This week we’re recapping Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s confirmation hearings. Highly pathogenic H5N9, a strain of bird flu, was found in U.S. poultry. A tuberculosis outbreak in Kansas is making headlines—but how severe is the spread? Health equity reporter Bek Shackelford-Nwanganga of the Kansas News Service and KCUR joins host Rachel Feltman to unpack the situ ... Show More
Today
Mystery cat farts, measles and malicious cyberattacks
In this episode of Science Quickly, we cover a tragic measles death that highlights the dangers of declining vaccination rates, examine a wave of cyberattacks that are turning supermarket freezers into heaters and investigate one of science’s most important questions: Do cats far ... Show More
12m 29s
Nov 5
Could ultrasound interrupt the brain’s addiction loop? [Sponsored]
Addiction hijacks the brain’s reward circuitry, and current treatments often struggle to break its grip. In this episode, neuroscientist and neurosurgeon Ali Rezai of the WVU Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute explains how an experimental, noninvasive focused-ultrasound treatment ... Show More
15m 51s
Feb 2025
Tuberculosis Outbreak, RFK, Jr.’s Confirmation Hearings and Polar Bear Hair
This week we’re recapping Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s confirmation hearings. Highly pathogenic H5N9, a strain of bird flu, was found in U.S. poultry. A tuberculosis outbreak in Kansas is making headlines—but how severe is the spread? Health equity reporter Bek Shackelford-Nwanganga ... Show More
11m 44s
Jan 2025
How the U.S. Mishandled the Early Days of Bird Flu
H5N1 avian influenza has now reached almost 1,000 herds of dairy cattle in 16 states and has infected around 66 people, many of them agricultural workers, in the U.S. Host Rachel Feltman is joined by Amy Maxmen, a public health reporter at KFF Health News, to get the latest on bi ... Show More
15m 54s
Sep 2025
Marsquakes, Vaccine Politics and Mammoth Microbiomes
This week’s roundup dives into Mars’s lumpy mantle, a nasal spray that may help prevent COVID and the growing confusion around vaccine access in the U.S. Plus, researchers link phone use while on the toilet to hemorrhoid risk, uncover ancient mammoth microbiomes and explain why s ... Show More
9m 45s
Oct 2025
Mosquitoes Invade Iceland, Earth Darkens, and Bird Flu Returns
Mosquitoes settle in Iceland for the first time as climate change reshapes the Arctic, and Earth’s darkening albedo may be accelerating global warming. Host Rachel Feltman also dives into rising bird flu cases, foodborne urinary tract infections linked to contaminated meat and a ... Show More
10m 4s
Dec 2024
Anthony Fauci Is Worried about Bird Flu—And How Our Divisions Could Help It Hurt Us
Anthony Fauci speaks with Tanya Lewis, senior editor for health and medicine at Scientific American, about his remarkable career, as detailed in his new book On Call: A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service. They discuss the experiences he faced while guiding the U.S. through the pa ... Show More
21m 34s
Nov 2024
What RFK, Jr., Could Mean for Public Health, and How Tobacco Use Has Dropped Unevenly
Donald Trump has nominated RFK, Jr., to run the Department of Health and Human Services, a position that includes oversight of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health. Senior health and medicine editor ... Show More
10m 50s