Science Friday

Being able to belt out a tune like Adele or Pavarotti is not just about raw talent. The best singers in the world have to work on their technique—like how to control their breath and develop the stamina to hit note after note for a two-hour concert. But pop stars and opera singers aren’t the only vocalists who have figured out how to harness their voices for maximum impact.Death metal vocalists also train their voices to hit that unique guttural register. And those iconic screams are not as easy to master as they might seem.Vocal scientists at the University of Utah are now bringing death metal singers into the lab to try to understand how they make their extreme vocalizations. What they’re finding is not only insightful for metalheads, but might also help improve treatment for people with some types of vocal injuries.In a conversation from April, Host Flora Lichtman talks with speech pathologist Amanda Stark, and Mark Garrett, vocal coach and lead singer of the band Kardashev.Read the whole story at sciencefriday.com.Guests: Dr. Amanda Stark is a speech pathologist and vocology researcher at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah.Mark Garett is a vocal coach and the lead singer of Kardashev. He’s based in Phoenix, Arizona.Transcript available at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

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. In a conversation from July, Adam talks to Host Flora Lichtman about how algorithms and social media are changing the way we speak, and discusses his new book, Algospeak: How Social Media is Transforming the Future of Language.Guest: Adam Aleksic is a linguist and content creator posting educational videos as the “Etymology Nerd” to an audience of more than three million. He is the author of Algospeak: How Social Media is Transforming the Future of Language.Transcript is available on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

What have we learned in recent years about black holes? Can entangled quantum particles really communicate faster than light? What’s the story behind Schrödinger’s Cat? And, in this weird liminal space between the holidays, what even IS time, really? Physicist Sean Carroll and Host Ira Flatow tackled those big questions and more at a recent event at WNYC’s Greene Space in New York City. Carroll’s book The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion is the SciFri Book Club pick for December. Guest: Dr. Sean Carroll is the Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Health psychologist Dr. Kari Leibowitz traveled to some of the coldest, darkest places on earth to learn how people there don’t just survive, but thrive in winter. She says that one of the key ingredients is adopting a positive wintertime mindset by focusing on and celebrating the good parts of winter.In a conversation from January, Flora Lichtman talks with Dr. Kari Leibowitz, author of How to Winter: Harness Your Mindset to Thrive on Cold, Dark, or Difficult Days, about saunas, cold plunges, candles, and other small ways to make winter a season to look forward to rather than dread. Plus, she responds to some of our audience’s own tips to make the season enjoyable.Guest: Dr. Kari Leibowitz is a health psychologist and author of How to Winter: Harness Your Mindset to Thrive on Cold, Dark, or Difficult Days. She’s based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.Transcript is available at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Imagine sitting at home and then all of a sudden you hear a men’s choir belting out “The Star Spangled Banner.” You check your phone, computer, radio. Nothing’s playing. You look outside, no one’s there. That’s what happened to neurologist Bruce Dobkin after he received a cochlear implant. He set out to learn everything he could about the condition, called musical hallucinosis.In a story from August, Host Ira Flatow talks with Dobkin about his decision to publish his account in a medical journal and why the condition is more common than he realized.Guest: Dr. Bruce Dobkin is a neurologist at UCLA Health.Transcript is available at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.