At the beginning of May, the National Institutes of Health, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, announced a plan to develop a universal vaccine platform. Think: a single shot for flu or COVID-19 that would last years, maybe a lifetime. The plan—called Generation Gold Standard—has a reported budget of $500 million, and a tight deadline. But will it work? And where does the science on this actually stand? In this live broadcast, Hosts Flora Lichtman and Ira Flatow talk with epidemiologist Michael Osterholm and vaccine researcher Ted Ross.

Guests: 
Michael Osterholm is Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Dr. Ted Ross is the global director of vaccine research at the Cleveland Clinic’s Florida Research and Innovation Center in Port St. Lucie, Florida. 

Transcript will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.

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Betül Kaçar started her scientific career as a biochemist, working on an enzyme found in zebrafish. But then she found her calling: investigating some of the hardest questions in evolutionary biology by resurrecting ancient life forms. NASA administrator Melissa Kirven-Brooks recalls the fellowship application that put Betül on her radar. And evolutionary biologist and geneticist Harmit Malik weighs in on what makes Betül's project so hard, and why he’s kind of jealous he didn’t think of it first. Betül previously received a Hypothesis Fund Award for her research.

Guest:
Dr. Betül Kaçar, professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and leader of a NASA-funded multi-institutional research center focusing on life’s early evolution

“The Leap” is a 10-episode audio series that profiles scientists willing to take big risks to push the boundaries of discovery. It premieres on Science Friday’s podcast feed every Monday until July 21. 

“The Leap” is a production of the Hypothesis Fund, brought to you in partnership with Science Friday.

Transcript will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.

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The “Mission: Impossible” franchise is known for its big stunts, and the newest film is no exception. Producer Kathleen Davis talks to the film’s stunt coordinator, Wade Eastwood, about the science behind one big underwater scene. Plus, psychologist Kenneth Carter joins Host Flora Lichtman to talk about what makes high-adrenaline adventurers tick.

Take this questionnaire to see where you fall on the "sensation scale" Carter mentioned in this episode.

Guests: 
Wade Eastwood is a stunt coordinator, stunt performer, and director in the film and television industry. He was the second unit director and stunt coordinator on "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning."
Dr. Kenneth Carter is a Professor of Psychology at Oxford College of Emory University, and the author of Buzz!: Inside the Minds of Thrill-Seekers, Daredevils, and Adrenaline Junkies.

Transcript will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.

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Climate scientist Jagadish Shukla grew up in a small village in rural India, where people starved if the monsoon season didn’t bring rain. To help his village, he set out to become a scientist and discover a way to predict the seasons—an unthinkable idea at the time, in the 1960s and ‘70s. Shukla became a pioneer in modern weather forecasting, and he tells his unlikely story in his new memoir, A Billion Butterflies: A Life in Climate and Chaos Theory. He talks with Host Flora Lichtman about his journey to becoming a leading climate scientist, the state of weather forecasting today, and why forecasting is more important than ever in the face of climate change.

Guest:
Dr. Jagadish Shukla, author of A Billion Butterflies: A Life in Climate and Chaos Theory and climate scientist at George Mason University

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

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In recent years, digital touchscreens have replaced many of the buttons and knobs that control various functions in cars. But when Host Ira Flatow went shopping for a new car, he noticed that physical controls seemed to be making a comeback. But will the rise of technologies like voice recognition and automation make cars more button-centric, or less? Ira talks with car ergonomics engineer James Forbes and buttonologist Rachel Plotnick about the advantages and disadvantages of the physical button or knob, and what might lead an automaker to choose one type of control over another.

Guests: 
James Forbes, professor of practice in the department of automotive engineering at Clemson University.
Rachel Plotnick, author of Power Button: A History of Pleasure, Panic, and the Politics of Pushing (The MIT Press, 2018).

Transcript will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.

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Tomatoes come in all kinds of colors, sizes, and flavors. But what’s going on at the genetic level? What makes a tomato red or yellow? Tiny or giant?

Researchers are mapping the genomes of 22 varieties of nightshades—the family of plants that includes tomatoes, potatoes, and eggplants. They located the genes that control the size of tomatoes and eggplants and then used CRISPR gene editing to grow bigger fruits without sacrificing flavor.

Geneticist Michael Schatz joins Host Ira Flatow to talk about his latest research into nightshade genomes and the current state of genetically modified crops.

Guest: Dr. Michael Schatz, professor of computational biology and oncology at Johns Hopkins University, based in Baltimore, Maryland.

Transcript will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.

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As a teenager living in St. Vincent, Richie Robertson saw first-hand what a volcanic eruption did to life on the island. Forty years later, he was the scientist the community turned to when the same volcano roared back to life. Richie’s colleague, Stacey Edwards of the UWI Seismic Research Centre, explains how Richie earned the trust of the community, and why it was important to have a Vincentian leading the way in a crisis.

Guests: 
Dr. Richard Robertson, geologist at the UWI Seismic Research Centre 
Stacey Edwards, education & outreach manager at the UWI Seismic Research Centre

“The Leap” is a 10-episode audio series that profiles scientists willing to take big risks to push the boundaries of discovery. It premieres on Science Friday’s podcast feed every Monday until July 21. 

“The Leap” is a production of the Hypothesis Fund, brought to you in partnership with Science Friday.

Transcript 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.

The lesser prairie chicken was granted endangered species status in 2023. Now the Department of the Interior is moving to revoke those protections. What can this bird known for its flamboyant courtship rituals tell us about the Trump administration’s approach to environmental policy and protections for endangered species? 

Host Flora Lichtman is joined by Producer Shoshannah Buxbaum and Vox environmental reporter Benji Jones to talk about his reporting on the lesser prairie chicken and other science stories of the week including, Trump supporters in the wind energy sector, at-home cervical cancer screening, a new fossil from an ancient bird ancestor, the latest brood of cicadas emerging, and how flamingos eat with their heads upside down underwater. 

Guests:
Benji Jones, environmental correspondent at Vox
Shoshannah Buxbaum, producer at Science Friday

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

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Firefighting is a career with an inherent cancer risk, but a full understanding of what those risks are has been elusive. An important registry designed to help understand the link between firefighters and cancer was taken offline on April 1 because of federal cuts, then restored six weeks later. Host Flora Lichtman discusses this with firefighter health researcher Sara Jahnke and reporter Murphy Woodhouse from Boise State Public Radio and the Mountain West News Bureau. 

Plus, pests and pathogens are ravaging keystone tree species in forests across the country. Flora discusses the innovative science behind breeding pest-resistant trees with Leigh Greenwood from The Nature Conservancy.

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

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What does it take to create and maintain one of the largest repositories of botanical information in the world? For starters, it can mean helicopter-ing into remote nooks of the Amazon, hiking through rough terrain, looking for strange fruits and flowers, and climbing trees to pluck specimens from the branches. Then there’s all the science required to identify, classify, and codify those species. 

Botanists Lúcia Lohmann and Charlotte Taylor join Host Flora Lichtman to discuss their work discovering new plant species and maintaining the storied Missouri Botanical Garden.

And, what does it mean to be a superfood? What is the science of micronutrient-dense foods like millet, which get less hype than foods like açaí, goji berries, and quinoa? Flora talks with biological engineer Kiruba Krishnaswamy, who puts food under a microscope—literally—and studies the nutrients that help make our bodies function, in hopes of harnessing them to fight hunger worldwide.

Guests: 
Dr. Lúcia Lohmann, professor at Washington University in St. Louis, and president and director of the Missouri Botanical Garden
Dr. Charlotte Taylor, botanist and senior curator at the Missouri Botanical Garden 
Dr. Kiruba Krishnaswamy, assistant professor in the Colleges of Engineering and Agriculture at the University of Missouri

Transcript will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.

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