Flora has produced science media for 20 years across many formats. She got her start right here at Science Friday, working her way up from intern to fill-in host, and resident videographer. From there, she worked as a video producer for The New York Times, co-creating an Emmy-nominated film series that dramatized scientific discoveries using… paper puppets. She also was nominated for an Emmy for her writing on Bill Nye’s Netflix show “Bill Nye Saves the World.” She has created and launched a number of podcasts in various roles, including hosting Gimlet’s beloved “Every Little Thing,” which connected listeners to experts who could answer their burning questions. The show ran for five years and published over 200 episodes. In her previous role as Hypothesis Fund Managing Editor, she told the stories of world-class scientists pursuing bold new ideas in a new storytelling initiative, The Leap.
Making science accessible, relatable, and human has been a focus of Flora’s career. Some of her inspiration comes from her own experience in science: Long, long ago, she worked at a NATO oceanographic lab in Italy. For the lab’s research expeditions, she lived on a ship where apertivi were served on the top deck, hoisted there via pulley by the ship’s chef.
You can find her @flichtman on social media platforms.
The decades-long movement to kill FEMA
A new series from “On the Media” traces the mistrust and conspiracy theories that have plagued FEMA since its founding in 1979.
What cats and dogs hear + A ‘smell map’ of the nose
What do cats and dogs hear that we don’t? Plus, what a “smell map” of the receptors in a mouse nose tells us about this sense.
How do you study microplastics in a plastic-filled lab?
Measuring microplastics can be hard, partly because they’re everywhere—including the lab. One researcher is working on solutions.
What is ibogaine, and why is it in the news?
A recent executive order issued by President Trump aims to fast-track research for psychedelics, including ibogaine. What is it?
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Maine nearly became the first state to ban data centers
Maine shows how public mobilization is making a difference in determining where data centers go, and how they impact local communities.
What urban design tells us about democracy
Archaeologists can use the design of ancient temples, plazas, and cities to piece together the story of how a place was governed.
How do you describe nature? Two poets help us
For Earth Day, we wanted to know how to best put our feelings about nature into words. Two poets help us out.
The lucky breaks that make our Earth home
An astrophysicist explores all that it took for life to exist on Earth, from the formation of stars to self-organizing molecules.
Simone Giertz’s journey from robot comedy to high-end design
Inventor Simone Giertz rose to YouTube fame with comically bad robots. Now she designs comically useful objects for our very normal problems.
When a dolphin whistles, what does it mean?
Recordings from a decades-long research project in Florida are helping scientists decode the complexity of dolphin whistles.