The Human Obsession With Aliens Goes Way, Way Back
A video shown on Capitol Hill on September 9 reportedly shows an American hellfire missile attacking and simply bouncing off a UAP (the military term for a UFO). When videos like this come out, speculation about aliens often follows. But our obsession with aliens isn’t new—and it didn’t begin with 1950s alien invasion movies like “The Day The Earth Stood Still,” or even with Orson Welles’ “War of the Worlds” mock news bulletins of the 1930s.As science reporter Becky Ferreira writes in her upcoming book, First Contact: The Story Of Our Obsession With Aliens, humans have been fascinated with the potential for alien life for about as long we’ve been around. She joins Host Ira Flatow to discuss how our views of beings from other worlds changed throughout the millennia, and where we’re at now with scientific exploration of life beyond Earth.Plus, science journalist Umair Irfan joins Ira to share other stories from the week in science, including what’s going on in a decision-making brain, the trouble with vector-borne illnesses, and the unusual tale of an ant queen that breeds ants of another species.Read an excerpt of First Contact: The Story Of Our Obsession With Aliens.Guests:Becky Ferreira is a science reporter at 404 Media and author of First Contact: The Story Of Our Obsession With Aliens.Umair Irfan is a senior correspondent at Vox, based in Washington, D.C.Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.
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A Delicious But Invasive Mushroom Could Affect Fungal Diversity
It all started harmlessly enough: People bought kits to grow mushrooms at home. But then, scientists in the upper Midwest noticed something strange. The golden oyster mushroom, which is not native to the United States, was thriving in local forests. Those homegrown mushrooms escaped our basements into the wild. Fungal ecologist Aishwarya Veerabahu joins Host Ira Flatow to discuss what impact these invasive mushrooms might have on the ecosystem.Plus, nightshade expert Sandra Knapp describes the evolution of the potato plant, and how a lucky crossbreeding millions of years ago may have given rise to the starchy tubers we eat today.Guests:Aishwarya Veerabahu is a fungal ecologist and PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.Dr. Sandra Knapp is a Merit Researcher at the Natural History Museum in London.Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.
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A Photographer Captures Nature In Mind-Boggling Detail
If you’ve flipped through an issue of National Geographic or scrolled through their social media, and caught a stunningly detailed photo of a tiny creature—like one where you can make out the hairs on a honeybee’s eyeballs, or the exact contours of a hummingbird’s forked tongue—you have probably seen the work of Anand Varma. He’s an award-winning science photographer, a National Geographic Explorer, and the founder of WonderLab, a storytelling studio in Berkeley, California.Varma speaks with Host Flora Lichtman and takes us behind the lens to show what it takes to capture iconic images of creatures that are so often overlooked.Guest: Anand Varma is a science photographer, a National Geographic Explorer, and the founder of WonderLab. He’s based in Berkeley, California.Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.
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How Shoddy Science Is Driving A Supplement Boom
Dietary supplements are big business, with one recent estimate showing the industry is worth almost $64 billion in the United States alone. Take a casual scroll through your social media and you’ll find influencers hawking all kinds of supplements. But how effective are they? How are they regulated? And why are these “natural” remedies so appealing to millions of Americans? To size up the science and culture of supplements, Host Flora Lichtman talks with supplement researcher Pieter Cohen, and Colleen Derkatch, author of Why Wellness Sells: Natural Health in a Pharmaceutical Culture. Guests: Dr. Pieter Cohen is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an internist at the Cambridge Health Alliance where he leads the Supplement Research Program. Dr. Colleen Derkatch is the author of Why Wellness Sells: Natural Health in a Pharmaceutical Culture and professor of rhetoric at Toronto Metropolitan University.Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.
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Octopuses Use Suckers To ‘Taste’ Harmful Microbes
Put on your party hat and wet suit because it is Cephalopod Week, Science Friday’s annual celebration of all things, octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish. To kick things off, we’re bringing you an ode to the octopus arm. You may have heard that octopuses can use their arms to “taste” their surroundings, which they use for finding food. Now, researchers have unlocked a key mechanism in the octopus sensory system. Octopuses use their suckers to detect harmful microbes on the surface of crab shells or even their own eggs. Host Flora Lichtman talks with molecular biologist Nicholas Bellono about the latest in octopus sensory science. Guest: Dr. Nicholas Bellono is a professor of molecular and cellular biology at Harvard University.Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.
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Covering the outer reaches of space to the tiniest microbes in our bodies, Science Friday is the source for entertaining and educational stories about science, technology, and other cool stuff.
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