Science Friday Folgen

Can Medicine Move To Animal-Free Testing? Before a new drug can begin clinical trials in humans, it gets tested on animals. But things are changing. Late last year, Congress passed the FDA Modernization Act 2.0, which cleared the way for new drugs to skip animal testing. Can we expect to phase out animal testing altogether? Is it safe? And what technologies might make that possible? Guest host Flora Lichtman talks with Dr. Thomas Hartung, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing, to get a broader picture of alternatives to animal testing.   Capturing Carbon With Tasty Fungus This week, a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change brought dire warnings about our planet’s climate future and an alert that drastic action is needed—now—to avoid catastrophe. One action the report recommends involves an overhaul of our food production systems to decrease their carbon impact.   Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers suggest one possible way of sequestering some carbon dioxide might be cultivating certain kinds of edible mushrooms on land that has already been cultivated for agroforestry. The researchers are working with Lactarius deliciosus, commonly known as the saffron milk cap or red pine mushroom, but other species are possible as well. These mycorrhizal fungi live in a symbiotic relationship with the roots of the trees, increasing biomass and storing more carbon, while producing food on land that might have otherwise been used only for trees. In certain climates and with certain trees, these fungi can actually be a carbon-negative source of protein. However, to produce a pound of protein currently requires a lot of land and effort. The researchers are working to make forest fungal farming easier, and to expand the approach to a wider range of trees. SciFri’s Charles Bergquist talks with Dr. Paul Thomas, author of that report and research director at the company Mycorrhizal Systems, a company that helps farmers grow truffles. He’s also an honorary professor in the University of Stirling’s Faculty of Natural Sciences in the UK.   Whiskey Distillery On The Rocks After Fungus Spreads Lincoln County, Tennessee has been overcome by an unwelcome guest: whiskey fungus. It covers everything from houses and cars to stop signs and trees, and no amount of power washing seems to make it go away. Why has whiskey fungus attached to this small town? It feeds on ethanol from the famed Jack Daniel’s distillery, which is in a neighboring county. Lincoln County isn’t the first place to encounter this problem. Whiskey fungus was first documented in 1872 by a French pharmacist named Antonin Baudoin. Baudoin noted how mold caused distillery walls in Cognac to blacken, a phenomenon that has since been seen near distilleries across the world. The fungus was not given a name until 2007, when it was dubbed Baudoinia compniacensis, named for Antonin Baudoin. Joining guest host Flora Lichtman is James A. Scott, PhD, professor of public health at the University of Toronto in Toronto, Ontario. Scott has studied whiskey fungus for over two decades, and gave it its scientific name.   NASA’s New Science Head Sees A Bright Future Last month, NASA announced Dr. Nicola Fox as the agency’s new scientific leader. Fox is taking on a critical role at NASA, shaping the agency’s science priorities and overseeing roughly 100 missions, with a budget of $7.8 billion. The portfolio includes space science from astrophysics and Earth science, covering the planets in our solar system to exoplanets far beyond. Previously, she was the director of the heliophysics division at NASA, which studies the Sun and its role in the solar system. SciFri senior producer Charles Bergquist talks with Dr. Nicola Fox, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate for NASA, about her new position, career path, and plans for science at NASA.     Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

The Latest IPCC Report Is Full Of Warnings—And Hope It’s that time of year: another IPCC report has hit the presses. These reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are like a check up—to let us know how we’re doing on the climate front and what Earth’s future is projected to look like. And to no one’s surprise, this year’s report is full of warnings. But also, it has a lot of room for hope. Maggie Koerth, senior science writer at FiveThirtyEight, joins guest host Charles Bergquist to talk more about the report and other science news of the week. They chat about a 3D printed rocket that didn’t quite make it to space, the mysterious Oumuamua space object, the rise of dangerous fungal infections in the U.S., why researchers are so excited about figuring out Beethoven’s cause of death, and—of course—new research about octopuses’ brain waves.   An Underwater Volcano Off The Oregon Coast Sheds Light On Eruptions A thick blue-white haze envelops the Research Vessel Thompson as it floats 250 miles off the Oregon coast. Akel Kevis-Stirling’s orange life vest and blue hardhat are vivid pops of color in the fog. “You guys ready to go?” he calls into his radio. The person on the other end crackles an affirmative. “Copy that,” he says and looks up across the rear deck of the research ship. “Alright, straps!” The crew of the ROV Jason jumps into action, removing the straps that secure the cube-shaped submarine to the deck. The remotely-operated sub, with a base the size of a queen mattress, is loaded with scientific instruments it will carry down to the seafloor. Kevis-Stirling gets final permission from the Thompson’s bridge for the launch. “Ok, here we go. Jason coming up and over the side,” he calls. “Take it away Tito!” The crane operator, Tito Callasius, lifts the submarine and swings it over the side of the ship into the water. A plume of fine bubbles rises through the waves as Jason starts its mile-long descent to the Axial Seamount, a deep-sea volcano that’s erupted three times in the past 25 years. Read the rest at sciencefriday.com.   March Mammal Madness Wants To Hear You Roar When mid-March rolls around, your news online—and maybe your conversations with friends and colleagues—can sometimes get taken over by discussions about the tournament. From debating your bracket selections to conversations about last night’s matchup, or celebrating big upsets and debating whether this is finally the year the bat-eared fox goes all the way, it can feel all-consuming. March Mammal Madness is an exercise in science communication involving a 64-animal bracket and nightly simulated combat matchups between animals—where the outcomes are determined by chance and specific species traits found in the scientific literature. This is the 10th year of the tournament, which this month has some 650,000 students around the world predicting battle outcomes on the road to the Elite Trait, the Final Roar, and the championship match. Dr. Katie Hinde, a biological anthropologist in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University, and ringleader of March Mammal Madness, joins SciFri’s Charles Bergquist to talk about the keys to success in the tournament. Want to participate yourself? It’s not too late—you can find the tournament bracket and more information about March Mammal Madness on the ASU Libraries site.   Listen To The Ethereal Sounds Of Space You’ve probably heard that if you scream in space, no one will hear a thing. Space is a vacuum, so sound waves don’t have anything to bounce off of. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that space is silent. A team of researchers are taking data from a variety of telescopes and assigning them sounds, creating song-length sonifications of beloved space structures like black holes, nebulas, galaxies, and beyond. The album, called “Universal Harmonies” aims to bring galaxies to life and allow more people, such as those who are blind and low-vision, to engage with outer space. Guest host Flora Lichtman talks with two of the scientists behind “Universal Harmonies,” Dr. Kimberly Arcand, visualization scientist at NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, and Dr. Matt Russo, astrophysicist and musician at the University of Toronto.     Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Stop Flushing Your Health Data Down The Toilet You could be flushing important information about your health right down the toilet—quite literally. Pee and poop can tell you a lot about your health, so what if your waste…didn’t go to waste? What if, instead, it could tell you more about your health? Like number one, it can catch a condition like diabetes early. Or number two, check out what’s going on in your gut microbiome. That’s the goal of the smart toilet—a device that gets all up in your business to tell you more about your health. Ira talks with the inventor of the PH Smart Toilet, Dr. Seung-min Park, instructor of urology at Stanford’s School of Medicine in California, about how the toilet works, how it can be used to catch diseases early on, and the ethical implications of such a device.   50 Years Later, Reflecting On The Treaty That Controls Wildlife Trade 50 years ago this month, a collection of nations met in Washington and reached agreement on a way to regulate international trade in certain wildlife species—from orchids to gorillas. That agreement came to be known as CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. The treaty has come to cover over 30,000 different plants and animals. Some, listed in Appendix 1 of the treaty, are under a complete ban on commercial use, while other species have their trade tightly regulated via a system of permits. Dr. Susan Lieberman, the vice president for international policy at the Wildlife Conservation Society, has attended the last 13 meetings of the CITES signatories. She joins Ira to talk about the convention, and what it has meant for conservation over the last 50 years.   This Skin-like Robot Can Heal Itself Think of a robot, and the image that may come to mind is a big, hulking body building cars or working in factories. They battle each other in the movies. But a growing field called softbotics focuses on thin, flexible materials—closer to human skin than to a Transformer. There’s been a breakthrough in this field out of Pittsburgh: softbotics that can not only conduct electricity, but can heal itself from damage. This replicates the healing abilities of organic materials, like skin, but can happen in seconds. Dr. Carmel Majidi, mechanical engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University, joins Ira to break down possible futures for this material, including a new generation of prosthetics.   Naked Mole-Rats Are Eternally Fertile There may be no stranger—or more impressive—critter than the naked mole-rat. They may look unassuming, but they can defy aging, have an astonishingly high pain tolerance, and are resistant to cancer. And their list of superpowers doesn’t stop there. Scientists recently discovered yet another way these rodents reject the mammalian status quo: by producing egg cells, and staying fertile, until the day they die. This makes them unlike humans, whose ovaries eventually stop producing eggs. So what can we learn about fertility from these strange critters? Ira talks with the lead researcher of this study, Dr. Miguel Brieño-Enriquez, assistant professor at the Magee-Womens Research Institute and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine’s Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences.   Transcripts for each segment will be available the week 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.