logo
episode-header-image
Dec 2023
8m 37s

More Plant And Fungi Emojis, Please!

NPR
About this episode
A team of conservation biologists from Italy recently found that current emoji options are sorely lacking when it comes to life outside of vertebrates in the animal kingdom. Sure, there are multiple dog and cat options to choose from. But when it comes to fungi, for example, the choices are limited ... to one. The study was published this week in the journal iScience argues that our emoji lexicon is in dire need of some biodiversity – which could have a real impact on the way people communicate about conservation.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy
Up next
Today
Have a Stutter? It Could Be Inherited
For a long time, scientists have suspected that stuttering — a common speech condition that affects an estimated 1 in every 100 people — could be heritable. Despite how common it is, it's still a remarkably understudied condition. Geneticists Piper Below and Dillon Pruett were de ... Show More
14m 1s
Yesterday
Stopping SSRIs Can Be Hard. Researchers Are Unsure Why
More than 1 in 10 people in the United States take an antidepressant. And the most commonly prescribed type of antidepressant are SSRIs — or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. That includes drugs like Zoloft, Prozac and Lexapro. But what happens when some patients decide th ... Show More
12m 53s
Sep 1
A (Monday Night) Football Mystery
Monday night football is back! What better way to celebrate than a close look at some of the physics powering the sport? Specifically, the spiral pass. If you've ever watched part of a professional football game, you've probably seen a tight spiral pass. They're those perfect thr ... Show More
12m 20s
Recommended Episodes
Mar 2021
Why is it hard to get our head around fungi? (part one)
Our colleagues from The age of extinction, Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield, are back with two new episodes. We often talk as if we know what species exist in the world – but we don’t. Could misclassifying the notoriously cryptic fungi have broader implications for what we kn ... Show More
25m 37s
Jul 2024
These frog 'saunas’ could help endangered species fight off a deadly fungus
00:47 Searching for dark matter in black holesResearchers have been scanning the skies looking for black holes that formed at the very beginning of the Universe — one place where elusive and mysterious dark matter is thought to be located. If these black holes did contain dark ma ... Show More
36m 31s
Apr 2024
From pangolins to plants: how we’re getting better at protecting nature
Nature conservation is effective at protecting animals and plants - and we’re getting better at it. That’s according to a new major study published in the journal Science. Esme Stallard, a BBC climate and science reporter, explains what conservation is, where it’s worked (includi ... Show More
15m 19s
Oct 2020
I. Newkirk and G. Stone, "Animalkind: Remarkable Discoveries about Animals and Revolutionary New Ways to Show Them Compassion" (Simon and Schuster, 2020)
The founder and president of PETA, Ingrid Newkirk, and bestselling author Gene Stone explore the wonders of animal life and offer tools for living more kindly toward them. In the last few decades, a wealth of new information has emerged about who animals are—intelligent, aware, a ... Show More
49m 23s
Nov 2023
How to tame a toxic yet life-saving antifungal
In this episode:00:46 Modifying a fungal drug to make it less toxicAmphotericin B is a drug used to treat life-threatening fungal infections. But while it is effective against many fungal species, it is also extremely toxic to kidneys, meaning it is mostly used as a drug of last- ... Show More
27m 55s
Dec 2022
How much of our biodiversity is at risk?
Another global summit - COP15 – has concluded in Canada. It focused on biodiversity, which is the variety of all living things on earth. Activists, charities and ministers came together hoping to find solutions to protect and save forests, wetlands and water bodies before it’s to ... Show More
13m 22s
Dec 2019
The Frozen Zoo
Right now, one million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction. Conservation scientists are doing whatever they can to save them, or at least of piece of them. For the last 45 years, a team of researchers at the San Diego Zoo has been freezing the cells of endange ... Show More
28m 14s
Dec 2021
Can we revive the woolly mammoth? Should we?
Woolly mammoths went extinct several thousand years ago. But if a new company gets its way, something like the woolly mammoth could walk the Earth again within the decade. Colossal Biosciences, a new biotechnology company, announced in September that it had raised $15m to genetic ... Show More
23m 32s
Feb 2021
Babbage: Go with your gut
The human microbiome consists of trillions of microorganisms like bacteria, viruses and fungi. Scientists are researching how these tiny creatures could be linked to Parkinson’s disease, diabetes and other diseases. Also, how understanding soil microbiomes could help combat clima ... Show More
23m 9s