This time last year, Los Angeles was on fire, and more than 16,000 homes and buildings burned to the ground. Cars, batteries, solar panels, insulation, and cleaning supplies went up in flames, releasing chemicals like lead, benzene, and asbestos into giant smoke plumes that wafted across the city.

A year later, scientists are trying to understand the fallout of this urban wildfire—what chemicals got left behind, how to remediate them, and the threats to our health. Host Flora Lichtman talks with Yifang Zhu and Francois Tissot, who are at the forefront of this research. And for one of them, this work is personal.

Guests:
Dr. François Tissot is a professor of geochemistry at Caltech in Pasadena, California.
Dr. Yifang Zhu is a professor of environmental health sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

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Deepfakes have been everywhere lately, from fake AI images of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro following his (real) capture by the United States, to X’s Grok AI generating nonconsensual images of real people in states of undress. And if you missed all that, you've almost certainly had your own deepfake close encounter in your feed: maybe rabbits bouncing on a trampoline or an unlikely animal friendship that seems a little too good to be true.

Deepfakes have moved beyond the realm of novelty, and it’s more difficult than ever to know what is actually real online. So how did we get here and what is there, if anything, to do about it?

Joining Host Flora Lichtman are Hany Farid, who’s studied digital forensics and how we relate to AI for over 25 years, and Sam Cole, a journalist at 404 Media who’s covered deepfakes and their impact since 2017.

Guests:
Dr. Hany Farid is a professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at University of California, Berkeley.
Sam Cole is a journalist at 404 Media, based in New York, NY

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

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When it comes to “bad” cholesterol, most cardiologists say lower is better. But what’s the best way to get that number down? Can diet and exercise alone do the job?

Cardiologists Kiran Musunuru and Neha Pagidipati join Host Ira Flatow for a look at the latest in cholesterol-lowering treatments, including CRISPR technology that could turn off cholesterol-making genes for life. How does it work, and is it safe?

Guests:
Dr. Kiran Musunuru is the scientific director of the Center for Inherited Cardiovascular Disease at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Neha Pagidipati is the director of the Cardiometabolic Prevention Clinic at the Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, NC.

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

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An Associated Press investigation found that more than 420 “anti-science” bills were introduced in statehouses last year, targeting protections around public health issues like vaccines, milk safety, and fluoride. As state legislatures come back into session, what can we expect for 2026? Joining Ira Flatow is Laura Ungar, science and medical reporter for the Associated Press.

Plus, reporter Elise Plunk joins Host Flora Lichtman to discuss the complex case of a citizen-led pollution monitoring program in Louisiana that persists despite a law banning the use of its data.

Guests:
Laura Ungar is a science and medical reporter for the Associated Press.
Elise Plunk is an environmental reporter and Report for America corps member at the Louisiana Illuminator.

The transcript for this episode is available at sciencefriday.com.

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It’s a wintertime question that you may have had as you struggled down a frozen sidewalk, or strapped on some ice skates: Just why is ice slippery, anyway? It turns out the answer is somewhat complicated.

Mechanical engineer Robert Carpick studies tribology, the science of surface interactions, from friction to wear to lubrication. He joins Host Ira Flatow to wrangle some new ideas about the slippery science of ice.

Guest: Dr. Robert Carpick is the John Henry Towne Professor in the department of mechanical engineering and applied mechanics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

The transcript for this episode is available at sciencefriday.com.

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Each year, around 90,000 people in the U.S. are diagnosed with Parkinson’s, a neurodegenerative disease that can cause tremors and affect cognition. Scientists are working to identify some of the earliest signs of the disease, and to figure out how we might test for—and treat—Parkinson’s in the future.

Neurologists Emily Tamadonfar and Michael Okun join Host Flora Lichtman to discuss what we know about why Parkinson’s starts and how it may be associated with genetic mutations, pollution, and other factors.

Guests:
Dr. Emily Tamadonfar is a clinical associate professor of neurology in the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
Dr. Michael Okun is a professor and executive director of the Norman Fixel Institute for Neurological Diseases at University of Florida Health in Gainesville, Florida.

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

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As we age, our vision gets blurrier, we form cataracts, and we have a higher risk of glaucoma. But Greenland sharks live for hundreds of years and still maintain healthy, functional eyeballs. So what gives?

Host Ira Flatow talks with molecular biologist Dorota Skowronska-Krawczyk, who studies the mechanisms of aging, about what we can learn from these fishy eyeballs and how it could help us.

Plus, listener Leon called us with a question: Is it true that the James Webb Space Telescope’s gold-plated mirror is so perfectly flat that if it were the size of the United States, the highest bump would be the size of a baseball? Not quite. Host Flora Lichtman discusses this feat of engineering with JWST project scientist Macarena Garcia Marin.

Guests:

Dr. Dorota Skowronska-Krawczyk is a molecular biologist and associate professor at the University of California, Irvine. She studies the mechanisms of aging.
Dr. Macarena Garcia Marin is a project scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope at the Space Telescope and Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland.

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

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The concrete of ancient Rome is famous for its durability. Just look at the Pantheon and those iconic aqueducts that helped transport water throughout the empire—still standing 2,000 years later.

But knowledge about how this concrete was made hasn’t been very solid. Well, scientists have discovered a construction site in Pompeii preserved in the volcanic ash, which might hold clues to how we can improve our concrete today. Concrete researcher Admir Masic joins Host Ira Flatow to discuss the findings.

Plus, we’ll look at the infrastructure of the future with engineer Benjamin Lee, who breaks down the recent news of tech companies looking to move their power-hungry data centers to space. They discuss the daunting engineering challenges and possible benefits.

Guests:
Dr. Admir Masic is an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Dr. Benjamin Lee is a professor in the department of electrical and systems engineering and the department of computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.

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