Americans’ Knowledge Of Reproductive Health Is Limited

As the nation awaits a momentous Supreme Court decision that could overturn or severely limit the 1973 Roe V. Wade opinion on abortion, a new poll released by the Kaiser Family Foundation found serious gaps in Americans’ understanding of certain scientific aspects of reproductive health.

For instance, the poll found that while medication abortion now accounts for more than half of all abortions in the U.S., fewer than three in ten U.S. adults (27%) say they have heard of the medication abortion pill known as mifepristone—though that number is up slightly from a 2019 poll, which found that 21% of adults had heard of the medication. And even among those who had heard of it, poll respondents were unsure over when and how it was used, or how to obtain the drug.

Rachel Feltman, executive editor at Popular Science, joins John Dankosky to talk about the poll findings and other stories from the week in science—including an experimental drug for rectal cancer, an ancient jawbone of a polar bear, an EU ruling regarding charging ports for electronic devices, and a micrometeorite ding on the shiny mirror of the recently-launched JWST.

Some Doctors Want To Change How Race Is Used In Medicine

Several months ago, a lab technologist at Barnes-Jewish Hospital mixed the blood components of two people: Alphonso Harried, who needed a kidney, and Pat Holterman-Hommes, who hoped to give him one.

The goal was to see whether Harried’s body would instantly see Holterman-Hommes’ organ as a major threat and attack it before surgeons could finish a transplant. To do that, the technologist mixed in fluorescent tags that would glow if Harried’s immune defense forces would latch onto the donor’s cells in preparation for an attack. If, after a few hours, the machine found lots of glowing, it meant the kidney transplant would be doomed. It stayed dark: They were a match.“I was floored,” said Harried.

Both recipient and donor were a little surprised. Harried is Black. Holterman-Hommes is white. Could a white person donate a kidney to a Black person? Would race get in the way of their plans? Both families admitted those kinds of questions were flitting around in their heads, even though they know, deep down, that “it’s more about your blood type—and all of our blood is red,” as Holterman-Hommes put it.

Read more at sciencefriday.com.

How A $2 Billion U.S. Plan To Save Salmon In The Northwest Is Failing

CARSON, Wash.—The fish were on their way to be executed. One minute, they were swimming around a concrete pond. The next, they were being dumped onto a stainless steel table set on an incline. Hook-nosed and wide-eyed, they thrashed and thumped their way down the table toward an air-powered guillotine.

Hoses hanging from steel girders flushed blood through the grated metal floor. Hatchery workers in splattered chest waders gutted globs of bright orange eggs from the dead females and dropped them into buckets, then doused them first with a stream of sperm taken from the dead males and then with an iodine disinfectant.

The fertilized eggs were trucked around the corner to an incubation building where over 200 stacked plastic trays held more than a million salmon eggs. Once hatched, they would fatten and mature in rectangular concrete tanks sunk into the ground, safe from the perils of the wild, until it was time to make their journey to the ocean.

Read more at sciencefriday.com.

How A Facebook Group Helps People Identify Mysterious Mushrooms

Mushroom season has begun. A wide variety of fungi are sprouting up in forests and yards, especially after a heavy rainstorm. While wild mushrooms are generally safe to touch, eating mysterious fungi is a terrible idea. But, sometimes a child or a dog gobbles up an unknown species. In order to determine if it’s poisonous or not, you’ll need an expert opinion—quickly.

That’s why Kerry Woodfield helped start a Facebook group to help people correctly identify poisonous mushrooms and plants. She recruited over 200 botanists and mycologists from all over the world to volunteer their time. In the past few years, the group has mushroomed to over 130,000 members.

Guest host John Dankosky talks with Woodfield, co-founder of the Facebook group, Poisons Help; Emergency Identification For Mushrooms & Plants and foraging instructor at Wild Food UK. She discusses why she decided to start the group, its role within the poison control system, and how to talk to the kids in your life about poisonous plants and mushrooms.

Transcripts for each segment will be available the week after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.