Science Friday Folgen

The first complete draft of the human genome was published back in 2003. Since then, researchers have worked both to improve the accuracy of human genetic data, and to expand its diversity, looking at the genetics of people from many different backgrounds. Three genetics experts join Host Ira Flatow to talk about a recent close examination of the genomes of 65 individuals from around the world, and how it may help researchers get a better understanding of genomic functioning and diversity.Guests:Dr. Christine Beck is an associate professor of genetics and genome sciences in the University of Connecticut Health Center and the Jackson Laboratory.Dr. Glennis Logsdon is an assistant professor of genetics and a core member of the Epigenetics Institute at the University of Pennsylvania.Dr. Adam Philippy is a Senior Investigator in the Center for Genomics and Data Science Research at the National Human Genome Research Institute at the NIH.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.

For almost their entire 4.5 billion-year existence, Earth and its moon have been galactic neighbors. And the moon isn’t just Earth’s tiny sidekick—their relationship is more like that of siblings, and they’re even cut from similar cosmic cloth.Without the moon, Earth and its inhabitants wouldn’t be what they are today: The climate would be more extreme, lunar tides wouldn’t have given rise to life on Earth, biological rhythms would be off-beat, and even timekeeping and religion would have evolved differently. The new book Our Moon: How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed The Planet, Guided Evolution, And Made Us Who We Are explores how our existence is tied to the moon’s.Ira Flatow and guest host Sophie Bushwick chat with journalist and author Rebecca Boyle about how the moon came to be, how it transformed life on Earth, and how our relationship with it is changing.Guest: Rebecca Boyle is a journalist and author of Our Moon: How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed The Planet, Guided Evolution, And Made Us Who We Are. She’s based in Colorado Springs, Colorado.Transcript available at sciencefriday.com.  Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

This week the Trump administration indicated that it would seek to roll back a key EPA finding that allows the agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from things like cars and power plants. The 16-year-old rule, known as the “endangerment finding,” states that six greenhouse gases pose a threat to human health. Sophie Bushwick, news editor at New Scientist, joins Host Ira Flatow to discuss the proposed change, along with news about exoplanet life, Russian drones, rust-based batteries, hexagonal diamonds, quantum entanglement, and extra-old honey.Plus, a robot performed surgery by itself for the first time, on a pig cadaver. Medical roboticist Axel Krieger joins Ira to discuss how he was able to train the surgical robot.Guests:Sophie Bushwick is senior news editor at New Scientist in New York.Dr. Axel Krieger is an associate professor in the department of mechanical engineering 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.