Science

The recent meteor blast in Russia has brought renewed attention to the risk posed by meteors on a collision course with Earth. NASA and the European Space Agency are working on a plan to develop a rocket that could collide with an asteroid and knock it off course. Dr. Andrew Cheng of the John Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, who is leading the initiative, talks about it with host Jacki Lyden.

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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

My next guest really needs almost no introduction. He's former vice president of the United States. He's one of the most well-known communicators of the risks of climate change. He shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for those efforts. I'm guessing a lot of you have read his book, "An Inconvenient Truth," or you've seen the movie.

Water bears, a.k.a. tardigrades, can withstand boiling, freezing and the vacuum of space. Biologist Bob Goldstein, of University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, studies these millimeter-long creatures to try to understand how organisms develop.

Here's the challenge: Build a rocket engine. Don't worry, you don't need much.

At the SXSW festival in Austin on Saturday, startup companies DIYRockets and Sunglass are launching a competition to create 3-D-printed rocket engines with open source (read: free) technology.

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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. By now I'm sure you've heard about the real-life nightmare of a Florida man named Jeff Bush. As he lay sleeping last week, a gaping hole opened beneath his home, swallowing him alive. His body was never found. The search has now been called off, and the sinkhole that devoured him is now his grave.

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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY, I'm Ira Flatow. Here's some news to raise a glass to: the idea that red wine may help us live longer and healthier lives. Well, it got a new boost this week. According to a team of researchers, a compound found in the skin of grapes could be an antidote to aging by slowing down the process and even fending off disease and inflammation associated with getting old. It's the topic of a new study published this week in the journal Science.

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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

You're listening to SCIENCE FRIDAY, I'm Ira Flatow. You may not tell by looking outside your window if you're in the Midwest, or snow has been dumped on you in the last week or so, but spring is really just around the corner, and with that comes blooming plants and buzzing bees. And what can we expect this spring from nature's great pollinators?