Science Friday

Last year, Harvard professor Pardis Sabeti and her colleague Christian Happi won a $100 million grant to develop their pathogen surveillance system called Sentinel. Sabeti joins Host Flora Lichtman to talk about the ongoing Ebola virus outbreak, and how their approach, which includes rapid genome sequencing, may help epidemiologists figure out how the virus spreads. Guest:Dr. Pardis Sabeti is a computational geneticist and professor at Harvard University. She is also a core institute member of the Broad Institute of MIT.Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Follow us on socials @ scifri on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Bluesky and sign up for our newsletters. Got a science question that’s keeping you up at night? Call us: 877-472-4374 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Move over Pluto, a new dwarf planet just dropped. Scientists announced that they’ve  likely discovered a tiny new planet beyond Neptune, in the far-out ring of icy and rocky bits called the Kuiper Belt. The possible dwarf planet was spotted by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. Flora talks with Matthew Holman, the astrophysicist who made the discovery. One more thing: The new dwarf planet is currently called 2026 ED138. We think the name needs a little work. What would you call it? Give us a ring at 877-472-4374. Guest:Dr. Matthew Holman is a senior astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Follow us on socials @ scifri on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Bluesky and sign up for our newsletters. Got a science question that’s keeping you up at night? Call us: 877-472-4374 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Math is the talk of the town in a way that it hasn't been before, thanks to recent developments in AI. And some mathematicians, like Steven Strogatz, are using this moment as a reminder of the invisible ways that math is embedded in our daily lives. That’s the focus of his new book, “Big Math: The Hidden Codes That Run Our World.” He wrote it with mathematician Alex Townsend. Read an excerpt from “Big Math.”Guest:Dr. Steven Strogatz is a professor of mathematics at Cornell University. Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Follow us on socials @ scifri on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Bluesky and sign up for our newsletters. Got a science question that’s keeping you up at night? Call us: 877-472-4374 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Many of us have gotten sucked into the tiny dramas unfolding in our backyards, or on the bird feeder or the fire escape. But not everyone can turn those observations into a best-selling book. Author Margaret Renkl joins Host Flora Lichtman to talk about the SciFri Book Club pick for November and December, “The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year.” In it, she tells the stories of her own yard over the course of a year to help her make sense of the changes in our world and in her own life. Read an excerpt from “The Comfort of Crows.”Learn more about the SciFri Book Club.Guest:Margaret Renkl is a writer and author of the book “Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year.” Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.  Subscribe to this podcast. Follow us on socials @ scifri on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Bluesky and sign up for our newsletters. Got a science question that’s keeping you up at night? Call us: 877-472-4374 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Move over, Drosophila. Step aside, C. elegans. Scientists are working to establish a new model organism. It’s a tiny species of glassfish called Danionella cerebrum, and its claim to fame is that it's almost completely transparent and can regrow parts of its body, including its brain. Scientists studying the nervous system, regeneration, and more are increasingly interested in this species. So what can we learn from this fish? And can it teach us anything about our own brains? Flora dives into this with biologists Deniz Atabay and Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado.Guests:Dr. Kutay Deniz Atabay is a postdoc at MIT’s Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He studies neurodevelopment and regeneration.Dr. Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado is the president and chief scientific officer of the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in Kansas City.Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Follow us on socials @ scifri on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Bluesky and sign up for our newsletters. Got a science question that’s keeping you up at night? Call us: 877-472-4374 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.