Science Friday

Sitting is a big part of modern life. Many people work at a desk all day, have long commutes, or at least enjoy some time relaxing on the couch at the end of the day. But sitting has gained a reputation as being bad for us—with some going so far as to call it “the new smoking.”A recent study in the journal PLOS One sheds more light on just how much sitting is too much, using a cohort of more than 1,000 young adults, including 730 twins. The results showed that sitting for more than about eight and a half hours per day is linked to a higher total cholesterol and body mass index than sitting for less than that amount of time.But there’s good news: 30 minutes of vigorous exercise per day may counter the negative effects that come from long days of sitting.Joining guest host Kathleen Davis to discuss the findings are two of the study authors: Dr. Chandra Reynolds, professor in the Institute of Behavioral Genetics at the University of Colorado, Boulder; and Ryan Bruellman, PhD candidate in genetics, genomics, and bioinformatics at the University of California, Riverside.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.

The Accidental Discovery That Gave Us ‘Forever Chemicals’When it comes to PFAS chemicals—known as “forever chemicals”—we often hear that they’re used in nonstick coatings, flame retardants, and stain repellants. But those examples can hide the truth of just how widespread their use has been in modern life.A new season of the “Hazard NJ” podcast looks at the origin story of PFAS chemicals, and the accidental discovery of PTFE—aka Teflon—in a DuPont laboratory in southern New Jersey. “Hazard NJ” host Jordan Gass-Pooré joins guest host Kathleen Davis to talk about the history of PFAS, their effect on the environment and health of New Jersey residents, and work towards cleaning up the PFAS mess.A Play About Pregnancy Inspired By Mushroom ResearchPeople are finding all sorts of uses for mushrooms these days, but we’re going to focus on two of them: how scientists are using them in robots and how playwrights are using them in theater. A few weeks ago, SciFri producer and host of our “Universe of Art” podcast D Peterschmidt moderated a panel at the Science In Theater Festival in Brooklyn, New York.The festival is put on by a company called Transforma Theatre that stages science-inspired plays. Each year, they pair playwrights with scientists to make short plays that explore the research focus of the scientist.Director and playwright Hannah Simms was paired with Dr. Andrew Adamatzky, a professor of unconventional computing, who’s learning how to connect various parts of nature, like mushrooms, to computers, and consulted with Hannah during the writing process. The play, called “Fruiting Body,” is about a fungal-computing scientist who, while pregnant, creates a fetal heart monitor powered by mycelium, which turns out to be sentient. While the concept is definitely science fiction, it is based on real unconventional mushroom research.D talks with Hannah to learn why she wanted to explore her pregnancy through the lens of mushroom research. They’re also joined by Dr. Anand Mishra, a research associate at Cornell University’s department  of mechanical and aerospace engineering, who explains how he helped build a robot that’s powered by king oyster mushroom mycelium.Transcript for this 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.

“The Burning Earth” examines over 800 years of history to demonstrate how violence against people and the planet are one and the same. Also, the host of the “Hazard NJ” podcast talks about the origins of PFAS “forever chemicals” and their impact on New Jersey residents.How Empire and Environmental Destruction Go Hand-In-HandA new book called The Burning Earth: A History takes on a massive question: How did we get here? “Here” being this point in environmental history and decades deep into the climate crisis. Over the span of 800 years of history, the book connects the dots of how the pursuit of empire, environmental destruction, and human migration led us to this moment in time.SciFri producer Kathleen Davis talks with author Dr. Sunil Amrith, a historian at Yale University. They discuss some common threads that run through human and environmental history, why peace has to be a part of climate action, and what we can learn from understanding the past.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.

The effect, known as the Hubble Tension, has been confirmed by James Webb Space Telescope observations. Also, despite near daily warnings of food recalls, 2024 hasn’t been that different from previous years.The Universe Is Expanding Faster Than ExpectedThere’s still a lot to be learned about the physics of our universe—and one of the most perplexing ideas is something called the Hubble Tension. That’s an observation, made around a decade ago, that the universe seems to be expanding faster than it should be according to cosmologists’ understanding of its earliest days. Now, two years of James Webb Space Telescope observations of supernovae have confirmed those previous measurements made by the Hubble telescope, meaning that the puzzle isn’t just due to some instrumental error.Casey Crownhart, climate reporter at MIT Technology Review, joins Kathleen Davis to talk about that finding and other stories from the week in science, including a new quantum computing chip from Google, efforts to improve electrical control of prosthetics, proposed new protections for monarch butterflies, and more.Are Food Recalls Actually On The Rise? Not Really.It feels like there’s been an onslaught of food recalls this year. The Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture have issued recalls for items like cucumbers and carrots, deli meat and smoked salmon, which have been contaminated with pathogens like salmonella, E. coli, and listeria.There were just over 1,900 food recalls in the fiscal year ending in October 2024. While that number has been increasing since an initial dip in recalls early in the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s still lower than the numbers seen in the several years before the pandemic.SciFri producer Kathleen Davis talks with Dr. Byron Chaves, food scientist and professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, about why it feels like there are so many food recalls this year, how a recall happens, and what food safety tips you should know as a consumer.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.