
Science Friday
Science Friday, as heard on PRI, is a weekly discussion of the latest news in science, technology, health, and the environment hosted by Ira Flatow. Ira interviews scientists, authors, and policymakers, and listeners can call in and ask questions as well.
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Engineers take an in-depth look at why the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore collapsed and how to prevent future tragedies. In the early morning of March 26, 2024, the container ship Dali struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. Within 30 seconds, the bridge collapsed into the river below. Six construction
The company has genetic data of 15 million people, which could be shared with a future buyer. Here’s how to delete it. Plus, an experimental coating could make golf balls roll more reliably on greens with different conditions. After 23andMe Bankruptcy, Customers Urged To Delete Their Data If you’re one of roughly 15 mi
Certain words are overrepresented in text written by AI language models. A study investigates why such patterns develop. Also, the ends of chromosomes, called telomeres, typically shorten as an organism ages. But when some fat-tail dwarf lemurs hibernate, they lengthen. ‘Delving’ Into The ‘Realm’ Of AI Word Choice Seve
TB kills more than a million people each year. Dr. Mireille Kamariza has spent her career developing better detection and treatment tools. As the United States retreats from global health leadership—withdrawing from the World Health Organization, dismantling USAID—public health experts warn that there will be implicati
In a new book, author John Green traces how the disease has impacted culture, geography, and even fashion over the centuries. Tuberculosis (TB) has had an incredibly large impact on human history. One staggering statistic? It’s been estimated that by the start of the 1800s, the disease had killed one in seven people wh
Researchers built the largest 3D map of our universe yet. What they found supports the idea that dark energy could have evolved over time. One of the mysteries of the universe is why it expands at the rate that it does. Back in 1998, two teams of researchers observed that not only was the universe expanding, but that t