In episode 2 of 'What's in a name' we look how choosing names can help, or hinder, attempts to communicate important messages. Categorizing things is central to science. And there are dozens of systems scientists have created to name everything from the trenches on the sea bed to the stars in the sky. But names have consequences. In our series What’s in a name we explore naming in science and how names impact the world — whether the system of naming species remains in step with society, how the ...
Feb 07, 2025•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode: 00:45 How arithmetic skills don’t transfer between applied and academic environments Mathematics skills learnt in real-world situations may not translate to the classroom and vice versa, according to a new study. A team surveyed children in India who work in markets, to see whether the skills they learnt there transferred to the classroom. While proficient at solving market-based arithmetic problems, they struggled to solve problems typically used in schools. The reverse was see...
Feb 05, 2025•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast The explosive improvement in artificial intelligence (AI) technology has largely been driven by making neural networks bigger and training them on more data. But experts suggest that the developers of these systems may soon run out of data to train their models. As a result, teams are taking new approaches, such as searching for other unconventional data sources, or generating new data to train their AIs. This is an audio version of our Feature: The AI revolution is running out of data. Wh...
Jan 31, 2025•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode: 00:46 Evidence of ancient brine reveals Bennu’s watery past Analysis of samples taken from the asteroid Bennu reveal the presence of organic compounds important for life, and that its parent asteroid likely contained salty, subsurface water. Collected by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, these rocks and dust particles give insights into the chemistry of the early Solar System, and suggest that brines may have been an important place where pre-biotic molecules were formed. As brines are...
Jan 29, 2025•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast 00:56 How the paths to professorship vary A huge analysis of hiring practices has revealed that criteria to get a promotion to full professorship is hugely variable around the world. The authors suggest that this variability results in researchers from countries that value one type of metric being locked out of professor positions in others. They hope that the database of hiring practices created in this study could help institutions adjust their hiring policies to create a more diverse science ...
Jan 22, 2025•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast 00:46 Designing new antivenoms to treat snakebites Researchers have shown that machine learning can quickly design antivenoms that are effective against lethal snake-toxins, which they hope will help tackle a serious public health issue. Thousands of people die as a result of snakebites each year, but treatment options are limited, expensive and often difficult to access in the resource-poor settings where most bites occur. The computer-aided approach allowed researchers to design two proteins t...
Jan 15, 2025•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of the Nature Podcast , we catch up on some science stories from the holiday period by diving into the Nature Briefing . 00:53 The retraction of a controversial COVID study that promoted unproven treatment A much-critiqued study demonstrating the now-disproven idea that hydroxychloroquine can treat COVID-19 has been retracted — more than four-and-a-half years after it was published. Nature: Controversial COVID study that promoted unproven treatment retracted aft...
Jan 08, 2025•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, reporter Miryam Naddaf joins us to talk about the big science events to look out for in 2025. We’ll hear about: the latest Moon missions, 30 years of the United Nations' COP climate summits, the return of Donald Trump, and more. Nature: Science in 2025: the events to watch for in the coming year Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jan 01, 2025•11 min•Transcript available on Metacast Marc Abrahams created the Ig Nobel prizes in 1991, after years of collecting examples of weird research that he included in the Journal of Irreproducible Results . The aim of these satirical awards is to honour achievements that “make people laugh, then think”. While the initial response from the scientific community was mixed, last year the prize received more than 9,000 nominations. Several researchers who have won an ‘Ig’ say that it has improved their careers by helping them to reach w...
Dec 27, 2024•12 min•Transcript available on Metacast 00:36 How melting ice is affecting global timekeeping Nature Podcast: 27 March 2024 Research article: Agnew 09:19 Sex and gender discussions don't need to be toxic Podcast extra: 01 May 2024 Collection: Sex and gender in science 18:10 Research Highlights Research Highlight: How to train your crocodile Research Highlight: Ancient fish dined on bats — or died trying 21:09 ChatGPT has a language problem — but science can fix it Podcast extra: 09 August 2024 2...
Dec 25, 2024•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast 02:54 The death star moon and a win for the little guys The shifting orbit of one of Saturn’s moons indicates that the satellite has a subsurface ocean, contradicting theories that its interior is entirely solid. The finding calls for a fresh take on what constitutes an ocean moon. Nature Podcast: 14 February 2024 News and Views: Mimas’s surprise ocean prompts an update of the rule book for moons 07:05 Could red mud make green steel? Millions of tonnes of ‘red mud’, a hazardous waste...
Dec 20, 2024•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast 01:11 “Ozempic you’re able” In the first of our annual festive songs celebrating the science of the past year, we pay homage to Ozempic, or Semaglutide, that's able to tackle obesity, diabetes and potentially a whole lot more. 05:20 A very scientific quiz We gather an all-star cast and see how well they can remember some of the big science stories from 2024 in our annual festive quiz. 21:31 “CAR T Cells” In the second of our festive songs, we look at CAR-T cells. These engineered immune cells ha...
Dec 18, 2024•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast Categorizing things is central to science. And there are dozens of systems scientists have created to name everything from the trenches on the sea bed to the stars in the sky. But names have consequences — unintended or otherwise. In our new series What’s in a name we’ll explore naming in science and how names impact the world — whether that’s how the names of storms impact public safety, how the names of diseases impact patient care, or even how the names of scientific concepts can ...
Dec 16, 2024•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast 00:45 A potential treatment for pre-eclampsia Researchers have shown in mice experiments that an mRNA-based therapy can reverse the underlying causes of pre-eclampsia, a deadly complication of pregnancy for which treatment options are limited. Inspired by the success of mRNA vaccines, the team behind the work designed a method to deliver the genomic instructions for a blood-vessel growth factor directly into mouse placentas. This stimulated the production of extra blood vessels reducing the very...
Dec 11, 2024•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast Zoologist Arik Kershenbaum has spent his career studying animals and how they communicate in the wild. In his book Why Animals Talk: The New Science of Animal Communication , Arik takes a deep dive into the various forms of communication, from wolf howls to gibbon songs, to look at how different species get their points across, why they do it the way they do, and what insights they provide into our own use of language. Why Animals Talk: The New Science of Animal Communication Arik Ke...
Dec 09, 2024•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast 00:48 Chemotherapy efficacy varies with the menstrual cycle Breast cancer cells are more susceptible to chemotherapy at certain points in the menstrual cycle, new data in Nature suggests. Researchers studied the equivalent hormonal cycle in mice and found that during the oestrous phase, where progesterone levels are low, tumours are more susceptible to chemotherapy. The same effect was shown in humans in a small retrospective study. The team caution that a larger clinical trial would need to be ...
Dec 04, 2024•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast AI tools that help researchers design new proteins have resulted in a boom in designer molecules. However, these proteins are being churned out faster than they can be made and tested in labs. To overcome this, multiple protein-design competitions have popped up, with the aim of sifting out the functional from the fantastical. But while contests have helped drive key scientific advances in the past, it's unclear how to identify which problems to tackle and how best to select winners objectively....
Nov 29, 2024•13 min•Transcript available on Metacast 00:50 Fossilised faeces give news insights into dinosaurs’ diets and rise A huge collection of fossilised digestive contents has provided clues as to how dinosaurs grew to become the dominant animals on the planet. Why these animals rose to dominance has been unclear, with one theory proposing that a chance event wiped out other species, whereas another suggests that dinosaurs had adaptations that better allowed them to thrive. By analysing over 500 vomit and faeces fossils, researchers have bet...
Nov 27, 2024•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast 00:45 A squid-inspired device for needle-free drug delivery Inspired by squids’ ability to shoot ink, a team of researchers have developed swallowable devices that can deliver tiny jets of drugs directly into the gut lining, circumventing the need for needles. Previous studies have shown that most people prefer to take medication in pill form, rather than as an injection, but many drugs are degraded as they pass through the digestive system. The team’s new swallowable devices overcome this issue...
Nov 20, 2024•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast 00:46 The role of skull bone marrow in ageing During ageing, bone marrow in the skull becomes an increasingly important site of blood-cell production. This is in stark contrast to most bones where the ability of marrow to make blood and immune cells declines. Studies in mice and humans showed that ageing results in skull bone-marrow expanding, and in mice this marrow was more resistant to inflammation and other hallmarks of ageing. The team behind the work hope by understanding this process bett...
Nov 13, 2024•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Samantha Harvey's Booker Prize shortlisted novel Orbital is set inside an International Space Station-like vessel circling 250 miles above Earth. It looks at a day-in-the-life of the crew, investigating the contrasts they experience during the 16 orbits they make around the planet, crossing continents, oceans and the line separating night and day. On the latest episode of Nature hits the books , Samantha joins us to discuss why the ISS is a rich setting for fiction, the challen...
Nov 08, 2024•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast 00:46 Mitochondria divide their labour to help cells thrive Researchers have uncovered that mitochondria divide into two distinct forms when cells are starved, a finding that could help explain how some cancers thrive in hostile conditions. Mitochondria are cellular powerhouses, creating energy and vital metabolic molecules, but how they are able to do this when resources are limited has been a mystery. It turns out that in nutrient-poor situations, mitochondria split into two separate types, on...
Nov 06, 2024•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast This series was originally broadcast in 2020. Science and politics are not easy bedfellows - "Stick to the science" is a three part series which aims to find out why. In the third and final episode we try to get to the bottom of how journalists, communicators and policymakers influence how science is perceived. We discuss the danger of politicization and ask the question - can science be part of the political narrative without compromising its values? This episode was produced by Nick Petrić How...
Nov 03, 2024•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast This series was originally broadcast in 2020. Science and politics are not easy bedfellows - "Stick to the science" is a three part series which aims to find out why. In this episode we're asking how politics shapes the life of a working scientist. Be it through funding agendas, cultural lobbies or personal bias, there's a myriad of ways in which politics can shape the game; influencing the direction and quality of research, But what does this mean for the objective ideals of science? This ...
Nov 02, 2024•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast This series was originally broadcast in 2020. Science and politics are not easy bedfellows - "Stick to the science" is a three part series which aims to find out why. In this episode we delve into the past, and uncover the complicated relationship between science, politics and power. Along the way, we come up against some pretty big questions: what is science? Should science be apolitical? And where does Nature fit in? This episode was produced by Nick Petrić Howe, with editing from No...
Nov 01, 2024•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast 00:48 Rebuilding mental health after the floods Researchers have been investigating the best ways to help people deal with trauma in the wake of a climate disaster. In April and May devastating floods surged across Rio Grande do Sul in the South of Brazil, affecting two million people and killing hundreds. As people try to put their lives back together scientists have been conducting surveys and investigating how to make sure that any mental health issues don’t become persistent. We hear from so...
Oct 30, 2024•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast By the end of 2024 up to two billion people will have gone to the polls, in a pivotal year of elections around the globe. This is giving political scientists the chance to dive into each election in detail but also to compare the differing voting systems involved. They hope understanding the advantages and drawbacks of the systems will help highlight whether some are more likely to promote democratic resilience or to stave off corrosive partisanship. This is an audio version of our Feature: ...
Oct 25, 2024•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast 00:48 The hidden cities of Uzbekistan Researchers have uncovered the scale of two ancient cities buried high in the mountains of Uzbekistan. The cities were thought to be there, but their extent was unknown, so the team used drone-mounted LiDAR equipment to reveal what was hidden beneath the ground. The survey surprised researchers by showing one of the cities was six times bigger than expected. The two cities, called Tashbulak and Tugunbulak, were nestled in the heart of Central Asia’s medieval...
Oct 23, 2024•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode: 00:46 An unusual γ-ray producing microquasar A type of binary-system known as a microquasar has been found to be firing out γ-rays at high energy-levels, which may make it a candidate to be a long-theorized natural particle-accelerator known as a PeVatron. These objects are thought to be a source of galactic cosmic rays, the origins of which are currently a mystery. Understanding how this microquasar works could also help researchers learn more about full-sized quasars — monstro...
Oct 16, 2024•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast 00:55 Graphene Tongue Researchers have developed a graphene ‘tongue’ that uses AI to tell the subtle differences between drinks. Graphene has long been sought after as a chemical sensor, but tiny variations between devices have meant that it couldn’t be used very reliably. The team behind the ‘tongue’ got around this problem by training an AI to tell the difference between similar liquids regardless of variations between graphene devices. They hope that their work shows that it’s possible to use...
Oct 09, 2024•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
