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Science Friday
Fridays, 1-3 p.m. on KUAR

Explore science-related topics -- from subatomic particles and the human genome to the Internet and earthquakes. Listen to in-depth discussion with scientists and others from all walks of life whose work influences our daily lives.

Science Friday is the weekly live show dedicated to science. You can find more information at its website.

  • The instrument behind most of modern pop music isn't just for electronics geeks anymore. Toy company littleBits' "Synth Kit" is an analog modular synthesizer anyone can put together. Comedian and musician Reggie Watts takes Little Bits' diminutive synth for a spin and explains what makes synths tick (and buzz, and sing).
  • Fed up with human shortcomings, the characters in Madeleine George's play turn to high-tech companions. Could machines be assistants, friends, and even partners? The (Curious Case of the) Watson Intelligence explores the amazing things technology can do for us...and what it can't.
  • Sports medicine doctor Jordan Metzl says he's found a miracle drug that prevents almost every illness, is 100 percent effective, and has very few side effects: exercise. In his new book The Exercise Cure, he prescribes specific cardio and strength training regimens to treat everything from depression and stress to heart disease and diabetes.
  • Do you have a favorite science-themed book from this past year? We're making our list, and checking it twice, when Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalist Deborah Blum and Brainpickings.org editor Maria Popova join Ira Flatow to share their top science, technology, and environmental books of 2013.
  • In "Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us," a 26,000-word investigative piece in TIME magazine, journalist and entrepreneur Steven Brill catalogues the myriad reasons for America's skyrocketing healthcare costs, from extravagantly paid administrators at nonprofit hospitals to bloated bills for hospital care. And Obamacare, he argues, won't do much to solve the problem.
  • In 2008, Congress passed a law requiring most rail networks to install "positive train control" collision technology by 2015. Engineering professor Christopher Barkan discusses train safety systems, how "positive train control" might prevent accidents, and whether railroads will be able to meet the deadline.
  • Drawing from research presented at this year's Acoustical Society of America conference, psycholinguist Stefanie Shattuck-Hufnagel untangles tongue twisters to look at speech planning patterns, and professor Amalia Arvaniti discusses the "Valley Girl" dialect.
  • In Eating on the Wild Side, author Jo Robinson reveals how the nutrition and flavor has been bred out of supermarket fruits and vegetables. Robinson tells us what we can do to reclaim our wild roots and the nutrition from our foods.
  • Choreographer Elizabeth Streb pushes the boundaries of Newtonian physics--with dance. In her show Forces, dancers fly, fall, and collide in mid-air. No wonder the "action architect" has her share of scientist fans, among them, big-thinking particle physicist Lisa Randall.
  • If you've ever wondered about opera's effects on mouse heart surgery, or pondered the timing of when cows are likely to get up or lie down, you're in luck. At the annual IgNobel Prize ceremony, awards go to scientific research that first makes you laugh, then makes you think.