Science Friday

You can’t get a mortgage without home insurance. But in some parts of the country, it’s becoming harder and harder to find a plan, as insurance companies drop homeowners  and pull out of entire state…

Gen Alpha slang can seem unintelligible to adults, but linguist and TikToker Adam Aleksic argues language development in the internet age is worth legitimate study. Adam talks to Host Flora Lichtman …

The New World screwworm has cattle ranchers, entomologists, and the federal government on edge. The pest was successfully eradicated from the US decades ago, but has recently been moving north from S…

In July 1925, the Scopes “Monkey” Trial captivated the nation. On its face, the case was relatively straightforward: A Tennessee biology teacher named John Scopes was accused of teaching human evolut…

It’s shaping up to be one of the worst tick years yet, and concerns about Lyme disease—which is transmitted through the bites of some species—are high. Aside from a short-lived vaccine released in th…

About 7% of veterans experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and that number can be closer to 30% for those who have served in a war zone.  

But PTSD has been treated pretty much the same wa…

For decades, astronomers have been trying to nail down the value of the Hubble constant—a measure of how fast the universe is expanding. But some cosmologists say there’s evidence that the universe i…

For decades, residents of the small city of Newburgh, New York, were unknowingly drinking water contaminated with toxic PFAS—also known as forever chemicals. The source turned out to be firefighting …

Oceanographer Victoria Orphan’s dream was coming true. She was sitting in the Alvin submersible, on one of its deepest science dives ever. But the trip was anything but smooth sailing. Victoria takes…

Researchers found a new sea spider with a giant nose, leg cannons, and—most remarkably—a novel way of surviving in the lightless, freezing environment miles below the sea surface. These oceanic arthr…

President Trump has said that he wants to phase out FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and move responsibility for dealing with major disasters to the state level. Since its creation in 1…

Most pasta is made from just two ingredients—flour and water. For decades this humble food has prompted physicists around the world to try to understand its mysterious properties and answer questions…

We live in a world filled with microbes—they’re inside our bodies, in soil, in deep sea hydrothermal vents, and in your window AC unit. Some microbiologists are hopeful that finding more of these tin…

GLP-1 medications like Ozempic have dominated headlines over the past couple of years. When writing his new book, Diet, Drugs and Dopamine: The New Science of Achieving a Healthy Weight, former FDA c…

In both her life and her work, researcher Karmella Haynes has never followed the pack. Karmella explains why she created her own area of research at the intersection of synthetic biology and epigenet…

In excerpts of two conversations from the Science Friday archives (originally recorded in 2000 and 2009), oceanographer Robert Ballard joins Host Ira Flatow to discuss the 1985 expedition in which he…

Summer is here, which means it’s the season for soaking up the sun. But it’s important to do so responsibly, considering the strong link between sun exposure and skin cancer. There are a lot of sunsc…

The latest Jurassic World movie, “Jurassic World Rebirth,” is out today. The movie stars Scarlett Johansson (“The Avengers”) and Mahershala Ali (“Moonlight”). Their characters make a dangerous journe…

AI is not just for automating tasks or coming up with new recipe ideas. Increasingly, people are turning to AI chatbots for companionship. Roughly half a billion people worldwide have downloaded chat…

Geologist Steve Squyres risked his career and millions of dollars to get two rovers roaming on Mars. But the mission almost didn’t make it to the launch pad. Steve and NASA engineer Jennifer Trosper …