Science Friday

The movie “Klara and the Sun,” in theaters now, is based on the 2021 novel of the same name by Kazuo Ishiguro. The story is set in the future and is narrated by Klara, a robotic “Artificial Friend,” whose job is to be a...

Have you ever wondered what it means for something to be bear resistant? How do manufacturers know that the cooler you take camping or the compost bin in your backyard will keep hungry bears out?  Wonder no more...

In 2020, Jennifer Doudna shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry for the development of the gene-editing technique CRISPR. Along with related techniques, it has become an essential tool in genetics, allowing specific...

In late September 2026, NASA announced that a new telescope called PRIMA was getting a green light and advancing to something called Phase B of the development process. But what does that mean exactly? How does a...

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is one of the most prominent voices in the climate movement. She’s a marine biologist by training, but as she saw the effects of the climate crisis intensify, she took on more public-facing...

In the new movie “Whalefall,” a scuba diver (Austin Abrams) gets accidentally swallowed by a sperm whale. What follows is a tense battle against time and the whale’s digestive system, to escape before his air supply...

With the midterms approaching, politicians are out in full force to convince voters to elect them. And that means that we’re hearing a lot of “politician speak.” You know it when you hear it: those folksy turns of...

An unwelcome visitor is arriving on beaches from West Africa to the Caribbean, and Brazil to Florida. It’s brown, it’s stinky, and it’s more abundant than ever: sargassum. This free-floating seaweed has become a major...

This year, October 13 marks Ada Lovelace Day , an observance that calls attention to the role of women in computing and technology. In this conversation from 2018 , Ira talks with Claire Evans, author of “Broad Band...

In the past few years, the idea of attachment styles has taken off, both online and in therapy offices. It’s gone from a niche psychological concept to a shorthand to describe how we show up in relationships. Here’s a...

A new mRNA flu vaccine made by Moderna was approved by the FDA in August, and is currently available for people aged 50 and over. The promise of an mRNA vaccine for flu is that it can be spun up more quickly than a...

A Kelvin wave has reached California and is creeping up the West Coast, raising both sea levels and concerns from government officials. This kind of massive internal wave begins in the western Pacific Ocean and then...

Cephalopods have a reputation for being smart and majestic. And while that may be true, the life of a cephalopod can also be dark and gritty. Have you heard of octopus death spirals? How about cephalopod...

It’s Nobel Prize week, and this year's prize in physics went to Francis Halzen “for decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin.” The...

On Science Friday, we love to talk about ideas, especially ideas that have the power to shape the future. But there are plenty of groundbreaking ideas that almost don’t make it out of the lab or the art studio: ideas...