First up on the podcast, bringing Gregor Mendel’s 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 fr...
Apr 24, 2025•46 min
First 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 . Next on the show, we hear about when the aurorae wandered . About 41,000 years ago, Earth’s 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 mapped these magnetic cha...
Apr 17, 2025•27 min
First up on the podcast, Science Insider 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. Next on the show, taking sleep loss more seriously. Jennifer Tudor , an associate professor of biology at Saint Joseph’s University, talks about how skipping out on sleep has ...
Apr 10, 2025•29 min
Geoengineering 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 su...
Apr 03, 2025•32 min
First 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. 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....
Mar 27, 2025•33 min
First 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 world’s 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 . Next on the show, J. Chris McKnight , a senior research fellow in the Sea Mamm...
Mar 20, 2025•38 min
First up this week, science policy editor Jocelyn Kaiser joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the latest news about the National Institutes of Health—from reconfiguring review panels to canceled grants to confirmation hearings for a new head, Jay Bhattacharya. Next, although cochlear implants can give deaf children access to sound, it doesn’t always mean they have unrestricted access to language . Producer Meagan Cantwell talks with Contributing Correspondent Cathleen O’Grady about why some think ...
Mar 13, 2025•43 min
First up this week, International News Editor David Malakoff joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the most recent developments in U.S. science under Donald Trump’s second term, from the impact of tariffs on science to the rehiring of probationary employees at the National Science Foundation. Next, we tackle the question of extra-pair paternity in people —when marriage or birth records of parentage differ from biological parentage. Contributing Correspondent Andrew Curry writes about researchers lo...
Mar 06, 2025•55 min
First up this week, Kata Karáth, 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. 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 Purdu...
Feb 27, 2025•36 min
First 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 Development–funded studies are grappling with ethical responsibilities to trial participants and collaborators as funding, supplies, and workers dry up. Next, freelance science journalist Sandeep Ravindran talks about creating tiny machine learning devices for bespoke use in the...
Feb 20, 2025•42 min
First up this week, International News Editor David Malakoff joins the podcast to discuss the big change in NIH’s funding policy for overhead or indirect costs, the outrage from the biomedical community over the cuts, and the lawsuits filed in response. Next, what can machines understand about pets and livestock that humans can’t? Christa Lesté-Lasserre , a freelance science journalist based in Paris, joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss training artificial intelligence on animal facial expression...
Feb 13, 2025•39 min
First up this week, Staff Writer Paul Voosen joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss mapping clogs and flows in Earth’s middle layer—the mantle. They also talk about recent policy stories on NASA’s reactions to President Donald Trump’s administration’s executive orders. 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 is an ass...
Feb 06, 2025•27 min
First up this week, we catch up with the editor of Science Insider , Jocelyn Kaiser. She talks about changes at the major science agencies that came about with the transition to President Donald Trump’s second administration, such as hiring freezes at the National Institutes of Health and the United States’s departure from the World Health Organization . Next, producer Kevin McLean talks with Dan Kaplan , a professor in the departments of immunology and dermatology at the University of Pittsburg...
Jan 30, 2025•27 min
First up this week, although long touted as a green fuel, the traditional approach to hydrogen production is not very sustainable. Staff writer Robert F. Service joins producer Meagan Cantwell to discuss how researchers are aiming to improve electrolyzers —devices that split water into hydrogen and oxygen—with more efficient and durable designs. Next, Robert Rogers , who was a postdoctoral fellow in molecular biology at Massachusetts General Hospital when this work was conducted, talks with host...
Jan 23, 2025•33 min
First up this week, growing numbers of Valley fever cases, also known as coccidioidomycosis, has researchers looking into the disease-causing fungus . They’re exploring its links to everything from drought and wildfires to climate change and rodent populations. Staff Writer Meredith Wadman joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss her visit to a Valley fever research site in the desert near Bakersfield, California, where researchers are sampling air and soil for the elusive fungus. Next up, scientists ...
Jan 16, 2025•34 min
First up this week, as preprint publications ramped up during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, so did media attention for these pre–peer-review results. But what do the readers of news reports based on preprints know about them? Associate News Editor Jeff Brainard joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss studies that look at the public perception of preprints in the news and how to inject skepticism into stories about them. Next, placing tiny tags on bats to follow them across central Europe. F...
Jan 09, 2025•33 min
First up this week, Newsletter Editor Christie Wilcox talks with host Sarah Crespi about truffle hunting for science. Wilcox accompanied Heather Dawson , a Ph.D. student at the University of Oregon, and her sister Hilary Dawson , a postdoctoral researcher at Australian National University, on a hunt for nonculinary truffles—the kind you don’t eat—with the help of a specially trained dog. These scientists and their dog are digging up many new species of these hard-to-find fungi with the ultimate ...
Jan 02, 2025•29 min
First up this week, Online News Editor David Grimm shares a sampling of stories that hit big with our audience and staff in this year, from corpse-eating pets to the limits of fanning ourselves . Next, host Sarah Crespi tackles some unfinished business with Producer Kevin McLean. Three former guests talk about where their research has taken them since their first appearances on the podcast. Erick Lundgren , a researcher at the Centre for Open Science and Research Synthesis at the University of A...
Dec 19, 2024•38 min
First up this week, Breakthroughs Editor Greg Miller joins producer Meagan Cantwell to discuss Science’s 2024 Breakthrough of the Year . They also discuss some of the other scientific achievements that turned heads this year, from ancient DNA and autoimmune therapy, to precision pesticides, and the discovery of a new organelle. Next, host Sarah Crespi is joined by news staffers to catch up on threads they’ve been following all year. First a bumpy road for certain medicines. Editor Kelly Servick ...
Dec 12, 2024•45 min
First up this week, freelance science journalist Sofia Moutinho joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss making open-access journals from South and Latin America visible to the rest of the world by creating platforms that help with the publishing process and discovery of journal articles. This story is part of a News series about global equity in science. Next on the show, departing Physical Sciences Editor Brent Grocholski discusses highlights from his career at Science , particularly his work on coo...
Dec 05, 2024•31 min
First up this week, making electronics greener with leaves. Host Sarah Crespi talks with Newsletter Editor Christie Wilcox about using the cellulose skeletons of leaves to create robust, biodegradable backings for computer chips. This sustainable approach can be used for printing circuits and making organic light-emitting diodes and if widely adopted, could massively reduce the carbon footprint of electronics. Next on the show, Kevin Hatala , a biology professor at Chatham University, joins prod...
Nov 28, 2024•27 min
First up this week, where on Earth do people live the longest? What makes those places or people so special? Genes, diet, life habits? Or could it be bad record keeping and statistical flukes? Freelance science journalist Ignacio Amigo joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the controversies around so-called blue zones —regions in the world where clusters of people appear to have extreme longevity. Next on the show, producer Kevin Mclean talks with Dorian Houser , director of conservation biology at...
Nov 21, 2024•37 min
First up this week, a ship that flips for science. Sean Cummings , a freelance science journalist, joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about the resurrection of the Floating Instrument Platform ( R/V FLIP ), a research vessel built by the U.S. Navy in the 1960s and retired in 2023. FLIP is famous for turning vertically 90° so the bulk of the long ship is underwater, stabilizing it for data gathering. Additional audio from Scripps Institution of Oceanography . Watch FLIP flipping here . Next on the s...
Nov 14, 2024•31 min
First up this week, Staff Writer Paul Voosen talks with host Sarah Crespi about his travel to meet up with a lead researcher in the field, Folarin Kolawole, and the subtle signs of rifting on the African continent. Next on the show, Nik Dennler , a Ph.D. student in the Biocomputation Group at the University of Hertfordshire and the International Center for Neuromorphic Systems at Western Sydney University, discusses speeding up electronic noses. These fast sniffing devices could one day be mount...
Nov 07, 2024•25 min
First up this week, Contributing Correspondent Kai Kupferschmidt joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the difficulties of studying misinformation . Although misinformation seems like it’s everywhere, researchers in the field don’t agree on a common definition or shared strategies for combating it. Next, what can Wikipedia tell us about human curiosity? Dani Bassett , a professor in the department of bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania, observed three different curiosity styles in peop...
Oct 31, 2024•39 min
Using robots to study evolution, the last installment of our series of books on a future to look forward to, and did reintroducing wolves really restore an ecosystem? First up this week, a new study of an iconic ecosystem doesn’t support the “landscape of fear” concept. This is the idea that bringing back apex predators has a huge impact on the behavior of their prey, eventually altering the rest of the ecosystem. Host Sarah Crespi talks with Contributing Correspondent Virginia Morell about the ...
Oct 24, 2024•46 min
First up this week, host Sarah Crespi talks to Jon Chu , a presidential young professor in international affairs at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, about how people around the world define democracy . Does democracy mean elections, freedom of the press, social mobility, or something else? Chu’s team found there was common ground across six countries. In many places with backsliding democracies, leaders may be tempted to change the definition of d...
Oct 17, 2024•39 min
First up this week, we celebrate 20 years of graphene —from discovery, to hype, and now reality as it finally finds its place in technology and science. Science journalist Mark Peplow joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss graphene’s bumpy journey. Next, producer Meagan Cantwell talks with Seth Darling , chief science and technology officer for the Advanced Energy Technologies Directorate at Argonne National Laboratory, about two new ways to harvest lithium from water . One approach harnesses sunlig...
Oct 10, 2024•31 min
First up this week, online editor David Grimm joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about how cats think about their own bodies . Do cats think of themselves as a liquid, as much the internet appears to believe? New experiments suggest they may—but only in one dimension. Next, freelance producer Ariana Remmel is joined by Ted Schultz, a research entomologist at the Smithsonian Institution, to discuss the evolution of ant-fungus farming . It turns out, ants and fungus got together when the earth was go...
Oct 03, 2024•28 min
The gene variant APOE4 is finally giving up some of its secrets, how putting dead trees underground could make carbon sequestration cheap and scalable, and the latest in our series of books on an optimistic future First up this week, Staff Writer and Editor Jocelyn Kaiser joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss APOE4 , a gene linked with a higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease. They talk about new research into why APOE4 might be a good target for preventing or treating this dreaded neurodegenerative di...
Sep 26, 2024•48 min
