Science Friday Folgen

FDA Approves COVID Vaccines For Kids Under Five Parents of young kids may finally breathe a big sigh of relief. On Friday the FDA granted emergency use authorization for COVID-19 vaccines for kids under the age of five. The agency approved a two-dose regimen from biotech firm Moderna and three-dose regimen from Pfizer. Small children could begin getting vaccinated as early as next week. Umair Irfan, staff writer at Vox, joins Ira to talk about COVID vaccines for little kids, the largest forest fire in New Mexico’s history and a Google engineer who claims an AI chatbot is sentient and more.     What Would Happen To IVF If Roe V. Wade Is Overturned? An overturn of Roe v. Wade could have rippling effects far beyond access to abortions. Some state laws designed to ban or severely restrict abortion could also disrupt the process of fertilizing, implanting, and freezing embryos used in in vitro fertilization. That’s because some of these laws include language about life beginning at conception, raising questions about in vitro fertilization’s (IVF) legality. Roughly 2% of all infants in the United States are born following the use of some form of artificial reproductive technology. While that figure might seem small, it’s nearly double what it was just a decade ago. Ira talks with Stephanie Boys, associate professor of social work and adjunct professor of law at Indiana University, about the legal implications of an overturn of Roe v. Wade on IVF treatment. Later, Ira also interviews Dr. Marcelle Cedars, director of the division of reproductive endocrinology at UC San Francisco and president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, about the science behind IVF and what people often get wrong about when and how life begins.   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.

Americans’ Knowledge Of Reproductive Health Is Limited As the nation awaits a momentous Supreme Court decision that could overturn or severely limit the 1973 Roe V. Wade opinion on abortion, a new poll released by the Kaiser Family Foundation found serious gaps in Americans’ understanding of certain scientific aspects of reproductive health. For instance, the poll found that while medication abortion now accounts for more than half of all abortions in the U.S., fewer than three in ten U.S. adults (27%) say they have heard of the medication abortion pill known as mifepristone—though that number is up slightly from a 2019 poll, which found that 21% of adults had heard of the medication. And even among those who had heard of it, poll respondents were unsure over when and how it was used, or how to obtain the drug. Rachel Feltman, executive editor at Popular Science, joins John Dankosky to talk about the poll findings and other stories from the week in science—including an experimental drug for rectal cancer, an ancient jawbone of a polar bear, an EU ruling regarding charging ports for electronic devices, and a micrometeorite ding on the shiny mirror of the recently-launched JWST.   Some Doctors Want To Change How Race Is Used In Medicine Several months ago, a lab technologist at Barnes-Jewish Hospital mixed the blood components of two people: Alphonso Harried, who needed a kidney, and Pat Holterman-Hommes, who hoped to give him one. The goal was to see whether Harried’s body would instantly see Holterman-Hommes’ organ as a major threat and attack it before surgeons could finish a transplant. To do that, the technologist mixed in fluorescent tags that would glow if Harried’s immune defense forces would latch onto the donor’s cells in preparation for an attack. If, after a few hours, the machine found lots of glowing, it meant the kidney transplant would be doomed. It stayed dark: They were a match.“I was floored,” said Harried. Both recipient and donor were a little surprised. Harried is Black. Holterman-Hommes is white. Could a white person donate a kidney to a Black person? Would race get in the way of their plans? Both families admitted those kinds of questions were flitting around in their heads, even though they know, deep down, that “it’s more about your blood type—and all of our blood is red,” as Holterman-Hommes put it. Read more at sciencefriday.com.   How A $2 Billion U.S. Plan To Save Salmon In The Northwest Is Failing CARSON, Wash.—The fish were on their way to be executed. One minute, they were swimming around a concrete pond. The next, they were being dumped onto a stainless steel table set on an incline. Hook-nosed and wide-eyed, they thrashed and thumped their way down the table toward an air-powered guillotine. Hoses hanging from steel girders flushed blood through the grated metal floor. Hatchery workers in splattered chest waders gutted globs of bright orange eggs from the dead females and dropped them into buckets, then doused them first with a stream of sperm taken from the dead males and then with an iodine disinfectant. The fertilized eggs were trucked around the corner to an incubation building where over 200 stacked plastic trays held more than a million salmon eggs. Once hatched, they would fatten and mature in rectangular concrete tanks sunk into the ground, safe from the perils of the wild, until it was time to make their journey to the ocean.   Read more at sciencefriday.com.   How A Facebook Group Helps People Identify Mysterious Mushrooms Mushroom season has begun. A wide variety of fungi are sprouting up in forests and yards, especially after a heavy rainstorm. While wild mushrooms are generally safe to touch, eating mysterious fungi is a terrible idea. But, sometimes a child or a dog gobbles up an unknown species. In order to determine if it’s poisonous or not, you’ll need an expert opinion—quickly. That’s why Kerry Woodfield helped start a Facebook group to help people correctly identify poisonous mushrooms and plants. She recruited over 200 botanists and mycologists from all over the world to volunteer their time. In the past few years, the group has mushroomed to over 130,000 members. Guest host John Dankosky talks with Woodfield, co-founder of the Facebook group, Poisons Help; Emergency Identification For Mushrooms & Plants and foraging instructor at Wild Food UK. She discusses why she decided to start the group, its role within the poison control system, and how to talk to the kids in your life about poisonous plants and mushrooms.   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.

Are Invasive Jumping Worms Taking Over? Most gardeners are thrilled when they find earthworms tunneling through their gardens. Normally, they’re a sign of rich soil, happy plants, and a bustling ecosystem. But one unwanted visitor is squirming its way into gardens and forests all across the country: the invasive jumping worm, known for its thrashing, restless behavior. Gardeners and scientists have become more and more concerned with these worms, which can cause damage in yards and forests. They’re known for taking dense, healthy soil and churning it into a coffee ground-like mixture, which can lead to erosion and make it more challenging for plants to anchor themselves. But it turns out that most earthworms we find in the U.S. are already invasive, and the jumping worm is just the newest one to join the party. How different is this invasive worm from the ones we’re more familiar with? To learn more, guest host John Dankosky speaks with Bernie Williams, a plant pest and disease specialist at the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources based in Madison, Wisconsin. They talk about how to spot these worms, what kind of damage they inflict, and just how concerned we should be.   The Strange, Scrambled Genomes of Squid and Octopus Squids, octopuses, cuttlefishes, and other humble members of the cephalopod class of mollusks are many-armed (or tentacled) wizards. They change colors—despite being unable to see color themselves—to camouflage themselves. They squirt ink to escape danger. They have huge brains compared to their body sizes, which, in the case of octopuses, are distributed throughout their bodies. They can even edit their RNA to allow whole new kinds of chemistry in their bodies, potentially allowing them to adapt more quickly to changing environments. This year, SciFri continues the tradition of Cephalopod Week, celebrating the fancy tricks and ineffable strangeness of these animals. Cephalopod researchers Carrie Albertin and Z. Yan Wang talk to John Dankosky about the newest puzzles coming to light in cephalopod genomes, including genes never seen in any other animals. Plus, learn more about the dramatic, self-destructive process by which mother octopuses die after laying their eggs—powered, it seems, by steroids.   Plastic Surgery, Born In The Trenches The phrase “plastic surgery” may evoke different connotations for different people. For many, what’s conjured is a procedure done for cosmetic purposes, something likely not deemed medically necessary, and probably not covered by insurance. But the history of plastic surgery goes back to a time where facial reconstruction was often a matter of life and death. The practice got its start on the gritty, European battlefields of World War I, where surgeons and nurses had to learn fast to fix the often horrific facial injuries sustained in battle. For the men with these injuries, the innovative, often traumatic procedures were life-changing. No matter the reason, the decision to get plastic surgery is very personal, and reflects a desire to change something about one’s appearance. The World War I history of plastic surgery, and how it set the stage for today’s uses, is the subject of the new book The Facemaker, written by medical historian and author Lindsey Fitzharris. Lindsey joins guest host John Dankosky from Washington, D.C.   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.