First up this week, a preview of a NASA mission to Jupiter’s icy moon Europa . Science journalist Robin Andrews joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about the Clipper mission and what it could reveal about the habitability of the world that lies beneath Europa’s chaotic, icy surface. Next, what does it feel like to be a rat? This week Science has a special issue on rats , focusing on their contributions to science, their history as invasives and disease carriers, and more. But Inbal Ben-Ami Bartal , ...
Sep 19, 2024•44 min
Why don’t we know what is happening with hail? It’s extremely destructive and costs billions of dollars in property damage every year. We aren’t great at predicting hailstorms and don’t know much about how climate change will affect them, but scientists are working to change that. News Intern Hannah Richter joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss deploying new technologies in this long-neglected area of research. Next on the show, ultrasound—it’s not just for looking inside the body anymore. Meaghan ...
Sep 12, 2024•28 min
The latest in our series on global equity in science, and how better memory helps chickadees live longer First up this week, as part of our series on global equity in science, Contributing Correspondent Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about an initiative in India intended to increase education about early “Indian knowledge systems ” amid concerns about homogenization and misinformation. Next, producer Kevin McLean climbs a mountain to visit a test bed for intelligence. H...
Sep 05, 2024•33 min
First up this week on the podcast, the latest conservation news with Staff Writer Erik Stokstad. Stokstad and host Sarah Crespi talk about the fate of snow crabs in the Bering Sea, how much we have been overestimating fishing stocks worldwide , and invasive snakes in Guam that bite off more than they can chew. Next, a fungus takes the wheel. Anand Mishra , a research associate in the department of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Cornell University, discusses a method of integrating elect...
Aug 29, 2024•53 min
First up this week on the show, uncounted kilometers of fences are strung across the globe. Researchers know they interfere with wildlife migrations and sometimes make finding food and safety difficult for animals. But they don’t know where all these fences are. Freelancer science journalist Christine Peterson joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss how artificial intelligence and aerial photos could help create fence inventories and eventually reopen spaces for native species. Next, Azizi Seixas , i...
Aug 22, 2024•31 min
First up this week, Deputy News Editors Elizabeth Culotta and Shraddha Chakradhar join host Sarah Crespi to talk about the launch of a new series highlighting the latest in postcolonial science . They cover how researchers around the world, but especially in the Global South, are reckoning with colonial legacies and what is in store for the rest of the series. Next, producer Meagan Cantwell talks with Mario Fischer-Gödde , a research scientist at the University of Cologne about the origins of th...
Aug 15, 2024•28 min
Researchers debate if humidity makes heat more deadly, and finding excess diabetes cases in Ukrainian people that were born right after the 1930s famine First up this week, which is worse: the heat or the humidity ? Staff writer Meredith Wadman joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about conflicting reports on the risk of increased mortality when humidity compounds heat, and how to resolve the debate in the field. Next, LH Lumey , a professor of epidemiology at the Columbia University Medical Center, ...
Aug 08, 2024•28 min
First up this week, we hear about caves on the Moon , a shake-up at Pompeii , and the iron-lined teeth of the Komodo dragon. Reporter Phie Jacobs joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss these news stories and more from our daily newsletter, Science Adviser . Next on the show, electron microscopes allow us to view a world inaccessible to light—at incredible resolution and tiny scales. But bombarding samples with a beam of electrons has downsides. The high-energy electrons used for visualizing minute s...
Aug 01, 2024•28 min
Tackling air pollution—indoors and outdoors, how burned-up satellites in the atmosphere could destroy ozone, and the latest in our series of books on a future to look forward to First up this week, Science Senior Editor Michael Funk joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about the magazine’s special issue on air pollution . The two discuss the broad scope of air pollution, from home cooking to transmissible disease. Next, how burned-up satellites may cause pollution problems as megaconstellations take ...
Jul 25, 2024•46 min
First up this week, Staff Writer Adrian Cho talks with host Sarah Crespi about a fusion company that isn’t aiming for net energy. Instead, it’s looking to sell off the high-energy neutrons from its fusion reactors for different purposes, such as imaging machine parts and generating medical isotopes. In the long run, the company hopes to use money from these neutron-based enterprises for bigger, more energetic reactors that may someday make fusion energy. Next, we hear from Tian Du , a Ph.D. cand...
Jul 18, 2024•31 min
Rodenticides are building up inside unintended targets, including birds, mammals, and insects; and bringing bioacoustics and artificial intelligence together for ecology First up this week, producer Kevin McLean and freelance science journalist Dina Fine Maron discuss the history of rodent control and how rat poisons are making their way into our ecosystem . Next on the episode, host Sarah Crespi talks with Jeppe Rasmussen , a postdoctoral fellow in the behavior ecology group at the University o...
Jul 11, 2024•35 min
First up this week, guest host Kevin McLean talks to freelance writer Andrew Zaleski about recent advancements in the world of synthetic blood . They discuss some of the failed attempts over the past century that led many to abandon the cause altogether, and a promising new option in the works called ErythroMer that is both shelf stable and can work on any blood type. Next on the episode, producer Zakiya Whatley talks to Aaron Weimann from the University of Cambridge about the evolutionary histo...
Jul 04, 2024•31 min
Guest host Meagan Cantwell talks to Staff Writer Erik Stokstad about a new weapon against crop-destroying beetles . By making pesticides using RNA, farmers can target pests and their close relatives, leaving other creatures unharmed. Next, freelance producer Katherine Irving talks to hydrologist Craig Brinkerhoff about a recent analysis of ephemeral streams —which are only around temporarily—throughout the United States. Despite their fleeting presence, Brinkerhoff and his colleagues found these...
Jun 27, 2024•49 min
On this week’s show: Scientists are expanding the hunt for habitable exoplanets to bigger worlds, and why improvements in air quality have stagnated in Los Angeles, especially during summer, despite cleaner cars and increased regulations Staff Writer Daniel Clery joins producer Meagan Cantwell to talk through the major contenders for habitable exoplanets —from Earth-like rocky planets to water worlds. Preliminary results from two rocky exoplanets have some researchers concerned about whether the...
Jun 20, 2024•33 min
On this week’s show: Companion animals such as dogs occupy the same environment we do, which can make them good sentinels for human health, and DNA gives clues to ancient Maya rituals and malaria’s global spread Contributing Correspondent Andrew Curry joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss two very different studies that used DNA to dig into our past. One study reveals details of child sacrifices in an ancient Maya city . The other story is on the surprising historical reach of malaria , from Belgiu...
Jun 13, 2024•42 min
Despite not having a known function, cellular “vaults” are on the verge of being harnessed for all kinds of applications, and looking at the evolution of brown fat into a heat-generating organ First on this week’s show, Managing News Editor John Travis joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss mysterious cellular complexes called “vaults.” First discovered in the 1980s, scientists have yet to uncover the function of these large, common, hollow structures. But now some researchers are looking to use vau...
Jun 06, 2024•38 min
Studying color vision in with children who gain sight later in life, joining a cancer trial doesn’t improve survival odds, and the first in our books series this year First on this week’s show, Staff Writer Jennifer Couzin-Frankel joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the pros and cons of participating in clinical trials. Her story challenges the common thinking that participating in a trial is beneficial—even in the placebo group—for cancer patients. Next, Lukas Vogelsang , a postdoctoral fellow i...
May 30, 2024•45 min
A roundup of online news stories featuring animals, and researchers get crows to “count” to four This week’s show is all animals all the time. First, Online News Editor Dave Grimm joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss stepping on venomous snakes for science, hunting ice age cave bears , and demolishing lizardlike buildings . Next, producer Kevin McLean talks with Diana Liao , a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Tübingen, about teaching crows to count out loud . They discuss the complexit...
May 23, 2024•34 min
On this week’s show: What happens when the body’s own immune system attacks the brain, and how otters’ use of tools expands their diet First on the show this week, when rogue antibodies attack the brain , patients can show bizarre symptoms—from extreme thirst, to sleep deprivation, to outright psychosis. Contributing Correspondent Richard Stone joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the hunt for biomarkers and treatments for this cluster of autoimmune disorders that were once mistaken for schizophre...
May 16, 2024•33 min
Jupiter’s moon Io has likely been volcanically active since the start of the Solar System, and a proposal to safeguard healthy human subjects in clinical trials First on the show this week, a look at proposed protections for healthy human subjects , particularly in phase 1 clinical trials. Deputy News Editor Martin Enserink joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the risks healthy participants face when involved in early testing of drugs for safety and tolerance. Then, we hear about a project to esta...
May 09, 2024•30 min
Bringing historical seismic reports and modern seismic risk maps into alignment, and a roundup of stories from our newsletter, ScienceAdviser First on the show this week, a roundup of stories with our newsletter editor, Christie Wilcox. Wilcox talks with host Sarah Crespi about the oldest ice ever found, how well conservation efforts seem to be working, and repelling mosquitoes with our skin microbes. Next on this episode, evaluating seismic hazard maps. In a Science Advances paper this week, Le...
May 02, 2024•25 min
Researchers try to identify effective loneliness interventions, making the Sandmeyer safer, and books that look to the future and don’t see doom and gloom First up on the show, Deputy News Editor Kelly Servick explores the science of loneliness . Is loneliness on the rise or just our awareness of it? How do we deal with the stigma of being lonely? Also appearing in this segment: ● Laura Coll-Planas ● Julianne Holt-Lunstad ● Samia Akhter-Khan Next, producer Ariana Remmel talks with Tim Schulte , ...
Apr 25, 2024•43 min
A different source of global warming, signs of a continentwide tradition of human sacrifice, and a virus that attacks the cholera bacteria First up on the show this week, clearer skies might be accelerating global warming . Staff Writer Paul Voosen joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss how as air pollution is cleaned up, climate models need to consider the decrease in the planet’s reflectivity. Less reflectivity means Earth is absorbing more energy from the Sun and increased temps. Also from the ne...
Apr 18, 2024•38 min
]Researchers are testing HIV drugs and monoclonal antibodies against long-lasting COVID-19, and what it takes to turn a symbiotic friend into an organelle First up on the show this week, clinical trials of new and old treatments for Long Covid . Producer Meagan Cantwell is joined by Staff Writer Jennifer Couzin-Frankel and some of her sources to discuss the difficulties of studying and treating this debilitating disease. People in this segment: · Michael Peluso · Sara Cherry · Shelley Hayden Nex...
Apr 11, 2024•33 min
Tracing the arrival of rats using bones, isotopes, and a few shipwrecks; and what scientists have learned in 50 years about our famous ancestor Lucy First on the show: Did rats come over with Christopher Columbus? It turns out, European colonists weren’t alone on their ships when they came to the Americas—they also brought black and brown rats to uninfested shores. Eric Guiry , a researcher in the Trent Environmental Archaeology Lab at Trent University, joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss how tin...
Apr 04, 2024•31 min
Robots that can smile in synchrony with people, and what ends up in the letters section First on this week’s show, a robot that can predict your smile . Hod Lipson , a roboticist and professor at Columbia University, joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss how mirrors can help robots learn to make facial expressions and eventually improve robot nonverbal communication. Next, we have Margaret Handley , a professor in the department of epidemiology and biostatistics and medicine at the University of Ca...
Mar 28, 2024•30 min
New clinical trials for treatments of an always fatal brain disease, and what happens with pests when a conventional and organic farm are neighbors First up on this week’s show, a new treatment to stave off prion disease goes into clinical trials . Prions are misfolded proteins that clump together and chew holes in the brain. The misfolding can be switched on in a number of ways—including infection with a misfolded prion protein from an animal or person. Staff Writer Meredith Wadman talks with h...
Mar 21, 2024•36 min
Investigating “infantile amnesia,” and how generalized fear after acute stress reflects changes in the brain This week we have two neuroscience stories. First up, freelance science journalist Sara Reardon looks at why infants’ memories fade . She joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss ongoing experiments that aim to determine when the forgetting stops and why it happens in the first place. Next on the show, Hui-Quan Li, a senior scientist at Neurocrine Biosciences , talks with Sarah about how the br...
Mar 14, 2024•29 min
What modern Indian genomes say about the region’s deep past, and how vitamin A influences stem cell plasticity First up this week, Online News Editor Michael Price and host Sarah Crespi talk about a large genome sequencing project in India that reveals past migrations in the region and a unique intermixing with Neanderthals in ancient times. Next on the show, producer Kevin McLean chats with Matthew Tierney , a postdoctoral fellow at Rockefeller University, about how vitamin A and stem cells wor...
Mar 07, 2024•30 min
Keeping water out of the stratosphere could be a low-risk geoengineering approach, and using magnets to drive medical robots inside the body First up this week, a new approach to slowing climate change: dehydrating the stratosphere . Staff Writer Paul Voosen joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the risks and advantages of this geoengineering technique. Next on the show, Science Robotics Editor Amos Matsiko gives a run-down of papers in a special series on magnetic robots in medicine . Matsiko and ...
Feb 29, 2024•30 min
