Science Friday

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.

There’s a new trend in the world of weight loss: microdosing GLP-1 drugs. Online health clinics are promising big results with microdoses drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, and Zepbound. Many source their drugs from compounding pharmacies, which can get complicated because compounding pharmacies are able to create different doses and formulations that haven’t gone through the FDA approval process. So, what do we know about the safety and efficacy of microdosing GLP-1s? And is there research to back up this approach? Flora talks with two experts to help sort through what we do and don’t know: pharmacist Joey Mattingly, who studies compounded GLP-1 drugs and how they’re marketed to patients, and obesity medicine physician Jorge Moreno.Guests:Dr. Joey Mattingly is a pharmacist studying compounded GLP-1 drugs, and an associate professor of pharmacotherapy at the University of Utah. Dr. Jorge Moreno is an obesity medicine physician and an assistant professor at the Yale University School of Medicine.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.

In a matter of months, AI has transformed the field of mathematics. In September, OpenAI claimed that an AI model solved the million-dollar Navier-Stokes equation. Then, a few weeks later, OpenAI shared results for more than 350 previously unsolved math problems. The news has prompted an existential conversation among mathematicians: In an age of AI, what’s the role of the human mathematician? It’s a question that Terence Tao, largely considered one of the greatest mathematicians of this generation, is reckoning with right now. He speaks with Flora about how AI has upended the mathematics world, what the role of math is in this day and age, and why the real value of mathematics lies in the journey, not just the answer. Tao is also the author of the forthcoming book, “Six Math Essentials,” which tells the story of math and how it shapes our world. Guest:Dr. Terence Tao is a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles and the author of “Six Math Essentials.”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.

While Tyrannosaurus rex has reached celebrity status in pop culture thanks to movies like “Jurassic Park” and famous fossils, it can be difficult to imagine what everyday life was like for this charismatic prehistoric predator. Producer Kathleen Davis speaks to science writer Riley Black, who has investigated and reimagined life of the T. rex in her new book, “Tyrant Lizard Queen.” Prepare to get a grounding new perspective on this larger-than-life monster.Read an excerpt from “Tyrant Lizard Queen: The Love, Life, and Terror of Earth’s Greatest Carnivore”Guest:Riley Black is a science writer and the author of several books, including “When the Earth Was Green,” “The Last Days of the Dinosaurs,” and “Tyrant Lizard Queen.”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.