Science Friday Folgen

If you’ve ever seen a cute cow video on social media, you might notice they seem to have a lot in common with dogs. They can wag their tails, they love to gobble down tasty treats, and if you’re lucky, they might flop over for a nice belly or neck scratch.Cows are clearly emotional animals, but how smart are they exactly? That’s the question that neuroscientist and author Dr. Gregory Berns had when he and his wife moved from Atlanta to the Georgia countryside in 2020, and started raising cows of their own. And to better understand them, he applied his years of experience researching the brains of animals, like dogs and dolphins.He joins guest host Sophie Bushwick to talk about his new book, Cowpuppy: An Unexpected Friendship And A Scientist’s Journey Into The Secret World Of Cows.Read an excerpt of Cowpuppy: An Unexpected Friendship And A Scientist’s Journey Into The Secret World Of Cows.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.

Shark fishing is alive and well, but the fishermen who do it are increasingly prioritizing conservation. And, an unknown ant was spotted in Manhattan in 2011, and it quickly spread through New York City. We now know what it is.Fishing For—And Saving—Sharks off the Jersey ShoreAt an undisclosed beach at 5:30 p.m. in New Jersey, shark fisherman AJ Rotondella and two clients wait for beachgoers to leave. Once the beach is empty, Rotondella cuts up some chunks of fish as bait, and casts lines into the water.“I shark fish, shark fish, shark fish, eat pizza, and shark fish … that’s pretty much it,” Rotondella said. “Waking up in the morning … wide open ocean, anything could be anywhere at any time. And I think that’s fascinating. No matter how long you’ve done this, you’ve never seen it all.”He has always loved fishing, and got into shark fishing 13 years ago, when his brother told him they could catch sharks from the beach. They caught two on their first day and could not catch another shark for the rest of the year.“That really got me interested because I knew it was possible, but I couldn’t do it again,” he said. “I … absolutely obsessed over this.”But Rotondella had a steep learning curve ahead of him. By trial and error, sometimes staying on a beach for multiple days, he learned how to read the tides, water temperatures, currents, and even phases of the moon to figure out how to track the sharks.Read the full story at sciencefriday.com.Scientists Identify The ‘ManhattAnt’ Spreading Across NYCNew York City is home to more than 8 million people. But there’s another massive population below their feet: ants.In 2011, when surveying ant populations on Broadway and Times Square, researchers got quite a surprise: an unidentified species of ant, which was soon dubbed the “ManhattAnt.” Since then, it has become the second-most populous ant species in New York City.Earlier this year, the first study on this unidentified species was released. It concluded that this species, Lasius emarginatus, likely hitchhiked from Europe to the US. Though their populations have grown tremendously, it’s unclear how the ants are interacting with New York’s native ants.Joining guest host Sophie Bushwick to discuss this ant species is Dr. Clint Penick, assistant professor of insect ecology at Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama.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.

You might be familiar with a gigabyte, one of the most popular units of measure for computer storage. A two-hour movie is 3 gigabytes on average, while your phone can probably store 256 gigabytes.But did you know that your body also stores information in its own way?We see this in DNA, which has the instructions needed for an organism to develop, survive, and reproduce. In computing storage terms, each cell of our body contains about 1.5 gigabytes worth of data. And with about 30 trillion cells in our bodies, we could theoretically store about 45 trillion gigabytes—also known as 45 zettabytes—which is equivalent to about one fourth of all the data in the world today.Recently, a group of researchers was able to develop a technology that allows computer storage and processing using DNA’s ability to store information by turning genetic code into binary code. This technology could have a major impact on the way we do computing and digital storage.To explain more about this technology, SciFri guest host Sophie Bushwick is joined by two professors from North Carolina State University’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Dr. Albert Keung and Dr. Orlin Velev.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.