Biology
Air Date: March 13, 2018 10:00 am
Listen 49:28Asian ticks (mysteriously) turned up on a New Jersey sheep
Investigators found hundreds on the sheep and collected nearly a thousand more from the one-acre paddock.
6 years ago
Should tourists go to Antarctica?
Maybe you just want to see penguins or icebergs, but visiting the South Pole also means transforming the landscape — and adding to your carbon debt.
6 years ago
Listen 7:20A biological debate: is birdsong music?
Biologists and musicians are still wondering a question that goes back more than a century.
6 years ago
Listen 5:41Is Todd Simpson’s musical talent a gift, or does science explain it?
Blues guitarist Todd Simpson has a genetic disorder. His family calls his innate musical talent a gift from God. Some scientists wonder if it came from a tiny blip in his DNA.
6 years ago
Listen 12:35In Banff, design helps critters safely cross the highway
A hidden world of pathways leads wild animals safely across busy roads, keeping ecosystems connected even as human use fragments and disturbs them.
6 years ago
Listen 6:36How animals adapt (and maybe even evolve) to live in cities
Mice, rats, mosquitoes, lizards, and other animals are adapting to live in environments created by humans.
6 years ago
Listen 8:29Organ donations from drug overdose victims rising with opioid death toll
Inside the Gift of Life Donor Program’s headquarters in Philadelphia, a room serves as a sort of mission control for organ donation.
6 years ago
Listen 5:11At Millersville University, students are clamoring for cadavers
Biology students fearful that climbing costs could end cadaver studies have mobilized to support the program. But administrators say the activism is unnecessary.
6 years ago
Listen 2:02‘The Fear Factor,’ altruism and psychopathy
Air Date: December 4, 2017
Listen 48:59Expanding DNA’s alphabet lets cells produce novel proteins
A team at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, expanded the genetic alphabet, creating two artificial DNA "letters" called X and Y.
6 years ago
Vietnam vets become ‘lung brothers’
Two veterans receive a lung each from the same donor at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia.
6 years ago
Listen 4:37Who in his right mind wants to die at 75?
He claims, though, that he won't actively end his life — he's always been opposed to euthanasia, and to "death with dignity" — he will not try to prolong it either.
6 years ago
Getting hooked on body suspension
For some, suspending from the ceiling by hooks in the skin feels like therapy.
6 years ago
Listen 5:58Horror movie sounds evoke primal fear
Sound designers have a bag of acoustic “scares” to frighten and unnerve an audience.
6 years ago
Listen 7:14