Science Friday

• How ‘Science Interpreters’ Make Hidden Science Visible

  Imagine you’re diving into a cell. You’re paddling around in the cytoplasm, you’re climbing up a mitochondria. If you’re having a hard time picturing this, that’s okay! There are professionals who do this for a living.We wanted to learn more from expert science interpreters, who take the results section of a research paper and translate it into something tangible, like a 40-foot dinosaur skeleton or a 3D animation of cellular machinery too small to see.At a live event in Salt Lake City in March, Host Flora Lichtman spoke with Dr. Janet Iwasa, head of the University of Utah’s Animation Lab and director of the Genetic Science Learning Center; and Tim Lee, director of exhibits at the Natural History Museum of Utah, about how they bring these out-of-reach worlds to life.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

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• The Navajo Researcher Reviving A Desert Peach | A New Dino With Blade-Like Horns

  Bringing back Southwest peach orchards won’t be easy, but researchers are on the lookout for remaining trees—and they need help. And, the newly discovered Lokiceratops is challenging paleontologists’ understanding of how horned dinosaurs evolved and existed together. How A Navajo Plant Researcher Is Reviving A Desert PeachWhen you think of states known for their peaches, Utah might not be at the top of your list. But there is a variety—the Southwest peach—that grows in this arid landscape, and Native communities have cultivated this tree since the 1600s. But many of the orchards were intentionally destroyed by colonizers hundreds of years ago, and the remaining trees are now scattered across the region.A local scientist and member of the Navajo Nation is on a mission to track down Southwest peach trees so we can learn more about how these peaches are so well-suited to grow in the desert.At a live event in Salt Lake City in March, Host Flora Lichtman spoke with Reagan Wytsalucy, plant scientist and assistant professor at Utah State University Extension in San Juan County, Utah. She researches traditional Native American crops, including the Southwest peach.Meet Lokiceratops, A Giant Dinosaur With Blade-Like HornsThe Intermountain West is a dinosaur nerd’s dream because it’s such a hotspot for fossils. Some of the most famous dino fossils in the world, like T. rex, triceratops, and stegosaurus can be found in western North America. So, of course, Science Friday couldn’t go to Salt Lake City, Utah, without digging into some dinosaur science.At a live event in Salt Lake City in March, Host Ira Flatow spoke with the scientists behind the discovery of Lokiceratops, a large dinosaur with impressive horns that was unveiled in 2024. Dr. Mark Loewen, vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Utah and the Natural History Museum of Utah; and Savhannah Carpenter, paleontologist and school outreach coordinator at the Natural History Museum of Utah, discuss how they figured out Loki was a new dinosaur, the process of describing and naming the fossil, and what it taught them about dino evolution.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.  Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

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• How Interjections Regulate Conversation | Saccharin For Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria

  We are rounding up your questions about roads. What confounds you about traffic, or how interstates are laid out? Are there certain road design elements that ignite your road rage? Tell us about it: we’ve got a traffic engineer in the passenger seat this week, ready to answer your questions. Call us at (877) 4-SCIFRI or 877-472-4374.In this episode, utterances like “um,” “wow,” and “mm-hmm” aren’t just fillers—they keep conversations flowing. Also, new research suggests the artificial sweetener saccharin could kill antibiotic resistant bacteria.Huh? The Valuable Role Of InterjectionsListen carefully to a spoken conversation and you’ll notice that the speakers use a lot of little quasi-words—mm-hmm, um, huh? and the like—that don’t convey any information about the topic of the conversation itself. For many decades, linguists regarded such utterances as largely irrelevant noise, the flotsam and jetsam that accumulate on the margins of language when speakers aren’t as articulate as they’d like to be.But these little words may be much more important than that. A few linguists now think that far from being detritus, they may be crucial traffic signals to regulate the flow of conversation as well as tools to negotiate mutual understanding. That puts them at the heart of language itself—and they may be the hardest part of language for artificial intelligence to master.Read the rest of this article on sciencefriday.com.A Sweet New Treatment For Antibiotic Resistant Infections?Researchers have discovered that the artificial sweetener saccharin has powerful antimicrobial properties. A new study published in EMBO Molecular Medicine suggests that saccharin can actually kill antibiotic resistant bacteria by interfering with DNA replication and cell division. The researchers also concluded that, with the help of traditional antibiotics, saccharin could even be used as an effective wound treatment.Host Ira Flatow talks with study author Dr. Ronan McCarthy, professor in biomedical sciences and director of the Antimicrobial Innovations Centre at Brunel University of London.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

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• Trump’s Nominee For NASA Administrator Meets Congress

  On Wednesday, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation heard testimony from Jared Isaacman, President Trump’s nominee to lead NASA. During the confirmation hearing, Isaacman indicated a priority of sending humans to Mars—while maintaining the agency’s plans to return people to the lunar surface.In response to a question from Senator Ted Cruz, Isaacman said “I don’t think we have to make any tough trades here, Senator. I think if we can concentrate our resources at the world’s greatest space agency, we don’t have to make a binary decision of moon versus Mars, or moon has to come first versus Mars.” Senators questioned how a strategy involving both options would be possible under current funding levels, and stressed that a bipartisan law had codified the current approach of targeting the moon first, then Mars.The fate of the Artemis lunar exploration program has faced questions in the new administration. In his inaugural address, President Trump expressed a desire to send astronauts to Mars, but didn’t mention the moon. Elon Musk, head of SpaceX and a favored advisor to the president, is in favor of prioritizing crewed Mars missions ahead of lunar programs. Under questioning, Isaacman repeatedly refused to say directly whether Musk had been present for his job interview with the President.Host Flora Lichtman talks with Senior Producer Charles Bergquist about the nomination and the path ahead for NASA. They also talk about other stories from the week in science, including the controversy over claims of a “de-extincted” dire wolf, advances in rapid bird flu sensors, and the detailed physics of a cup of pour-over coffee.Transcript for this segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

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• How Real Doctors Brought ‘The Pitt’ To Life

  We go inside the scientifically accurate ER world created for the TV show with one of its medical consultants.What is it actually like to work in an emergency room? To deal with overcrowded waiting rooms, a shortage of hospital beds, and a constant flow of life-and-death health conditions—while trying to maintain your sanity at the same time?That’s the focus of “The Pitt,” a new medical drama on Max from the creators of “ER,” starring one of that show’s key actors, all grown up: Noah Wyle. The first season takes place over a single shift, and each episode is one hour of that shift in real time. And medical professionals are praising the show for its accuracy.Joining Host Ira Flatow to talk about the accuracy of the show is one of its medical consultants, Dr. Sylvia Owusu-Ansah,  associate professor of pediatrics and emergency medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.Transcript for this segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

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