Christopher Intagliata was Science Friday’s senior producer, which means he was chief cheerleader for all the radio and podcast projects. He helped to select and shape stories, or put them to a gentle death if necessary. He was also the coordinating producer for Science Friday’s live stage events around the nation, and has skated Olympic ice and served as a prop in an optical illusion for SciFri.
Christopher started at Science Friday as an intern in summer 2008, until the day Ira Flatow called him at home, triggering enormous anxiety about the latest script he’d written, to ask if he wanted to be a producer. His favorite stories usually involve microbes or food or both, but anything can pique his interest—other than ocean chemistry. Sorry.
He also reports regularly for Scientific American‘s “60-Second Science” podcast, and was a 2015 Woods Hole Ocean Science Journalism fellow. Prior to becoming a science journalist, he taught English to soldiers and bankers in Verona, Italy, and traversed the Sierra Nevada mountains as a field biologist, on the lookout for mountain yellow-legged frogs. He speaks fluent Italian, awkward Japanese, and passable Ira Flatowese.
He is now an editor for All Things Considered.
24:31
Medical ‘Cures’ That Did More Harm Than Good
Aspirin is much better for headaches than a red-hot iron to the forehead—but ancient Greek physicians prescribed the latter ‘cure.’
29:48
For These Robots, Squishy Is Superior
Roboticists are turning to fleshy substances like mouse, insect, and sea slug muscles to build a fleet of bio-inspired robots.
12:17
The Physics Of Figure Skating
Those leaps and spins are a physics demonstration in action.
12:16
Chocolate: Brought To You By Bugs
A menagerie of insects thrive among cacao trees—and that biodiversity might help boost yields.
24:16
How China Is Reinventing Its Energy Economy
China’s thirst for energy is rising. But to save its cities from suffocating pollution, leaders are looking to carbon-free energy sources and electric vehicles.
11:31
Flu’s Fatal Side Effect: Heart Attacks
Flu infection boosts the risk of heart attack six fold. An infectious disease physician explains why—and how to protect yourself.
16:24
Do Sleep Apps And Gadgets Really Help You?
Turns out, clocking in your data doesn’t mean clocking in better sleep.
29:24
Cosmic Questions In Comic Book Form
In “The Dialogues,” a new graphic novel by theoretical physicist Clifford Johnson, the superheroes are scientists—and they’ll teach you a thing or two about physics.
29:27
A Tour Of The World’s Weird And Wonderful Flies
In her book The Secret Life of Flies, Erica McAlister introduces us the fascinating members of the extended fly family.
11:57
Preventing A ‘Digital Dark Age’
More and more data is born into this world as digital bits, with no analog counterpart. How can we preserve it for future generations?