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.
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.
Tour A Bat Cave
Nickolay Hristov uses a long-range laser scanner and portable thermal cameras to see bats in new ways.
To The Bat Cave!
Bat biologist Nickolay Hristov, of UNC’s Center for Design Innovation and Winston-Salem State University, develops new techniques for filming and visualizing bats.
Unwinding the Cucumber Tendril Mystery
Researchers use time-lapse photography and a prosthetic plant to understand why cucumber tendrils twist.
Unwinding the Cucumber Tendril Mystery
Plants may be stationary, but they’re rarely still, says biologist Roger Hangarter, creator of the website Plants in Motion.
Science of Good Dancing
Evolutionary psychologist Nick Neave filmed men dancing, converted the videos into dancing avatars and asked women to rate the avatars’ dancing ability.
Poop and Paddle
This toilet floats. It’s an outhouse and sewage-treatment plant in one.
Martian Lab Made in Manhattan
What’s it like to build tools for Curiosity? Intense.
SciFri Book Club Talks ‘Monkey Mind’
Peer into the anxious mind of writer Daniel Smith with the SciFri Book Club.
Making Movies That Zoom into Foreign Worlds
The stars of these films usually have only one cell.
Microscopic Movie Stars
In the 1950s-1970s, Roman Vishniac made educational science films, featuring footage he shot through his microscope.