Lauren J. Young is Science Friday’s web producer. She crafts pre- and post-show content for ScienceFriday.com so that listeners can get their fill of science stories throughout the week. Among the cool things Lauren has done as a journalist is hold a honeycomb frame filled with bees while standing on the roof of the Waldorf Astoria; cradle a rose hair tarantula in her hands; and re-watch the movies from the Alien franchise to “research” a creepy carnivorous plankton species.
Before joining the SciFri team, Lauren wrote for Atlas Obscura. There, she learned that the Victorians came up with odd inventions for nearly every aspect of daily life and that there are still many wondrous places yet to be explored in the world.
Lauren hails from an ever-growing rodeo town in the San Joaquin Valley of California. She studied biology at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Even though the nearest beach was just a 20-minute drive from campus, she preferred working at the library and cultivating microbes in the lab. She’s got a knack for badminton (she was a high school champion) and an impressive collection of Pez dispensers.
While receiving her master’s degree in science journalism from NYU, Lauren interned at IEEE Spectrum and Science Friday. She was thrilled to reunite with the team.
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A Yearbook Of Seeds
From the Uncarina seed’s fashionable coat to the flowing orange locks of the Bird of Paradise seed, we present this year’s seed superlatives.
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16:43
Little Bats, Impressive Resumes
Fancy flying, fast thinking, and sophisticated sonar: Why bats seem to have it all.
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Get Your Future Issue Of ‘Your Martian Daily’
Tips from a NASA astronaut for what to eat, how to dress, and how to manage your modern life on Mars.
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12:01
Bringing (Accurate) Dinosaurs Back To Life
Meet Gabriel Ugueto, a paleoartist who relies on scientific papers and fossils to get closer to what dinosaurs actually looked like.
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16:50
High School Science Projects Go High Tech
From battling invasive weeds to detecting gender bias in social media, these high schoolers hone in on tough scientific questions for a nationwide competition.
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29:41
The Women Who Made The Internet
Silicon Valley may be notoriously male-dominated today. But a new book tells the stories of the women who have been building the internet since day one.
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The Mystery Of The Namibian Fairy Circles
The strange circles that dot the desert in Southern Africa have stumped scientists for decades. But math and ecology might have an answer.
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25:11
How To Spot The Engineering Tricks Hidden In Buildings
It takes a lot of crafty physics to keep a skyscraper standing. A structural engineer tells the secrets of her trade.
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16:51
Were Neanderthals Artists?
Uranium dating of art in Spanish caves turns up a number too old to be human. And if it’s true—what does art have to do with complex thought?
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16:46
Venomous Or Poisonous—Can You Spot The Difference?
Poisonous and venomous creatures are often misclassified. But it turns out, there’s a big difference between the two.