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Science Friday
Friday at 1:00 PM

Science Friday is a weekly talk show that has become a trusted source for news and entertaining stories about science. Each week, the show focuses on science topics that are in the news and tries to bring an educated, balanced discussion to bear on the scientific issues at hand. Panels of expert guests join host Ira Flatow to discuss science - and to take questions from listeners during the call-in portion of the program. "SciFri" is brain fun, for curious people.

Credit Carl Flatow
Ira Flatow

  • Thanks to overwhelming member support during our Spring 2014 Fundraiser, KCCU will be able to carry sciFRI in FY 2015. Science Friday® was spun-off from…
  • Do you have a favorite science-themed book from this past year? We're making our list, and checking it twice, when Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalist Deborah Blum and Brainpickings.org editor Maria Popova join Ira Flatow to share their top science, technology, and environmental books of 2013.
  • Sports medicine doctor Jordan Metzl says he's found a miracle drug that prevents almost every illness, is 100 percent effective, and has very few side effects: exercise. In his new book The Exercise Cure, he prescribes specific cardio and strength training regimens to treat everything from depression and stress to heart disease and diabetes.
  • The instrument behind most of modern pop music isn't just for electronics geeks anymore. Toy company littleBits' "Synth Kit" is an analog modular synthesizer anyone can put together. Comedian and musician Reggie Watts takes Little Bits' diminutive synth for a spin and explains what makes synths tick (and buzz, and sing).
  • Fed up with human shortcomings, the characters in Madeleine George's play turn to high-tech companions. Could machines be assistants, friends, and even partners? The (Curious Case of the) Watson Intelligence explores the amazing things technology can do for us...and what it can't.
  • In 2008, Congress passed a law requiring most rail networks to install "positive train control" collision technology by 2015. Engineering professor Christopher Barkan discusses train safety systems, how "positive train control" might prevent accidents, and whether railroads will be able to meet the deadline.
  • In "Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us," a 26,000-word investigative piece in TIME magazine, journalist and entrepreneur Steven Brill catalogues the myriad reasons for America's skyrocketing healthcare costs, from extravagantly paid administrators at nonprofit hospitals to bloated bills for hospital care. And Obamacare, he argues, won't do much to solve the problem.
  • Drawing from research presented at this year's Acoustical Society of America conference, psycholinguist Stefanie Shattuck-Hufnagel untangles tongue twisters to look at speech planning patterns, and professor Amalia Arvaniti discusses the "Valley Girl" dialect.
  • Choreographer Elizabeth Streb pushes the boundaries of Newtonian physics--with dance. In her show Forces, dancers fly, fall, and collide in mid-air. No wonder the "action architect" has her share of scientist fans, among them, big-thinking particle physicist Lisa Randall.
  • If you've ever wondered about opera's effects on mouse heart surgery, or pondered the timing of when cows are likely to get up or lie down, you're in luck. At the annual IgNobel Prize ceremony, awards go to scientific research that first makes you laugh, then makes you think.