Science and Technology

They are associated with dark caves, bloodthirsty vampires and one of the most famous superheroes of all time. But for all we know about bats, a lot is unknown to the general public — from how they fly and land to how they find objects in front of them.

We’ve all heard it before: With tight quarters and recirculated air, commercial airplane passengers are just asking to catch a cold or some other spreadable disease — especially if another passenger is coughing in close proximity.

Gabriel Ugueto largely cultivated his lifelong fascination with dinosaurs by going to the movies as a kid. He cannot name his favorite one.

"There's nothing that looks like them today and they are so impressive. They dominated life on Earth for so long. They were so well adapted to the environment,” he says.

"I think I'm a little bit partial to theropods, which is this group of dinosaurs that are carnivorous like Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor, but honestly it's very difficult. I love them all."

It may be hard to believe, but the 20th anniversary of the International Space Station’s initial launch will take place in November. In those soon-to-be two decades, the ISS has proven to be immensely helpful in facilitating research on microgravity — and it remains the only destinations for astronauts moving through Earth’s lower orbit.

Placing red-hot irons on someone's temple for headaches. Drinking mercury for syphilis. Rubbing pimples on dead bodies for acne. All of these remedies to various maladies seem ridiculous now, but at one point they were not.

They are just some of the some of the crazy “medical cures” that are highlighted in a new book written by Lydia Kang: “Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything.”

Roma Agrawal spends a lot of time thinking of the sheer power of concrete. She’s a structural engineer who helped design The Shard in London, an iconic 95-story skyscraper that opened in 2012.

“What I really like about it is that it has so many different forms,” Agrawal says. “It's quite an indeterminate material … I just love the fact that it can be anything you want it to be."

First, “fake news” from questionable news sites permeated social media during the 2016 presidential campaign. Now, behold the next trend in skewed reality that experts say could threaten US democracy: fake videos that appear authentic by embedding real people's faces onto other bodies through artificial intelligence algorithms. It has sparked a debate on how to verify videos shared online.  

This phenomenon also began during the presidential campaign. People began slicing videos to falsely make it look as if events took place.

The next time you're visiting a website and your computer’s fan starts going crazy out of nowhere, there could be nefarious activity behind it.

Florida. Flamingos. The alliteration rolls right off the tongue. Yet for years there has been a question raised about whether the birds are actually native to the Sunshine State — a situation that could have major implications for the management of the species.

Before the term global warming entered our collective lexicon, environmentalists and scientists had expressed major concern over the depletion of the ozone, the layer of gas that protects the Earth from extremely harmful solar ultraviolet (UV) rays. 

This heightened awareness led to the international adoption of the Montreal Protocol in 1987, in which major restrictions were placed on products that contained chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) — thought to be the biggest culprit in the matter.

Chocolate is a global industry worth about $100 billion a year. What gets overshadowed in all those sweet treats and big profits are the bugs responsible for it all.

Yes, bugs.

Chocolate comes from cacao beans, which come from the tiny flower of the cacao plant. Those plants are pollinated by even smaller flies called biting midges. For years, the flies have been the focal point of research by Samantha Jay Forbes, a doctoral candidate in agriculture and environment at James Cook University in Australia.

It’s an annual rite of fall and winter that everyone tries to avoid: flu season. This season, the influenza virus has been particularly brutal in the United States, claiming the lives of 84 children in the US alone.

A new study has recently come out could shed some new light — so to speak — on how to kill the flu bug before it has the ability to show up in your system.

Naked mole rats may not be the most attractive creatures on the planet, but what they lack for in looks, researchers say, they more than make up for in genetic wonders.

The list of biological anomalies tied to these small rodents is long and jaw-dropping. They include the ability to survive 18 minutes without oxygen, a practical immunity to cancer and Alzheimer’s and other diseases associated with aging. They also have the ability to live longer than any animal its size — up to 30 years.

Looking for a good night’s sleep? You’re not alone. More than a third of adults aren’t getting the recommended seven hours of sleep (never mind the ideal eight), according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2014.

As cold weather grips a majority of the country, it may be easy to think that all life is dead when the ground is frozen, at least until spring breathes new life into the plant systems and surrounding environments.

The signs have been there all along when it comes to using mechanical stimulation to stimulate regeneration and growth of tissue by simply pulling or pushing on cells. Think of a pregnant woman whose womb expands as the baby grows or a doctor telling a patient to lift weights to fight off osteoporosis by promoting bone growth.

These days it is hard not hear about the latest massive wildfires that have ravaged Southern California. The Thomas fire, in particular, has now become the largest of its kind in the state’s history after destroying more than 280,000 acres and thousands of homes and buildings.

While a warming climate and the record drought that the state suffered from 2012 to 2015 certainly appear to be major culprits for the rash of monstrous blazes, the human/urban component may shoulder the biggest blame, according to new research.

Many of us have our cellphones within an arm’s reach at all times. It’s either in a pocket or a purse or maybe just a few inches from our face on a daily basis. Given how tethered we are to these devices, scientists have been studying any possible health maladies that could result from cellphone exposure — radiation amounts, in particular.

Today, as the Trump administration continues to bolster the fossil fuel industry — loosening regulations and giving large tax breaks to fossil fuel companies — environmentalist Bill McKibben says that it would be wise to follow the dollar to see where the future of energy is headed, globally. 

“Right now, of course, politics is making it difficult to deal with climate change in DC, but it's not stopping cold all the work that's going on,” says McKibben, co-founder of 350.org.

Lighting displays are popular and fun during the holiday season, but it seems that outdoor lighting is now big all year round — and everybody wants the new, energy-efficient LEDs. But it turns out these new lights may have a dark side.

It’s that magical time of year, when Science Friday rounds up the best science books to hit shelves in 2017.

Maria Popova, the founder and editor of Brain Pickings, and Deborah Blum, a Pulitzer Prize winner and the director of the Knight Science Journalism program at MIT, joined host Ira Flatow to share a few of their favorites. For their full list of picks, check out Science Friday's website.

Finding the perfect science book for an inquisitive kid isn’t always easy. Luckily, Science Friday education program assistant Xochitl Garcia has done the legwork: She’s curated a list of 10 scientifically accurate, gorgeously illustrated and engaging books for kids ages 0 to 11. The list also includes activities you can do together after reading the books.