Science Friday

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.

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Paleontologists have identified an ancient reptile with a towering crest made not of skin, or scales, or feathers, or antler—but something else entirely. It’s some kind of integumentary outerwear we’ve never seen before. The small creature sporting the curious crest was named Mirasaura grauvogeli, and it lived during the Middle Triassic period, about 247 million years ago, just before dinosaurs evolved. 

Host Flora Lichtman talks to evolutionary biologist Richard Prum about this dramatic dorsal mystery and what it tells us about the evolution of dinosaurs, birds, and feathers. 

Plus, how fast did dinosaurs run? It turns out that the equation scientists have been using for five decades to estimate dinosaur speeds is not completely accurate. To understand what this could mean for velociraptor velocities, T. rex tempos, and spinosaurus speeds, Flora talks with paleobiologist Peter Falkingham.

Guests: Dr. Richard Prum is a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and head curator of ornithology at the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. He previously chaired Yale’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
Dr. Peter Falkingham is a professor of paleobiology at Liverpool John Moores University in England.

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The Trump administration has proposed cutting NASA’s budget by almost 25% and shutting down 19 currently operating science missions. On July 21, several hundred current and former employees of the space agency released an official letter of dissent, titled “The Voyager Declaration,” arguing against “rapid and wasteful changes which have undermined our mission.” Retired NASA astronaut Cady Coleman joins Host Flora Lichtman to explain why she felt compelled to add her signature to the letter of dissent.

Guest:
Dr. Cady Coleman is a retired NASA astronaut and the author of Sharing Space: An Astronaut’s Guide to Mission, Wonder, and Making Change. She’s based in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts.

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

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