Science Friday

Dr. Madhu Khanna, an environmental economics professor studying agrivoltaics and land-use tradeoffs. Jana Rose Schleiss, a Midwest reporter who documents farming and solar experiments. They discuss growing crops beneath solar panels, small-farm wins like shaded produce and sheep grazing, technical hurdles for commodity crops, design tradeoffs for climate resilience, and community and economic tensions around farmland conversion.

C. Thi Nguyen, a philosophy professor and author of The Score, examines how metrics reshape what we value. He contrasts soul-crushing real-world scoring with freeing, voluntary game scores. Conversations cover social media likes, KPIs, gaming’s creative constraints, and ways to escape being reduced to a number.

Priya Natarajan, theoretical astrophysicist and Yale Astronomy chair known for work on cosmology and gravitational lensing, joins the conversation. They talk about how COVID shifted public confidence. They explore communicating science’s messy, provisional process. Funding, political pressures, and the role of clear, humble public engagement are also discussed.

Dr. Carly Ameen, a bioarchaeologist who analyzed 600+ ancient canid skulls, and Dr. Erin Hecht, an evolutionary biologist studying the Russian silver fox experiment, explore how dog diversity emerged long before Victorian breed standards. They discuss early skull variation, Eurasian origins, roles dogs filled in human societies, and rapid behavioral and brain changes seen in domestication experiments.

Naomi Oreskes, historian of science and Harvard professor known for work on scientific skepticism and climate history, joins to weigh whether today’s attacks on science are truly new. She discusses how political power and corporate interests have long shaped mistrust. They dig into ghostwriting scandals, vaccine skepticism tied to political agendas, and why public funding matters.

Jeremy Wallace, A. Doak Barnett Professor of China Studies at Johns Hopkins SAIS, explains China’s role in global renewables and energy tech. He discusses real wind power generation and curtailment. He describes China’s battery production and massive solar buildout. He outlines where Chinese panels are exported and why solar is now the cheapest electricity in history.

Jim Wetherbee, former NASA astronaut who commanded five shuttle missions, offers a short memoir and risk-minded perspective. He reflects on Challenger, contrasts controlling versus accepting risk, and explains how leadership, culture, and operator input shape safety. He also discusses private spaceflight, Artemis II readiness, and why humans remain essential in space operations.

Jennifer Duchon, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Mount Sinai, breaks down why this season’s H3N2 subclade K surged and why the flu shot was a poor match. She discusses how H3N2 drifts, prospects for better and universal vaccines, CDC policy effects on children, and antiviral timing and personal precautions.

Dr. François Tissot, a Caltech geochemist, shares personal insights about the devastation in his neighborhood after the LA fires. He discusses measuring heavy metals like lead and arsenic and highlights the lack of prior research on urban fire contaminants. Dr. Yifang Zhu, a UCLA environmental health expert, details her research on how household items released harmful chemicals post-fire. Together, they explore the challenges of cleaning contaminated homes, the need for better funding for research, and the responsibilities scientists bear in supporting affected communities.

Join experts Hany Farid, a UC Berkeley professor specializing in digital forensics, and Sam Cole, a journalist focused on deepfakes, as they navigate the murky waters of AI-generated media. They discuss the alarming ease of creating realistic deepfakes and their prevalence on social media, including the troubling rise of non-consensual images. Legal responses are fragmented, and they stress the need for regulatory action. Personal stories reveal the real harm deepfakes cause, including job loss and privacy invasion. Prepare to rethink what's real online!