Yackers Matt and Brian triumphantly return to the studio for what some are calling the Second Coming, others the Puntocalypse, and still others Yackety Science: Season Deux. It's great to be back, folks! In this episode...from the get-go, your intrepid YS team takes a whirlwind tour of various notable science breakthroughs from 2025: tricky tumors, new swine finds, and fresh eyes on the skies. And then, a helium-filled man-o-war floats to the top of the listener mailbag. Also: Brian weeps all over Galileo’s telescopes. And Matt susses out the secrets of sulfur, tactfully taking its malodorous measure.
Got a question, comment, or correction? You can yack right back at us at YacketyScience@gmail.com.
Episode Art (see pic above): Carl Yagan is standing atop Santucci’s armillary sphere at the Galileo Museum in Florence, Italy. Ciao!
Theme music: “Funky Machine” (ID874) by Lobo Loco (Accessed through FreeMusicArchive.org.; CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
Production help provided by Scott Gregory. Yackety Science is recorded at the studios of Public Radio Tulsa (in Kendall Hall, at the University of Tulsa) and at the Center for Creativity at Tulsa Community College.
Links:
Green Energy
The Green Giant: Images of China’s clean energy infrastructure reveal a transformation of unmatched scale and speed. (Science, Vol 390, Issue 6779)
https://www.science.org/content/article/breakthrough-2025
Gene Therapy and Rare Diseases
Gene-editing therapy made in just 6 months helps baby with life-threatening disease, by Jocelyn Kaiser. (Science; May 15, 2025)
https://www.science.org/content/article/gene-editing-therapy-made-just-6-months-helps-baby-life-threatening-disease
Patient-Specific In Vivo Gene Editing to Treat a Rare Genetic Disease, by Musunuru et al. (NEJM, N Engl J Med, 2025;392:2235-2243)
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2504747
New Gonorrhea Drugs
New antibiotics for gonorrhea could help beat back drug-resistant infections, by Kai Kupperschimdt. (Science, 11 Dec 2025)
https://www.science.org/content/article/new-antibiotic-gonorrhea-could-help-beat-back-drug-resistant-infections
Vera C. Rubin Observatory
All-Seeing Eye: The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is set to transform astronomy. Its wide and fast survey will discover billions of dynamic objects while building up a deep map of the universe. (Science, Vol 388, Issue 6753)
https://www.science.org/content/article/giant-all-seeing-telescope-set-revolutionize-astronomy
Denisovans Among Us
‘Dragon Man’ skull belongs to mysterious human relative, by Andre Curry (Science, 18 Jun 2025)
https://www.science.org/content/article/dragon-man-skull-belongs-mysterious-human-relative
Neurons, Mitochondria, and Tumors
Hoover, G., Gilbert, S., Curley, O. et al. Nerve-to-cancer transfer of mitochondria during cancer metastasis. (Nature 644, 252–262 [2025])
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40562940/
Particle Physics Mystery Solved
Long-running physics experiment dashes hope of new particles and forces, by Adrian Cho. (Science, Vol 388, Issue 6751)
https://www.science.org/content/article/long-running-physics-experiment-dashes-hope-new-particles-and-forces
Xenotransplants
Man’s pig kidney fails just shy of setting record. (Science, Vol 388, Issue 6750)
https://www.science.org/content/article/can-gene-edited-pigs-solve-organ-transplant-shortage
Heat-Tolerant Rice
A natural gene on-off system confers field thermotolerance for grain quality and yield in rice. Li, Wei et al. (Cell, Volume 188, Issue 14, 3661-3678.e21)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40311617/
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