Ritual murders in the neolithic, why 2023 was so hot, and virus and bacteria battle in the gut
A different source of global warming, signs of a continentwide tradition of human sacrifice, and a virus that attacks the cholera bacteria First up on the show this week, clearer skies might be accelerating global warming. Staff Writer Paul Voosen joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss how as air pollution is cleaned up, climate models need to consider the decrease in the planet’s reflectivity. Less reflectivity means Earth is absorbing more energy from the Sun and increased temps. Also from the news team this week, we hear about how bones from across Europe suggest recurring Stone Age ritual killings. Contributing Corresp...
Source: Science Magazine Podcast - April 18, 2024 Category: Science Authors: Science Magazine Source Type: podcasts
Trialing treatments for Long Covid, and a new organelle appears on the scene
]Researchers are testing HIV drugs and monoclonal antibodies against long-lasting COVID-19, and what it takes to turn a symbiotic friend into an organelle First up on the show this week, clinical trials of new and old treatments for Long Covid. Producer Meagan Cantwell is joined by Staff Writer Jennifer Couzin-Frankel and some of her sources to discuss the difficulties of studying and treating this debilitating disease. People in this segment:· Michael Peluso· Sara Cherry· Shelley Hayden Next: Move over mitochondria, a new organelle called the nitroplast is here. Host Sarah Crespi tal...
Source: Science Magazine Podcast - April 11, 2024 Category: Science Authors: Science Magazine Source Type: podcasts
When did rats come to the Americas, and was Lucy really our direct ancestor?
Tracing the arrival of rats using bones, isotopes, and a few shipwrecks; and what scientists have learned in 50 years about our famous ancestor Lucy First on the show: Did rats come over with Christopher Columbus? It turns out, European colonists weren’t alone on their ships when they came to the Americas—they also brought black and brown rats to uninfested shores. Eric Guiry, a researcher in the Trent Environmental Archaeology Lab at Trent University, joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss how tiny slices of bone from early colony sites and sunken shipwrecks can tell us when these pesky rodents arrived. Next, producer M...
Source: Science Magazine Podcast - April 4, 2024 Category: Science Authors: Science Magazine Source Type: podcasts
Teaching robots to smile, and the effects of a rare mandolin on a scientist ’s career
Robots that can smile in synchrony with people, and what ends up in the letters sectionFirst on this week’s show, a robot that can predict your smile. Hod Lipson, a roboticist and professor at Columbia University, joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss how mirrors can help robots learn to make facial expressions and eventually improve robot nonverbal communication. Next, we have Margaret Handley, a professor in the department of epidemiology and biostatistics and medicine at the University of California San Francisco. She shares a letter she wrote to Science about how her past, her family, and a rare instrument relate to he...
Source: Science Magazine Podcast - March 28, 2024 Category: Science Authors: Science Magazine Source Type: podcasts
Hope in the fight against deadly prion diseases, and side effects of organic agriculture
New clinical trials for treatments of an always fatal brain disease, and what happens with pests when a conventional and organic farm are neighbors First up on this week’s show, a new treatment to stave off prion disease goes into clinical trials. Prions are misfolded proteins that clump together and chew holes in the brain. The misfolding can be switched on in a number of ways—including infection with a misfolded prion protein from an animal or person. Staff Writer Meredith Wadman talks with host Sarah Crespi about new potential treatments—from antisense nucleotides to small molecules that interfere with protein pr...
Source: Science Magazine Podcast - March 21, 2024 Category: Science Authors: Science Magazine Source Type: podcasts
Why babies forget, and how fear lingers in the brain
Investigating “infantile amnesia,” and how generalized fear after acute stress reflects changes in the brain This week we have two neuroscience stories. First up, freelance science journalist Sara Reardon looks at why infants’ memories fade. She joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss ongoing experiments that aim to determine when the forgetting stops and why it happens in the first place. Next on the show, Hui-Quan Li, a senior scientist at Neurocrine Biosciences, talks with Sarah about how the brain encodes generalized fear, a symptom of some anxiety disorders such as social anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder....
Source: Science Magazine Podcast - March 14, 2024 Category: Science Authors: Science Magazine Source Type: podcasts
A dive into the genetic history of India, and the role of vitamin A in skin repair
What modern Indian genomes say about the region’s deep past, and how vitamin A influences stem cell plasticityFirst up this week, Online News Editor Michael Price and host Sarah Crespi talk about a large genome sequencing project in India that reveals past migrations in the region and a unique intermixing with Neanderthals in ancient times. Next on the show, producer Kevin McLean chats with Matthew Tierney, a postdoctoral fellow at Rockefeller University, about how vitamin A and stem cells work together to grow hair and heal wounds. This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy. About the Science Podcast A...
Source: Science Magazine Podcast - March 7, 2024 Category: Science Authors: Science Magazine Source Type: podcasts
The sci-fi future of medical robots is here, and dehydrating the stratosphere to stave off climate change
Keeping water out of the stratosphere could be a low-risk geoengineering approach, and using magnets to drive medical robots inside the body First up this week, a new approach to slowing climate change: dehydrating the stratosphere. Staff Writer Paul Voosen joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the risks and advantages of this geoengineering technique. Next on the show, Science Robotics Editor Amos Matsiko gives a run-down of papers in a special series on magnetic robots in medicine. Matsiko and Crespi also discuss how close old science fiction books came to predicting modern medical robots’ abilities. This week’s epis...
Source: Science Magazine Podcast - February 29, 2024 Category: Science Authors: Science Magazine Source Type: podcasts
What makes snakes so special, and how space science can serve all
On this week’s show: Factors that pushed snakes to evolve so many different habitats and lifestyles, and news from the AAAS annual meeting First up on the show this week, news from this year’s annual meeting of AAAS (publisher of Science) in Denver. News intern Sean Cummings talks with Danielle Wood, director of the Space Enabled Research Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, about the sustainable use of orbital space or how space exploration and research can benefit everyone. And Newsletter Editor Christie Wilcox joins host Sarah Crespi with an extravaganza of meeting stories including a chat with some...
Source: Science Magazine Podcast - February 22, 2024 Category: Science Authors: Science Magazine Source Type: podcasts
What makes blueberries blue, and myth buster Adam Savage on science communication
Why squeezing a blueberry doesn’t get you blue juice, and a myth buster and a science editor walk into a bar First up on the show this week, MythBusters’s Adam Savage chats with Science Editor-in-Chief Holden Thorp about the state of scholarly publishing, better ways to communicate science, plus a few myths Savage still wants to tackle. Next on the show, making blueberries without blue pigments. Rox Middleton, a postdoctoral fellow at the Dresden University of Technology and honorary research associate at the University of Bristol, joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about how blueberries and other blue fruits owe their ...
Source: Science Magazine Podcast - February 15, 2024 Category: Science Authors: Science Magazine Source Type: podcasts
A new kind of magnetism, and how smelly pollution harms pollinators
More than 200 materials could be “altermagnets,” and the impact of odiferous pollutants on nocturnal plant-pollinator interactions First up on the show this week, researchers investigate a new kind of magnetism. Freelance science journalist Zack Savitsky joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about recent evidence for “altermagnetism” in nature, which could enable new types of electronics. Next on the show, producer Meagan Cantwell talks with Jeremy Chan, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Naples Federico II, about how air pollution can interfere with pollinator activities—is the modern world too smelly fo...
Source: Science Magazine Podcast - February 8, 2024 Category: Science Authors: Science Magazine Source Type: podcasts
A new way for the heart and brain to ‘talk’ to each other, and Earth’s future weather written in ancient coral reefs
A remote island may hold clues for the future of El Niño and La Niña under climate change, and how pressure in the blood sends messages to neurons First up, researchers are digging into thousands of years of coral to chart El Niño’s behavior over time. Producer Kevin McLean talks with Staff Writer Paul Voosen about his travels to the Pacific island of Vanuatu to witness the arduous task of reef drilling. Next on the show, host Sarah Crespi talks with Veronica Egger, a professor of neurophysiology at the Regensburg University Institute of Zoology, about an unexpected method of signaling inside the body. Egger’s wor...
Source: Science Magazine Podcast - February 1, 2024 Category: Science Authors: Science Magazine Source Type: podcasts
A hangover-fighting enzyme, the failure of a promising snakebite treatment, and how ants change lion behavior
On this week’s show: A roundup of stories from our daily newsletter, and the ripple effects of the invasive big-headed ant in KenyaFirst up on the show, Science Newsletter Editor Christie Wilcox joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about snake venom antidotes, a surprising job for a hangover enzyme, and crustaceans that spin silk. Next on the show, the cascading effects of an invading ant. Douglas Kamaru, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Zoology & Physiology at the University of Wyoming, discusses how the disruption of a mutually beneficial relationship between tiny ants and spiny trees in Kenya led to lions changing...
Source: Science Magazine Podcast - January 25, 2024 Category: Science Authors: Science Magazine Source Type: podcasts
Paper mills bribe editors to pass peer review, and detecting tumors with a blood draw
Investigation shows journal editors getting paid to publish bunk papers, and new techniques for finding tumor DNA in the blood First up on this week’s episode, Frederik Joelving, an editor and reporter for the site Retraction Watch, talks with host Sarah Crespi about paper mills—organizations that sell authorship on research papers—that appear to be bribing journal editors to publish bogus articles. They talk about the drivers behind this activity and what publishers can do to stop it. Next, producer Zakiya Whatley of the Dope Labs podcast talks with researcher Carmen Martin-Alonso, a graduate student in the Harvar...
Source: Science Magazine Podcast - January 19, 2024 Category: Science Authors: Science Magazine Source Type: podcasts
The environmental toll of war in Ukraine, and communications between mom and fetus during childbirth
Assessing environmental damage during wartime, and tracking signaling between fetus and mother First up, freelance journalist Richard Stone returns with news from his latest trip to Ukraine. This week, he shares stories with host Sarah Crespi about environmental damage from the war, particularly the grave consequences of the Kakhovka Dam explosion. Next, producer Kevin McLean talks with researcher Nardhy Gomez-Lopez, a professor in the department of obstetrics and gynecology and pathology and immunology in the Center for Reproductive Health Sciences at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The two discus...
Source: Science Magazine Podcast - January 11, 2024 Category: Science Authors: Science Magazine Source Type: podcasts
