Science Friday Initiative
Science Friday: Living Inside the Box
Michele Bertomen and David Boyle bought an empty 20-by-40-foot lot in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and built a home constructed from shipping containers.
Science Friday Initiative
Science Friday: Snowflake Safari
Next snowstorm, grab a magnifying glass and try snowflake hunting. Bullet rosettes, stellar plates, and capped columns are just a few of the varieties of snow crystal you can find in your backyard.
Science Friday Initiative
Science Friday: Sandy's Ct Scan, and Other Vital Images
Owen Kelley, a research scientist at NASA Goddard, works with data from the TRMM satellite to image the insides of storms. The satellite snapshots of Sandy also help put the storm in context. J. Marshall Shepherd explains.
Science Friday Initiative
Science Friday: Shooting Stars
Photographer Colin Legg makes time-lapse movies of celestial scenes. Legg shares tips, and describes some of the challenges of landscape astrophotography -- from babysitting cameras for days and nights on end to running electronics off...
Science Friday Initiative
Science Friday: Microscopic Movie Stars
Photographer Roman Vishniac was a pioneer of filming through the microscope. The craft has changed with digital photography, says Dutch photographer Wim van Egmond, who has won numerous awards for his photomicrographs.
Science Friday Initiative
Science Friday: Tying Water in a Knot
Physicists report making fluid knots. They are like smoke rings--but made of water and shaped like a pretzel instead of a donut.
Science Friday Initiative
Science Friday: Physics of Giant Pumpkins
Pumpkins of the Atlantic Giant variety can weigh more than 1800 pounds. For a mechanical engineer with an interest in plus-sized fruit, like Georgia Tech's David Hu, this raises an interesting physics question: how can the pumpkin get so...
Science Friday Initiative
Science Friday: Magnified Sun Burns
Ready for some fun in the sun? At the right angle, a magnifying glass will concentrate sunshine into a burning hot circle. Thomas Baer, executive director of the Stanford Photonics Research Center, explains how to calculate the solar...
Science Friday Initiative
Science Friday: Making Tissues From Water Droplets?
Reporting in Science, Gabriel Villar and colleagues say that tiny water droplets can be engineered to work together sort of like cells -- moving in concert, passing electrical signals. Villar built a machine that fabricates these...
Science Friday Initiative
Science Friday: Unwinding the Cucumber Tendril Mystery
Researchers are using time-lapse photography to study the biomechanics of plant movement--including how cucumber tendrils curl.
Science Friday Initiative
Science Friday: How to Make a Junk Guitar
A sound artist explains how to make a working electric guitar using only wood, bits of hardware, wire, a magnet, and a guitar string. Aired Mar. 05, 2010. [3:06]
Science Friday Initiative
Science Friday: Digital Gets Physical
Students in MIT's Tangible Media Group break down the barriers of graphic interfaces and allow users to touch and manipulate pixels in real life.
Science Friday Initiative
Science Friday: Tiny Living
A couple explain why they decided to live in a 140-square-foot home on a trailer bed that they designed themselves, and take us on a tour through their home. Aired June 28, 2013. [4:37]
Science Friday Initiative
Science Friday: Solar Spotting
Scientists have used the Swedish Solar Telescope to study the stringy perimeter of sunspots, the penumbra, to learn how it forms. Aired June 3, 2011. [2:32]
Science Friday Initiative
Science Friday: This Bird Can Shake His Tail Feathers
The owner of a cockatoo discovered it dancing to the Backstreet Boys, posted a video of it to YouTube, which was seen by neuroscientists. They performed an experiment on the bird to see if it was actually responding to the music, and,...
Science Friday Initiative
Science Friday: Getting a Grip on Finger Wrinkles
Scientists investigated what makes the skin on fingers wrinkled after being soaked in water. They were able to relate it to internal blood pressure but could not confirm what use this phenomenon might have. Aired Jan. 11, 2013. [3:25]
Science Friday Initiative
Science Friday: The Other Golden Rule
Researchers from Georgia Tech decided to study the urination behavior of different animals. They observed Youtube videos, animals in the real world, and lab animals. They came to a conclusion that all animals with a bladder two-thirds...
Science Friday Initiative
Science Friday: Printing Solar Panels in the Backyard
An interview with two young entrepreneurs who have developed a machine that can print micro solar panels for the home owner. Aired Sept. 21, 2012. [4:13]
Science Friday Initiative
Science Friday: What Happens When Scientists Get It Wrong?
Scientists published a study in 2010 that claimed they had discovered an alien bacterium that could create its own DNA with arsenic. Other scientists were skeptical and tried to duplicate their results, without success. In this podcast,...
Science Friday Initiative
Science Friday: Mapping the Microbial Make Up of Healthy Humans
Scientists discuss their Human Microbiome Project in which they documented the genetic identity of the microorganisms (bacteria, germs, viruses, etc.) that live on the human body. They found that people carry ten times more microbes than...
Science Friday Initiative
Science Friday: Bacterial Armor Imaged, Down to the Details
Scientists discuss images of a bacterium that reveals a protective protein coat, and the potential applications of the research.
Science Friday Initiative
Science Friday: How Astronomers Measured the Edge of a Black Hole
Astronomers have been able to measure where the point of no return is at the edge of a black hole that is 50 million light-years away. Aired Oct. 5, 2012 [12:43 min]
Science Friday Initiative
Science Friday: What Your Brain Looks Like When You Lose Self Control
Neuroscientists are using fMRI technology to study what happens in the brain when a someone is no longer able to resist temptation, such as to have dessert, and loses their self-control. Aired June 22, 2012 [15:06 min]
Science Friday Initiative
Science Friday: How the Morning After Pill Works
It has been a commonly held belief that the morning-after pill interrupted the implantation of a fertilized egg and is akin to abortion. But doctors now say this is not the case. Instead it delays or inhibits ovulation. Aired Jun. 15,...