On August 27, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the White House fired CDC director Susan Monarez after only a month on the job. Right after she was ousted, other senior leaders resigned from the agency, including Demetre Daskalakis, an infectious disease physician and former director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC.Dr. Daskalakis speaks with Host Flora Lichtman about the state of the agency and what these developments mean for public health.Guest: Dr. Demetre Daskalakis is the former director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC.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.

Earlier this summer, astronomers discovered something strange whizzing past Jupiter: an interstellar object. Scientists named it 3I/ATLAS. It’s only the third interstellar object ever observed, and it’s due to leave the solar system by the end of the year, so the race is on to learn as much as we can about it. Host Flora Lichtman talks with astrochemist Stefanie Milam about what this object could teach us about other solar systems—and ours.And, for the past two years, researchers have been studying samples from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu, trying to tease out details about its origins, and what they tell us about our solar system. Researcher Jessica Barnes describes a new analysis of Bennu samples that found stardust, the residue of ancient exploding stars, older than our solar system.Guests: Dr. Stefanie Milam is an astrochemist at NASA and a project scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope. Dr. Jessica Barnes is an associate professor in the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona.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. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

You have probably given some thought to outdoor air pollution, whether it’s wildfire smoke or smog from traffic. You may even check AQI measurements on your phone. But what about the air inside your home? Host Flora Lichtman talks to civil and environmental engineer Nusrat Jung, who studies indoor air pollution, about how we create toxic air without even knowing it, and what we can do to avoid it. Guest: Dr. Nusrat Jung is a civil and environmental engineer at Purdue 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.

In some places, sand dunes protect shorelines from the onslaught of ocean waves. In other places, the dunes themselves are on the move, and threaten human structures.Host Flora Lichtman talks with mechanical engineer Nathalie Vriend, who studies the structure of sand dunes, about what makes a heap of sand a dune, and what scientists still hope to learn about sand.Guest: Dr. Nathalie Vriend is an associate professor in mechanical engineering and leader of the Granular Flow Laboratory at the University of Colorado in Boulder.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.

Summer may be winding down, but we’re not quite ready to let go of beach days, backyard cookouts, or ice cream cones. We love ice cream here at SciFri, so we’re pulling a few of our favorite ice cream science stories out of the freezer this week.Back in 2015, ice cream expert Maya Warren sat down with Host Ira Flatow to help us understand a science mystery of “unmeltable” ice cream that made the evening news in Cincinnati.That same summer, Ira spoke to Jeff Potter, author of Cooking for Geeks, and Brian Smith, founder of Ample Hills Creamery, who give us science-backed tips for making smooth, velvety ice cream at home.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.

Twenty years ago, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana, and the levees designed to protect New Orleans failed. Huge swaths of the city flooded, and 1,600 people were trapped inside Charity Hospital. Physician Erica Fisher was working in Charity’s emergency room at the time, and she and her colleagues fought for days to keep their patients alive.Host Flora Lichtman speaks with Dr. Fisher, now an emergency medicine physician at University Medical Center in New Orleans, about Hurricane Katrina and the vulnerability of our healthcare systems in the face of disasters.Plus, science writer Maggie Koerth joins Flora to share other science news the week, including the link between heat waves and aging, updated COVID vaccine guidelines, the ancient origins of human mucus, and the possibility that dwarf planet Ceres could once have sustained life.Guest: Dr. Erica Fisher is an emergency medicine physician at University Medical Center in New Orleans, Louisiana.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.

Researchers recently used near-infrared photography to get a detailed look at ancient artwork showing scenes of wild animals tangled in a fight. But these weren’t paintings on a cave wall. They were tattoos on the arms of a Siberian woman who lived 2,300 years ago. What can ancient ink tell us about our ancestors? Sticking and poking their way into this with Host Flora Lichtman are archaeologist Aaron Deter-Wolf and his research collaborator, tattoo artist Danny Riday.Guests: Aaron Deter-Wolf is an archaeologist for the Tennessee Division of Archaeology in Nashville, Tennessee.Danny Riday is a tattoo artist and independent researcher based in Les Eyzies, France.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.

You might think of a star as a mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace where hydrogen is turned into helium at a temperature of millions of degrees. But researchers recently reported that they’d observed some of what lies beneath all that hydrogen and helium, at least inside one unusual supernova. The star, named supernova 2021yfj, had its outer layers stripped away, leaving behind a silicon- and sulfur-rich inner shell.Astrophysicist Steve Schulze joins Host Flora Lichtman to describe what the team spotted in the heart of a dying star.Guest: Dr. Steve Schulze is a research associate at Northwestern University’s Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics.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.

Gray wolves are native to the Rocky Mountains, but decades of hunting nearly eradicated them from the western United States by the 1940s. In 1995, wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park, and it’s been a conservation success story, but not a straight path out of the woods.Host Flora Lichtman digs into the last 30 years of wolves in the West with Heath Druzin, creator of the podcast “Howl,” from Boise State Public Radio and The Idaho Capital Sun. Druzin reported the podcast and companion written series with Clark Corbin.Guest: Heath Druzin is host of the podcast “Howl,” from Boise State Public Radio and The Idaho Capital Sun.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.

What do Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, lime Jell-O, and Kraft Creamy French Salad dressing have in common? They've all gotten a glow-up from artificial food dyes. Petroleum-based food dyes have become a target of RFK Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda—but what does science say about their effects on health? Joining Host Flora Lichtman to discuss is Asa Bradman, an expert in the health effects of food dyes and other things we’re exposed to in our environment.Guest:Dr. Asa Bradman is a professor of public health at the University of California Merced based in Merced, California.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. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.