Science Friday

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...

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 z...

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 be...

Researchers isolated one kind of cone in the eye and aimed lasers at it to allow subjects to see a super vibrant teal shade they call “olo.”

Think about the colors of the world around you—the blue of a cloudless sky, the green of a new leaf, the blazing red of a tulip’s petals. We see these colors because of the way our eyes work. But what if we could change how our eyes respond to light, and present them with light in a form they’d never encounter in the natural world? What would we see?

How will market uncertainty and a lack of federal support for climate efforts affect the future of clean energy in the United States? Plus, many wetlands are disappearing, but Louisiana’s “accidental” Wax Lake Delta is growing—and informing coastal restoration techniques.

$8 Billion Of Climate Tech Projects Were Canceled In 3 Months

In the first three months of the Trump administration, officials have been aggressive in cancelling climate change related efforts, from enacting layoffs at large agencies to withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement and rescinding federal funding for green research and infrastructure.

Joining Host Flo...

With the help of cat owners, a new project investigates cats’ biology and aims to link some of their behaviors to their genes.

Calling all cat people: This one’s for you. Despite humans’ long history of welcoming felines into their homes and delis, research on cats lags far behind research on dogs. Now, scientists behind the project Darwin’s Ark are working to close the cat gap by enlisting cat caretakers from across the country to submit a tuft of fur and answer a few questions about their feline’s appearance, personality, and behaviors.

Host Flora...

An evolving technology is changing the lives of people with paralysis: brain-computer interfaces (BCI). These are devices that are implanted in the brain and record neural activity, then translate those signals into commands for a computer. This allows people to type, play computer games, and talk with others just by thinking, allowing more freedom to communicate.

For decades, this technology has looked like a person controlling a cursor on a screen. But this work has advanced, and in a recent breakthrough, a person with paralysis in all four limbs was able to move a virtual quadcopter with...

In Connecting Dots: A Blind Life, inventor Josh Miele recounts his life story and path to becoming an accessibility designer.

When inventor and scientist Josh Miele was 4 years old, a neighbor poured sulfuric acid on his head, burning and permanently blinding him. In his new book Connecting Dots: A Blind Life, Miele chronicles what happened afterwards, growing up as a blind kid, and how he built his career as an inventor and designer of adaptive technology.

Host Flora Lichtman talks with Dr. Joshua Miele, an Amazon Design Scholar and MacArthur Fellow, or “Genius Grant” recipient. They...

Are traffic engineering decisions based on evidence-based research? Not as much as you might think.

If you’ve seen a car crash on the side of the road, you might look at it and think that the person at fault is the driver. But how much blame should be shared by the people who designed those roads in the first place?

Well, some traffic engineers are calling for the field to accept more blame for the crashes and the tens of thousands of annual fatalities that happen on our roads, including Dr. Wes Marshall, a pr...

The Webb Space Telescope picked up traces of dimethyl sulfide on planet K2-18b. On Earth, the molecule comes from microbes and phytoplankton. Also, researchers captured the first confirmed video of a colossal squid swimming in its natural habitat—almost 2,000 feet deep.

Possible Signature Of Life Detected On Exoplanet—Maybe

In major galactic news, scientists may have detected possible signs of life on a planet right here in our galaxy. Is this one of the best hints we’ve gotten that alien life exists? Host Flora Lichtman gets into it with Anil Oza, the Sharon...