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Promising new treatments for pancreatic cancer and ALS Jun 26, 2026

Show notes

Pancreatic cancer is among the most deadly forms of cancer, and it can be difficult to catch early. But there’s some good news: Clinical trials of a new drug called daraxonrasib found that it doubled the survival time of patients with advanced pancreatic cancer. And some oncologists are calling it a game changer—not just for pancreatic cancer, but potentially other forms of cancer too. Ira talks with oncologist Zev Wainberg, who led a clinical trial for the drug.

Plus, ALS is a degenerative disease that causes patients to lose their ability to walk, swallow and eventually to breathe. Now, there’s a drug for a rare genetic form of ALS that can slow the progression or even reverse some of these symptoms. Ira talks with New York Times health and science reporter Pam Belluck about this new treatment.

Guests:

Dr. Zev Wainberg is a co-director of UCLA Health’s GI Oncology Program.

Pam Belluck is a health and science reporter for The New York Times.

Other episodes you may enjoy:

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

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That chlorine smell at the pool? It’s pee Jun 25, 2026

Show notes

On a hot summer day, there’s nothing better than a dip in a cold pool. But you know who can ruin that for you? A scientist who studies pool chemistry. What chemical reactions are happening in that swimming pool when the water comes into contact with our bodily fluids and skin products?

Environmental engineer Ernest Blatchley sits down with Flora Lichtman to discuss his findings after two decades of research, including how urine in a pool makes that chlorine smell, and his work to make the air of the Paris Olympics’ indoor pools less toxic.

Guest:

Dr. Ernest Blatchley is a professor of environmental engineering at Purdue University, based in West Lafayette, Indiana.

Other episodes you may enjoy:

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

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Under proposed rule, science funding must pass political review Jun 24, 2026

Show notes

The federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has proposed rule changes that would bring a major shift in how scientific grants are awarded by U.S. government agencies. Under the current process, researchers submit grant proposals that are then vetted and scored by a committee of experts in that scientific field, with top-scoring proposals recommended for funding.

If its proposed changes are enacted, the OMB would insert a political review into the process, allowing administration officials to determine whether grant proposals are aligned with administration priorities, regardless of their scientific merit. Those proposed rules are now in a public comment period. Holden Thorp, editor in chief of the Science family of journals, joins Ira to explain why he called the change “another red alert for American science” in a recent editorial.

Guest:

Dr. Holden Thorp is editor in chief of the Science family of journals, at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Other episodes you may enjoy:

A Science Historian Tackles Ghostwriting In Scientific Papers
What Do mRNA Funding Cuts Mean For Future US Research?

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

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Can you learn to love the scorpion? Jun 23, 2026

Show notes

If you have arachnophobia, consider this your opportunity to try exposure therapy: A new study suggests that 415 million years ago, in modern-day England and Wales, a scorpion the length of a golden retriever was scurrying around, complete with 6-inch pincers. Flora talks with lead study author Richie Howard about the finding.

If you’re grossed out by a 3-foot scorpion, you’re not alone. But, scorpion researcher Lauren Esposito says we’ve got it all wrong—scorpions are wonderful and caring creatures.

Guests:
Dr. Richie Howard is an invertebrate paleontologist and curator of fossil arthropods at the Natural History Museum in London, England.

Dr. Lauren Esposito is a scorpion researcher and director of the non-profit Islands and Seas and founder of 500 Queer Scientists.

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

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FDA approves a well-known sunscreen ingredient—finally Jun 22, 2026

Show notes

The FDA recently approved a sunscreen ingredient called bemotrizinol, or BEMT, that’s been used in Europe and Asia for years. This is the first new sunscreen ingredient approved in the United States in over two decades. Meanwhile, skin cancer has become the most common cancer in the U.S.

Flora discusses the chemistry of sunblock with a sunscreen chemist AJ Addae, and the regulatory process that led to this approval with health journalist Michael Scaturro.

Guests:

Michael Scaturro is a health journalist based in New York City.

AJ Addae is a chemistry PhD student at UCLA and founder of SULA Labs.

Other episodes you may enjoy:

Understanding Sunscreen Ingredients And Which Ones You Need

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

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Why do sports announcers talk like that? Jun 19, 2026

Show notes

If you watch sports, whether the recent NBA finals or the ongoing World Cup matches, you may have noticed that the athletes aren’t the only ones putting on a show. The announcers seem to be playing a beautiful game of their own, capturing the excitement and play-by-play of the game in a unique blend of sentence structure, elocution, and pitch. Linguists have even given this speech pattern a name: sports announcer talk.

Sociolinguist and dialectologist Valerie Fridland joins Host Flora Lichtman to break down the patterns and rules of this register.

Guest:

Dr. Valerie Fridland is a professor of linguistics at the University of Nevada, Reno, and author of “Why We Talk Funny: The Real Story Behind Our Accents.”

Other episodes you may enjoy:

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

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Swords, cannibalism, poison: inside the world of killer microbes Jun 18, 2026

Show notes

There is a murderous crime spree happening right under—and perhaps inside—our noses. Killer microbes armed with weapons are eviscerating, assassinating, and detonating their fellow microbes. And the newest culprit? A protist that morphs into a cannibilastic supergiant when times get tough.

Host Flora Lichtman talks with Glen D’Souza and Ben Larson, two detectives who study these micro-murders. They chat about why microbes kill, how they choose their victims, and whether we can harness those weapons for good.

Guests:

Dr. Glen D’Souza is a microbiologist and assistant professor at Arizona State University in Tempe.

Dr. Ben Larson is an assistant professor and cell biologist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York.

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

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When music transports you to a different place Jun 17, 2026

Show notes

Do you ever hear a song that transports you to a specific place and time? This auditory wormhole has a name: musical daydreams. Music cognition expert Elizabeth Margulis studies why they happen, and what they tell us about our brains. She joins Host Flora Lichtman to discuss this phenomenon.

Guest:

Dr. Elizabeth Margulis is a professor and director of Princeton’s Music Cognition Lab. She’s also the author of “Transported: The Everyday Magic of Musical Daydreams.”

Other episodes you may enjoy:

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

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A vast whale graveyard + Zombie sea cucumbers Jun 16, 2026

Show notes

Researchers just published details of a massive undersea graveyard of whales deep in the Indian Ocean. Spanning about 1,200 kilometers (745 miles), it contains whale remains dating back more than 5 million years—and at least five active whale fall sites still teeming with life. Fossil whale expert Nick Pyenson joins Host Flora Lichtman to discuss these findings.

Then, marine biologists Rachel Sipler and Sara Jobson join Ira Flatow to describe an unusual discovery in certain species of sea cucumbers: If a foot or tentacle becomes detached, the parts don’t wither up and rot away. Even without a stomach, these parts appear to directly extract nutrients from the surrounding seawater. “Zombie” sea cucumber parts have been observed surviving for more than three years.

Guests:

Dr. Nick Pyenson is curator of fossil marine mammals at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

Dr. Rachel Sipler is a senior research scientist in the Bigelow Laboratory in East Boothbay, Maine.

Sara Jobson a PhD student at the Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. Johns, Canada.

Other episodes you may enjoy:

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

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Should we bring mountain lions back to the Northeast? Jun 15, 2026

Show notes

Big cats used to roam the entire United States. You might know them as mountain lions, pumas, cougars, or catamounts. Though they go by many names, they're actually all the same species.

Their current population is mostly confined to the West, and part of Florida, though in recent years they’ve been spotted in other areas east of the Mississippi River. Most cougars were gone from the Northeast by the 1800s, with the last verified accounts in the 1930s.

Mountain lion ecologist Mark Elbroch hopes to reintroduce these big cats back into their previous habitats in New England. But, should we? What are the benefits and drawbacks of reintroducing the apex predator into an ecosystem it's been away from for so long?

Guest:

Dr. Mark Elbroch is the director of the puma program at Panthera, a big cat conservation organization.

Other episodes you may enjoy:

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

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