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Science Friday and WNYC Studios

Covering the outer reaches of space to the tiniest microbes in our bodies, Science Friday is the source for entertaining and educational stories about science, technology, and other cool stuff.

Science Friday

During the early Cold War era, the United States Army and later the NSA began recruiting and training codebreakers and intelligence officers to decipher intercepted Soviet messages.

Among those recruits were a group of highly skilled Black women who were employed as cryptologists to decode these messages. But their role in Cold War intelligence operations has been largely overlooked, until now.

Host Flora Lichtman talks with historian Sarah Valentine about her book, “Decoding the Devil: Black Women Codebreakers and the Secret War Against Stalin’s Bomb.”

Read an excerpt of “Decoding the Devil.”

Guest:

Dr. Sarah Valentine is the author of “Decoding the Devil: Black Women Codebreakers and the Secret War Against Stalin’s Bomb.”

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri 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.

The Black women codebreakers of the Cold War

The tropical waters of Sri Lanka, an island off the coast of India, are home to a population of blue whales unlike any other. These whales stay put, while every other known population migrates. That discovery was made by budding scientist Asha de Vos more than 20 years ago—it made a splash, and so did she. She later became the first Sri Lankan to earn a PhD studying marine mammals, charting a new scientific path in her country.

De Vos joined Host Flora Lichtman in 2025 to discuss her path into science, what it means to be the first in her field, and how she built a marine biology program from the ground up.

Guest:

Dr. Asha de Vos is a marine biologist and the founder and executive director of the non-profit Oceanswell. She’s based in Sri Lanka.

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri 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.

Asha de Vos’ journey from deck hand to marine science leader

In the last couple months, Vermont, Alabama, and Oklahoma have passed data privacy laws. Massachusetts is negotiating its own version. Meanwhile, congressional lawmakers have introduced national privacy bills that would preempt these state laws.

In light of all this legislation, we’re revisiting an interview from February about how the United States’ data ecosystem makes it possible for any number of government agencies and businesses to buy our private data, from facial scans to health records to location tracking.

Host Flora Lichtman talks with law professor and tech policy expert Laura Moy, who has testified in Congress about privacy laws and how data brokers profit off of personal data.

Guest:

Laura Moy is an associate professor of law at Georgetown Law, based in Washington, D.C.

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri 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.

Why worry about my data If I have nothing to hide?

In 2020, Andrea Ghez shared the Nobel Prize for her observations of a supermassive compact object at the center of the Milky Way galaxy—an object that has all the hallmarks of a supermassive black hole. Ghez had developed techniques that allowed her to peer through galactic dust clouds with the Keck telescopes and observe the movements of stars orbiting the galactic center. Measuring their velocity and orbits provided information about the galactic core.

 She joins Host Flora Lichtman to talk about this game-changing discovery, what we’ve learned about the galactic center, and her own orbit in science. 

Guest:

Dr. Andrea Ghez is a Nobel Laureate in Physics (2020) and a professor of physics & astronomy at UCLA.

Other episodes you may enjoy:

 The Monster At The Heart Of The Milky Way
 A Mysterious Gas Is Discovered In The Milky Way

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri 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.

Peering through dust clouds to the center of the galaxy

Back in May, a paper published in Nature Sustainability reignited a decades-old debate about coastal Louisiana: Should people leave? Climate researchers wrote that due to rising sea levels, coastal Louisiana has crossed the point of no return and that governments should be making plans now for places like New Orleans to relocate.

Jessica Dandridge-Smith, who runs The Water Collaborative in New Orleans, speaks with Flora about why this paper sparked such a strong reaction, and how she thinks about the possibility of relocation. Then, we chat with climate scientist A.R. Siders about how we can plan for the future while taking care of our communities in the present.

Guests:

Jessica Dandridge-Smith is the executive director of The Water Collaborative of Greater New Orleans.

Dr. A.R. Siders is an associate professor at the University of Delaware studying climate adaptations. 

Other episodes you may enjoy:

 In Louisiana, A Chance To Study A Successful, Growing Wetland
 Save The Wetlands, Save The World

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri 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.

Why a paper about relocating coastal communities hit a nerve

Pompeii is known for its disastrous end with the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, but for archeologists, what came before is just as interesting. Researchers are using artifacts left behind in the remarkably well-preserved Roman city to piece together what life was like for the thousands of people who lived there 2,000 years ago. 

A new book and television show analyze some of these clues to tell the stories of the ordinary people who faced this extraordinary event. Flora speaks with archaeobotanist Jess Venner, author of “The Lost Voices of Pompeii,” and actor Tom Hiddleston, host of National Geographic’s “Pompeii: Out of Time with Tom Hiddleston.”

Read an excerpt from “The Lost Voices of Pompeii: Life and Death on Pompeii’s Final Day”

Watch the interview on YouTube.

Guests:

Dr. Jess Venner is an archaeobotanist at the University of Oxford and author of “The Lost Voices of Pompeii.”

Tom Hiddleston is an actor and producer, and host of National Geographic’s “Pompeii: Out of Time with Tom Hiddleston.”

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri 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.

How do you piece together what life was like in Pompeii?

An outbreak of the foodborne illness cyclosporiasis has sent thousands of people running to the bathroom this summer. Health officials have linked the outbreak to lettuce served at Taco Bell locations in five states, but there are still a lot of unanswered questions. Food safety expert Byron Chaves joins Flora to talk about the “explosive” nature of the illness and why pinpointing a source of the parasite has been so difficult.

Guest:

Dr. Byron Chaves is an associate extension specialist and professor in the Department of Food Science at Rutgers University in New Jersey. 

Other episodes you may enjoy:

 How does a tick bite cause a red meat allergy?
 Use of herbicide linked to Parkinson’s is on the rise in the US

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri 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.

Hold the lettuce: Updates on the 'explosive' cyclospora outbreak

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is scheduled for an early launch at the end of August. It will rest about a million miles from Earth at Lagrange point 2, where forces of gravity and motion balance out, allowing it to orbit the sun in sync with the Earth. The Roman Telescope is designed to collect masses of data that could inform questions about dark energy, dark matter, and exoplanets. Jackie Townsend, project manager for the mission, joins Host Flora Lichtman to discuss the telescope’s backstory, and what scientists hope it will do.

Then, turning from deep space to deep oceans, Anthony Tarantino of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution joins Flora to describe the recent maintenance and recertification process for the famous Alvin deep-sea submersible. It’s more than an oil change: The process involves disassembling the vehicle down to the bare frame. 

Guests:

Jackie Townsend is project manager for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope mission. She’s based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. 

Anthony Tarantino is program manager for the Alvin Group at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Other episodes you may enjoy:

 Mars Rover, Move Over: Making A Rover To Explore The Deep Sea
 Listening for the cosmic ‘dark ages,’ from the lunar far side

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri 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.

A space telescope launch + Alvin submersible check-up

For two decades, a perplexing illness has been spreading: After a lone-star tick bite, people find themselves with a severe allergic reaction to red meat. The CDC estimates up to 450,000 people in the U.S. may be affected with alpha-gal syndrome, up from just a few dozen documented cases in 2009. New research finds that in some states, more than 30% of people are positive for alpha-gal antibodies—but not all of them have the syndrome.

Flora speaks with allergist Scott Commins, who has studied alpha-gal syndrome for nearly 20 years, to unpack this finding and next frontiers for treatment.

Guest:

Dr. Scott Commins is the William J. Yount Distinguished Professor of Medicine and associate chief for allergy and immunology at the UNC School of Medicine in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. 

Other episodes you may enjoy:

 Instead Of A Vaccine For Lyme, How About A Vaccine For Ticks?
 Why Don’t We Have A Vaccine For Lyme Disease?

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri 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.

How does a tick bite cause a red meat allergy?

One of the most irresistible questions in sci-fi stories about aliens is what our reaction will be when we learn of their existence. Horror? Bewilderment? Relief? Euphoria? It’s a scenario we love to imagine again and again, like in Steven Spielberg’s recent movie, “Disclosure Day.”

But how would humanity react if we learned of intelligent aliens? Can you actually study that? It turns out there’s a whole lab inside SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, that is thinking about what the public response might be and how to prepare for it.

Host Ira Flatow sits down with astronomer Lucian Walkowicz and philosopher-ethicist Chelsea Haramia, co-directors SETI’s Discovery and Futures Lab, to talk about the research that’s been done to answer these questions.

Guests:

Dr. Lucian Walkowicz is an astronomer and science advisory board member at SETI.

Dr. Chelsea Haramia is a senior research fellow at the University of Bonn in Germany, and a philosopher-ethicist at SETI.

Other episodes you may enjoy:

 How Close Are We To Answers About Aliens?
 The Human Obsession With Aliens Goes Way, Way Back

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri 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.

What will our reaction be when we discover aliens?

It all started harmlessly enough: People bought kits to grow mushrooms at home. But then, scientists in the upper Midwest noticed something strange. The golden oyster mushroom, which is not native to the United States, was thriving in local forests. Those homegrown mushrooms escaped our basements into the wild. Fungal ecologist Aishwarya Veerabahu joins Host Ira Flatow to discuss what impact these invasive mushrooms might have on the ecosystem.

Plus, nightshade expert Sandra Knapp describes the evolution of the potato plant, and how a lucky crossbreeding millions of years ago may have given rise to the starchy tubers we eat today.

Guests:
Aishwarya Veerabahu is a fungal ecologist and PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Dr. Sandra Knapp is a Merit Researcher at the Natural History Museum in London.

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri 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.

A Delicious But Invasive Mushroom Could Affect Fungal Diversity

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