Science Friday

On August 27, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the White House fired CDC director Susan Monarez after only a month on the job. Right after she was ousted, other senior leaders resigned from…

Earlier this summer, astronomers discovered something strange whizzing past Jupiter: an interstellar object. Scientists named it 3I/ATLAS. It’s only the third interstellar object ever observed, and i…

You have probably given some thought to outdoor air pollution, whether it’s wildfire smoke or smog from traffic. You may even check AQI measurements on your phone. But what about the air inside your …

In some places, sand dunes protect shorelines from the onslaught of ocean waves. In other places, the dunes themselves are on the move, and threaten human structures.

Host Flora Lichtman talks with me…

Summer may be winding down, but we’re not quite ready to let go of beach days, backyard cookouts, or ice cream cones. We love ice cream here at SciFri, so we’re pulling a few of our favorite ice crea…

Twenty years ago, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana, and the levees designed to protect New Orleans failed. Huge swaths of the city flooded, and 1,600 people were trapped inside Charity Ho…

Researchers recently used near-infrared photography to get a detailed look at ancient artwork showing scenes of wild animals tangled in a fight. But these weren’t paintings on a cave wall. They were …

You might think of a star as a mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace where hydrogen is turned into helium at a temperature of millions of degrees. But researchers recently reported tha…

Gray wolves are native to the Rocky Mountains, but decades of hunting nearly eradicated them from the western United States by the 1940s. In 1995, wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Par…

What do Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, lime Jell-O, and Kraft Creamy French Salad dressing have in common? They've all gotten a glow-up from artificial food dyes. Petroleum-based food dyes have become a target…

This month, the Department of Health and Human Services terminated almost $500 million in mRNA vaccine development grants and contracts. While HHS has said that these cuts won't affect mRNA cancer re…

Since President Trump returned to office, his administration has been aggressive in rolling back clean energy initiatives. But that isn’t the whole story. Texas, California, and other states are brin…

Fireflies’ magical blinking lights are tiny beacons in the warm dark night. Who can resist catching one? Not scientists.

Because their light comes from bodily chemicals, fireflies’ power of illuminati…

Throughout history, humans have been on a search for truth. From the ancient Greeks and their belief in a universal truth, to our Founding Fathers writing, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, t…

Did you know that murder mystery writer Agatha Christie had a background in chemistry? In about half of her stories, the murder is committed using poison—something she was very, very familiar with. S…

On August 5, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that the Department of Health and Human Services would terminate almost $500 million in mRNA vaccine development grants and contracts, af…

If you’ve found yourself scrolling through the breastfeeding world online, you know that people have a lot of strong opinions about breast milk. But what exactly do we know about the biology of it? D…

Science journalist Tom Zeller Jr. has suffered from debilitating cluster headaches for three decades. Like other cluster headache sufferers, his episodes would leave him unable to function, and the f…

Last week, astronaut James Lovell died at the age of 97. In April of 1970, he was the commander of the Apollo 13 mission, which launched with three astronauts en route to the moon. While in space, ho…

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 U…