Science Friday

By Science Friday and WNYC StudiosScience Life Sciences Natural Sciences

Ranking
2nd
on Natural Sciences
Favorites
6,438
Followers
Typical duration
18 min
per episode
If it hooks
75%
finish an episode

Based on Podcast App listening data

Science Friday episodes

May 05Beavers could be humans' biggest ally, if we let them
Beavers are having a moment, thanks to the new Pixar movie “Hoppers.” Amid some body-swapping shenanigans, the film is about humans coexisting with wildlife—particularly oversized rodents capable of reworking landscapes in profound ways.
The beaver science consultant on “Hoppers,” Emily Fairfax, joins Flora to talk about beavers’ brilliant, chaotic landscape engineering, and how the creatures show up in the movie. Then, reporter Zac Ziegler walks Flora through a successful beaver-centric engineering project in Oregon.
Guests:
Emily Fairfax is an assistant professor of geography at the University of Minnesota. She was a science consultant for the Pixar movie “Hoppers.”
Zac Ziegler is a reporter at KLCC in Eugene, Oregon.
Other episodes you may enjoy:
How The Humble Beaver Shaped A Continent

Beavers Build Ecosystems Of Resilience
Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.
Want SciFri gear? Check out our new shop!
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.
21 min
May 04Searching for dark matter, deep in the Earth
Deep in an active nickel mine near Sudbury, Ontario, researchers are installing and calibrating a set of sensitive detectors. They hope that the location roughly 6,800 feet underground will screen out much of the ordinary radiation and cosmic rays felt on the surface, and allow their detectors to sense tiny disturbances caused by a dark matter particle passing close to the nucleus of one of the germanium atoms in a target material.
If successful, the SuperCDMS SNOLAB experiment may shed some light on the nature of dark matter, an unseen something that is thought to make up around 85% of the matter in the universe.
Priscilla Cushman, a physicist who has been working on the project for over 20 years, joins Host Flora Lichtman to describe the hunt, the timeline of the experiment, and the big unknowns facing the SuperCDMS team.
Guest:
Dr. Priscilla Cushman is spokesperson for the SuperCDMS SNOLAB experiment, and a professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Minnesota.
Other episodes you may enjoy:
Listening for the cosmic ‘dark ages,’ from the lunar far side

Most Powerful Neutrino Ever Is Detected In the Mediterranean
Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days 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.
15 min
May 02The decades-long movement to kill FEMA
Hurricane season officially begins in June. And in the event of a big storm, local and state governments often rely on help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency or FEMA. But, President Trump has questioned the value of the agency.
“I've never been a big fan of FEMA. I like to keep it local. I like to see governors and neighboring states help each other as opposed to FEMA,” Trump said in March.
We’ve heard this from the administration about other federal agencies, but FEMA is a special case. People have mistrusted this agency since its founding in the late 1970s.
Host Flora Lichtman talks with Micah Loewinger, co-host of the show “On The Media,” who traced FEMA’s history in a new series called “American Emergency: The Movement to Kill FEMA.”
Guest:
Micah Loewinger is co-host of On The Media.Other episodes you may enjoy:
As Disasters Escalate, What’s The Future Of FEMA?

Can We Geoengineer Our Way Out Of A Natural Disaster?
Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days 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.
13 min
May 01What cats and dogs hear + A 'smell map' of the nose
Animal neuroaudiologist Pete Scheifele joins us to answer some burning questions from SciFri listener Paul: Why can dogs and cats hear a wider range of frequencies than we do? Is it in their ears, their brains? And what would life be like if you had dog ears or cat ears?
And, scientists have created the first “smell map” of the nose using a mouse model. Host Flora Lichtman talks with neurobiologist Bob Datta about this latest research, and what it tells us about olfaction.
Guests:
Dr. Pete Scheifele is a neuroaudiologist at the University of Cincinnati and executive director of the FETCHLAB, an animal audiology clinic and lab.
Dr. Bob Datta is a neurobiologist at Harvard Medical School.
Other episodes you may enjoy:
What’s That Smell? An AI Nose Knows

Blood In The Water: Shark Smell Put To The Test
Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days 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.
18 min
April 30How do you study microplastics in a plastic-filled lab?
The news we hear about plastic is often alarming: We have a spoon’s worth of plastics in our brains, and there are microplastics in our hearts, lymph nodes, and bloodstreams. Plastics are ubiquitous, but the reality might be more complicated than it seems.
It turns out that measuring microplastics is really, really difficult. One reason? Because we’re surrounded by plastics! Think of the pipettes and petri dishes and gloves we use in labs.
Host Flora Lichtman chats with microplastics researcher Cassandra Rauert about the difficulties of studying plastics in the human body and what she’s doing about it—like how she designed a whole lab made almost entirely of stainless steel and glass.
Guest:
Dr. Cassandra Rauert is a senior research fellow studying microplastics exposure at the University of Queensland in Australia.
Other episodes you may enjoy:
Can algae help pull microplastics out of our water supply?

Where Does Plastic And Other Trash Go After We Throw It Away?
Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days 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.
11 min
April 29What is ibogaine, and why is it in the news?
In mid-April, President Trump issued an executive order to set aside funding and loosen the bureaucratic process at the FDA to fast-track psychedelic therapy research. One obscure psychedelic got a particularly bright spotlight: ibogaine.
Originating from the root bark of the iboga plant of central Africa, the psychedelic has shown promise for curbing opioid addiction and treating PTSD. But it also can be risky to take, and hasn’t made it to the medical mainstream like psilocybin or ketamine. So what’s the story with this drug?
Joining Host Flora Lichtman to talk about its history is neurologist and pharmacologist Deborah Mash, who secured the first FDA approval for clinical trials involving ibogaine in the 1990s. And to tell us how it fits in with the growing interest in medical psychedelics is Jane Hu, journalist for The Microdose newsletter. (Disclosure: Deborah Mash is founder and CEO of a company that’s developing a therapeutic drug based on ibogaine.)
Guests:
Jane C. Hu is a journalist for the psychedelic science newsletter The Microdose, based in Seattle, WA.
Dr. Deborah Mash is professor emeritus of neurology and molecular and cellular pharmacology at the University of Miami School of Medicine. She is the also founder and CEO of DemeRx.
Other episodes you may enjoy:
How Are State-Run Psilocybin Therapy Programs Going?

Is This PTSD Treatment Too Good To Be True?
Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days 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.
20 min
April 28The long history of birds, from velociraptors to pigeons
Comparing a backyard sparrow to a fearsome velociraptor seems odd, but modern birds are indeed living dinosaurs. Scientists are finding more and more connections between the past physiology of dinos and the present physiology of birds.
Joining Ira Flatow to talk about some forgotten species from the past tens of millions of years—think gorilla-sized penguins—is Steve Brusatte, paleontologist and author of “The Story of Birds: A New History from their Dinosaur Origins to the Present.”
Read an excerpt from “The Story of Birds”
Guest:
Dr. Steve Brusatte is a paleontologist and author of “The Story of Birds: A New History from their Dinosaur Origins to the Present.” He’s based in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Other episodes you may enjoy:
Do Birds Sing In Their Dreams?

Were Dinos On Their Way Out Before The Asteroid Hit? Maybe Not
Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days 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.
22 min
April 27Your DNA is constantly mutating, and that’s a good thing
Our bodily systems are rife with mutations. In fact, your DNA is mutating right now. These errors, and attempts to repair them, are a key to understanding immune function, aging, and even how heart disease develops. Gene mutations can even mitigate the harm caused by some inherited diseases.
Host Ira Flatow goes on a journey through the illuminating science of genetic mutations with Roxanne Khamsi, science writer and author of “Beyond Inheritance: Our Ever-Mutating Cells and a New Understanding of Health.”
Guest:
Roxanne Khamsi is a science writer and author of the book, “Beyond Inheritance: Our Ever-Mutating Cells and a New Understanding of Health.”
Other episodes you may enjoy:
How One Gene Affects Alzheimer’s Risk

65 Genomes Expand Our Picture Of Human Genetics
Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days 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.
18 min
April 25Maine nearly became the first state to ban data centers
Data centers make controversial neighbors: They’re loud, they use a lot of water, and can drive electricity prices up. Following public concern and organizing efforts, Maine nearly implemented an 18-month ban on data center construction, before a governor veto.
Joining Flora to talk about real changes communities can advocate for in regards to data centers are Pete McGuire, climate reporter at Maine Public, and Lauren Keeler, director of ASU’s Just Energy Transition Center.
Guests:
Pete McGuire is climate reporter at Maine Public.
Dr. Lauren Keeler is an associate professor and director of the Just Energy Transition Center at Arizona State University.
Other episodes you may enjoy:
As Companies Build Data Centers For AI, Communities Push Back

Secrets Of Ancient Concrete, And… Data Centers In Space?
Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days 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.
13 min
April 24What urban design tells us about democracy
The way ancient societies like the Greeks, Maya, and Khmer Empire built their cities can tell us a lot about how a place was governed. Did rulers live in ornate palaces or alongside other residents? Are there large, open spaces for community gatherings?
In a new study, archaeologists document how they use the design of ancient temples, plazas, and cities to understand how a society was governed. So what does ancient architecture reveal about democracy? And do the democratic design principles hold true today?
Host Flora Lichtman chats with anthropologist Jake Holland-Lulewicz about ancient democracies, and with archaeologist Jeff Hou about how the role of public spaces in democracies has changed.
Guests:
Dr. Jacob Holland-Lulewicz is an anthropologist and assistant professor at Penn State.
Dr. Jeff Hou is the head of the architecture department at the National University of Singapore.
Other episodes you may enjoy:
Secrets Of Ancient Concrete, And… Data Centers In Space?

One Crisis After Another: Designing Cities For Resiliency
Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days 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.
18 min

About Science Friday

From the publisher's feed

Covering the outer reaches of space to the tiniest microbes in our bodies, Science Friday is the source for entertaining and educational stories about science, technology, and other cool stuff.