Science Friday

Over 2,400 people have contracted measles in the United States so far this year, topping the total number of cases for 2025 in just seven months. At the same time, vaccination rates have been declining, and there’s a lot of conversation about what’s driving vaccine hesitancy and how to combat misinformation.

Elisabeth Marnik has lived in both worlds: She wasn't vaccinated as a kid because her parents were concerned that vaccines could do harm. In high school, she fell in love with science. She went to college, got vaccinated, and then earned a PhD in immunology. She joins Flora to talk about what people misunderstand vaccine hesitancy, and how she approaches science communication in today’s messy information ecosystem.

Guests:

Dr. Elisabeth Marnik is an immunologist and the executive director of The Evidence Collective.

Transcripts for each segment will be available the week after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.

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In a lab in the Rocky Mountains, a group of scientists is hard at work trying to find answers across biology, physics, and engineering: They’re looking into things like the hydrodynamics of insect pee and the physics of sheepdog herding, and working to designing robots that resemble squid and hearing aids that only cost a dollar.

These endeavors may seem unrelated, but they’re glued together by bioengineer Saad Bhamla’s philosophy of science driven by curiosity, and how to make the most of the lab’s time. He joins Host Flora Lichtman to talk about what led him to this approach.

Guest:

Dr. Saad Bhamla is an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

 

Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri and sign up for our newsletters. Got a science question that’s keeping you up at night? Call us: 877-472-4374

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Human childbirth is often difficult and incredibly painful—just ask anyone who’s been through it. And for a long time, childbirth seemed to be uniquely difficult for humans. But a new study suggests that we aren’t alone: Some small primates birth offspring whose heads are nearly twice the size of the mother’s pelvic area.  

So how do those primates go through difficult childbirths? Why didn’t evolution make ours any easier? And what can this tell us about humankind? Flora explores these questions and more with anthropologist Lia Betti.

Guest:

Dr. Lia Betti is an associate professor of anthropology at University College London in the UK.

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri and sign up for our newsletters. Got a science question that’s keeping you up at night? Call us: 877-472-4374

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Former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe, was the first Native person to hold a cabinet position. Now she’s running to be governor of New Mexico. 

Haaland joins Host Flora Lichtman to talk about her new memoir, “A Voice Like Mine,” her time at the Interior Department, and why she thinks lawsuits are a good thing when it comes to the environment. 

Read an excerpt from “A Voice Like Mine.”

Guest:

Deb Haaland served as Secretary of the Interior under President Biden. She is a member of Laguna Pueblo tribe and lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri and sign up for our newsletters. Got a science question that’s keeping you up at night? Call us: 877-472-4374

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Keeping your butt in a seat for hours a day increases the risk of heart attacks, diabetes, psychiatric conditions, and more. But in our tech-filled world, many of us lead sedentary lives, whether because of school, work, or leisure. Researchers set up an experiment to see how much movement would make a difference for people who spend their days at a desk—and 23,000 people signed up.

Joining Flora to tell us what they found is tech journalist Manoush Zomorodi, author of “Body Electric: The Hidden Health Costs of the Digital Age and New Science to Reclaim Your Well-Being.”

Read an excerpt of “Body Electric.”

Guest: 

Manoush Zomorodi is host of NPR’s TED Radio Hour and author of “Body Electric: The Hidden Health Costs of the Digital Age and New Science to Reclaim Your Well-Being.”

Other episodes you may enjoy:

8.5 Hours Of Daily Sitting Linked To Higher BMI And Cholesterol

How Is Screen Time Affecting My Kid?

The transcript for this episode is available at sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri and sign up for our newsletters. Got a science question that’s keeping you up at night? Call us: 877-472-4374

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.