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Last year, 9,000 deceased donor kidneys were discarded due to storage and time limitations. A kidney “life support” machine could change that. Also, the SS United States will join Florida’s 4,300 artificial reefs—human-made places for fish and other marine life to live. How do these reefs work?The Effort To Save Thousands Of Donor Kidneys From Being WastedSylvia Miles was diagnosed with lupus in 2006, a chronic autoimmune disease that causes the body’s immune system to attack healthy tissue—including her kidneys.Miles, who lives in Indianapolis, was later diagnosed with advanced kidney disease, and was in need of a kidney transplant.Kidney diseases are one of the leading causes of death in the United States with 37 million people living with chronic kidney disease. Together with advanced kidney disease—the later stage of CKD—it cost Medicare billions of dollars in recent years.People like Miles, who need a kidney transplant, wait an average of five years—often on dialysis.But despite the long waitlists and organ shortages, around 9,000 kidneys from deceased donors last year were discarded due to perceived issues with their viability. A new Indiana-based organization, 34 Lives, is working to limit that waste and rehabilitate the organs.Read the rest of this article on sciencefriday.com.Ocean Liner SS United States Will Become An Artificial ReefThis week, after a notable career, the SS United States, a 1950s ocean liner, took her sunset cruise. Like many retirees, the ship is heading south—from Philadelphia to Florida—where she’ll be reinventing herself. In this next chapter, the SS United States will have new passengers: fish and other marine creatures. The ship will be sunk to the bottom of the sea and turned into an artificial reef, joining more than 4,300 artificial reefs off the coast of Florida.Other sunken ships have become artificial reefs in the past, which have helped boost marine life as well as scuba diving and fishing tourism. Host Flora Lichtman speaks with Scott Jackson, a regional specialized agent with the Florida Sea Grant and University of Florida IFAS extension, about the science behind artificial reefs, and what has been learned from decades of research.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.

A journalist traveled to five continents to learn about the afterlife of our trash, and why most “recyclable” plastic actually isn’t.Have you ever gotten to the end of, say, a jar of peanut butter and wondered if it should go in trash or recycling? If it’s worth rinsing out? And where will it actually end up?Journalist Alexander Clapp had those same questions, and went to great lengths to answer them—visiting five continents to chronicle how our trash travels. Along the way, he discovered a multibillion dollar trash trade run by shady waste brokers, and a global industry powered by slimy spoons, crinkled plastic bags, and all the other stuff we throw away. It’s a putrid business that we’re a part of, and many of us know little about.Host Flora Lichtman speaks with Clapp about the garbage business and his new book Waste Wars: The Wild Afterlife Of Your Trash.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.

A study finds that Peto’s Paradox, which states that larger animals are no more likely to get cancer than smaller ones, may not hold up. Also, a nearly complete predator skull was found in the Egyptian desert. Its lineage indicates that it was a top carnivore of the age.What Does An Animal’s Size Have To Do With Its Cancer Risk?If you throw a huge party, there’s more of a chance of problems than if you host a quiet get-together for a couple of friends. The logic is simple: Having more people around means more opportunities for chaos. Similarly, it would seem to make sense that in animals, a bigger species with more cells might have a greater chance of something going wrong with one of those cells, including mutations leading to cancer.Back in 1977, a British epidemiologist named Richard Peto observed that that didn’t seem to be true. Bigger animals didn’t seem to have a greater risk of cancer than smaller ones. That became known as Peto’s Paradox, and has been a topic of debate among cancer biologists ever since.Research published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences takes a new look at Peto’s Paradox using an unusual set of data—death reports from zoos around the world. Dr. Sarah Amend of Johns Hopkins Medical School joins Host Flora Lichtman to explain why, in their findings, Peto’s Paradox doesn’t seem to hold up—and what studying animal cancer rates could teach scientists about improving human health.Meet Bastetodon, A 30 Million-Year-Old Apex PredatorOnce upon a time, some 30 million years ago, what is now Egypt’s Western Desert was a lush forest. Humans had not evolved yet, the nearest relatives being monkey-like creatures. And through those forests stalked Bastetodon syrtos, a newly described apex predator from an extinct lineage known as the Hyaenodonts—one of the top carnivores of the age.Researchers recently discovered a nearly complete skull of the creature. They reported on the find in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. Host Flora Lichtman talks with Shorouq Al-Ashqar of the Mansoura University Vertebrate Paleontology Center about the discovery, and the picture it helps paint of ancient life.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.