from debilitating cluster headaches for three decades. Like other cluster headache sufferers, his episodes would leave him unable to function, and the fear of the next one happening was constant. In a quest to better understand his own condition, Zeller learned that headaches remain a great neurological mystery, with basic mechanisms behind why they happen still unknown. He joins Host Flora Lichtman to talk about his new book, The Headache: The Science of a Most Confounding Affliction – and a Search for Relief.

Guest:
Tom Zeller Jr. is editor in chief of Undark and author of the book The Headache: The Science of a Most Confounding Affliction – and a Search for Relief. He’s based in Montana.

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

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Remembering Apollo 13 Astronaut James Lovell Aug 12, 2025

Show notes

Last week, astronaut James Lovell died at the age of 97. In April of 1970, he was the commander of the Apollo 13 mission, which launched with three astronauts en route to the moon. While in space, however, the craft encountered a serious problem: an explosion in one of its fuel tanks that severely damaged the craft and disabled its electrical system, prompting the famous phrase, “Houston, we’ve had a problem.” In 1995, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the mission, Host Ira Flatow spoke with Lovell about the historic flight and how good luck and ingenuity among the crew and mission controllers on the ground combined to bring the Apollo 13 astronauts safely back to Earth.

Guest:
James Lovell was a NASA astronaut and commander of the Apollo 13 mission.

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

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‘Underground Atlas’ Shows How Vulnerable Fungal Networks Are Aug 11, 2025

Show notes

Fungal networks in the soil are arguably the basis of much of life on Earth, but they’re understudied and underappreciated in the conservation world. Scientists at the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN) are trying to fix that. They just unveiled a global map of mycorrhizal fungal networks, which highlights how widespread they are and how little protection they have. Host Flora Lichtman talks with two of the SPUN mapmakers, Adriana Corrales and Michael Van Nuland, about the importance of fungal networks and why they need more protection.

Guests: Dr. Adriana Corrales is a forest ecologist and scientist with the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks. She’s based in Bogotá, Colombia.
Dr. Michael Van Nuland is an ecologist and scientist with the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks. He’s based in Portland, Oregon.

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

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Lithium May Have A Role In Causing—And Treating—Alzheimer’s Aug 08, 2025

Show notes

The mechanisms behind Alzheimer’s disease have eluded scientists for decades. But a new breakthrough points to lithium as a possible explanation—not only does it occur naturally in the brain, but a deficiency causes dementia in mice. This research is one of thousands of projects that have lost funding due to President Trump’s cuts to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Host Ira Flatow speaks with Alzheimer’s researcher Bruce Yankner about this new finding, and then to epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina and immunologist Elisabeth Marnik about the country’s “quiet engine of science,” the NIH.

Guests:
Dr. Bruce Yankner is professor of genetics and neurology at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts.
Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, epidemiologist and author of the Your Local Epidemiologist newsletter. She’s based in San Diego.
Dr. Elisabeth Marnik is an immunologist and Director of Science Education & Outreach at the MDI Biological Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine.

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

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Are Cold Plunges Actually Good For You? Aug 07, 2025

Show notes

If social media and certain influential podcast hosts are to be believed, cold plunges can do everything from boosting your immune system to reducing inflammation to acting as an antidote for depression. But what does the science say? Joining Host Flora Lichtman to throw at least a few drops of cold water on this science of plunging is biologist François Haman, who studies human performance and cold exposure.

And, with the help of the HBO show “Last Week Tonight,” a minor league baseball team in Pennsylvania rebranded themselves the Erie Moon Mammoths. That comes just a few months after the Utah NHL franchise renamed itself the Utah Mammoth as a nod to that state’s paleontological past. So, why are mammoths back? And do they really have what it takes to be a successful team mascot? Paleontologist Advait Jukar joins Host Flora Lichtman to weigh in.

Guests:
Dr. François Haman is a biologist at the University of Ottawa who studies how the human body responds to extreme environments.
Dr. Advait Jukar is the assistant Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

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A Nagasaki Survivor And Physician Recounts His Life's Work Aug 06, 2025

Show notes

Dr. Masao Tomonaga was only 2 years old when the United States bombed his home city of Nagasaki. He survived, and grew up to become a physician for other survivors, known as hibakusha. He also studied hematology, and his research on leukemia and myelodysplastic syndromes was foundational for understanding how radiation affects the body. On the 80th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he speaks with Host Ira Flatow about his life’s work, how hibakusha lived with the medical consequences of the bombs, and his message to the world.

Guest:
Dr. Masao Tomonaga is a survivor of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki and director emeritus of the Japanese Red Cross Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Hospital.

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

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65 Genomes Expand Our Picture Of Human Genetics Aug 05, 2025

Show notes

The first complete draft of the human genome was published back in 2003. Since then, researchers have worked both to improve the accuracy of human genetic data, and to expand its diversity, looking at the genetics of people from many different backgrounds. Three genetics experts join Host Ira Flatow to talk about a recent close examination of the genomes of 65 individuals from around the world, and how it may help researchers get a better understanding of genomic functioning and diversity.

Guests:

Dr. Christine Beck is an associate professor of genetics and genome sciences in the University of Connecticut Health Center and the Jackson Laboratory.
Dr. Glennis Logsdon is an assistant professor of genetics and a core member of the Epigenetics Institute at the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Adam Philippy is a Senior Investigator in the Center for Genomics and Data Science Research at the National Human Genome Research Institute at the NIH.

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

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How The Moon Transformed Life On Earth Aug 04, 2025

Show notes

For almost their entire 4.5 billion-year existence, Earth and its moon have been galactic neighbors. And the moon isn’t just Earth’s tiny sidekick—their relationship is more like that of siblings, and they’re even cut from similar cosmic cloth.

Without the moon, Earth and its inhabitants wouldn’t be what they are today: The climate would be more extreme, lunar tides wouldn’t have given rise to life on Earth, biological rhythms would be off-beat, and even timekeeping and religion would have evolved differently. The new book Our Moon: How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed The Planet, Guided Evolution, And Made Us Who We Are explores how our existence is tied to the moon’s.

Ira Flatow and guest host Sophie Bushwick chat with journalist and author Rebecca Boyle about how the moon came to be, how it transformed life on Earth, and how our relationship with it is changing.

Guest: Rebecca Boyle is a journalist and author of Our Moon: How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed The Planet, Guided Evolution, And Made Us Who We Are. She’s based in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Transcript available at sciencefriday.com.

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EPA Seeks To Revoke Scientific Basis For Greenhouse Gas Rules Aug 01, 2025

Show notes

This week the Trump administration indicated that it would seek to roll back a key EPA finding that allows the agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from things like cars and power plants. The 16-year-old rule, known as the “endangerment finding,” states that six greenhouse gases pose a threat to human health. Sophie Bushwick, news editor at New Scientist, joins Host Ira Flatow to discuss the proposed change, along with news about exoplanet life, Russian drones, rust-based batteries, hexagonal diamonds, quantum entanglement, and extra-old honey.

Plus, a robot performed surgery by itself for the first time, on a pig cadaver. Medical roboticist Axel Krieger joins Ira to discuss how he was able to train the surgical robot.

Guests:
Sophie Bushwick is senior news editor at New Scientist in New York.
Dr. Axel Krieger is an associate professor in the department of mechanical engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

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You Can Whistle While You Work—But How Does A Whistle Work? Jul 31, 2025

Show notes

Whistling is a skill used to communicate over distances—a whistle can mean anything from “you’re cute” to “time to come home for dinner.” There’s a complex series of mechanisms in the mouth that need to come together to make a whistle. Hosts Ira Flatow and Flora Lichtman discuss all things whistling with professional musician and whistler Wanda Civic, aka MCP, and speech language pathologist Aaron Johnson.

Guests: Wanda Civic aka MCP is a musician and whistler based in New York, New York.
Aaron Johnson is a speech and language pathologist at the Voice Center of New York University, in New York, New York.

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

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