Help! This new dwarf planet needs a name

Early in President Trump’s second term, thousands of federal scientists were laid off, USAID was shuttered, and billions of dollars worth of grants were frozen or terminated. Then, later, Congress decided to fund science and health agencies similarly to previous years. So where do things stand now? Flora chats with Sudip Parikh, head of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, about the state of science funding and whether the midterm election results will affect anything. Guest:Dr. Sudip Parikh is the CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Follow us on socials @ scifri on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Bluesky 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.

Last year, Harvard professor Pardis Sabeti and her colleague Christian Happi won a $100 million grant to develop their pathogen surveillance system called Sentinel. Sabeti joins Host Flora Lichtman to talk about the ongoing Ebola virus outbreak, and how their approach, which includes rapid genome sequencing, may help epidemiologists figure out how the virus spreads. Guest:Dr. Pardis Sabeti is a computational geneticist and professor at Harvard University. She is also a core institute member of the Broad Institute of MIT.Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Follow us on socials @ scifri on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Bluesky 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.

Move over Pluto, a new dwarf planet just dropped. Scientists announced that they’ve  likely discovered a tiny new planet beyond Neptune, in the far-out ring of icy and rocky bits called the Kuiper Belt. The possible dwarf planet was spotted by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. Flora talks with Matthew Holman, the astrophysicist who made the discovery. One more thing: The new dwarf planet is currently called 2026 ED138. We think the name needs a little work. What would you call it? Give us a ring at 877-472-4374. Guest:Dr. Matthew Holman is a senior astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Follow us on socials @ scifri on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Bluesky 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.

Math is the talk of the town in a way that it hasn't been before, thanks to recent developments in AI. And some mathematicians, like Steven Strogatz, are using this moment as a reminder of the invisible ways that math is embedded in our daily lives. That’s the focus of his new book, “Big Math: The Hidden Codes That Run Our World.” He wrote it with mathematician Alex Townsend. Read an excerpt from “Big Math.”Guest:Dr. Steven Strogatz is a professor of mathematics at Cornell University. Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Follow us on socials @ scifri on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Bluesky 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.

Many of us have gotten sucked into the tiny dramas unfolding in our backyards, or on the bird feeder or the fire escape. But not everyone can turn those observations into a best-selling book. Author Margaret Renkl joins Host Flora Lichtman to talk about the SciFri Book Club pick for November and December, “The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year.” In it, she tells the stories of her own yard over the course of a year to help her make sense of the changes in our world and in her own life. Read an excerpt from “The Comfort of Crows.”Learn more about the SciFri Book Club.Guest:Margaret Renkl is a writer and author of the book “Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year.” Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.  Subscribe to this podcast. Follow us on socials @ scifri on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Bluesky 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.

Move over, Drosophila. Step aside, C. elegans. Scientists are working to establish a new model organism. It’s a tiny species of glassfish called Danionella cerebrum, and its claim to fame is that it's almost completely transparent and can regrow parts of its body, including its brain. Scientists studying the nervous system, regeneration, and more are increasingly interested in this species. So what can we learn from this fish? And can it teach us anything about our own brains? Flora dives into this with biologists Deniz Atabay and Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado.Guests:Dr. Kutay Deniz Atabay is a postdoc at MIT’s Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He studies neurodevelopment and regeneration.Dr. Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado is the president and chief scientific officer of the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in Kansas City.Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Follow us on socials @ scifri on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Bluesky 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.

It’s impossible to ignore the latest nutrition trend: protein-maxxing. Stroll through the grocery store and you’ll find protein chips, protein-packed ice cream, and even sparkling protein water. Not to mention the FDA’s new upturned food pyramid, which puts steak and a roast chicken at the top.  Where did this protein craze come from, and how much protein do we actually need?  And what about protein-maxxing’s less popular cousin, fiber-maxxing? Flora talks through the history and the science of protein and fiber with food historian Hannah Cutting-Jones and nutrition researcher Christopher Gardner. Guests:Dr. Hannah Cutting-Jones is a food historian and assistant professor at the University of Oregon. Dr. Christopher Gardner is a nutrition researcher, a professor at Stanford Medicine’s Prevention Research Center, and the author of “Food Sense: What to Eat and Why.”Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Follow us on socials @ scifri on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Bluesky 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.

Almost all matter particles have corresponding particles of antimatter: Protons have antiprotons, neutrons have antineutrons, and so on. When matter and antimatter bump into each other they destroy each other and release energy. With carefully manipulated magnetic fields, however, it’s possible to trap particles of antimatter and prevent them from touching regular matter, allowing researchers to study them. A group of antimatter experts recently reported that they had trapped and held a positron (an antielectron) in a vacuum at ultra-cold temperatures for months, creating what they called “a one-positron quantum cyclotron.” That advance allowed them to study the positron’s quantum properties. They hope to learn whether the positron is indeed an exact opposite of an electron, or if there are tiny physical differences between them. Antimatter wrangler Gerald Gabrielse joins Flora to describe the project, and why researchers care about the properties of antimatter.Guest:Dr. Gerald Gabrielse is a Board of Trustees Professor in Physics at Northwestern University.Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Follow us on socials @ scifri on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Bluesky 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.

Armadillos have been crawling up the southern U.S. as the climate warms, making themselves at home as far north as Kentucky and Indiana. They’re what wildlife biologists call a “signal species,” one whose presence or absence tell us something about how an ecosystem is changing.Host Flora Lichtman speaks with journalist Giselle Rhoden and biogeographer Anderson  Feijó to understand why armadillos are moving north and what other wacky activities they may be up to.Guests:Giselle Rhoden is a reporter at Louisville Public Media in Louisville, Kentucky. Dr. Anderson  Feijó is the assistant curator of mammals at the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois. Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Follow us on socials @ scifri on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Bluesky 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.

A consortium of researchers from around the world has sequenced the genomes of 103 bat species, tracing the evolutionary origin of bats back in time. Using both genetic samples and fossil records, the researchers place the earliest bats as arising in Europe some 60 to 65 million years ago. The early bats then spread to Africa, and eventually around the globe. Bats are now found on every continent except Antarctica. Bat researcher Emma Teeling joins Flora to describe the bat genealogy project and what researchers can learn from studying these flying mammals. Guest:Dr. Emma Teeling is a professor of zoology at University College Dublin, and cofounder of the Bat1K bat genome sequencing consortium.Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.  Subscribe to this podcast. Follow us on socials @ scifri on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Bluesky 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.