Science Friday

Old creepy houses are a horror cliche, but why? Why do they freak us out? According to new research, it might have something to do with infrasound: a sound that’s below the range of human hearing, potentially emitted by low-rumbling pipes or old boilers more common in older houses.  

Psychologist and pseudoscience researcher Rodney Schmaltz explains his new study, and what role infrasound could play in leading people to feel unsettled in “haunted” places. Then, infrasound researcher Milton Garcés breaks down the infrasound that’s produced by volcanoes and asteroid impacts, and how it serves as a “keep away” signal in nature.

Guests:

Dr. Rodney Schmaltz is a professor of psychology at MacEwan University in Edmonton, Alberta.

Dr. Milton Garcés is a research scientist at the Hawai‘i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology and director of the Infrasound Laboratory at the University of Hawai’i in Honolulu.

Other episodes you may enjoy:

What The Sounds Of Melting Glaciers Can Tell Us

The World According To Sound: A Sonic History Of Astronomy

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

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We recently got a call from a SciFri listener in Florida who has autoimmune arthritis. He told us that over the years he’d taken 10 drugs, and each out eventually stopped working. He then tried to enroll in a clinical trial for a new drug for his condition, but he was rejected specifically because he was on his 10th drug.

Today we’re digging into clinical trials and how they work. Are there incentives for drug developers to leave out “problem children”? Or is it more complicated than that? Flora talks with lawyer and bioethicist Holly Fernandez Lynch about what clinical trials are designed to do, how participants are chosen, and where FDA regulation comes into play.

Guest:

Dr. Holly Fernandez Lynch is an associate professor of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania.

Other episodes you may enjoy:

Why so many studies can’t be replicated
Can ‘Suggestion-Box Science’ Make Public Health More Useful?

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri and sign up for our newsletters. Got a science question that’s keeping you up at night? Call us: 877-4-SCIFRI

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The herbicide paraquat is so toxic it’s banned in over 70 countries. But its use in the U.S. is growing, despite known links to Parkinson’s disease. In southeastern Mississippi, an industrial plant is leaking tens of thousands of pounds of the chemical into the air.

Environmental reporter Delaney Nolan and epidemiologist Beate Ritz join Host Flora Lichtman to discuss the implications of this leak, and what we know about how paraquat affects the body.

Guests: 

Delaney Nolan is an environmental reporter based in New Orleans. She reported this story for The Lens and the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk.

Dr. Beate Ritz is a professor of epidemiology at UCLA in Los Angeles.

Other episodes you may enjoy:

Teasing Apart The Causes And Early Signs Of Parkinson’s

Workout Worms May Reveal New Parkinson’s Treatments

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Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri and sign up for our newsletters. Got a science question that’s keeping you up at night? Call us: 877-4-SCIFRI

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Bucket hats. Low-rise jeans. Track suits. As you might’ve noticed, Y2K fashion is in right now. People say that fashion moves in 20-year cycles, and it turns out…it does! At least according to math.

Host Flora Lichtman sits down with mathematician Emma Zajdela to figure out how she analyzed over 35,000 images of women's clothing dating all the way back to the 1860s to confirm this theory.

Guest: 

Dr. Emma Zajdela is a Franco-American mathematician and science diplomacy activist.

Other episodes you may enjoy:

The Many, Many Ways Tuberculosis Shaped Human Life

Functional Fashion From An Artist And A Caterpillar

Want SciFri gear? Check out our new shop!

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri and sign up for our newsletters. Got a science question that’s keeping you up at night? Call us: 877-4-SCIFRI

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A recent study simulated the extreme temperatures and pressure of the Earth’s interior by squeezing a sample between diamonds and heating it with a laser. In those simulations, researchers found that the Earth’s core may contain vast amounts of hydrogen, locked away in alloys with iron and silicon. Planetary scientist Anat Shahar joins Host Ira Flatow to discuss what this tells us about how the planet formed, and where water on Earth may have come from. 

Then, another kind of deep history: Paleontologist Arnaud Rebillard introduces Host Flora Lichtman to “regurgitalite”—fossilized vomit. Rebillard studied a sample of regurgitalite some 50 million years older than the dinosaurs.

Guests: 

Dr. Anat Shahar is a planetary scientist, and vice president for research at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C.

Arnaud Rebillard is a PhD candidate in paleontology at the Natural History Museum of Berlin.

Other episodes you may enjoy:

Could Underground Hydrogen Reserves Put Clean Energy Within Reach?

A Reptile’s Baffling Backfin And The Math Of Dashing Dinos

Want SciFri gear? Check out our new shop!

The transcript for this episode is available at sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri and sign up for our newsletters. Got a science question that’s keeping you up at night? Call us: 877-4-SCIFRI

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