Science Friday

Latest Episodes:

A Neurologist Investigates His Own Musical Hallucinations Dec 24, 2025

Show notes

Imagine sitting at home and then all of a sudden you hear a men’s choir belting out “The Star Spangled Banner.” You check your phone, computer, radio. Nothing’s playing. You look outside, no one’s there. That’s what happened to neurologist Bruce Dobkin after he received a cochlear implant. He set out to learn everything he could about the condition, called musical hallucinosis.

In a story from August, Host Ira Flatow talks with Dobkin about his decision to publish his account in a medical journal and why the condition is more common than he realized.

Guest: Dr. Bruce Dobkin is a neurologist at UCLA Health.

Transcript is available at sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri and sign up for our newsletters. Got a science question that’s keeping you up at night? Call us: 877-472-4374

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

‘Prehistoric Planet’ Defrosts Strange Animals Of The Ice Age Dec 23, 2025

Show notes

Koalas with the bodies of lions. Elephants the size of your dog. Gigantic, 8-foot-tall sloths. These aren’t creatures found in science fiction: They walked our planet a million years ago, during the Ice Age.

That’s the focus of the third season of the Apple TV series “Prehistoric Planet,” which uses the latest paleontology research and photorealistic CGI to reimagine the lives of ancient creatures. So far, the series has focused on dinosaurs, but now it’s taking that same approach to the huge and strange-looking animals that roamed the tundras and deserts of the Ice Age.

Joining Host Ira Flatow to thaw out the new research featured in the show are two of its scientific consultants, paleontologist Darren Naish and La Brea Tar Pits curator Emily Lindsey.

Guests: Dr. Darren Naish is a paleozoologist and author based in Southampton, U.K.

Dr. Emily Lindsey is a paleoecologist, curator, and excavation site director at the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum in Los Angeles, California.

Transcript available at sciencefriday.com.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

How Did Vaccine Policies Actually Change In 2025? Dec 22, 2025

Show notes

Since 1955, when Congress passed the Polio Vaccination Assistance Act, the federal government has been in the business of expanding access to vaccines. That is, until this year.

2025 has been filled with almost daily news stories about federal agencies, under the direction of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., casting doubts about vaccine safety, including unsubstantiated claims about links to autism. These agencies have also been taking steps that could roll back access to vaccines, including for hepatitis B and COVID-19.

But we’ve found it very hard to sort out what these talking points and recommendations mean in practice. KFF Health News journalists Jackie Fortiér and Arthur Allen join Host Flora Lichtman to discuss, one year in, what this administration’s stance on vaccines has meant practically—for vaccine access, and vaccine uptake.

Guests: Arthur Allen is senior correspondent at KFF Health News and author of Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine's Greatest Lifesaver.

Jackie Fortiér is a Peggy Girshman fellow covering health policy at KFF Health News.

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

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Why Astronomers Are Excited About Comet 3I/ATLAS’ Close Approach Dec 19, 2025

Show notes

This year, comet 3I/Atlas broke into our solar system, but also the zeitgeist. This dirty snowball is a visitor from another solar system, and it’s only the third interstellar object we’ve ever spotted. And today, it's closer to us than ever before—just 170 million miles away.

Astronomy experts Stefanie Milam and Hakeem Oluseyi join Host Flora Lichtman to dish about 3I/ATLAS and how it captured the spotlight in a way that maybe no other big hunk of rock ever has.

Plus, the sun is setting on the ISS, and the plan is to eventually crash it into the ocean. But wouldn’t it be cooler to send it into deep space instead? A listener pleads his case.

Guests: Dr. Stefanie Milam is an astrochemist at NASA and a project scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope. She studies comets and interstellar objects.

Dr. Hakeem Oluseyi is an astrophysicist and CEO of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

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

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

‘Fire Amoeba’ Likes It Hot, And A Faraway Lava Planet Dec 18, 2025

Show notes

While on a sampling trip in California’s Lassen Volcanic National Park, researchers stopped to sample a rather boring stream on their hike to Boiling Springs Lake. But when they incubated that water sample back in the lab, they discovered an amoeba that could still move and divide at 145 F, a new record for a eukaryotic cell. Microbiologist Angela Oliverio joins Host Flora Lichtman to describe the “fire amoeba,” Incendiamoeba cascadensis.

Plus, planetary scientist Johanna Teske takes us to exoplanet TOI-561b, a far-off “wet lava ball” which was recently observed by the James Webb Space Telescope. Researchers believe that the planet has the strongest evidence yet of an atmosphere on a rocky planet outside our solar system.

Guests:
Dr. Angela Oliverio is an assistant professor in the department of biology at Syracuse University.
Dr. Johanna Teske is a staff scientist at Carnegie Science Earth and Planets Laboratory in Washington, D.C.

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

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What’s The Reality Behind The Humanoid Robot Hype? Dec 17, 2025

Show notes

Videos of humanoid robots dancing, doing cartwheels, putting clothes in a washing machine, and serving drinks are all over social media. And tech CEOs are telling us to prepare for the forthcoming humanoid army that’s going to totally change our lives for the better.

But what’s real? Where are we with this technology? Are these humanoids robots ready to take washing the dishes off our plates, or work beside us in warehouses?

Tech journalist James Vincent became an expert on the subject when he toured humanoid robot factories and rubbed shoulders with robots themselves for a feature story he wrote for Harper’s Magazine. He joins Host Flora Lichtman with perspective on the hype.

Guest: James Vincent is a journalist who’s written for The Verge and The Guardian, and author of the book Beyond Measure: The Hidden History of Measurement.

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

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

'Just' A Blue Jay? Don't Overlook These Magnificent Common Birds Dec 16, 2025

Show notes

It’s that time of year: the Christmas Bird Count, when birders go out in flocks to record all the birds they see in a single day. The data collected during this annual tradition gets compiled by the National Audubon Society, and helps scientists understand bird population trends across the Americas.

If you participate in the bird count, chances are you’ll see a lot of the same birds you’d see any other day of the year—think sparrows, blue jays, blackbirds, cardinals. But that doesn’t make them any less special. So this year we’re turning our binoculars on a few (wrongfully) overlooked common birds.

Producer Kathleen Davis talks with two of our favorite birders, author and illustrator Rosemary Mosco, and conservation scientist Corina Newsome, to share some surprising facts about birds that don’t often make it to the top of pecking order.

Guests:
Rosemary Mosco is an author, illustrator, and speaker whose work connects people with the natural world.
Corina Newsome is a birder and conservation scientist at the National Wildlife Federation, based in Atlanta, Georgia.

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

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Can We Just Throw Our Plastic Garbage Into A Volcano? Dec 15, 2025

Show notes

It’s winter, and the SciFri team is already dreaming of warmer weather. How about a mind vacation to one of the hottest places on earth, an erupting volcano? Tamsin Mather has trekked to volcanoes in Chile, Guatemala, Italy, and beyond to learn their secrets. She joins Host Flora Lichtman to field your burning volcano questions, like what’s the deal with glass shards that look like hairballs?

Guest: Dr. Tamsin Mather is a professor of Earth sciences at the University of Oxford in the UK.

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

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

How Did Ancient Humans Use The Acoustics Of Spaces Like Caves? Dec 12, 2025

Show notes

The sound of a choir performing in a cathedral is iconic for a reason. It’s this beautiful human experience: being side-by-side with other people, feeling the sound vibrate through you, reverberating around the space.

But how long has that been a part of our culture? And what role did sound play in the lives of people who lived during the Ice Age or the Stone Age? That’s the focus of a growing field of archaeology called archaeoacoustics, where researchers use the scientific tools of today to investigate the role of sound and music in the past.

To learn more, Host Flora Lichtman is joined by Margarita Díaz-Andreu, principal investigator of the Art Soundscapes project, and Rupert Till, head of the department of humanities at the University of Huddersfield in the UK.

Guests: Dr. Margarita Díaz-Andreu is an ICREA professor at the University of Barcelona in Spain and principal investigator of the Art Soundscapes project.
Dr. Rupert Till is a professor of music and head of the department humanities at the University of Huddersfield in the UK.

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

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What The Sounds Of Melting Glaciers Can Tell Us Dec 11, 2025

Show notes

As the planet warms, the world’s glaciers are melting faster than snow can replenish the ice. That has implications for sea level rise, ocean currents, and global weather patterns. But collecting data at the edge of a melting glacier can be risky.

Glaciologist Erin Pettit and her colleagues are listening to the sounds melting glaciers make—from the sizzling of trapped air bubbles bursting, to the deep rumbles of underwater calving of icebergs. She joins Host Flora Lichtman to share some glacial sounds, and describe the multi-stage robot tools she uses to monitor melting ice.

Guest: Dr. Erin Pettit is a professor of geophysics and glaciology at Oregon State University.

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

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected