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PODCAST

Science, Spoken

Get in-depth coverage of current and future trends in technology, and how they are shaping business, entertainment, communications, science, politics, and society.

science

All Episodes

6:10

SpaceX Sticks Its Landing after a Showy California...

Science, Spoken ·

2018/10/09

“The Falcon has landed.” As SpaceX declared victory on its live webcast, cheers erupted on a southern California hilltop, where a group of watchers had gathered to witness the company’s latest rocket launch (and landing). SpaceX had just achieved another first: touching down a rocket on California soil. Until now, the company’s West Coast landings had all taken place on the deck of the company’s drone ship, Just Read the Instructions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit

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8:43

STEM Candidates Try to Ride a Pro-Science Wave to...

Science, Spoken ·

2018/10/08

When Kim Schrier campaigns in central Washington farm towns, she talks about protecting health care, reforming immigration laws, and the harmful effects of new White House tariffs on the region’s hay, cherry, and apple growers. But she says she also brings up climate change and what it means for local businesses. “Our farmers have a lot of evidence that the climate is changing,” says Schrier, the Democratic candidate for Washington’s eighth congressional district. Learn more about your ad choices

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5:45

The Insane Physics of Airbags

Science, Spoken ·

2018/10/08

I can imagine the meeting: A dozen engineers are gathered around a conference table to discuss automobile safety. How can we protect people during a car crash? We have already added seat belts and crumple zones to cars. Is there anything else we can include? One attendee reluctantly raises their hand with a suggestion: "How about we add an explosive in the steering wheel?" Brilliant. That's exactly what we will do. We will put a bomb in the car and it will save lives. They were right. Learn more

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8:33

A Mushroom Extract Might Save Bees from a Killer Virus

Science, Spoken ·

2018/10/05

The bees, as you've probably heard, are dying, in massive numbers. Termed Colony Collapse Disorder, the die-off counts among its causes a parasite aptly named Varroa destructor. A flat, button-shaped, eight-legged critter no more than 2 millimeters long, Varroa mites invade honeybee hives around the world in droves, latch onto their inhabitants, and feed on their tissues, transmitting devastating RNA viruses in the process. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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8:43

A Brain-Eating Amoeba Just Claimed Another Victim

Science, Spoken ·

2018/10/05

The temperature in Waco, Texas was approaching 83 degrees last Thursday when Mia Mattioli arrived in search of Naegleria fowleri, a brain-eating, warm-water-loving amoeba that kills almost every person it infects. An environmental engineer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Mattioli spent the day at BSR Surf Resort, a local water park, filling fifty-liter jugs with samples from the facility's various attractions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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6:43

Swarms of Super-Sized Mosquitoes Besiege North Carolina

Science, Spoken ·

2018/10/04

Two weeks ago, Hurricane Florence slammed into the Carolinas, unleashing six months of rain in a matter of hours. In inland Cumberland County, the Cape Fear River rose 40 inches, inundating Fayetteville with the worst flooding the city has seen since 1945. But as the waters receded and citizens returned to their ruined homes, a new plague was just beginning to descend. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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8:06

Physicists Win Nobel Prize for Lasers That Stretch,...

Science, Spoken ·

2018/10/04

The laser is a tool of many talents, as the Nobel committee well knows. On Tuesday morning in Stockholm, its members announced the year’s physics prize and rattled off a short list of the technologies it has made possible: barcodes, eye surgery, cancer treatment, welding, cutting materials more precisely than a scalpel. They failed to acknowledge the whimsy it has brought cat owners, although one committee member did mention laser light shows. The laser’s resume keeps growing. Learn more about your

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6:46

It’s Time to Talk About Robot Gender Stereotypes

Science, Spoken ·

2018/10/03

Robots are the most powerful blank slate humans have ever created. Want a helpful robot? No problem. Want a mean one? Sure, if that’s what you’re into. A robot is a mirror held up not just to its creator, but to our whole species: What we make of the machine reflects what we are. That also means we have the very real opportunity to screw up robots by infusing them with exaggerated, overly simplified gender stereotypes. So maybe robots aren’t simply a mirror. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit

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12:52

Crawling Dead: How Ants Turn Into Zombies

Science, Spoken ·

2018/10/03

David Hughes leans back in his office in a standard-issue professorship chair as Penn State students in a plaza behind him shuffle toward classes. Between us on his desk—on either side of a paper cup of black coffee—are two trays of dead ants stuck through with pins. Some cling to leaves, others curl up around sticks, frozen in their tiny death postures like the now-fossilized humans who couldn’t escape Pompeii. All, though, have strange structures erupting out of their corpses. Learn more about

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7:20

Farmers Can Now Buy Designer Microbes to Replace...

Science, Spoken ·

2018/10/02

Jake Misch’s family has been growing corn in the sandy soils of northwestern Indiana for four generations. Like other farmers in the area, the Misches spray their fields with a nitrogen-rich fertilizer once in the spring when the seeds are planted, and once later in the year, when the corn is going through its growth spurt. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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19:18

The Science Is Clear: Dirty Farm Water Is Making Us Sick

Science, Spoken ·

2018/10/02

This story originally appeared on Reveal and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. William Whitt suffered violent diarrhea for days. But once he began vomiting blood, he knew it was time to rush to the hospital. His body swelled up so much that his wife thought he looked like the Michelin Man, and on the inside, his intestines were inflamed and bleeding. For four days last spring, doctors struggled to control the infection that was ravaging Whitt, a father of three in western Idaho. Learn more

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5:31

Trump's Auto Emissions Plan Is Full of Faulty Logic

Science, Spoken ·

2018/10/01

There was a time many years ago when cars guzzled gas like beer, teenagers raced them on Friday nights, and Detroit automakers boasted about their vehicles' ever-increasing horsepower and speed. Since then, cars have become safer, cleaner and more efficient, mostly as a result of tougher standards from Washington. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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6:53

San Francisco's Dream of 'Zero Waste' Lands in the...

Science, Spoken ·

2018/10/01

In 2003, San Francisco set the lofty objective of getting to zero waste by 2020. By that timeline, the city should soon be performing a ceremonial burial for the last pair of broken headphones and closing down its moldering landfills. But with the deadline approaching, the city has sent that goal itself to the garbage heap. Earlier this month, as part of the Global Climate Action Summit, Mayor London Breed released a statement announcing new trash targets for 2030. Learn more about your ad choices

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7:56

Darpa Goes Underground for Its Most Daring Robot...

Science, Spoken ·

2018/09/28

On Thursday, Darpa gathered roboticists in the Louisville Mega Cavern, in Kentucky, and gave them a mission: Design robots to navigate a grueling subterranean course of tunnels and caves, some of the most unforgiving environments on Earth. They’re calling it the Subterranean Challenge, but you may as well call it the Death to All Robots Challenge. This event, which will begin next year, is a fundamentally different Darpa beast than the Darpa beasts that came before it. Learn more about your ad

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7:08

Robot Lawnmowers Are Killing Hedgehogs

Science, Spoken ·

2018/09/28

While Americans still wrangle their overgrown lawns by pushing or riding a lawnmower, many Europeans have handed off that responsibility to robots. These beefy, Roomba-like mowers loop their way around a yard, keeping grass trim and neat. To many of their users, the bots are endearing. Their owners give them names or cover them in decals of ladybugs or bumblebees. But the sentimentality only goes so far, because these blades-on-wheels have also been slicing up something other than grass:

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8:05

Cats Bad at Nabbing Rats But Feast on Other Beasts

Science, Spoken ·

2018/09/27

In the summer of 2017, Michael Parsons found the urban rat haven of his dreams: A Waste Management transfer station—aka a literal trash heap, aka rat paradise—in Brooklyn, New York. For nearly two years, the behavioral ecologist and visiting scholar at Fordham University had been searching for a place to observe the city-dwelling rodents in their natural habitat. Trouble was, he needed to not only capture the critters and tag them, but then to set them free. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit

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11:13

Everyone Wants to Go to the Moon Again—Logic Be Damned

Science, Spoken ·

2018/09/27

The Moon is a pretty barren place. Sure, there are a few buggies, some golf balls, a flag, urine bags, a family photo. But it’s mostly empty. If a company called ispace has its way, though, Earth’s closest space neighbor will soon(ish) be the site of a bustling, industrial city full of workers and tourists. Moon Valley, the dreamers call it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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8:06

Learn From These Bugs. Don't Let Social Media Zombify...

Science, Spoken ·

2018/09/26

You’ve heard that social media is screwing with your brain. Maybe you even read about it on social media. (So meta; so messed up.) The neurochemical culprit, dopamine, spikes when you like and get liked, share and are shared. You’ve probably also heard scientists compare the affliction to drug or alcohol addiction. That’s fair. The same part of the brain lights up. Scroll, scroll, scroll. It’s a phenomenon now so pervasive that it’s got a name: zombie scrolling syndrome. Learn more about your ad

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6:17

This Supple, Squishy Robo-Jellyfish Can Explore Ocean...

Science, Spoken ·

2018/09/26

Jellyfish float through the ocean like drones of the sea. Their simple nature makes them a natural muse for robot engineers building devices that can squeeze through tight spaces, check the ocean’s health, and eventually, explore the human body. This week, a team at Florida Atlantic University unveiled a new eight-inch wide robo-jellyfish built to monitor marine life and harsh underwater habitats. It's not the first attempt to automate one of these 500 million year-old creatures. Learn more about

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6:28

The Creepy-Cute Robot that Picks Peppers With its Face

Science, Spoken ·

2018/09/25

Rejoice! The machines won’t be taking over the world anytime soon, because doing the most basic of tasks still confounds them. I mean, have you thought lately about how hard it is to pick a ripe bell pepper? Fine, me neither. But researchers in Israel and Europe certainly have. They're developing a robot called Sweeper that can autonomously roam a greenhouse, eyeballing peppers to determine if they’re mature enough before sawing them off the plant and placing the produce in a basket. Learn more

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2,360 results

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