In “Into the Unknown,” an astronomer explores the mysteries of the cosmos and the limits of what science can test.What is time? If the universe is expanding, what is it expanding into? What happened just before the Big Bang?Some of the most head-scratching ideas in physics strain the limits of what science can test. In her book Into the Unknown: The Quest to Understand the Mysteries of the Cosmos, astronomer Dr. Kelsey Johnson describes some of those concepts, and sketches out ways to try to wrap your brain around them. Johnson joins Host Ira Flatow to talk about the limits of scientific inquiry, and what mysteries lie at the limits of science.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.
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18:24
Two Steps Forward For Meat Alternatives
Scientists bring us a lab-grown chicken nugget and texturally accurate, plant-based calamari. We’ll bite.There’s a movement in the world of science to find alternatives to meat and dairy products that don’t involve killing animals. Two avenues for this are by using animal cells in a lab, or going plant-based. Two breakthroughs in this field of food science were published in journals recently: the largest lab-grown chicken nugget and a plant-based fried calamari that tastes like the real thing.Producer Kathleen Davis joins Host Flora Lichtman to discuss these morsels of research and other science news of the week, including mandatory composting hitting the largest U.S. city, why human wounds heal slower than our primate cousins, and the disinfecting limitations of at-home washing machines. Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.
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16:18
How Death Metal Singers Make Their Extreme Vocalizations | Regional Allergies
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. Host Flora Lichtman talks with Dr. Amanda Stark, speech pathologist and vocology researcher at the University of Utah, and Mark Garrett, vocal coach and lead singer of the band Kardashev.Read the whole story at sciencefriday.com.Also, we share a follow-up to our story about seasonal allergies based on a listener’s question about her family’s allergies.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.
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22:18
A New Book On The Horrifying, Creative World Of Insect Zombies
It’s zombie season! At least if you’re watching the new season of the fungal thriller “The Last of Us,” airing right now on Max, which chronicles what happens after a fungus turns most of humanity into zombies.It’s fiction for us, but for some organisms on the planet, it’s more like a documentary. The fungus that zombifies humanity in the show is based on Ophiocordyceps, a real fungal group that infects ants, takes over their brains and bodies, and turns them into spore factories.But this isn’t the only example of real-life zombies. Science writer Mindy Weisberger found a whole book’s worth of stories about horrifying and creative zombies and zombie-makers that inhabit the Earth, which she writes about in Rise of the Zombie Bugs: The Surprising Science of Parasitic Mind-Control.Host Flora Lichtman sits down with Weisberger to talk about the creepy and inventive lifestyles of these parasites, and how studying these zombifiers can teach us about ourselves.Read an excerpt from Rise Of The Zombie Bugs.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.
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18:27
Untangling The Mind-Body Connection In Chronic Pain
Research suggests that better understanding the psychological and neurological components of chronic pain may lead to better treatments.Chronic pain is remarkably common: Roughly 20% of adults in the US live with it. And people with chronic pain are more likely to have depression, anxiety, and substance abuse disorders. But this relationship between physical and mental health is not as straightforward as you might think, and there’s still a stigma attached to neuro-psychological causes of chronic pain.The latest research suggests that untangling the connections between mind and body is a key part of developing better treatments for people with chronic pain. Now, a new psychological treatment called pain reprocessing therapy has shown initial success in eliminating back pain in research participants.Producer Shoshannah Buxbaum joins Host Flora Lichtman to share her reporting on the intersection of mental health and chronic pain.Transcript for this story will be available after the show airs on 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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