Antimatter is one of science’s great mysteries. It is produced all around us for fractions of a second, until it collides with matter, and the particles annihilate one another. But what is it?

Antimatter is just like matter, except for one thing. Its particles have the same mass as ordinary matter, but an opposite charge. For example, an electron has a negative charge, so an anti-electron—called a positron—weighs the same, but has a positive charge.

Antimatter is a natural product of some types of radioactive decay and cosmic ray collisions, but it can also be made in particle colliders here on Earth. But making antimatter particles this way is difficult and expensive—let alone controlling them enough to create an entire anti-atom. NASA estimates that creating a gram of antimatter would cost about $62.5 trillion.

But why does antimatter matter? It may hold the key to understanding one of the universe’s biggest mysteries: why there’s something rather than nothing. Cosmologists say that during the Big Bang, matter and antimatter should have been created in equal amounts. But everything around us today is mostly matter, meaning either that there was an excess of matter created, or that matter and antimatter don’t quite follow the rules physicists expect.

Recently, scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider spotted 16 instances of the heaviest exotic antimatter nucleus observed to date: antihyperhydrogen-4.

To explore what this breakthrough means for antimatter research, SciFri producer Charles Bergquist talks to Dr. Jamie Dunlop, associate department chair for nuclear physics at Brookhaven National Laboratory.

You might be familiar with a gigabyte, one of the most popular units of measure for computer storage. A two-hour movie is 3 gigabytes on average, while your phone can probably store 256 gigabytes.

But did you know that your body also stores information in its own way?

We see this in DNA, which has the instructions needed for an organism to develop, survive, and reproduce. In computing storage terms, each cell of our body contains about 1.5 gigabytes worth of data. And with about 30 trillion cells in our bodies, we could theoretically store about 45 trillion gigabytes—also known as 45 zettabytes—which is equivalent to about one fourth of all the data in the world today.

Recently, a group of researchers was able to develop a technology that allows computer storage and processing using DNA’s ability to store information by turning genetic code into binary code. This technology could have a major impact on the way we do computing and digital storage.

To explain more about this technology, SciFri guest host Sophie Bushwick is joined by two professors from North Carolina State University’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Dr. Albert Keung and Dr. Orlin Velev.

Trees play a big role in the fight against climate change: They can soak up carbon dioxide from the air and store it for centuries in the form of biomass. But it turns out that trees could be doing even more.

In 2023, Science Friday covered how the company Living Carbon had genetically engineered poplar trees to have a more efficient photosynthesis process. This allowed the trees to grow twice as fast and store 30% more carbon biomass than regular poplars, making them ideal for the carbon credit market.

Recently, researchers at the University of Maryland also experimented with genetically modifying poplar trees. But this time, they had a different goal in mind. They modified the tree to reduce the amount of lignin in its wood. This made the wood stronger without the need for harsh chemical processing. It also slowed the deterioration rate of the wood, which allows it to store carbon for longer periods.

To explain more about this “super wood,” SciFri guest host Sophie Bushwick is joined by the lead plant geneticist on the study, Dr. Yiping Qi, associate professor at Department of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture at the University of Maryland.

You might have noticed that the seasons don’t quite behave like they used to. In some places, fall and spring seem to fly by, while winter and summer are much longer and feel more intense. This shift is known as season creep, where the timing of the seasons starts to shift.

This phenomenon is mostly due to climate change creating temperature imbalances and throwing weather patterns off kilter year-round. And it can cause problems for plants and animals as their natural cycles fall out of sync. But what does it mean for human behavior?

Seasonal Affective Disorder, often called seasonal depression, tends to hit during the cold, dark winter months. But as the seasons start changing more quickly and unpredictably, the shift could have a wide range of effects on us that we’re only just beginning to understand.

SciFri guest host Rachel Feltman is joined by Dr. Michael Varnum, social psychology area head and associate professor at Arizona State University, to discuss these questions.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the maternal mortality rate in the United States is very high compared to other wealthy countries: About 22.3 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. This is on par with China and Iran, based on UNICEF data.

So why is the US maternal mortality rate so high? It may have to do with how we fill out death certificates.
A study from earlier this year found that misfiling of information in death certificates may be inflating the numbe...

The space elevator has been a staple of science fiction for decades, from The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke to the Apple TV show “Foundation.” But the work and theories to make it a reality have been in development since the late 19th century.

It’s a simple concept: Imagine a long cable, stretching from the Earth’s surface to a satellite locked in orbit 22,000 miles high. It would work like elevators here on Earth, enabling us to send things—and people—up into space. And it would make the need for the expensive rockets we use today obsolete.

Although it has never been considered feasible due to the exorbitant cost and the engineering challenges it poses, the idea refuses to go away.

One of Japan’s biggest construction companies, the Obayashi Corporation, which built the Tokyo Sky Tree, had plans to build a space elevator in 2025 but has reportedly delayed that goal.

So what are the hurdles that keep us from building it? And why does it seem that the space elevator is always 25 years away? Ira Flatow is joined by Dr. Dennis Wright, president of the International Space Elevator Consortium to talk about the feasibility of this megaproject.

On July 17, Apex the stegosaurus was sold at Sothebys in New York City for a record $44.6 million. The buyer was billionaire Ken Griffin, CEO of the hedge fund Citadel, who says he plans to loan the fossil to American institutions for display.

But despite Griffin’s statement, some paleontologists aren’t too happy about the trend of fossils going up for auction.

The sale of dinosaur fossils has become more and more profitable in recent years. Eight out of the ten most expensive fossils have been sold in the last four years. This trend of rising sale prices leaves museums and research institutions unable to pay for fossils that could benefit paleontological research.

Paleontologists fear that as more and more fossils become privately owned, the availability of fossils for research and even access to dig sites might decrease or be restricted.

SciFri guest host and producer Kathleen Davis is joined by Dr. Steve Brusatte, professor of paleontology at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland to talk about the potential scientific impacts of privatizing and selling fossils.

One of the hottest fields in astronomy right now is the search for exoplanets. NASA’s Exoplanet Archive currently lists over 5,700 confirmed planets orbiting distant stars.

And more discoveries will be on the way.

PLATO, which stands for PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars, is a satellite made by the European Space Agency that will help put more exoplanets on the map. Scheduled for launch in late 2026, it will look at around 200,000 sun-like stars to categorize them and the planets that...

An international team of researchers recently discovered that some 13,000 feet below the ocean’s surface, oxygen may be produced through natural electrolysis. The group found that small lumps called polymetallic nodules at the bottom of the ocean appeared to act as geo batteries, producing enough electricity to break down water and make oxygen.