Science Friday Folgen

Medicine Is Failing Disabled Patients. Meet The Doctors Pushing For Change “More than sixty-one million Americans have disabilities, and increasing evidence documents that they experience health care disparities.” That’s the conclusion of a series of studies, in which researchers pulled back the curtain on how doctors perceive disabled patients. A study from last year found that more than half of surveyed physicians do not feel fully confident that they can provide disabled and non-disabled patients the same level of care. And in another paper, some doctors went as far to say that if you have a disability then “I am not the doctor for you.” So how do we change that? Ira talks with two researchers, who are disabled themselves, about how the medical field needs to better serve the disabled community. He hears from Dr. Lisa Iezzoni, an author on those studies and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, who is based at the Health Policy Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Also joining Science Friday is Dr. Feranmi Okanlami, a physician and assistant professor at the University of Michigan Medical School, based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. To Stop Whale Strikes, Ships Were Asked to Slow Down. It Worked. The Santa Barbara Channel is like an underwater national park with marine mammals, seabirds, fish and even shipwrecks. Ocean currents from the north and south meet and mix here to create an ideal feeding grounds for marine life. “Just the other day I was flying over the channel and we counted over 40 humpback whales in a rather small region feeding on fish,” said Sean Hastings, the Policy Management and Information Officer for the Channel Islands Marine Sanctuary—part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA. We met at the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum, close to his office, and sat in the museum’s library which is filled with books that are different shades of blues and greens—the colors you’d expect books about the ocean to be. Hastings continues his story about a recent flight over the channel spotting all those whales. To read the rest, visit sciencefriday.com.   How The Transistor Transformed The World 75 years ago this month, research scientists working at Bell Labs first created, then unveiled to the world a new device—the point contact transistor. Some call it the greatest invention of the 20th century. That first transistor was a clunky looking thing, with two gold contacts on a plastic wedge pressed against a crystal of germanium. But that early device had a magical property: A voltage in one part of the device could control the flow of electrons in another part of the transistor. It could be a switch, or an amplifier. That device and the ones that followed and improved on it would become an essential part of modern life. From the first transistor radios to modern computers, hearing aids, and more, transistors are everywhere, in great numbers. An ordinary cell phone today likely has billions of transistors in it. In fact, the transistor has become so ubiquitous that one estimate puts the number of transistors on the planet as about three million per square foot. The three researchers credited with the invention of the transistor, William Shockley, John Bardeen, and Walter Brattain, went on to share the Nobel Prize in Physics—but they saw limited financial gain from their creation, and had a rocky personal relationship. Michael Riordan, a physicist, science historian, and coauthor of “Crystal Fire: The Invention of the Transistor and the Birth of the Information Age,” joins Ira to look back on the invention, the scientists who got credit for the device, and where transistor technology has gone since 1947. Transcripts for each segment will be available the week 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.

The Science Behind The Psychedelics Boom There’s been an explosion of new research into therapeutic uses for psychedelics. This includes drugs like psilocybin, the hallucinogenic chemical found in “magic mushrooms,” and ketamine—which was originally used as an anesthetic, and later became a popular party drug also known as “special K.” Esketamine, a form of ketamine, was approved by the FDA in 2019 for use in treatment resistant depression. And just last month Colorado residents voted to legalize medicinal use of psilocybin. Following on the heels of Oregon’s legalization in 2020, which is now in the process of being implemented. A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed promising results in using psilocybin to help patients with treatment-resistant depression. About a third of those who received the highest dose were in remission 3 weeks later. This was the largest look at psilocybin’s effect on depression to date, involving 233 participants across ten countries in Europe. Ira talks with Dr. Steve Levine, senior vice president of patient access and medical affairs at COMPASS Pathways, the company that funded the study. Later, Ira takes a closer look into the latest psychedelic research and takes listener calls with Dr. Gerard Sanacora, professor of psychiatry and director of the Yale Depression Research Program at the Yale School of Medicine, and Dr. Alissa Bazinet, Clinical Psychologist, Co-Founder and Director of Research and Development at the Sequoia Center, and Associate Director of the Social Neuroscience and Psychotherapy Lab at Oregon Health and Science University.     How Will AI Image Generators Affect Artists? Back in August, controversy erupted around the winning submission of the Colorado State Fair’s art content. The winning painting wasn’t made by a human, but by an artificial intelligence app called Midjourney, which takes text prompts and turns them into striking imagery, with the help of a neural network and an enormous database of images. AI-based text-to-image generators have been around for years, but their outputs were rudimentary and rough. The State Fair work showed this technology had taken a giant leap forward in its sophistication. Realistic, near-instant image generation was suddenly here—and reactions were just as potent as their creations. Tech enthusiasts lauded the achievement, while artists were largely concerned and critical. If anyone could make a painting in just a few seconds, why would someone need to commission an artist to produce an illustration, or even bother spending years learning art at all? Read the rest on sciencefriday.com. Transcripts for each segment will be available the week 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.

Wish A Happy 190th Birthday To Jonathan The Tortoise A birthday should always be celebrated. For Jonathan the tortoise, who turned 190 this week, that celebration involved a salad cake and a three-day party. Jonathan is the oldest known living animal, hatched in 1832. Jonathan, who calls the island of St. Helena home, may be blind and unable to smell, but he maintains a good quality of life and even continues to mate with his companions. Jonathan’s ripe old age surpasses the typical tortoise life expectancy of 150 years. In other “old” news, scientists have found fragments of DNA one million years older than the previous record: making these samples two million years old. The fragments were found in Ice Age sediment in Northern Greenland, and are from a time where the climate was much warmer than it is now. Vox staff writer Umair Irfan joins Ira to talk about these and other science stories of the week, including an end to the monoclonal antibodies we have for COVID and the FDA’s first approval of fecal transplant therapy.   The Joy And Sadness Of Bird Counting The state of the birds is not looking good. That’s the conclusion from a new report that looks at decades of community-collected population data from surveys like the annual Christmas Bird Count and the Breeding Bird Survey. Species that inhabit grasslands seem to fare the worst, with their populations down over 30 percent in the last 50 years. Meanwhile, dozens of newly identified “tipping point” species have lost 50 percent of their populations in the same time, and are poised to lose the same proportion in the coming half century. Dr. Amanda Rodewald of Cornell University’s Lab of Ornithology helps unpack the report’s key findings, including the good news: Decades of cooperative efforts to protect waterfowl have paid off in thriving duck populations. Rodewald explains what this can tell us about reversing declines in other habitats. Plus, birder and science writer Ryan Mandelbaum joins Ira and listeners to talk about the joys of winter birding, the upcoming Christmas Bird Count, and the feathery sightings that brighten our lives.   Transcripts for each segment will be available the week 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.