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b'Inside The \\u2018Chaos Machine\\u2019 Of Social Media\\nDespite social media\\u2019s early promises to build a more just and democratic society, over the past several years, we\\u2019ve seen its propensity to easily spread hate speech, misinformation and disinformation. Online platforms have even played a role in organizing violent acts in the real world, like genocide against the Rohinga people in Myanmar, and the violent attempt to overturn the election at the United States capitol.\\nBut how did we get here? Has social media fundamentally changed how we interact with the world? And how did big tech companies accumulate so much unchecked power along the way?\\nRead an excerpt of The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World\\xa0here.\\n\\n\\xa0\\nTaking On Renewables\\u2019 AC/DC Disconnect\\nIn the push to transition society to more renewable energy sources, there are several logistical challenges. One central question involves the best way to connect solar panels and battery storage\\u2014which both produce direct current, into an energy grid that primarily provides alternating current at the local level.\\nDr. Suman Debnath leads a project called the Multiport Autonomous Reconfigurable Solar power plant (MARS) at Oak Ridge National Lab. He and his colleagues have designed a system of advanced power electronics that allow large, utility-scale solar facilities and battery storage projects to feed either AC or DC power, as needed. The approach, Debnath says, will both allow for better integration of those electric resources into the grid, and make it more possible to transport power long distances using more efficient DC transmission lines.\\nDebnath talks with Ira about the MARS project, and ways to modernize the country\\u2019s power distribution system for greater reliability and efficiency.\\n\\n\\xa0\\nAre These Ancient Galaxies Too Big For Their Age?\\nWe\\u2019ve all been wowed by the amazing images from the James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST. But sometimes, the important data isn\\u2019t in those amazing galactic swirls or wispy nebula images, but in the images of tiny smudges from far, far away.\\nAstronomers recently described some of those smudges, tiny red dots thought possibly to be ancient, distant galaxies, in the journal Nature. However, if the red dots do in fact represent galaxies, they appear to be too large to fit predictions for how fast galaxies form. The possible galaxies may be about 13 billion years old, forming just 500 to 700 million years after the Big Bang, but appear to contain as many stars as much more mature galaxies.\\nDr Erica Nelson, an assistant professor of Astrophysics at the University of Colorado, Boulder and one of the authors of that paper, joins Ira to talk about the observation and what could explain the confusing finding.\\n\\n\\xa0\\nHow These Russian Wasps Could Help Save Ash Trees\\nHow do you find an insect the size of your fingertip in a densely packed forest?\\nFor Jian Duan, the answer is simple: Follow the dead ash trees.\\nOn a rainy day in eastern Connecticut, Duan, a federal research entomologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, walked to a dying ash covered with holes. Peeling back the bark with a drawknife, he revealed a mess of serpentine tunnels. Curled up inside was one of his targets: a larva of emerald ash borer.\\n\\u201cLet\\u2019s collect it,\\u201d Duan said, gesturing as his assistant handed him a pair of tweezers tied to a brightly-colored ribbon.\\n(In case you\\u2019re wondering, the ribbon makes the tweezers easy to spot when they\\u2019re dropped on the leaf-covered ground.)\\nBut today Duan isn\\u2019t just collecting emerald ash borers. He\\u2019s also looking for their predator, one released here on purpose in 2019 and 2020: a wasp known as Spathius galinae (pronounced spay-see-us glee-nuh).\\n\\u201cIt\\u2019s from the Russian Far East,\\u201d Duan said, smiling. \\u201cUnfortunately, there are no common names for these parasitic wasps.\\u201d\\nTo read the rest, visit sciencefriday.com.\\n\\n\\xa0\\n\\xa0\\nVocal Fry Serves Up Treats For Toothed Whales\\nToothed whales\\u2014species like orcas, bottlenose whales, and dolphins\\u2014use echolocation to zero in on prey about a mile deep into the ocean.\\nUntil now, scientists couldn\\u2019t quite figure out how the whales were making these clicking sounds in the deep ocean, where there\\u2019s little oxygen.\\nA new study published in the journal Science, finds the key to underwater echolocation is vocal fry. Although in whales it might not sound like the creaky voice that some people love to hate, the two sounds are generated in a similar way in the vocal folds.\\nIra talks with the study\\u2019s co-author, Dr. Coen Elemans, professor of bioacoustics and animal behavior at the University of Southern Denmark based in Odense, Denmark.\\n\\n\\xa0\\nTranscripts for each segment will be available the week after the show airs on\\xa0sciencefriday.com.'