Podcasts about podigy

First up on the podcast, producer Meagan Cantwell talks to Contributing Correspondent Warren Cornwall about his visit to Brazil, where he observed firsthand what it takes for researchers to understand why bird populations in the Amazon and beyond are shrinking. Next on the show, Raouf Belkhir, an M.D.-Ph.D. student at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Carnegie Mellon University, joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss his Science Advances paper on a newly refined way to map awake patients' brains during neurosurgery. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, Newsletter Editor Christie Wilcox, Associate Online News Editor Michael Greshko, and intern Perri Thaler share their experiences from the AAAS annual meeting in Phoenix. Christie recorded on location with David Rand regarding his prize-winning Science paper on using a large language model to combat conspiracy theories. Check out the live version of his team's Debunk Bot. Michael chats with host Sarah Crespi about the foggy outlook of science in the United States as funding levels and graduate positions decline, and the bright sunshine of young students presenting science posters. And finally, Perri shares her reporting on OpenAI's contribution to theoretical physics announced at the meeting. Next on the show, we hear about the “bouba-kiki” effect—the tendency for people, no matter their language, to associate round shapes with the nonword bouba and spiky shapes with the nonword kiki. Maria Loconsole, a postdoctoral researcher in the Comparative Cognition Lab at the University of Padova, joins the podcast to discuss why her team looked for this effect in freshly hatched chickens. It turns out these baby birds also make these associations, which suggests the effect has less to do with language and more to do with how vertebrate brains are set up to experience the world. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, Newsletter Editor Christie Wilcox, Associate Online News Editor Michael Greshko, and intern Perri Thaler share their experiences from the AAAS annual meeting in Phoenix. Christie recorded on location with David Rand regarding his prize-winning Science paper on using a large language model to combat conspiracy theories. Check out the live version of his team's Debunk Bot. Michael chats with host Sarah Crespi about the foggy outlook of science in the United States as funding levels and graduate positions decline, and the bright sunshine of young students presenting science posters. And finally, Perri shares her reporting on OpenAI's contribution to theoretical physics announced at the meeting. Next on the show, we hear about the “bouba-kiki” effect—the tendency for people, no matter their language, to associate round shapes with the nonword bouba and spiky shapes with the nonword kiki. Maria Loconsole, a postdoctoral researcher in the Comparative Cognition Lab at the University of Padova, joins the podcast to discuss why her team looked for this effect in freshly hatched chickens. It turns out these baby birds also make these associations, which suggests the effect has less to do with language and more to do with how vertebrate brains are set up to experience the world. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, more than half of all dogs going through service animal training don't make it to graduation. Producer Kevin McLean journeys with Online News Editor David Grimm to Canine Companions, one of the biggest organizations in the United States for training working dogs. At the facility, they meet puppies in preparation and learn about the behavioral testing and genetics that could be used to improve service animal schooling. Also appearing in this segment: Emily Bray, assistant professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Arizona Brenda Kennedy, chief veterinary and research officer at Canine Companions Next on the show, Kishalay De, assistant professor at Columbia University and associate research scientist at the Flatiron Institute, talks about observing the birth of a stellar black hole in the nearby Andromeda galaxy. He recounts how his team looked for this elusive event and describes what we can learn from observing it in the decades to come. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, more than half of all dogs going through service animal training don't make it to graduation. Producer Kevin McLean journeys with Online News Editor David Grimm to Canine Companions, one of the biggest organizations in the United States for training working dogs. At the facility, they meet puppies in preparation and learn about the behavioral testing and genetics that could be used to improve service animal schooling. Also appearing in this segment: Emily Bray, assistant professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Arizona Brenda Kennedy, chief veterinary and research officer at Canine Companions Next on the show, Kishalay De, assistant professor at Columbia University and associate research scientist at the Flatiron Institute, talks about observing the birth of a stellar black hole in the nearby Andromeda galaxy. He recounts how his team looked for this elusive event and describes what we can learn from observing it in the decades to come. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, host Sarah Crespi and Staff Writer Adrian Cho talk football and the latest science behind helmets engineered to reduce head injuries. Have better materials and testing led to fewer concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy in players? Next on the show, more than 100,000 people die from opioid overdoses in North America per year. Although much study has gone into addiction research, less attention has been paid to the biological details of overdose itself. John Strang, a professor in the National Addiction Centre at King's College London, joins the podcast to discuss the questions researchers could be asking about overdose, and how to partner with drug addicted people to find solutions. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, host Sarah Crespi and Staff Writer Adrian Cho talk football and the latest science behind helmets engineered to reduce head injuries. Have better materials and testing led to fewer concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy in players? Next on the show, more than 100,000 people die from opioid overdoses in North America per year. Although much study has gone into addiction research, less attention has been paid to the biological details of overdose itself. John Strang, a professor in the National Addiction Centre at King's College London, joins the podcast to discuss the questions researchers could be asking about overdose, and how to partner with drug addicted people to find solutions. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, how do we protect astronauts when they leave the shelter of Earth's protective magnetic fields and face the slow, constant bombardment of space radiation? Freelance science journalist Elie Dolgin joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss what we know about the damage from high-velocity particles and the research being done to curb their biological toll. Next on the show, modeling the fall of fossil fuels during the decarbonization of energy systems, with civil engineer and environmental sociologist Emily Grubert and historian and engineer Joshua Lappen, both at the University of Notre Dame. The pair wrote a policy forum on predicting chokepoints or “minimum viable scales” in the decline of fossil fuel networks—in effect, when a system might get too small to maintain its function. Understanding how to keep things online until they are no longer needed is important to maintain energy for all, as renewables grow and mines, pipelines, and refineries shrink. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, how do we protect astronauts when they leave the shelter of Earth's protective magnetic fields and face the slow, constant bombardment of space radiation? Freelance science journalist Elie Dolgin joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss what we know about the damage from high-velocity particles and the research being done to curb their biological toll. Next on the show, modeling the fall of fossil fuels during the decarbonization of energy systems, with civil engineer and environmental sociologist Emily Grubert and historian and engineer Joshua Lappen, both at the University of Notre Dame. The pair wrote a policy forum on predicting chokepoints or “minimum viable scales” in the decline of fossil fuel networks—in effect, when a system might get too small to maintain its function. Understanding how to keep things online until they are no longer needed is important to maintain energy for all, as renewables grow and mines, pipelines, and refineries shrink. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up with Jennie Erin Smith, Science's new senior biomedicine reporter, we delve into: autobrewery syndrome, when microbes inside the human gut make too much alcohol; how doctors can use a public repository, the Mexican Biobank, to guide patient care; and preliminary findings that surgery on the brain's plumbing shows promise for Alzheimer's disease. Next on the show, it's tough to calculate when and where deorbiting spacecraft might enter the upper atmosphere and then eventually hit the ground. Benjamin Fernando, a seismologist and planetary scientist at Johns Hopkins University, has shown that sonic booms created by fast-moving space debris shake seismic sensors, giving clues to angle of re-entry, breakup dynamics, and final location. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up with Jennie Erin Smith, Science's new senior biomedicine reporter, we delve into: autobrewery syndrome, when microbes inside the human gut make too much alcohol; how doctors can use a public repository, the Mexican Biobank, to guide patient care; and preliminary findings that surgery on the brain's plumbing shows promise for Alzheimer's disease. Next on the show, it's tough to calculate when and where deorbiting spacecraft might enter the upper atmosphere and then eventually hit the ground. Benjamin Fernando, a seismologist and planetary scientist at Johns Hopkins University, has shown that sonic booms created by fast-moving space debris shake seismic sensors, giving clues to angle of re-entry, breakup dynamics, and final location. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, freelance science journalist Sofia Quaglia talks about her visit to the Galápagos archipelago and how researchers there are working to restore the islands to their former ecological glory. Next on the show, Antarctica's deep ice coating obscures the hills and valleys on its surface, making the continent's response to climate change one of the biggest unknowns in predicting sea level rise over the next century. Helen Ockenden, a glaciologist at Grenoble Alpes University, joins the podcast to discuss how her team used satellite imagery and the physics of ice flows to fill in the missing details of Antarctica's subglacial surface. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, freelance science journalist Sofia Quaglia talks about her visit to the Galápagos archipelago and how researchers there are working to restore the islands to their former ecological glory. *Note this episode has been updated to reflect that the Ecuadorian government is not responsible for primarily funding these efforts. Next on the show, Antarctica's deep ice coating obscures the hills and valleys on its surface, making the continent's response to climate change one of the biggest unknowns in predicting sea level rise over the next century. Helen Ockenden, a glaciologist at Grenoble Alpes University, joins the podcast to discuss how her team used satellite imagery and the physics of ice flows to fill in the missing details of Antarctica's subglacial surface. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, scholars are on a quest to find Leonardo da Vinci's DNA. With no direct descendants, the hunt involves sampling the famous polymath's papers, paintings, and distant cousins. Contributing Correspondent Richard Stone talks with host Sarah Crespi about what researchers hope to learn from Leonardo's genes and the new field of “arteomics.” Next on the show, new evidence for poisoned arrows from 60,000 years ago complicates our picture of hunting during the Pleistocene. Sven Isaksson, a professor of archaeological science at Stockholm University, joins the podcast to discuss the discovery of poisonous residues on microliths—the tiny, worked stone points used on arrows and spearheads. These findings could push back the origins of this toxic technology by 50,000 years. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, scholars are on a quest to find Leonardo da Vinci's DNA. With no direct descendants, the hunt involves sampling the famous polymath's papers, paintings, and distant cousins. Contributing Correspondent Richard Stone talks with host Sarah Crespi about what researchers hope to learn from Leonardo's genes and the new field of “arteomics.” Next on the show, new evidence for poisoned arrows from 60,000 years ago complicates our picture of hunting during the Pleistocene. Sven Isaksson, a professor of archaeological science at Stockholm University, joins the podcast to discuss the discovery of poisonous residues on microliths—the tiny, worked stone points used on arrows and spearheads. These findings could push back the origins of this toxic technology by 50,000 years. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, the best images of exoplanets right now are basically bright dots. We can't see possible continents, potential oceans, or even varying colors. To improve our view, scientists are proposing a faraway fleet of telescopes that would use light bent by the Sun's gravity to magnify a distant exoplanet. Staff Writer Daniel Clery joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss where to aim such a magnificent telescope and all the technological pieces needed to put it together. Next on the show, expert voices columnist and Johns Hopkins University mathematician Emily Riehl discusses her recent essay on communication woes in the math community. The complex concepts, jargon, and the slow pace of understanding a proof all add up to siloed subdisciplines and potentially more errors in the literature. Alex Kontorovich, a professor in the math department at Rutgers University, also joins to discuss how proof assistant computer programs and machine learning could help get mathematicians all on the same page. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, the best images of exoplanets right now are basically bright dots. We can't see possible continents, potential oceans, or even varying colors. To improve our view, scientists are proposing a faraway fleet of telescopes that would use light bent by the Sun's gravity to magnify a distant exoplanet. Staff Writer Daniel Clery joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss where to aim such a magnificent telescope and all the technological pieces needed to put it together. Next on the show, expert voices columnist and Johns Hopkins University mathematician Emily Riehl discusses her recent essay on communication woes in the math community. The complex concepts, jargon, and the slow pace of understanding a proof all add up to siloed subdisciplines and potentially more errors in the literature. Alex Kontorovich, a professor in the math department at Rutgers University, also joins to discuss how proof assistant computer programs and machine learning could help get mathematicians all on the same page. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, Online News Editor David Grimm joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about this year's best online news stories—top performers and staff picks alike. Together they journey the scientific gamut, from bird feeders' influence on hummingbird beak evolution to the use of “artificial spacetimes” to guide tiny robots through their environments. Next on the show, a discussion of this year's pick for Breakthrough of the Year with producer Meagan Cantwell and News editor Greg Miller. They also touch on some other top finds from this year, including the first confirmed Denisovan skull, rice that can beat the heat, custom gene editing, and progress on xenotransplantation. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, Online News Editor David Grimm joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about this year's best online news stories—top performers and staff picks alike. Together they journey the scientific gamut, from bird feeders' influence on hummingbird beak evolution to the use of “artificial spacetimes” to guide tiny robots through their environments. Next on the show, a discussion of this year's pick for Breakthrough of the Year with producer Meagan Cantwell and News editor Greg Miller. They also touch on some other top finds from this year, including the first confirmed Denisovan skull, rice that can beat the heat, custom gene editing, and progress on xenotransplantation. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, we've likely only found about half the so-called city-killer asteroids (objects more than 140 meters in diameter). Freelance science journalist Robin George Andrews joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the upcoming launch of NASA's Near-Earth Object Surveyor, an asteroid hunter that will improve our ability to look for large objects that might crash into Earth, particularly those hiding in the Sun's glare. Next on the show, freelancer producer Elah Feder talks with Wendy Valencia-Montoya, an organismic and evolutionary biology Ph.D. candidate at Harvard University, about heated conversations between plants and their pollinators. Her work suggests infrared radiation might be the oldest cue for animals to come hither, more ancient than color. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, we've likely only found about half the so-called city-killer asteroids (objects more than 140 meters in diameter). Freelance science journalist Robin George Andrews joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the upcoming launch of NASA's Near-Earth Object Surveyor, an asteroid hunter that will improve our ability to look for large objects that might crash into Earth, particularly those hiding in the Sun's glare. Next on the show, freelancer producer Elah Feder talks with Wendy Valencia-Montoya, an organismic and evolutionary biology Ph.D. candidate at Harvard University, about heated conversations between plants and their pollinators. Her work suggests infrared radiation might be the oldest cue for animals to come hither, more ancient than color. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, Science celebrates 100 years of quantum mechanics with a special issue covering the past, present, and future of the field. News Contributing Correspondent Zack Savitsky joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about a more philosophical approach to quantum physics and the mysterious measurement problem. Next on the show we have Anne Goujon, program director at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria. She talks about her Expert Voices column on the uncertain future of demography and how the field is grappling with new theories on what happens after the global population peaks. How will different countries deal with falling populations? Will they try to reverse the trend? What are the goals going into the next century? This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, Science celebrates 100 years of quantum mechanics with a special issue covering the past, present, and future of the field. News Contributing Correspondent Zack Savitsky joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about a more philosophical approach to quantum physics and the mysterious measurement problem. Next on the show we have Anne Goujon, program director at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria. She talks about her Expert Voices column on the uncertain future of demography and how the field is grappling with new theories on what happens after the global population peaks. How will different countries deal with falling populations? Will they try to reverse the trend? What are the goals going into the next century? This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, when will the world hit peak carbon emissions? It's not an easy question to answer because emissions cannot be directly measured in real time. Instead, there are proxies, satellite measures, and many, many calculations. Staff Writer Paul Voosen joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss how close we are to the top of carbon mountain and the tough road to come after the peak passes. Vani Rajendran, senior researcher in the cognitive neuroscience department at the National Autonomous University of Mexico's Institute of Cellular Physiology, talks about macaques that can keep the beat. She explains how this intriguing ability challenges a long-standing view that animals with complex vocalizations and rhythm are inextricably linked. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, when will the world hit peak carbon emissions? It's not an easy question to answer because emissions cannot be directly measured in real time. Instead, there are proxies, satellite measures, and many, many calculations. Staff Writer Paul Voosen joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss how close we are to the top of carbon mountain and the tough road to come after the peak passes. Vani Rajendran, senior researcher in the cognitive neuroscience department at the National Autonomous University of Mexico's Institute of Cellular Physiology, talks about macaques that can keep the beat. She explains how this intriguing ability challenges a long-standing view that animals with complex vocalizations and rhythm are inextricably linked. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast: the mysterious fate of Europe's Neolithic farmers. They arrived from Anatolia around 5500 B.C.E. and began farming fertile land across Europe. Five hundred years later, their buildings, cemeteries, and pottery stopped showing up in the archaeological record, and mass graves with headless bodies started to appear across the continent. Contributing Correspondent Andrew Curry talks with host Sarah Crespi about what this strange transition might mean. Next on the show, Editor for Life Sciences Sacha Vignieri discusses recent dog research published in Science, including tracing the movement of dogs alongside ancient human populations, examining when dogs first diversified, and probing the relationship between modern dogs' breeds and their dispositions. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast: the mysterious fate of Europe's Neolithic farmers. They arrived from Anatolia around 5500 B.C.E. and began farming fertile land across Europe. Five hundred years later, their buildings, cemeteries, and pottery stopped showing up in the archaeological record, and mass graves with headless bodies started to appear across the continent. Contributing Correspondent Andrew Curry talks with host Sarah Crespi about what this strange transition might mean. Next on the show, Editor for Life Sciences Sacha Vignieri discusses recent dog research published in Science, including tracing the movement of dogs alongside ancient human populations, examining when dogs first diversified, and probing the relationship between modern dogs' breeds and their dispositions. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, Online News Editor David Grimm joins host Sarah Crespi for a rundown of online news stories. They talk about lichen that dine on dino bones, the physics of the lip-out problem in golf, and a brain-computer interface that can decode a tonal language (Chinese) from brain waves. Next on the show, Jeremy Munday, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at University of California, Davis, talks about generating mechanical power using a heat engine aimed at the night sky. Heat engines typically generate power by harnessing a temperature difference between two things—but by using space as the cold part and the ground as the warm part, Munday's device can generate energy at night. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, Online News Editor David Grimm joins host Sarah Crespi for a rundown of online news stories. They talk about lichen that dine on dino bones, the physics of the lip-out problem in golf, and a brain-computer interface that can decode a tonal language (Chinese) from brain waves. Next on the show, Jeremy Munday, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at University of California, Davis, talks about generating mechanical power using a heat engine aimed at the night sky. Heat engines typically generate power by harnessing a temperature difference between two things—but by using space as the cold part and the ground as the warm part, Munday's device can generate energy at night. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, Contributing Correspondent Sofia Moutinho visited the Xingu Indigenous territory in Brazil to learn about a long-standing collaboration between scientists and the Kuikuro to better understand early Amazon communities. Next on the show, we visit the Pacific pocket mouse recovery program at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance to talk with researchers about the tricky process of increasing genetic diversity in an endangered species. Researcher Aryn Wilder talks about a long-term project to interbreed mice from isolated populations in order to add more genetic diversity across the species—despite a mismatch in chromosome numbers between some of the groups. Debra Shier, associate director of the recovery ecology program at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, takes us on a tour of the breeding facility. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, Contributing Correspondent Sofia Moutinho visited the Xingu Indigenous territory in Brazil to learn about a long-standing collaboration between scientists and the Kuikuro to better understand early Amazon communities. Next on the show, we visit the Pacific pocket mouse recovery program at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance to talk with researchers about the tricky process of increasing genetic diversity in an endangered species. Researcher Aryn Wilder talks about a long-term project to interbreed mice from isolated populations in order to add more genetic diversity across the species—despite a mismatch in chromosome numbers between some of the groups. Debra Shier, associate director of the recovery ecology program at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, takes us on a tour of the breeding facility. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, increased carbon dioxide emissions sink more acidity into the ocean, but checking pH all over the world, up and down the water column, is incredibly challenging. Staff Writer Paul Voosen joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss a technique that takes advantage of how sound moves through the water to detect ocean acidification. Next on the show, we visit the lab of University of California San Diego professor Alysson Muotri at the Sanford Consortium, where he grows human brain organoids—multicellular structures that function like underdeveloped brains. Muotri used organoids to compare a protein that appears to be protective in human brains against the effects of lead toxicity with the archaic version of the protein that was present in our extinct cousins, like Denisovans and Neanderthals. His work suggests lead exposure differently affected our ancestors and our archaic cousins, possibly helping us survive to the present day. Finally, stay tuned for the last in our six-part series on books exploring the science of death. This month, host Angela Saini talks with astrophysicist Katie Mack about how the universe might end and her 2021 book The End of Everything: (Astrophysically Speaking). This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, increased carbon dioxide emissions sink more acidity into the ocean, but checking pH all over the world, up and down the water column, is incredibly challenging. Staff Writer Paul Voosen joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss a technique that takes advantage of how sound moves through the water to detect ocean acidification. Next on the show, we visit the lab of University of California San Diego professor Alysson Muotri at the Sanford Consortium, where he grows human brain organoids—multicellular structures that function like underdeveloped brains. Muotri used organoids to compare a protein that appears to be protective in human brains against the effects of lead toxicity with the archaic version of the protein that was present in our extinct cousins, like Denisovans and Neanderthals. His work suggests lead exposure differently affected our ancestors and our archaic cousins, possibly helping us survive to the present day. Finally, stay tuned for the last in our six-part series on books exploring the science of death. This month, host Angela Saini talks with astrophysicist Katie Mack about how the universe might end and her 2021 book The End of Everything: (Astrophysically Speaking). This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, the Bering Sea's snow crabs are bouncing back after a 50-billion-crab die-off in 2020, but scientists are racing to predict what's going to happen to this important fishery. Contributing Correspondent Warren Cornwall joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss what's next for snow crabs. Next on the show, freelance producer Elah Feder talks with Fei Peng, a professor in the department of psychology in the School of Public Health at Southern Medical University in Guangzhou, China, and principal investigator at the Great Bay Area Brain Science and Brain Inspired Research Center, about detecting emotions—or more scientifically “affect”—in bumble bees. His group observed how a bumble bee that appears to be hopeful can share this state with other bees. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, Contributing Correspondent Kai Kupferschmidt takes a trip to Svalbard, an Arctic archipelago where ancient RNA viruses may lie buried in the permafrost. He talks with host Sarah Crespi about why we only have 100 years of evolutionary history for viruses such as coronavirus and influenza, and what we can learn by looking deeper back in time. Next on the show, Nathalie Stroeymeyt, senior lecturer at the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Bristol, joins freelancer producer Elah Feder to talk about how humans aren't the only species that takes public health measures to stop outbreaks. To keep their colonies healthy when threatened with infectious disease, ants socially distance and even make architectural changes to their nests' organization. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, producer Kevin McLean talks with Associate Online News Editor Michael Greshko about the impact of wildfires on wine; a couple horse stories, one modern, one ancient; and why educators are racing to archive government materials.   Next on the show, research that took advantage of a natural experiment in unnatural lighting. Host Sarah Crespi talks with Ph.D. student Liz Aguilar and Kimberly Rosvall, an associate professor, both in the department of biology at Indiana University Bloomington, about a citizen-science initiative that captured bird behavior before, during, and after a total solar eclipse in April 2024.      This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy.   Authors: Sarah Crespi; Kevin McLean; Michael Greshko Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, Staff Writer Robert F. Service joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about a boom in nuclear medicine, from new and more powerful radioisotopes to improved precision in cancer cell targeting.   Next on the show, we talk about why we sigh. Maria Clara Novaes-Silva, a doctoral student at ETH Zürich, discusses how deep breaths cause minute rearrangements at the special interface where air meets lung. The lung flexibility granted by these deeper inhalations suggest people on ventilators might have better lung health if they were served a larger draught of air from time to time. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. Authors: Sarah Crespi; Robert Service Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, Science News Editor Tim Appenzeller joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss why a salty layer of permafrost undergirding Arctic ice is turning frozen landscapes into boggy morasses.    Next on the show, glucose isn't the only molecule in the body that can be monitored in real time; proteins can be, too. Freelancer producer Zakiya Whatley talks with Jane Donnelly, an MD/Ph.D. candidate at Northwestern University, about what we could learn from the live monitoring of key proteins, from the status of a transplanted organ to the early signs of a flare up in autoimmune disease. Finally, philologist Robert Garland joins books host Angela Saini to talk about ancient cultures and their death practices in his book What to Expect When You're Dead: An Ancient Tour of Death and the Afterlife. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy.  Authors: Sarah Crespi; Angela Saini; Tim Appenzeller Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, freelance science journalist Leslie Roberts joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about the long journey to a vaccine for group B streptococcus, a microbe that sickens 400,000 babies a year and kills at least 91,000. Next on the show, there are about 250,000 agricultural drones employed on farms in China. Countries such as South Korea, Turkey, and Thailand are swiftly increasing agricultural drone use, whereas the United States and Russia are proceeding more slowly. Food policy researcher Ben Belton discusses what appears to drive drone use in agriculture and how they might make farming more productive and sustainable. Finally, Science Books Editor Valerie Thompson brings books on the secrets rocks have to tell about humanity and the mystery surrounding a Druid preserved in a bog for thousands of years. This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. Authors: Sarah Crespi; Valerie Thompson; Leslie Roberts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, aggressive tumors have a secret cache of DNA that may help them beat current drug treatments. Freelance journalist Elie Dolgin joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about targeting so-called extrachromosomal DNA—little gene-bearing loops of DNA—that help difficult-to-treat cancers break the laws of inheritance.   Next on the show, producer Meagan Cantwell talks with Weidong Sun, director of the Center of Deep Sea Research at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, about the discovery of a hydrogen-rich system so large it makes up at least 5% of current estimates for global hydrogen emissions from abiotic sources. They discuss how hydrogen gas rising from the mantle reacting with oxygen could have triggered an explosion that formed holes hundreds of meters across and dozens of meters deep.  This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. Authors: Sarah Crespi; Elie Dolgin; Meagan Cantwell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, despite so many advances in treatment, HIV drugs can suppress the virus but can't cure the infection. Where does suppressed HIV hide within the body? Staff Writer Jon Cohen joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about the Last Gift Study, in which people with HIV donate their bodies for rapid autopsy to help find the last reservoirs of the virus.   Next on the show, Christine Elliott, a doctoral candidate in the department of entomology at Purdue University, talks about the Bug Bowl—an annual public outreach event that highlights all the wonders and benefits of insects. We also get to hear the sounds of violins trying to be crickets and learn how music connects people to bugs in ways that posters and public lectures can't.   This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast   Authors: Sarah Crespi; Jon Cohen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, Staff Writer Rodrigo Pérez Ortega joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about a megafauna megafind that rivals the La Brea Tar Pits. In addition to revealing tens of thousands of bones from everything from dire wolves to an ancient human, the site has yielded the first DNA from ammoths that lived in a warm climate.    Next on the show, the Tijuana River crosses the U.S.-Mexican border from Tijuana to San Diego—bringing with it sewage, industrial waste, and stinky smells. News Intern Nazeefa Ahmed talks with Kimberly Prather, an atmospheric chemist at the University of California San Diego about detecting both air and water pollution around the river and the steps needed for cleanup.   Finally, the latest in our series of books exploring the science of death. This month, host Angela Saini talks with philosopher Susana Monsó about her ook Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death. Content warning for this segment: The interview contains descriptions of dead baby animals.   This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy.   About the Science Podcast   Authors: Sarah Crespi; Rodrigo Perez Ortega; Angela Saini Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, Staff Writer Meredith Wadman joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss recent advances in understanding endometriosis—a disease where tissue that resembles the lining of the uterus grows outside the uterus, causing pain and other health effects. The pair talk about how investigating the role of the immune system in this disease is leading researchers to new potential diagnostic tools and treatments.   Next on the show, why are there good dengue years and bad dengue years? This week in Science Translational Medicine, Talia Quandelacy and colleagues map the synchrony and spread of this mosquito-borne disease in Latin America. She joins the podcast to talk about how the seasons, rainfall, and even El Niño connect with dengue levels and how this understanding can help with prediction and preparation.   Quandelacy is an assistant professor in the department of epidemiology at the University of Colorado School of Public Health.   This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy.   About the Science Podcast   Authors: Sarah Crespi; Meredith Wadman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, producer Meagan Cantwell and Contributing Correspondent Sara Reardon discuss alternative approaches to animal testing, from a heart on a chip to a miniorgan in a dish.   Next on the show, Expert Voices columnist Melanie Mitchell and host Sarah Crespi dig into AI lies. Why do chatbots fabricate answers and pretend to do math? Mitchell describes the stress tests large language models undergo—called red teaming—and the steps needed to better understand how they “think.”   Melanie Mitchell is a professor at the Santa Fe Institute. You can read all her Expert Voices columns here.   This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy.   About the Science Podcast   Authors: Sarah Crespi; Meagan Cantwell; Melanie Mitchell; Sara Reardon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, Online News Editor David Grimm brings stories on peacock feathers' ability to emit laser light, how anteaters have evolved at least 12 times, and why we should be thanking ketchup for our French fries.   Next on the show, rorqual whales, such as the massive blue whale, use a lunging strategy to fill their monster maws with seawater and prey, then filter out the tasty parts with baleen sieves. Lunging for food when you weigh 100 tons seems like it would be an energetically expensive way to meet your dietary needs. But as Ashley Blawas, a postdoctoral researcher at the Hopkins Marine Station at Stanford University, describes in Science Advances this week, lunge-feeding whales have a few tricks up their sieves and use much less energy than predicted.   This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy.   About the Science Podcast   Authors: Sarah Crespi; David Grimm Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, Contributing Correspondent Richard Stone joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about the toll of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and how researchers have been mobilized to help the war effort. In June, Stone visited the basement labs where Ukrainian students modify off-the-shelf drones for war fighting and the facilities where biomedical researchers develop implants and bandages for wounded soldiers.   Next on the show, the isotopic ratios in our teeth and bones record the chemistry of what we eat. When anthropologists recently applied this technique to Neanderthals, they were surprised to find that when it comes to eating meat, our hominin cousins appeared to be on par with lions. Melanie Beasley, assistant professor of anthropology at Purdue University, has an explanation for why Neanderthals chemically look like hypercarnivores: They were just eating a lot of maggots. She talks about how she tested this idea by studying maggots that were fed putrefying human flesh.   Last up on this episode, a new installment of our series of books on death and science. This month's books host Angela Saini talks with Ravi Nandan Singh, a sociologist at Shiv Nadar University, about his book Dead in Banaras: An Ethnography of Funeral Travelling.   This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy.   About the Science Podcast   Authors: Sarah Crespi; Angela Saini; Rich Stone Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, South Africa's Cradle of Humankind is home to the world's greatest concentration of ancestral human remains, including our own genus, Homo, Australopithecus, and a more robust hominin called Paranthropus. Proving they were there at the same time is challenging, but new fossil evidence seems to point to coexistence. Producer Kevin McLean discusses what a multihominin landscape might have looked like with Contributing Correspondent Ann Gibbons.   Next on the show, should robots grow and adapt like babies?  Host Sarah Crespi talks with roboticist Philippe Wyder about a platform for exploring this idea. In his Science Advances paper, Wyder and his team demonstrate how simple stick-shaped robots with magnets at either end can join up for more complicated tasks and shed parts to adapt to new ones.   Philippe Wyder was at Columbia University and the University of Washington when he completed this work, and he has now moved on to a company called Distyl AI.   This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast   Authors: Sarah Crespi; Kevin McLean; Ann Gibbons Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, Réunion Island had a shark attack crisis in 2011 and closed its beaches for more than a decade. Former News Intern Alexa Robles-Gil joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about how researchers have used that time to study the island's shark populations and test techniques for preventing attacks, in the hopes of protecting lives and reopening the island's shores.   Next on the show, engineering gut microbes to break down the precursors of kidney stones. Weston Whitaker, a research scientist at Stanford University, joins the podcast to discuss how he and his team created a stable niche for these useful microbes in the human gut and overcame some of the challenges of controlling them once inside.   This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy.   About the Science Podcast   Authors: Sarah Crespi; Alexa Robles-Gil Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, Newsletter Editor Christie Wilcox joins host Sarah Crespi to celebrate the 2-year anniversary of ScienceAdviser with many stories about the amazing water bear. They also discuss links between climate change, melting glaciers, and earthquakes in the Alps, as well as what is probably the first edible laser.   Next on the show, freelance producer Elah Feder talks with Tatiana Feuerborn,  a postdoctoral fellow in the cancer genetics and comparative genomics branch of the National Institutes of Health, about the evolutionary history of the Greenland sled dog. Her team's work sequencing 98 genomes from modern and ancient sled dogs reveals the canine's current diversity and suggests approaches for conservation.   This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy.   About the Science Podcast   Authors: Sarah Crespi; Elah Feder; Christie Wilcox  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up on the podcast, U.S. aid helped two African countries rein in HIV. Then came President Donald Trump. Senior News Correspondent Jon Cohen talks with producer Kevin McLean about how in Lesotho and Eswatini, treatment and prevention cutbacks are hitting pregnant people, children, and teens especially hard.   This story is part of a series about the impacts of U.S. funding cuts on global health, supported by the Pulitzer Center.   Next on the show, host Sarah Crespi is joined by Robin Wordsworth, the Gordon McKay Professor in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University. They discuss the challenges and potential of microbes to grow plastics, drugs, and food on the surface of Mars or other bodies in the Solar System.   This week's episode was produced with help from Podigy.   About the Science Podcast   Authors: Sarah Crespi; Kevin McLean; Jon Cohen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices