{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Radio Chatskill","title":"Science Stories: Fast Radio Bursts, Necrobotics, and Comet Updates with Joe Johnson","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":721,"description":"Our resident science guy Joe Johnson is back with this week’s *Science Stories*, diving into the latest cosmic discoveries, cutting-edge tech inspired by nature, and updates on the comets lighting up our skies.Fast Radio Bursts Illuminate the UniverseJohnson kicked things off with fast radio bursts, or FRBs, the mysterious, ultra-brief flashes of radio energy that have captivated astronomers. “These are extremely powerful flashes of radio energy, literally more energy than our Sun releases in several days, but they only last micro or milliseconds rather,” he explained.While most FRBs originate from galaxies far, far away, scientists recently detected some within our own Milky Way. “They’re probably produced by magnetars, which are neutron stars with intense magnetic fields, literally hundreds of million of trillions of times stronger than the Earth's magnetic field.”Though incredibly powerful, FRBs are faint by the time they reach Earth—“about a thousand times weaker than a cell phone signal sent from the moon to the Earth. So they're barely there, but they are detectable,” Johnson said.Using these signals, astronomers have been able to map the intergalactic medium, the thin gas network connecting galaxies. “By studying how these fast radio bursts are changed by passing through this intergalactic medium, they can estimate how much gaseous matter the radio waves encountered,” he explained. The results show that 76% of the universe’s normal matter lies between galaxies, 15% in galactic halos, and only 9% within stars and gas inside galaxies—a cosmic census of matter for the first time.**Necrobotics: Spider Legs and Mosquito Nozzles**Next up, Johnson explored a field called necrobotics, where engineers use biological structures in machines. “The best example that I could find was what they called a biohybrid pneumatic micro gripper that was actually made from the legs of deceased spiders. They control them with air pressure and they use these devices to pick up, you...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/q7XXsnSXT_u4mZLCn3chUorwDmUD_kWiB272D6emB18/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS80N2Uy/OGY5MWUwZThkYTEw/NDVkZGM2ZGZkZDIw/ZjliOS5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}