- by Science MagazineFirst up on the podcast, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory is just coming online, and once fully operational, it will take a snapshot of the entire southern sky every 3 days. Producer Meagan Cantwell guides us through Staff Writer Daniel Cleryâs trip to the site of the largest camera ever made for astronomy. Â Next on the show, probing the impact of plastic bag regulations. Environmental economist Anna Papp joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss her work comparing litter collected […]
- by Science MagazineFirst up on the podcast, Staff Writer Erik Stokstad talks with host Sarah Crespi about how scientists are probing the worldâs hottest forests to better understand how plants will cope with climate change. His story is part of a special issue on plants and heat, which includes reviews and perspectives on the fate of plants in a warming world. Â Next on the show, âconvergentâ antibodies may underlie the growing number of people allergic to peanuts. Sarita Patil, co-director of […]
- by Science MagazineFirst up on the podcast, we hear from Staff Writer Paul Voosen about the tricky problem of regional climate prediction. Although global climate change models have held up for the most part, predicting what will happen at smaller scales, such as the level of a city, is proving a stubborn challenge. Just increasing the resolution of global models requires intense computing power, so researchers and city planners are looking to other approaches to find out whatâs in store for cities. […]
- Tickling in review, spores in the stratosphere, and longevity researchby Science MagazineFirst up on the podcast, Online News Editor Michael Greshko joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about stories set high above our heads. They discuss capturing fungal spores high in the stratosphere, the debate over signs of life on the exoplanet K2-18b, and a Chinese contender for worldâs oldest star catalog. Â Next on the show, a look into long-standing questions on why and how our bodies respond to tickling. Producer Meagan Cantwell talks to Konstantina Kilteni, an assistant professor […]
- by Science MagazineFirst up on the podcast, freelance journalist Zack Savitsky joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about the strange metal state. Physicists are probing the behavior of electrons in these materials, which appear to behave like a thick soup rather than discrete charged particles. Many suspect insights into strange metals might lead to the creation of room-temperature superconductors, highly desired materials that promise lossless energy delivery and floating trains. A few years ago, researcher Nora Zannoni came on the show to […]
- by Science MagazineFirst up on the podcast, freelance journalist Jonathan Moens talks with host Sarah Crespi about a forensic test called brain electrical oscillation signature (BEOS) profiling, which police in India are using along with other techniques to try to tell whether a suspect participated in a crime, despite these technologiesâ extremely shaky scientific grounding. Â Next on the show, scientists have recently made strides in our understanding of horses, from identifying the mutations that make horses amazing athletes to showing how […]
- by Science MagazineFirst up on the podcast, producer Meagan Cantwell worked with the Science News team to review how the first 100 days of President Donald Trumpâs administration have impacted science. In the segment, originally produced for video, we hear about how the workforce, biomedical research, and global health initiatives all face widespread, perhaps permanent damage, with News staffers David Malakoff, Jocelyn Kaiser, and Rachel Bernstein. Â Next on the show, acoustical analysis of ancient music from Greece and Rome shows different musical […]
- by Science MagazineFirst up on the podcast, Contributing Correspondent Andrew Curry talks with host Sarah Crespi about his visit to 17th century crypts under an old hospital in Italy. Researchers are examining tooth plaque, bone lesions, and mummified brains to learn more about the health, diet, and drug habits of Milanâs working poor 400 years ago. Next on the show, a mechanism for driving growth in fat stores with age. Or, the source of the âdad bodâ trope. Producer Zakiya Whatley talks […]
- by Science MagazineFirst up on the podcast, bringing Gregor Mendelâs peas into the 21st century. Back in the 19th century Mendel, a friar and naturalist, tracked traits in peas such as flower color and shape over many generations. He used these observations to identify basic concepts about inheritance such as recessive and dominant traits. Staff Writer Erik Stokstad talks with host Sarah Crespi about the difficulty of identifying genes for these phenotypes all these years later. We also hear some other stories […]
- by Science MagazineFirst up on the podcast, Online News Editor David Grimm joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about how an Egyptian cult that killed cats may have also tamed them. Â Next on the show, we hear about when the aurorae wandered. About 41,000 years ago, Earthâs magnetic poles took an excursion. They began to move equatorward and decreased in strength to one-tenth their modern levels. Agnit Mukhopadhyay, a research affiliate at the University of Michigan, talks about how his group […]
- by Science MagazineFirst up on the podcast, ScienceInsider Editor Jocelyn Kaiser joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss big changes in science funding and government jobs this month, including an order to cut billions in contracts, lawsuits over funding caps and grant funding cancellations, and mass firings at the National Institutes of Health. Â Next on the show, taking sleep loss more seriously. Jennifer Tudor, an associate professor of biology at Saint Josephâs University, talks about how skipping out on sleep has many […]
- by Science MagazineGeoengineering experiments face an uphill battle, and a way to combat the pregnancy complication hyperemesis gravidarum First up on the podcast, climate engineers face tough conversations with the public when proposing plans to test new technologies. Freelance science journalist Rebekah White joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the questions people have about these experiments and how researchers can get collaboration and buy-in for testing ideas such as changing the atmosphere to reflect more sunlight or altering the ocean to suck […]
- by Science MagazineFirst up this week, urban wildfires raged in Los Angeles in January. Contributing Correspondent Warren Cornwall discusses how researchers have come together to study how pollution from buildings at such a large scale impacts the environment and health of the local population. Â Next on the show, Mingze Chen, a graduate student in the mechanical engineering department at the University of Michigan, talks with host Sarah Crespi about the challenges of placing artificial intelligence in small robots. As you add […]
- by Science MagazineFirst up this week, Newsletter Editor Christie Wilcox joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss stories from the sea, including why scientists mounted cameras on seabirds, backward and upside-down; newly discovered organisms from the worldâs deepest spot, the Mariana Trench; and how extremely venomous, blue-lined octopus males use their toxin on females in order to mate. Read more or subscribe at science.org/scienceadviser. Â Next on the show, J. Chris McKnight, a senior research fellow in the Sea Mammal Research Unit at […]
- by Science MagazineFirst up this week, science policy editor Jocelyn Kaiser joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the latest news about the National Institutes of Healthâfrom reconfiguring review panels to canceled grants to confirmation hearings for a new head, Jay Bhattacharya. Â Next, although cochlear implants can give deaf children access to sound, it doesnât always mean they have unrestricted access to language. Producer Meagan Cantwell talks with Contributing Correspondent Cathleen OâGrady about why some think using sign language with kids with […]
- by Science MagazineFirst up this week, International News Editor David Malakoff joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the most recent developments in U.S. science under Donald Trumpâs second term, from the impact of tariffs on science to the rehiring of probationary employees at the National Science Foundation. Â Next, we tackle the question of extra-pair paternity in peopleâwhen marriage or birth records of parentage differ from biological parentage. Contributing Correspondent Andrew Curry writes about researchers looking into the question of how often […]
- by Science MagazineFirst up this week, Kata KarĂĄth, a freelance journalist based in Ecuador, talks with host Sarah Crespi about an effort to identify traditionally prepared shrunken heads in museums and collections around the world and potentially repatriate them. Â Next, genetically modified Bt corn has helped farmers avoid serious crop damage from insects, but planting it everywhere all the time can drive insects to adapt to the bacterial toxin made by the plant. Christian Krupke, an entomology professor at Purdue University, […]
- by Science MagazineFirst up this week, researchers face impossible decisions as U.S. aid freeze halts clinical trials. Deputy News Editor Martin Enserink joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about how organizers of U.S. Agency for International Developmentâfunded studies are grappling with ethical responsibilities to trial participants and collaborators as funding, supplies, and workers dry up. Â Next, freelance science journalist Sandeep Ravindran talks about creating tiny machine learning devices for bespoke use in the Global South. Farmers and medical clinics are using […]
- by Science MagazineFirst up this week, International News Editor David Malakoff joins the podcast to discuss the big change in NIHâs funding policy for overhead or indirect costs, the outrage from the biomedical community over the cuts, and the lawsuits filed in response. Â Next, what can machines understand about pets and livestock that humans canât? Christa LestĂŠ-Lasserre, a freelance science journalist based in Paris, joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss training artificial intelligence on animal facial expressions. Today, this approach can […]
- by Science MagazineFirst up this week, Staff Writer Paul Voosen joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss mapping clogs and flows in Earthâs middle layerâthe mantle. They also talk about recent policy stories on NASAâs reactions to President Donald Trumpâs administrationâs executive orders. Â Next, the mantis shrimp is famous for its powerful club, a biological hammer it uses to crack open hard shells. The club applies immense force on impact, but how does it keep itself together blow after blow? Nicolas Alderete […]