Science, Spoken
2,361 episodes — Page 3 of 48
A Gene-Edited Pig Kidney Was Just Transplanted Into a Person for the First Time
A 62-year-old Massachusetts man with failing kidneys is the first living patient to receive a genetically-altered kidney from a pig.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Are You Noise Sensitive? Here's How to Tell
Every person has a different idea of what makes noise “loud,” but there are some things we all can do to turn the volume down a little. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Europe Is Struggling to Coexist With Wild Bears
A fatal bear attack in Slovakia reignited accusations that conservationists are protecting the animals at the expense of human safety. Experts argue it's a people problem, not a bear problem.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
The World's E-Waste Has Reached a Crisis Point
A new UN report finds that humanity is generating 137 billion pounds of TVs, smartphones, and other e-waste a year—and recycling less than a quarter of it.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
DeepMind Is Helping Soccer Teams Take the Perfect Corner
A soccer AI model created by Google DeepMind makes predictions about where corners will go, and suggests tweaks to make goals more or less likely.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
The Global Danger of Boring Buildings
Unloved buildings turn to ruin, leading to a deluge of construction waste worldwide. Designer Thomas Heatherwick tells WIRED why cities need to prioritize human health and joy in architecture.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
A Pill That Kills Ticks Is a Promising New Weapon Against Lyme Disease
Your pets can already eat a chewable tablet for tick prevention. Now, a pill that paralyzes and kills ticks has shown positive results in a small human trial.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Climate Change Is Bad for Your Health, Wherever You Are
Rising temperatures are a threat regardless of where you live on the planet—they’re just dangerous in different ways.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Stop Misunderstanding the Gender Health Gap
Sex differences explain some of the gaping health inequalities between men and women—but a lot of the time, it’s sexism.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
So You Want to Rewire Brains
When everyone's hooking their brains up to computers, we'll need surgeons to install the hardware.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Get Ready to Eat Pond Plants
Meet the amazing azolla, a nutritious fern that grows like crazy, capturing carbon in the process. Could it be a food—and fertilizer and biofuel—of the future?Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Is This New 50-Year Battery for Real?
BetaVolt’s nuclear battery lasts for decades, but you won’t see one in your next iPhone—powering a mobile device would require a cell the size of a yak.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Cities Aren’t Prepared for a Crucial Part of Sea-Level Rise: They’re Also Sinking
Coastal land is dropping, known as subsidence. That could expose hundreds of thousands of additional Americans to inundation by 2050.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
A New Headset Aims to Treat Alzheimer’s With Light and Sound
An experimental device developed by Cognito Therapeutics seeks to slow cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s patients using light and sound. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Forget Carbon Offsets. The Planet Needs Carbon Removal Credits
The carbon removal market is fast growing, with an array of different removal methods available to businesses keen to mitigate their environmental impact.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Good Climate Solutions Need Good Policy—and AI Can Help With That
Climate Policy Radar's tools scan global environmental laws to see what works and what doesn't. What its AI is discovering today will help shape the regulations of tomorrow.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
A Tragic Tower Block Fire Exposes the World's Failing Fire Regulations
A deadly tower block blaze in Spain has focused attention on notorious flammable building materials—but around the world, there's little momentum to stop using them.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
US Cities Could Be Capturing Billions of Gallons of Rain a Day
With better infrastructure and “spongy” green spaces, urban areas have made progress but should be soaking up way more free stormwater.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Humanity Is Dangerously Pushing Its Ability to Tolerate Heat
Extreme heat waves are already here, and they are killing tens of thousands of people. Blasting through 2 degrees Celsius of warming means they’ll happen many times more frequently.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Alabama IVF Patients Are Running Out of Time
“I feel so powerless in this state.”Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
What Would Happen if Every American Got a Heat Pump
Getting these climate superheroes into more US homes would massively cut emissions, and it would be cost-effective. Here’s how the revolution would play out.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
A New Startup Wants to Turn the Sugar You Eat Into Fiber
Americans eat too much sugar. Food tech company Zya is developing a substance to add to sweet foods that can convert some of that sugar into fiber in the digestive system.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
The Transport Companies Leaving Fossil Fuels Behind
Hydrogen-powered planes, more fuel-efficient aircraft designs, and all-electric parcel delivery services are just some of the ways in which the transport sector is looking to decarbonize.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Metal Prices Are Soaring. So Is Metal Theft
It’s a multibillion-dollar global problem, and in a rapidly electrifying world, the profits—and ease—of stealing metals are only going to increase.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Tech Still Isn’t Doing Enough to Care for the Environment
Priscilla Chomba-Kinywa, CTO of Greenpeace, says technology firms must shape up—and consumers and business clients should walk away if they don’t.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Los Angeles Just Proved How Spongy a City Can Be
As relentless rains pounded LA, the city’s “sponge” infrastructure helped gather 8.6 billion gallons of water—enough to sustain over 100,000 households for a year.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Kyiv Is Using Homegrown Tech to Treat the Trauma of War
Millions of Ukrainians are suffering the mental health implications of two years of Russian bombs and shells. The country’s recovery depends on building systems to help treat the trauma.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
The Leading Lab-Grown-Meat Company Just Paused a Major Expansion
Upside Foods is putting plans for its Illinois-based cultivated-meat factory on hold and laying off staff to focus on its existing plant.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Why Fake Caviar Could Be the Solution to Plastic Pollution
An alternative to environmentally harmful plastic is already within reach: seaweed.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Farming Prioritizes Cows and Cars—Not People
Farmers and scientists are getting better at growing more crops on less land, but they’re not focusing on plants that people eat.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Did Climate Change Help This Skier Achieve the Impossible?
A slalom skier just achieved a remarkable result in the Alpine Ski World Cup—coming from last place to win. As mountains get warmer and conditions less predictable, expect more freak occurrences like this.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Why Is Our Solar System Flat?
It started as a big old ball of dust, so how did it end up like a giant pancake? Get the true story using fake forces.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
NASA’s New PACE Observatory Searches for Clues to Humanity’s Future
They may be tiny, but phytoplankton and aerosols power pivotal Earth systems. Scientists are about to learn a whole lot more about them at a critical time.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
These States Are Basically Begging You to Get a Heat Pump
You need a heat pump, ASAP. Now nine states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of this climate superhero.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Dr. Dara Norman Wants to Bring More People Into Science
From data access to scientific merit, Dr. Norman is working to make astronomy—and all STEM fields—more inclusive.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
I Tested a Next-Gen AI Assistant. It Will Blow You Away
WIRED experimented with a new form of voice assistant that can browse the web and perform tasks online. Siri, Alexa, and other virtual helpers could soon be much more powerful.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
A Startup Has Unlocked a Way to Make Cheap Insulin
Houston-based rBIO has invented a new process to churn out insulin at higher yields using custom-made bacteria.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Inside the Beef Industry’s Campaign to Influence Schoolchildren
Big Beef is wooing science teachers with webinars and lesson plans in an attempt to change kids’ perceptions of the industry.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Fiber Optics Bring You Internet. Now They’re Also Listening to Trains
“Distributed acoustic sensing” looks for disturbances in fiber to detect earthquakes and even insects. Can it also improve rail safety?Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Elon Musk Says a Human Patient Has Received Neuralink’s Brain Implant
Details are scarce, but Elon Musk says initial results are “promising.”Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Two Nations, a Horrible Accident, and the Urgent Need to Understand the Laws of Space Right Now
Welcome to the world’s foremost training ground for saving space from disasters, disputes, and—perhaps one day—colonizers named Musk.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
6 Deaf Children Can Now Hear After a Single Injection
Several gene therapies aim to restore a protein necessary for transmitting sound signals from the ear to the brain.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
The Extreme Sport of Ice Climbing Is at Risk of Extinction
The winter sport is becoming more treacherous as the world warms and icefalls become less and less stable.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
The World’s Essential Aquifers Are in Deep Trouble
New research finds that the groundwater systems that hydrate your life are in rapid, sometimes accelerating decline around the globe. Here’s how to stop the retreat.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
The World's First Malaria Vaccine Program for Children Starts Now
On Monday, Cameroon became the first nation to establish routine childhood malaria immunizations. The race is on to give protection to as many people as possible.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Scientists Will Test a Cancer-Hunting mRNA Treatment
Strand Therapeutics has figured out a way to turn the molecule on and off in certain tissues to more precisely treat tumors.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
A Scandal Is Tearing the World of Record-Breaking Dogs Apart
After doubts were raised about a 31-year-old dog, Guinness World Records has paused its records for the world’s oldest dogs, leaving one super-old dog in limbo.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
A Gene-Edited Pig Liver Was Attached to a Person—and Worked for 3 Days
Researchers want to use genetically engineered pig organs to help support people with liver failure.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Scabies Is Making a Comeback
Cases of scabies, a highly contagious parasitic skin disease, are on the rise across Europe. The UK in particular is struggling with a shortage of treatments.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
The Surprising Things That Helped Make 2023 the Hottest Year Ever
The numbers are in: 2023’s global temperatures not only soared, but smashed the previous record set in 2016. This year could be even hotter.Read this story here. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices