Probing Earth’s mysterious inner core, and the most complete human genome to date

On this week’s show: A journey to the center of the center of the Earth, and what was missing from the first human genome project

Staff Writer Paul Voosen talks with host Sarah Crespi about the many mysteries surrounding the innermost part of our planet—from its surprisingly recent birth to whether it spins faster or slower than the rest of the planet.

Next, Sarah chats with Adam Phillippy about the results from the Telomere-to-Telomere (T2T) Consortium, an effort to create a complete and detailed read of the human genome. Phillippy, a senior investigator and head of the Genome Informatics Section at the National Human Genome Research Institute, explains what we can learn by topping up the human genome with roughly 200 more megabases of genetic information—practically a whole chromosome’s worth of additional sequencing.

See all the T2T papers.

This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.

[Image: V. Altounian/Science; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

[alt: An array of the human chromosomes showing newly sequenced parts from the Telomere-to-Telomere Consortium with podcast symbol overlay]

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Paul Voosen

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abq1885

About the Science Podcast: https://www.science.org/content/page/about-science-podcast

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