A historian reflects on the life of Chinese crop scientist Yuan Longping, and the possible influence of geothermal energy production on earthquake aftershocks. In this episode: 00:46 Remembering Yuan Longping Yuan Longping, one of China’s most famous scientists, died in May at the age of 90. Known as the ‘father of hybrid rice’, we reflect on his life and the impact of his research, which helped feed billions of people. Obituary: Yuan Longping (1930–2021) 09:55 Research Highlights The ancient an...
Jun 30, 2021•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast A deluge of trials has stress-tested the systems that produce evidence. Around the world, researchers have raced to test therapies to treat COVID-19. The speed and urgency of this task has revealed both the weaknesses in the collection and use of research-based evidence, and how well-run trials have helped save lives. This is an audio version of our feature: How COVID broke the evidence pipeline Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jun 28, 2021•22 min•Transcript available on Metacast Early vaccine trials did not include pregnant or breastfeeding people which left some people asking whether COVID vaccines are safe and effective for those who are breastfeeding. The latest data suggests that they are and in this episode of Coronapod we dig into the questions scientists have been asking. Could the vaccine make it into breastmilk? Can COVID antibodies be transferred to a breastfeeding child? And if so, how? News Feature: COVID vaccines and breastfeeding: what th...
Jun 25, 2021•12 min•Transcript available on Metacast Researchers isolate the protein thought to allow birds to sense magnetic fields, and astronomers pinpoint the stars that could view Earth as an exoplanet. In this episode: 00:45 Homing in on the molecule that helps birds find their way. How migratory birds sense magnetic fields is a long standing mystery in sensory biology. Now researchers have isolated a molecule, found within the eyes of these birds, which might act as a compass using quantum mechanics. Research paper: Xu et al. 07:28 Research...
Jun 23, 2021•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast After a slew of wildly successful vaccine trials, this week marked a more underwhelming result. The third mRNA vaccine to complete phase three trials, developed by CureVac, is just 47% effective at staving off disease according to preliminary data. This is a stark contrast with previous mRNA vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer BioNtec which returned around twice that efficacy in their trials. In this episode of Coronapod, we ask why the CureVac vaccine has faltered, and what this might mean for the...
Jun 18, 2021•13 min•Transcript available on Metacast The pros and pitfalls of collaboration, with insights from researchers and beyond. This week, Nature has a special issue on collaborations, looking at the benefits to science and society that working together can bring. In this collaboration-themed edition of the podcast, we’re joined by Nature ’s David Payne to discuss the issue, and the state of research collaborations in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this episode: 02:49 How are research collaborations changing? To answer the biggest q...
Jun 16, 2021•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast The global burden of COVID-19 has predominantly been measured using metrics like case numbers, hospitalisations and deaths. But the long term health impacts are more difficult to capture. In this episode of Coronapod we discuss one way that public health experts are trying to get to grips with the problem using metrics such as disability adjusted life years (DALYs) and quality adjusted life years (QALYs). As new data suggests that COVID could leave millions with lasting disability or ill-health,...
Jun 11, 2021•11 min•Transcript available on Metacast An AI that designs computer chips in hours, and zooming in on DNA’s complex 3D structures. In this episode: 00:46 An AI computer microchip designer Working out where to place the billions of components that a modern computer chip needs can take human designers months and, despite decades of research, has defied automation. This week, however, a team from Google report a new machine learning algorithm that does the job in a fraction of the time, and is already helping design their next generation...
Jun 09, 2021•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast Since the beginning of the pandemic, there have been allegations that SARS-CoV-2 could have originated in a Chinese lab. A phase one WHO investigation concluded that a 'lab-leak' was "extremely unlikely" and yet, the theory has seen a resurgence in recent weeks with several scientists wading into the debate. In this episode of Coronapod, we delve into what scientists have been saying and ask how and why the 'lab-leak' hypothesis has gained so much traction. We ask if the way we communicate compl...
Jun 04, 2021•16 min•Transcript available on Metacast The cross-discipline effort to work our how ancient humans learned to count. In this episode: 00:45 Number origins Around the world, archaeologists, linguists and a host of other researchers are trying to answer some big questions – when, and how, did humans learn to count? We speak to some of the scientists at the forefront of this effort. News Feature: How did Neanderthals and other ancient humans learn to count? 07:47 Research Highlights How sea anemones influence clownfish stripes, and how s...
Jun 02, 2021•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast A vaccine candidate for a neglected tropical disease, and calls to extend the 14-day limit on embryo research. In this episode: 00:46 A vaccine candidate for an important livestock disease African animal trypanosomiasis is a parasitic disease that kills millions of cattle each year, affecting livelihoods and causing significant economic costs in many sub-Saharan countries. Developing a vaccine against the disease has proved difficult as the parasite has a wealth of tricks to evade the immune sys...
May 26, 2021•21 min•Transcript available on Metacast Scientists are trying to figure out whether these pervasive plastic specks are dangerous. Wherever they look – from the bottom of oceans to the top of mountains – researchers are uncovering tiny specks of plastic, known as microplastics. Scientists are trying to understand the potential impacts of ingesting these pervasive plastics but early results are ambiguous, as some experiments might not reflect the diversity of microplastics that exist in the real world. This is an audio version of our fe...
May 24, 2021•21 min•Transcript available on Metacast Smouldering fires lay dormant before bursting back into flame in spring. In this episode: 00:56 The mysterious overwintering forest fires Researchers have shown that fires can smoulder under snow in frozen northern forests before flaring up the following spring. Understanding how these so-called ‘zombie’ fires start and spread is vital in the fight against climate change. Research Article: Scholten et al. 07:39 Research Highlights Aesthetic bias means pretty plants receive the most research atte...
May 19, 2021•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast Over the past few weeks, India has been experiencing a devastating second wave of COVID-19, recording hundreds of thousands of new cases a day. Evidence is growing that a new variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus known as B.1.617, first detected in India in October, may be driving this wave. On this week’s Coronapod we talk about the race to learn more about B.1.617, with early results suggesting it may be more transmissible and could cause more severe disease. News: Coronavirus variants are spreading...
May 14, 2021•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast A new neural interface lets people type with their mind, and a crafting journey into materials science. In this episode: 00:45 A brain interface to type out thoughts Researchers have developed a brain-computer interface that is able to read brain signals from people thinking about handwriting, and translate them into on-screen text. The team hope this technology could be used to help people with paralysis to communicate quicker than before. Research Article: Willett et al. News and Views: Neural...
May 12, 2021•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast In surprise news this week, the US government announced its support for waiving patent protections for COVID-19 vaccines, in an effort to boost supplies around the world.As fewer than 1% of people living in low-income countries have received COVID-19 vaccines, it is hoped that this move is a major step towards addressing this inequity by allowing manufacturers to legally produce generic versions of vaccines. We discuss the next steps that need to be taken to make this a reality, and why there is...
May 07, 2021•21 min•Transcript available on Metacast The earliest evidence of deliberate human burial in Africa, and a metal-free rechargeable battery. Listen to our mini-series ‘Stick to the Science’: when science gets political and vote for the show in this year’s Webby Awards . In this episode: 00:44 Human burial practices in Stone Age Africa The discovery of the burial site of a young child in a Kenyan cave dated to around 78 thousand years ago sheds new light on how Stone Age populations treated their dead. Research Article: Martinón-Torres e...
May 05, 2021•20 min•Transcript available on Metacast For more than a century, public health researchers have demonstrated how poverty and discrimination drive disease and the coronavirus pandemic has only reinforced this. In a Coronapod special, Nature reporter Amy Maxmen takes us with her through eight months of reporting in the San Joaquin valley, a part of rural California where COVID's unequal toll has proven deadly. News: Inequality's deadly toll This piece was supported by grants from the Pulitzer Center and the...
Apr 30, 2021•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast Ultra-precise measurements connect brain activity and energy use in individual fruit-fly neurons. Vote for our mini-series ‘Stick to the Science’: when science gets political in this year’s Webby Awards . In this episode: 00:45 How brain cells use energy A team of researchers have looked in individual fruit-fly neurons to better understand how energy use and information processing are linked – which may have important implications for future fMRI studies in humans. Research Article: Mann et al. ...
Apr 28, 2021•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast Despite warnings, and a number of close calls, drugmakers failed to develop and stockpile drugs to fight a viral pandemic. Now, in the wake of SARS-CoV-2, they are pledging not to make the same mistake again. Around the world, researchers are racing to develop drugs to target COVID-19, but also broad-spectrum antivirals that could be used to treat future viral threats. This is an audio version of our feature: The race for antiviral drugs to beat COVID — and the next pandemic Hosted on Acast. See...
Apr 26, 2021•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast As COVID-19 vaccine roll-outs continue, attentions are turning to one group: children. While research suggests that children rarely develop severe forms of COVID-19, scientists still believe they could play a key role in transmission and a plan needs to be in place for the longer term. But clinical trials in children are more complicated than those in adults as different ethical and practical concerns need to be taken into account. In this episode of Coronapod , we discuss the ongoing clinical t...
Apr 23, 2021•16 min•Transcript available on Metacast The self-supporting structures that snap into place, and how a ban on fossil-fuel funding could entrench poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. In this episode: 00:45 Self-supporting, foldable structures Drawing inspiration from the art of origami, a team of researchers have demonstrated a way to design self-supporting structures that lock into place after being inflated. The team hope that this technique could be used to create arches and emergency shelters that can be quickly unfolded from flat with m...
Apr 21, 2021•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast Reports of rare and unusual blood clots have resulted in several vaccine roll outs being paused while scientists scramble to work out if the vaccines are responsible and if so how. The unusual combination of symptoms, including a low platelet count and clots focussed in the abdomen or brain, seems similar to a rare side effect from treatment with the drug blood thinning drug Heparin - however it is not clear how the vaccines could cause the syndrome. In this episode of Coronapod we discuss the l...
Apr 16, 2021•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast The lack of adequate sanitation in parts of the rural US, and physicists reassess muons’ magnetism. In this episode: 00:45 How failing sanitation infrastructure is causing a US public health crisis In the US, huge numbers of people live without access to adequate sanitation. Environmental-health advocate Catherine Coleman Flowers tells us about her new book looking at the roots and consequences of this crisis, focusing on Lowndes County, Alabama, an area inhabited largely by poor Black people, w...
Apr 14, 2021•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast Rick Bright exposed former president Trump's political meddling in the US COVID response. Now he is championing a new privately funded initiative to track viral spread and combat new variants. We discuss the challenges of collecting data on a rapidly spreading virus, from transmission dynamics to genomic surveillance. We also ask why a veteran government scientist like Bright, the ex-director of the US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, would take a new path in the pri...
Apr 09, 2021•22 min•Transcript available on Metacast In 2020, the artificial intelligence (AI) GPT-3 wowed the world with its ability to write fluent streams of text. Trained on billions of words from books, articles and websites, GPT-3 was the latest in a series of ‘large language model’ AIs that are used by companies around the world to improve search results, answer questions, or propose computer code. However, these large language model are not without their issues. Their training is based on the statistical relationships between the words and...
Apr 06, 2021•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast From a sore arm to anaphylaxis, a wide range of adverse events have been reported after people have received a COVID-19 vaccine. And yet it is unclear how many of these events are actually caused by the vaccine. In the vast majority of cases, reactions are mild and can be explained by the body's own immune response. But monitoring systems designed to track adverse events are catching much rarer but more serious events. Now scientists need to work out if they are causally liked to the vaccine, or...
Apr 02, 2021•13 min•Transcript available on Metacast Laser-cooled antimatter opens up new physics experiments, and the staggering economic cost of invasive species. In this episode: 00:44 Cooling antimatter with a laser focus Antimatter is annihilated whenever it interacts with regular matter, which makes it tough for physicists to investigate. Now though, a team at CERN have developed a way to trap and cool antihydrogen atoms using lasers, allowing them to better study its properties. Research Article: Baker et al. News and Views: Antimatter cool...
Mar 31, 2021•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast Since the beginning of the pandemic the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has been plagued by confusion and controversy. The vaccine has been authorised in over 100 countries, tens of millions of doses have been administered, and it has been demonstrated to be safe and effective. However, over the past few weeks the vaccine has again been in the headlines. In this episode of Coronapod, we discuss all of these controversies and ask how they may the reputation of the vaccine, and what that could mean for...
Mar 26, 2021•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast A web of three optical atomic clocks show incredibly accurate measurements of time, and the trailblazing astronomer who found hints of dark matter. In this episode: 00:44 Optical clock network Optical atomic clocks have the potential to reach new levels of accuracy and redefine how scientists measure time. However, this would require a worldwide system of connected clocks. Now researchers have shown that a network of three optical clocks is possible and confirm high levels of accuracy. Research ...
Mar 24, 2021•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
