So you want to jam like a rock star, but you don't want to shell out for an electric guitar? Make one yourself. Sound artist Ranjit Bhatnagar explains the art of a DIY instrument he calls a "junk guitar." You can piece one together using little more than a plank of wood, some wire, a magnet and a guitar string. Forget the air guitar solos. Plug in. Rock out.

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Produced by Luke Groskin. Wine and location provided by Corkbuzz. Music by Audio Network
Additional photos and footage provided by Finger Lakes Wine Program/James Monahan, Shutterstock, Patricia Lynch, Tom Mack, Christina Sookdhis, Bodegas Delea a Marca, and Gironde Tourism
From smoky to citrusy to peppery, the unique flavor profiles of wines are scrutinized and celebrated perhaps more than any other beverage. In the first episode of our wine science series, Dr. Gavin Sacks of Cornell University's Viticulture and Enology Program, details the chemical composition of wine and explains why you detect the faintest aromas of oak, flowers, or green pepper in your glass.

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For over 70 years, no one had seen the oblong rocksnail. Declared extinct in 2000, the species was considered to be another native Alabaman mollusk gone and forgotten. But one day in the spring of 2011, biology grad student Nathan Whelan picked up a tiny rock and got a big surprise.
Produced by Luke Groskin
Music by Audio Network
Additional Stills and Photos by Shutterstock, Thomas Tarpley, Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Alabama Aquatic Biodiversity Center, Nathan Whelan, Boris Datnow, Alabama Power, Annals of Lyceum, Wild Side TV, Paul Johnson, Masood Lohar, Bermuda Conservation Services, Jefferson County Environmental Services

Despite their speed and power, Avalanches are not entirely unpredictable forces of nature. Using field tests and deep understanding under how to identify weaknesses in the snow pack, staff from the Utah Avalanche Center forecast avalanches and take preventative measures.
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Produced by Erika Sutter
Filmed by Manjula Varghese
Music by Audio Network
Additional Photos and Video by Shutterstock.com and the Utah Avalanche Center

Typographer and illustrator Craig Ward heard an urban legend that "using the handrails on the subway is like shaking hands with 100 people." He decided to test that theory by sampling the bacteria on subway lines around New York City and photographing his findings. The results were striking and unconventional "portraits" of NYC commuters.

Produced by Emily V. Driscoll. Filmed by Jeff Nash. Music by Audio Network

Additional Photography © Tasha Sturm, The Mason Lab
The Wall Street Journal and Martin Burch, Chris Canipe,
Madeline Farbman, Rachel Feierman and Robert Lee Hotz

Thanks to Christopher Mason, Craig Ward and Weill Cornell Medical College

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Fireflies communicate with a "language of light" that scientists still don't completely understand. James Lloyd and Marc Branham of the University of Florida, Gainesville, discuss unique flash patterns and times for some of the 2,000 types of fireflies that light up the summer nights.
Produced by Emily V. Driscoll

Filmed by
Sakuma Fumio
Rei Ohara
Stavros Basis

Narrated by Ira Flatow

Additional Stills by
Joyce Gross
Bruce Marlin
Shutterstock
YikrazuulMusic by Audio Network

Special Thanks
Marc Branham
"Brilliant Darkness" movie funded by the Zoological Lighting Institute.
James Karl Fischer
Luke Groskin
Misa Kimura
James Lloyd
The Zoological Lighting Institute (http://www.zoolighting.org/)

These aren't your ordinary garden snails. Tiny cone snails may boast delicate and gorgeous shells, but they pack a powerful—and lethal—punch. The snails' venom can be fatal to various fish and even humans.


But it could also offer a potential cure.

Mandë Holford, a biochemist at Hunter College and the American Museum of Natural History, works with a team to investigate the snails' venom and look for compounds that could be used to treat pain and cancer. Ancient cultures have traditionally used their natural environment to look for cures for the things that ail them, she explains. Now, researchers are investigating how "nature's deadliest cocktail" could create new pathways for treating old problems.

A film by Science Friday

Produced in collaboration with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Produced by Emily V. Driscoll and Luke Groskin

Directed and Edited by  Emily V. Driscoll 

Filmed by  Christian Baker and Dusty Hulet 

Animations by M. Gail Rudakewich and Luke Groskin

Music by Audio Network

Additional Photos and Video by
Olivera Lab, Shutterstock, Pond5, NatureFootage, BioPixel, iBiology, Mandë Holford, Gregory S. Herbert
Guillaume van den Bossche, The National Library of Medicine
 
Project Advisors:
Laura A. Helft, Laura Bonetta, Dennis W.C. Liu and Sean B. Carroll - Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Special Thanks to
American Museum of Natural History, Hunter College, Olivera Lab at the University of Utah
Baldomero "Toto" Olivera, Talia Amador, Devin Callahan, Sean Christensen, Mandë Holford
Gregory S. Herbert, My Huynh, Terry Merritt, Aubrey Miller, Kendra Snyder, Danielle Dana, 
Chistian Skotte, Ariel Zych and Jennifer Fenwick

Science Friday/HHMI © 2017

http://www.sciencefriday.com
Did you know that most mammals, from a house cat to an elephant, take roughly the same amount of time to urinate? Researchers at Georgia Tech collected data, streamed via online video and in real life, and discovered that a combination of physiology and gravity enable this feat of fluid dynamics.

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It could be at least 15 years before NASA lands a mission on Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, to search for signs of life beneath its icy crust. In the mean time, a team led by astrobiologist Kevin Hand of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is using ultra-chilled vacuum chambers to simulate what Europa's surface might be like. Their work will inform future missions and give scientists clues to how they might detect life on a faraway moon.
Produced by Luke Groskin
Filmed by Christian Baker
Music by Audio Network

Additional Video by
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Caltech, Kevin Hand and Robert Carlson
Shutterstock, Sergio Martinez (C.C. BY 3.0)
Scratchikken (C.C. BY 3.0)
Special Thanks to
Chau Tu and Preston Dyches

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For writer Michael Pollan, the contents of his refrigerator is often on the forefront of his mind: "I do think about food a lot, and if I'm distracted it's with thoughts of what's in the fridge." In the latest installment of our Desktop Diaries video series, we'll take you into the home office (and garden) of the famous food and nature author to see how edible ornamentations can sometimes provide inspiration.  
Produced by Luke Groskin
Filmed by Christian Baker
Produced by Luke Groskin
Filmed by Christian Baker
Music by Claude Debussey as performed by Teppei Yamada-Scriba

Tucked into the midtown Manhattan headquarters of the General Society of Mechanics & Tradesmen of the City of New York, is the John M. Mossman Lock Collection. The locks and assorted items, most which were collected and donated to the museum by Mossman, show the evolution of bank and vault lock technology through the 19th and 20th centuries. The current curator of the locks, John Erroll, describes the collection and its significance.

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Since the founding of colonial Jamestown, cockroaches have scuttled through the dark spaces of our homes and our nightmares. But just recently, a new roach has appeared on the New York scene; one with ability to tolerate the cold. What is this hearty roach and where did it come from? Join Rutgers University roach researchers as they unravel the clues to identify this intruder and what its emergence represents.
Produced by Emily Driscoll
Filmed by Stavros Basis
Lighting by Ben Effinger
Music by Audio Network
Narration by Travis
Additional video and Still courtesy of
Oswin Ambrice , Barcode of Life Data Systems , ELearningExamples.com, Joseph Evangelista, Shutterstock
Sydney King and National Park Service, Reto Stockli, NASA Earth Observatory, Peter Vransky, and Dusan Chorvat

Our skin is teeming with microbes. Visit a lab to find out what's living on you.

From Dipper, the celestial dolphin; to Alice and Jewel, the pink-skinned twins; to Jim Scott, the invisible man in the moon, children's imaginary friends come in innumerable shapes and sizes.

Categorizing these creations—while also trying to glean information about the mindset and personalities of their youthful creators—can be a daunting task for developmental psychologists.

Over the last two decades, researchers have pieced together unexpectedly diverse and nuanced profiles of the children who create imaginary companions. In the first episode of Science Friday's The Real Guide to Imaginary Companions, developmental psychologists Marjorie Taylor and Tracy Gleason describe how scientists study this playful phenomenon in order to understand the types of kids who have imaginary friends, why they create them, and what role these pretend pals play in childhood development.
Produced by Science Friday with generous support from the John Templeton Foundation
Produced, directed, and narrated by Luke Groskin
Filmed by Katie Graham, Luke Groskin and Patrick Pelham
Editor by Erika Sutter
Animations by Gabe Darling and Candice Aquino
Music by Audio Network
"Alice and Jewel" voiced by Annie Nero
Additional Footage by
The Shining Footage ©Warner Brothers, Inc. 1980
Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson
Angry Boy, Affiliated Film Producers
Special Thanks to Danielle Dana, Jennifer Fenwick, Becky Geer, Tracy Gleason, Elizabeth Delucia Landon, Alex Riviello, Jenny Shalant, Christian Skotte, Marjorie Taylor, and Jacqueline Woolley.

Based outside of Seattle, Valid Cycles specializes in handcrafted bamboo bicycle frames. For bamboo to be bike-ready, it must be cooked in an oven, stripped, and sealed. But after that, the founders of Valid Cycles say the bikes last as long as metal ones. We stopped by their workshop -- a barn in Woodinville, Washington -- to see how the bikes are put together.

Here's the scoop on coffee's flavor: the taste comes from compounds locked into roasted coffee beans. Add hot water, and those flavors escape into your pot -- but not all flavors escape at the same time, says Harold McGee, food science writer and author of On Food and Cooking. For example, sour flavors, acids, come first and the plant carbohydrates responsible for coffee's body come later. Taste for yourself with this counter-top chemistry experiment.

From mantis shrimp to trap-jaw ants, some of the fastest organisms on the planet are ones you may never have heard of. Biologist Sheila Patek, of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, says the creatures she studies move at speeds that are hard for us to imagine, let alone perceive. Patek shared some of her high-speed video and explained how these organisms pull off their top speeds.

footage and images courtesy of sheila patek, patrick green, roy caldwell. music by philip lynch, freemusicarchive. produced by flora lichtman

For USGS wildlife biologist Karyn Rode, tracking and tranquilizing polar bears from a helicopter are just the first thrilling steps in her research. After acquiring various samples from sleeping bears, Dr. Rode's unique understanding of what they eat and how quickly they metabolize nutrients allows her to determine the condition of each bear. Working with a team of scientists from the US Fish and Wildlife Service for nearly a decade, Dr. Rode's monitoring of polar bear health has helped reveal how well populations are adapting to the rapidly warming Arctic. 
A film by Science Friday
Produced in collaboration with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Produced by Emily V. Driscoll and Luke Groskin
Directed by Luke Groskin
Filmed by  Christian Baker, Luke Groskin, and Ryan Hawk
Edited by Sarah Galloway
Animations by Luke Groskin
Music by Audio Network
Color by Irving Harvey
Additional Photos and Video by
USGS, USFWS, NASA Goddard's Scientific Visualization Studio/C. Starr, Shutterstock, Pond5,  Oxford Scientific, and Pascale Otis (C.C. BY 3.0)

Project Advisors:Laura A. Helft, Laura Bonetta, Dennis W.C. Liu and Sean B. Carroll - Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Special Thanks to Karyn Rode, Michelle St. Martin,  Johnathan Larabee, The Staff of Red Dog Mine's Port Facility, Jenny Shalant,  Jessica BrunettoChristian Skotte, Danielle Dana, Ariel Zych, and Jennifer Fenwick
Science Friday/HHMI © 2016

"Someone described my office as an eight-year-old's daydream," says Jill Tarter, astronomer and the inspiration for the character in Carl Sagan's "Contact." As the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute's first employee, Tarter has accumulated E.T.-themed office ornaments for the last thirty years -- including a bottle of wine only to be opened "only upon detection of Extraterrestrial signal."

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Produced by Luke Groskin
By shrinking an entire museum into a 6 foot tall modular design, MICRO hopes that these tiny exhibits can go in all sorts of public areas, like shopping malls, waiting rooms, airports, and parks where they can integrate science and learning into people's day-to-day lives.

Edited by Sarah Galloway

Music by Audio Network

Additional Footage Provided by People’s Television and Science Sandbox, an initiative of the Simons Foundation

Special Thanks to Charles Philipp, Ruby Murray, and Amanda Schochet