Footage Shows How Narwhals Use Tusks To Hunt And Play
We’re taking a polar plunge into the science of sea unicorns, also known as narwhals!Narwhals are mysterious arctic whales with long, twirly tusks protruding from their foreheads, like a creature out of a fairy tale. And it turns out that we don’t know too much about them, partly because they live so far north in the remote Arctic.An international team of researchers used drones to observe narwhals in the wild and learned new things about their behavior, including how they use their tusks to hunt and play.Host Flora Lichtman gets on the horn with Dr. Gregory O’Corry-Crowe, research professor and biologist at Florida Atlantic University, who was an author on the new narwhal study, published last month in Frontiers in Marine Science.Guest: Dr. Greg O’Corry-Crowe is a research professor at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida.Transcripts for each episode are available at sciencefriday.com.
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The Science Of Replacing Body Parts, From Hair To Hearts
It seems like every week, there’s a new headline about some kind of sci-fi-esque organ transplant. Think eyeballs, 3D-printed kidneys, pig hearts.In her new book, Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy, science writer Mary Roach chronicles the effort to fabricate human body parts—and where that effort sometimes breaks down. Host Flora Lichtman speaks with Roach about everything from hair transplants to 3D-printed hearts, and why our anatomy is so hard to replicate in the first place.Guest: Mary Roach is a science writer and the author of Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy.Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.
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Moth Survival Strategies And A Rodent Thumbnail Mystery
If you’re a moth trying to stay uneaten, there are competing strategies. Some moths rely on camouflage, trying to blend in. Other moths take the opposite approach: They’re bold and bright, with colors that say “don’t eat me, I’m poison.” Biologist Iliana Medina joins Host Flora Lichtman to describe a study that placed some 15,000 origami moths in forests around the world to investigate which strategy might work best. Then, mammologist Anderson Feijó and evolutionary biologist Rafaela Missagia join Flora to dive into another evolutionary conundrum: why so many rodents have thumbnails. Guests: Dr. Iliana Medina Guzman is a Senior Lecturer in the School of BioSciences at the University of Melbourne in Australia.Dr. Anderson Feijó is a mammal curator at the Field Museum in Chicago. Dr. Rafaela Missagia is an assistant professor at the University of São Paulo in Brazil.Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.
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As The CDC Falters, How Do We Fill Public Health Gaps?
Our country’s public health system is ailing. With layoffs and leadership changes at the CDC, changing vaccine guidelines, a government shutdown, and declining public trust—where do we go from here? Can state and local public health agencies pick up the slack? Are there other solutions?Host Flora Lichtman talks with former CDC director Tom Frieden to put these questions into perspective.Guest: Dr. Tom Frieden is a former CDC director, president and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives, and author of The Formula for Better Health: How to Save Millions of Lives—Including Your Own.Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.
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Remembering Primatologist Jane Goodall
Jane Goodall, renowned primatologist, conservationist, and humanitarian, died on October 1 at the age of 91. Goodall was born in London in 1934, and her curiosity about the natural world led her to the forests of Gombe, Tanzania, where she made groundbreaking observations of chimpanzee behavior, including tool use. Her research challenged the accepted scientific perceptions of our closest relatives.Host Ira Flatow shares his memories of Dr. Goodall, including an interview from 2002 in which she discussed her life and work.Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.
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