The storm flooded mines in Spruce Pine, North Carolina, which supply the tech industry with some of the purest quartz in the world. Also, researchers developed a 3D-printable material, inspired by worms, that can act as a Band-Aid for damaged heart and cartilage tissue.Hurricane Helene’s Damage Could Affect The Global Tech IndustryAfter making landfall on September 26, Hurricane Helene devastated regions in the southeastern US. Over 200 people are confirmed dead so far. About a million people are still without power, and many lack clean water.As climate change intensifies, hurricanes like Helene are expected to occur more often and be more intense. What’s become very clear in the last few years is that due to the interconnectedness of the modern world, extreme weather in one place can have global implications.For example, Spruce Pine, North Carolina, home to around 2,200 people, flooded during Hurricane Helene. The town is also home to several mines that produce some of the world’s purest quartz, an ingredient necessary to make solar panels, smartphones, semiconductors, and more.Ira talks with Umair Irfan, senior correspondent at Vox, about this and other science news of the week, including a completed map of a fruit fly’s brain, how scientists in the United Kingdom are screening newborns for rare diseases, and how octopuses and fish are hunting as a team.A Strong, Stretchy, And Sticky Band-Aid For The HeartThe heart is an impressive organ that has to beat constantly for years. But what happens when heart tissue is damaged? Or when cartilage in joints like our knees wears out? These constantly moving tissues don’t regenerate easily, and there aren’t a lot of great treatment options.To address these kinds of problems, a team at University of Colorado Boulder invented a new strong, stretchy, and sticky hydrogel material that could act as a Band-Aid to heart or tissue lesions. They were inspired by masses of worms that tangle and untangle themselves, behaving almost as both a solid and liquid. The team was able to replicate that in a molecular structure with the help of a new 3D-printing technique. And it could have applications far beyond medicine, including for manufacturing and improving the 3D-printing process itself. Their research was published in the journal Science, and their lab has filed for a provisional patent for the material.Dr. Jason Burdick, professor of chemical and biological engineering at CU Boulder’s BioFrontiers Institute, joins Ira Flatow to talk about the new material and how it could improve future tissue and cartilage treatment.Transcripts for each segment will be available 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.

This summer, the Bureau of Land Management approved seven herbicides to fight invasive plants in the West. Also, when scientists analyzed the swirls in the famous painting, they found Van Gogh depicted forces of nature with startling accuracy.What Newly Approved Herbicides Could Mean For Federal LandInvasive plants are a big problem across the western US.Cunning interlopers like cheatgrass, leafy spurge and red brome can outcompete native vegetation, crowd habitats and steal water and other vital soil nutrients.Of the 245 million acres controlled by the Bureau of Land Management, harmful non-native plants have already infested 79 million acres—an area larger than the states of Pennsylvania, Virginia and South Carolina combined. That’s why the federal agency felt the urgency to approve seven new herbicides to kill invasives on its land nationwide, said Seth Flanigan, a BLM senior invasive species specialist based in Idaho.“If we don’t remove this now, what is it going to look like 10 years from now?” he said.Read the rest of this article on sciencefriday.com.The Hidden Physics In Van Gogh’s ‘The Starry Night’One of Vincent Van Gogh’s most famous creations is “The Starry Night,” an oil painting of a quaint French village at night with a blue night sky that dramatically swirls around the yellow stars and moon.It’s easy to admire this painting as a casual viewer, but if you research fluid dynamics, one thing in particular stands out: those iconic swirls in the sky. To a physicist, they look an awful lot like the swirls that atmospheric turbulence produces. And some researchers have been wondering if Van Gogh’s swirls actually match the mathematical models of turbulence theory.Well, a team of researchers from China and France set out to analyze all the swirls in “The Starry Night,” and it turns out that Van Gogh had a knack for depicting the forces of nature. Their results were published in the journal Physics Of Fluid.Guest host Anna Rothschild sits down with Dr. Francois Schmitt, research professor in physics at the French National Centre for Scientific Research and co-author of the recent study, to talk about the hidden physics in this famous painting.Transcripts for each segment will be available 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.

This conversation discusses suicide and suicidal ideation in young people. Please take care while listening. If you or a loved one is thinking about suicide or self-harm, text TALK to 741-741 or call 9-8-8 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.In the United States, suicide is the second leading cause of death for young people aged 10 to 24. One in five high school students seriously considered attempting suicide in 2023, according to the latest data from the CDC.Doctors, researchers, and mental health professionals have been looking for solutions to support our country’s struggling youth. One place to start is in hospital emergency departments.How can emergency departments be better equipped to help struggling teens, and potentially save lives?Guest host Anna Rothschild is joined by Dr. Samaa Kemal, an emergency medicine physician at the Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago to discuss her research on the subject.The following resources are available if you or someone close to you is in need of mental health support:Call 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Or text TALK to 741-741.Call 1-800-662-HELP for the SAMHSA National Helpline; they can provide referral and information services for mental health and/or substance use disorder treatment.Locate additional resources through the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.Transcript for this segment will be available 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.

Emissions from anesthesia are one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases from hospitals. This anesthesiologist wants to change that. And, a cultural anthropologist discusses the Mariana Islands’ long history of colonization and why demilitarization matters for climate progress.A Major Source Of Greenhouse Gases In Hospitals? AnesthesiaDid you know that some of the gases used in anesthesia are strong greenhouse gases? A few years ago, Seattle Children’s Hospital analyzed its carbon footprint and found that the gases used in anesthesia made up about 7% of the hospital’s total emissions, right behind emissions from heating and power and those from commuting.Faced with this problem, Dr. Elizabeth Hansen, a pediatric anesthesiologist at Seattle Children’s, took matters into her own hands and slashed the operating room’s emissions. She now helps other hospitals do the same with Project Spruce.Guest host Anna Rothschild talks with Dr. Hansen about how and why she took on the problem.Militarization And Environmental Injustice In The Mariana IslandsLet’s take a trip to the Northern Mariana Islands, a string of islands in the Pacific just north of Guam. The islands were sites of major battles during World War II and were captured by the United States in 1944. The US established a military presence across the territory—including building the world’s largest air force base at the time, on an island called Tinian.The US military never left, and in the 1980s, the Northern Mariana Islands became a US territory. A few years ago, the Pentagon proposed building a bombing range on an island called Pagan, but residents of the islands pushed back.Dr. Isa Arriola is a cultural anthropologist at Concordia University in Montreal and co-founder of the organization Our Common Wealth 670, based in Saipan, the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands. She’s fought back against the militarization of her home islands, and she talks with guest host Anna Rothschild about how the military presence has affected the people and environment of the Marianas, and why demilitarization needs to be part of climate action.Transcripts for each segment will be available 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.

If you’re a baby boomer, you may remember the first Earth Day, the Civil Rights Movement, anti-war protests, and the first Pride parade. The list goes on, because the 1960s and 70s were packed with social revolutions. But the organization Third Act has a message for boomers: Your work isn’t done yet.Third Act empowers folks over the age of 60 to get involved in the climate movement. It aims to leverage older generations’ access to power, money, and life experiences to create change.Ira Flatow talks with Third Act founder Bill McKibben and lead advisor Akaya Windwood about the importance of including older adults in the climate movement.Transcripts for each segment will be available 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.

The company is betting big on nuclear energy to meet increasing power needs of data centers and new technologies like AI. Also, new research into a strange fish known as the sea robin finds that leg-like appendages can “taste” prey buried in the sand.Microsoft Makes Deal To Restart Three Mile IslandThree Mile Island in Pennsylvania has quite a reputation in the world of nuclear energy: One of its reactors suffered a catastrophic partial meltdown in 1979, earning the title of the largest nuclear accident in US history. The failed reactor has been inoperable since the accident, while the other reactor shuttered in 2019.But now, tech giant Microsoft has made a deal with the nuclear site to reopen Three Mile Island, and purchase all of its generating capacity over the next 20 years. As Big Tech bets big on artificial intelligence, the need for electricity to power data centers is increasing tremendously. Former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates is a large investor in nuclear energy.To help Science Friday celebrate Climate Week NYC, Casey Crownhart, climate reporter for MIT Technology Review joins guest host Anna Rothschild to discuss this and other top climate stories of the week.These Fish Use Their Legs (Yes, Legs) To TasteYour legs may help you get around, but what if they could also help you sniff out a snack? That’s a trick achieved by a fish called the sea robin. The fish, which lives on the seafloor, has an unusual appearance, with wing-like fins and leg-like appendages that it uses to walk along the ocean bottom. But in work published this week in the journal Current Biology, researchers report that those legs are also chemical sensing organs that can taste for prey buried under the sand.Dr. Nicholas Bellono, a professor of molecular and cellular biology at Harvard, first learned of the unusual fish on a visit to the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, where he was planning to obtain squid and octopus for another research project. MBL workers showed Bellono and colleagues the sea robin, and explained that they have a reputation for being able to locate hidden prey—to the point that other organisms will follow the sea robin, hoping to get in on the meal. The intrigued researchers brought some sea robins back to the lab, and began a series of experiments to better understand their prey-sniffing abilities.Bellono joins guest host Anna Rothschild to talk about the fish, the genetic adaptations that allow it to sense the world through its legs, and the value of serendipity and curiosity-driven research in the scientific world. Transcripts for each segment will be available 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.

In 2021, Dr. Francis Collins stepped down after a dozen years leading the National Institutes of Health. He had just overseen the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic,in the early days of changing public health guidance as scientists learned more about this new virus. He was also involved in the quickest development of a vaccine in history.Now, he’s had some time to reflect on how the US arrived at such a divisive place about COVID-19 and vaccines, how trust in science has dwindled, and what we can do about it.Ira sits down with Dr. Collins to talk about the lessons from his new book, The Road to Wisdom: On Truth, Science, Faith and Trust, and why he decided to speak publicly about his prostate cancer diagnosis.Transcripts for each segment will be available 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.

Since ChatGPT was released to the public almost three years ago, generative AI chatbots have had many impacts on our society: They played a large role in the recent Hollywood strikes, energy usage is spiking because of them, and they’re having a chilling effect on various writing-related industries.But they’re also affecting the world of research papers and scientific publishing. They do offer some benefits, like making technical research papers easier to read, which could make research more accessible to the public and also greatly aid non-English speaking researchers.But AI chatbots also raise a host of new issues. Researchers estimate that a significant amount of papers from the last couple years were at least partially written by AI, and others suspect that they are supercharging the production of fake research papers, which has led to thousands of paper retractions across major journals in recent years. Major scientific journals are struggling with how to set guidelines for generative AI use in research papers, given that so-called AI-writing detectors are not as accurate as they were once thought to be.So what does the future of scientific publishing look like in a world where AI chatbots are a reality? And how does that affect the level of trust that the public has with science?Ira Flatow sits down with Dr. Jessamy Bagenal, senior executive editor at The Lancet and adjunct professor at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, to talk about how generative AI is changing the way scientific papers are written, how it’s fueling the fake-paper industry, and how she thinks publishers should adjust their submission guidelines in response.Transcripts for each segment will be available 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.

Would you be interested in a cookie infused with smog from your favorite city? Maybe a loaf of sourdough made from wheat tainted by wildfires?Those are just a few of the projects from the Center for Genomic Gastronomy, based in Amsterdam and Portugal, where artists use innovative ingredients to represent environmental crises and imagine what the future of food could look like.Ira talks with Zack Denfeld, co-founder of the Center for Genomic Gastronomy, about how art and food can help us envision a more sustainable food system.Read the full story about how artists and chefs are putting ecological crises on the menu.Transcripts for each segment will be available 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.

Parenting is a tough job. Some days are absolutely overwhelming, balancing a job, a home, and a child’s needs. One thing goes wrong and it’s like a house of cards falling apart. Not to mention, being keenly aware of how the parents around you are doing. Are you keeping up?Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy is paying close attention. His most recent advisory is about parental stress and mental health. It’s been a busy summer for Dr. Murthy. He’s called for a warning label on social media because of its effects on mental health and declared gun violence a public health crisis. Ira talks with the Surgeon General in depth about these latest initiatives.Transcripts for each segment will be available 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.