WNYC

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Channel • 21 Shows

Life Sciences

Life Sciences

Updated twice weekly
Documentary

Documentary

Updated weekly
History

History

Series
Documentary

Documentary

Updated 28/03/2025
History

History

Series
Visual Arts

Visual Arts

Updated 09/08/2017
Comedy Interviews

Comedy Interviews

Updated 23/10/2019

4 DAYS AGO

Why Worry About My Data If I Have Nothing To Hide?

As ICE cracks down in Minneapolis and across the country, reporters and privacy advocates have drawn attention to how the agency is using technology: scanning people’s faces without consent, using private health records to make arrests, tracking people’s location in real time with phone data. So how does all this work? How does the United States’ data ecosystem make it possible for not just ICE, but any number of government agencies and businesses to buy our private data? And what actually happens after we send that DM or open up Instagram at a protest to post a picture? To learn more, Host Flora Lichtman sits down with law professor and tech policy expert Laura Moy. She’s 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. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

4 days ago

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16 min
5 DAYS AGO

Should Ultraprocessed Foods Be Off The Menu?

The new dietary guidelines from the USDA call for Americans to “eat real food” and consume less “highly processed” food. But how? By some estimates, ultraprocessed foods make up nearly 60% of the average American adult diet, and they’re all over school lunch menus. Health policy expert Laura Schmidt and nutrition policy researcher Alyssa Moran join Host Flora Lichtman to talk about ultraprocessed foods and our food supply. What might they be doing to our health, and what steps could policymakers take to help Americans eat less of them? Guests: Dr. Laura Schmidt is a professor at the Institute for Health Policy Studies at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Alyssa Moran is deputy director of the Center for Food and Nutrition Policy at the University of Pennsylvania Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

5 days ago

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30 min
28 JAN

How China Is Driving Down Electricity Costs With Renewables

In a speech last week in a speech at the World Economic Forum, President Trump said China was making a lot of wind turbines, but not using much wind power in their own country. Is that right? China studies professor Jeremy Wallace joins Host Ira Flatow to talk about the renewable energy landscape in China. They’ll dig into how China is flooding the world with affordable solar technology, making it the cheapest form of electricity in history. Plus, what energy tech China is manufacturing, what it's using domestically, and what it's exporting. Guest: Dr. Jeremy Wallace is the A. Doak Barnett Professor of China Studies at Johns Hopkins University Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

28 Jan

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13 min
26 JAN

How A Mutation Made This Year’s Flu Season So Bad

A rogue strain of flu, subclade K, has sickened more than 19 million people in the US so far this season. And the flu shot hasn’t offered that much protection. What’s going on with this superflustorm? Joining Host Flora Lichtman with some answers is Jennifer Duchon, a pediatric infectious disease specialist. Guest: Dr. Jennifer Duchon is a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

26 Jan

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12 min
28/03/2025

Julia Longoria Presents Good Robot

Hello Experiment listeners! Julia Longoria, host of The Experiment, has a new series out and we thought you'd want to know about it! It's a 4-part series about AI called Good Robot, that you can find in Vox's Unexplainable feed. Please subscribe!

28/03/2025

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4 min
28/11/2024

A Horn Of Potato Plenty | Adding Marbling To Fake Meat For An Extra-Realistic Bite

Just in time for Thanksgiving, a potato researcher explains potato varieties, potato nutrition, and some tubular tuber facts. And, irregular, fatty marbling gives meat a unique texture. Recreating that in plant-based products isn’t easy. A Horn Of Potato PlentyThe potato is a versatile vegetable—baked, roasted, fried, mashed—it can bring something to just about any menu. But, how exactly do these tasty tubers end up on our tables? We’ll give you a crash course in potato science, including how potatoes are grown (hint: not from seeds!) and what scientists look for when they develop new potato varieties. SciFri producer Kathleen Davis talks with Dr. Rhett Spear, assistant professor in the Plant Sciences Department at the University of Idaho. Adding Marbling To Fake Meat For That Extra-Realistic BitePlant-based meat products have evolved over the past few decades. You can find them in many forms, like sausages, deli meats, and faux chicken nuggets. During the holiday season, no plant-based meat is more famous than the Tofurky Roast, a round imitation turkey. Despite improvements in flavor for plant-based meat products, there are still lots of challenges to getting fake meats to mimic their real counterparts. One tough one is textural: instilling a marbling effect. This is the effect of irregular fat deposits, which occur naturally in animal meat. Plant-based meat has a uniform texture by design. Because each product is processed to be a certain way, the randomness and irregularity of fat pockets is taken out of the equation. But some food scientists are working on adding more of this meaty texture to plant-based meat. Joining guest host Kathleen Davis to discuss the challenges and possibilities for the next stage of plant-based meat is Dr. David Julian McClements, distinguished professor in food science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. 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.

28/11/2024

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19 min
14 JAN

Secrets Of Ancient Concrete, And... Data Centers In Space?

The concrete of ancient Rome is famous for its durability. Just look at the Pantheon and those iconic aqueducts that helped transport water throughout the empire—still standing 2,000 years later. But knowledge about how this concrete was made hasn’t been very solid. Well, scientists have discovered a construction site in Pompeii preserved in the volcanic ash, which might hold clues to how we can improve our concrete today. Concrete researcher Admir Masic joins Host Ira Flatow to discuss the findings. Plus, we’ll look at the infrastructure of the future with engineer Benjamin Lee, who breaks down the recent news of tech companies looking to move their power-hungry data centers to space. They discuss the daunting engineering challenges and possible benefits. Guests: Dr. Admir Masic is an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Dr. Benjamin Lee is a professor in the department of electrical and systems engineering and the department of computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

14 Jan

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18 min
20/11/2024

Bacteriophages Lurk In Your Bathroom, But Don’t Worry

It sounds like something from an advertisement for bathroom cleaner: Researchers found over 600 different viruses, most of which are new to science, in samples taken from showerheads and toothbrushes. The viruses, however, are unlikely to affect humans. They are bacteriophages, a type of virus that preys on bacteria. The expedition into bathroom biodiversity was recently published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiomes. Around a hundred years ago in the former Soviet Union, there were major efforts to develop bacteriophages for medical use. The approach really didn’t catch on in Western countries, overshadowed there by the rise of conventional antibiotics like penicillin. But with some diseases developing resistance to those conventional antibiotics, there’s been increased interest in phages as part of an antibacterial toolkit. Dr. Erica Hartmann, an associate professor in the department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at Northwestern University, joins Ira to talk about what researchers found when they took a close look at a collection of bathroom samples, and how phage research has advanced in recent years. 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.

20/11/2024

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18 min
19/11/2024

Managing Invasive Plants And Ticks Together | Clue Into The Evolution Of The Bird Brain

Researchers are connecting two ecological problems in the Northeast in hopes of reducing the risk of tick-borne illnesses. Also, a “one-of-a-kind” fossil of Navaornis hestiae helps fill a giant gap in scientists’ understanding of how bird brains evolved. Managing Some Invasive Plants Might Reduce Blacklegged TicksIn much of the eastern US, October and November usher in an autumn peak of the blacklegged tick season. For years, researchers have noticed that these ticks, also called deer ticks, are more abundant on certain invasive plant species, like Japanese barberry, that create dense thickets in the forest understory. Now, a group of scientists in Vermont and Maine is investigating how managing these plants might decrease the number of blacklegged ticks—and the risk of people developing tick-borne illnesses, like Lyme disease and Babesiosis. After getting a $1.8 million grant from the National Science Foundation, they’re hoping to come up with guidance for landowners. Read the rest at sciencefriday.com. Ancient Bird Fossil Offers Clues Into How Bird Brains EvolvedArchaeopteryx is the earliest bird-like dinosaur that we know of. It lived 150 million years ago, but researchers don’t know much about how the bird brain evolved from then to now. An 80 million-year-old bird from the Mesozoic Era is now helping fill in the blanks. It’s called Navaornis hestiae. Researchers uncovered a fossil of this species, which was previously unknown to science, in Brazil in 2016. That specimen has a remarkably well-preserved skull, which a team of paleontologists used to digitally reconstruct the bird’s brain. The researchers recently reported their findings in the journal Nature. Ira talks with a lead author of the study, Dr. Luis Chiappe, a paleontologist and curator at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County in California. 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.

19/11/2024

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18 min
10/05/2016

Shequoia

This one's dedicated to all the casting directors out there. Phoebe Robinson and Jessica Williams are not your black BFFs, nor do they eat chicken in public. Plus: Julian McCullough (Chelsea Lately) almost loses an arm, Janeane Garofalo (Broad City) says yes to life and Greg Behrendt (He's Just Not That Into You) yells. Get tickets to our next live show on WNYC.org/2dopequeens --- Guest Comedians: Julian McCullough (@julezmac)Janeane Garofalo Greg Behrendt (@gregorybehrendt) --- Support our work. Become a 2 Dope Queens member today at 2dopequeens.org/donate. --- About the podcast: Join the 2 Dope Queens, Phoebe Robinson and Jessica Williams, along with their favorite comedians, for stories about sex, romance, race, hair journeys, living in New York, and Billy Joel. Plus a whole bunch of other s**t. New episodes every Tuesday. Produced by WNYC Studios www.wnycstudios.org --- Follow 2 Dope Queens on Twitter: @2DopeQueensFollow 2 Dope Queens on Instagram: @2DopeQueensLike 2 Dope Queens on Facebook: www.facebook.com/2DopeQueensFollow 2 Dope Queens on Tumblr: www.2dopequeens.tumblr.com Get tickets to our next live show on WNYC.org/2dopequeens

10/05/2016

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42 min

WNYC is New York's public radio podcast home, producing award-winning shows like Radiolab, On the Media, The New Yorker Radio Hour, Science Friday, and more. Our podcasts bring groundbreaking journalism, unforgettable storytelling, and essential conversations to millions of listeners across the city and around the world.