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PODCAST

Science Magazine Podcast

Science Magazine

Weekly podcasts from Science Magazine, the world"s leading journal of original scientific research, global news, and commentary.

science news commentary

All Episodes

53:30

Tickling in review, spores in the stratosphere, and...

Science Magazine Podcast ·

2025/05/29

First up on the podcast, Online News Editor Michael Greshko joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about stories set high above our heads. They discuss capturing fungal spores high in the stratosphere, the debate over signs oflife on the exoplanet K2-18b, and a Chinese contender for world’s oldest star catalog. Next on the show, a look into long-standing questions on why and how our bodies respond to tickling. Producer Meagan Cantwell talks to Konstantina Kilteni, an assistant professor at the Donders

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41:13

Strange metals and our own personal ‘oxidation fields’

Science Magazine Podcast ·

2025/05/22

First up on the podcast, freelance journalist Zack Savitsky joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about the strange metal state. Physicists are probing thebehavior of electrons in these materials, which appear to behave like a thick soup rather than discrete charged particles. Many suspect insights into strange metals might lead to the creation of room-temperature superconductors, highly desired materials that promise lossless energy delivery and floating trains. A few years ago, researcher Nora

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31:27

A horse science roundup and using dubious brain scans...

Science Magazine Podcast ·

2025/05/15

First up on the podcast, freelance journalist Jonathan Moens talks with host Sarah Crespi about a forensic test called brain electrical oscillation signature (BEOS) profiling, which police in India are using along with other techniques to try to tell whether a suspect participated in a crime, despite these technologies’ extremely shaky scientific grounding.Next on the show, scientists have recently made strides in our understanding of horses, from identifying the mutations that make horses

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34:17

Analyzing music from ancient Greece and Rome, and the...

Science Magazine Podcast ·

2025/05/08

First up on the podcast, producer Meagan Cantwell worked with the Science News team to review how the first 100 days of PresidentDonald Trump’s administration have impacted science. In the segment, originally produced for video, we hear about how the workforce, biomedical research, and global health initiatives all face widespread, perhaps permanent damage, with News staffers David Malakoff, Jocelyn Kaiser, and Rachel Bernstein. Next on the show, acoustical analysis of ancient music from Greece

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33:28

Tales from an Italian crypt, and the science behind...

Science Magazine Podcast ·

2025/05/01

First up on the podcast, Contributing Correspondent Andrew Curry talks with host Sarah Crespi about his visit to 17th century crypts under an old hospital in Italy. Researchers are examining tooth plaque, bone lesions, and mummified brains to learn more about the health, diet, and drug habits of Milan’s working poor 400 years ago. Next on the show, a mechanism for driving growth in fat stores with age. Or, the source of the “dad bod” trope. Producer Zakiya Whatley talks with Qiong “Annabel” Wang,

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46:52

A caterpillar that haunts spiderwebs, solving the...

Science Magazine Podcast ·

2025/04/24

First up on the podcast, bringing Gregor Mendel’s peas into the 21st century. Back in the 19th century Mendel, a friar and naturalist, tracked traits in peas such as flower color and shape over many generations. He used these observations to identify basic concepts about inheritance such as recessive and dominant traits. Staff Writer Erik Stokstad talks with host Sarah Crespi about the difficulty of identifying genes for these phenotypes all these years later. We also hear some other stories from

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27:36

Linking cat domestication to ancient cult sacrifices,...

Science Magazine Podcast ·

2025/04/17

First up on the podcast, Online News Editor David Grimm joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about how an Egyptian cult that killed cats may have also tamed them.Next on the show, we hear about when the aurorae wandered. About 41,000 years ago, Earth’s magnetic poles took an excursion. They began to move equatorward and decreased in strength to one-tenth their modern levels. Agnit Mukhopadhyay, a research affiliate at the University of Michigan, talks about how his group mapped these magnetic changes,

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29:34

The metabolic consequences of skipping sleep, and...

Science Magazine Podcast ·

2025/04/10

(Main Text)First up on the podcast, ScienceInsider Editor Jocelyn Kaiser joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss big changes in science funding and government jobs this month, including an order to cut billions in contracts, lawsuits over funding caps and grant funding cancellations, and mass firings at the National Institutes of Health. Next on the show, taking sleep loss more seriously. Jennifer Tudor, an associate professor of biology at Saint Joseph’s University, talks about how skipping out on

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32:56

Talking about engineering the climate, and treating...

Science Magazine Podcast ·

2025/04/03

Geoengineering experiments face an uphill battle, and a way to combat the pregnancy complication hyperemesis gravidarumFirst up on the podcast, climate engineers face tough conversations with the public when proposing plans to test new technologies. Freelance science journalist Rebekah White joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the questions people have about these experiments and how researchers can get collaboration and buy-in for testing ideas such as changing the atmosphere to reflect more

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33:46

Studying urban wildfires, and the challenges of...

Science Magazine Podcast ·

2025/03/27

First up this week, urban wildfires raged in Los Angeles in January. Contributing Correspondent Warren Cornwall discusses how researchers have come together to study how pollution from buildings at such a large scale impacts the environment and health of the local population.Next on the show, Mingze Chen, a graduate student in the mechanical engineering department at the University of Michigan, talks with host Sarah Crespi about the challenges of placing artificial intelligence in small robots

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39:13

Why seals don’t drown, and tracking bird poop as it...

Science Magazine Podcast ·

2025/03/20

First up this week, Newsletter Editor Christie Wilcox joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss stories from the sea, including why scientists mounted cameras on seabirds, backward and upside-down; newly discovered organisms from the world’s deepest spot, the Mariana Trench; and how extremely venomous, blue-lined octopus males use their toxin on females in order to mate. Read more or subscribe at science.org/scienceadviser.Next on the show, J. Chris McKnight, a senior research fellow in the Sea Mammal

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43:40

Why sign language could be crucial for kids with...

Science Magazine Podcast ·

2025/03/13

First up this week, science policy editor Jocelyn Kaiser joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the latest news about the National Institutes of Health—from reconfiguring review panels to canceled grants to confirmation hearings for a new head, Jay Bhattacharya.Next, although cochlear implants can give deaf children access to sound, it doesn’t always mean they have unrestricted access to language. Producer Meagan Cantwell talks with Contributing Correspondent Cathleen O’Grady about why some think

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56:09

Intrusive thoughts during pregnancy, paternity...

Science Magazine Podcast ·

2025/03/06

First up this week, International News Editor David Malakoff joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the most recent developments in U.S. science under Donald Trump’s second term, from the impact of tariffs on science to the rehiring of probationary employees at the National Science Foundation.Next, we tackle the question of extra-pair paternity in people—when marriage or birth records of parentage differ from biological parentage. Contributing Correspondent Andrew Curry writes about researchers

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36:58

Keeping transgenic corn sustainable, and sending...

Science Magazine Podcast ·

2025/02/27

First up this week, Kata Karáth, a freelance journalist based in Ecuador, talks with host Sarah Crespi about an effort to identify traditionally prepared shrunken heads in museums and collections around the world and potentially repatriate them.Next, genetically modified Bt corn has helped farmers avoid serious crop damage from insects, but planting it everywhere all the time can drive insects to adapt to the bacterial toxin made by the plant. Christian Krupke, an entomology professor at Purdue

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43:25

Shrinking AI for use in farms and clinics, ethical...

Science Magazine Podcast ·

2025/02/20

First up this week, researchers face impossible decisions as U.S. aid freeze halts clinical trials. Deputy News Editor Martin Enserink joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about how organizers of U.S. Agency for International Development–funded studies are grappling with ethical responsibilities to trial participants and collaborators as funding, supplies, and workers dry up.Next, freelance science journalist Sandeep Ravindran talks about creating tiny machine learning devices for bespoke use in the

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40:05

Training AI to read animal facial expressions, NIH...

Science Magazine Podcast ·

2025/02/13

First up this week, International News Editor David Malakoff joins the podcast to discuss the big change in NIH’s funding policy for overhead or indirect costs, the outrage from the biomedical community over the cuts, and the lawsuits filed in response.Next, what can machines understand about pets and livestock that humans can’t? Christa Lesté-Lasserre, a freelance science journalist based in Paris, joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss training artificial intelligence on animal facial expressions

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27:55

How the mantis shrimp builds its powerful club, and...

Science Magazine Podcast ·

2025/02/06

First up this week, Staff Writer Paul Voosen joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss mapping clogs and flows in Earth’s middle layer—the mantle. They also talk about recent policy stories on NASA’s reactions to President Donald Trump’s administration’s executive orders.Next, the mantis shrimp is famous for its powerful club, a biological hammer it uses to crack open hard shells. The club applies immense force on impact, but how does it keep itself together blow after blow? Nicolas Alderete is an

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27:59

Why it pays to scratch that itch, and science at the...

Science Magazine Podcast ·

2025/01/30

First up this week, we catch up with the editor of ScienceInsider, Jocelyn Kaiser. She talks about changes at the major science agencies that came about with the transition to President Donald Trump’s second administration, such as hiring freezes at the National Institutes of Health and the United States’s departure from the World Health Organization.Next, producer Kevin McLean talks with Dan Kaplan, a professor in the departments of immunology and dermatology at the University of Pittsburgh,

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34:12

Unlocking green hydrogen, and oxygen deprivation as...

Science Magazine Podcast ·

2025/01/23

First up this week, although long touted as a green fuel, the traditional approach to hydrogen production is not very sustainable. Staff writer Robert F. Service joins producer Meagan Cantwell to discuss how researchers are aiming to improve electrolyzers—devices that split water into hydrogen and oxygen—with more efficient and durable designs.Next, Robert Rogers, who was a postdoctoral fellow in molecular biology at Massachusetts General Hospital when this work was conducted, talks with host

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34:57

Rising infections from a dusty devil, and nailing...

Science Magazine Podcast ·

2025/01/16

First up this week, growing numbers of Valley fever cases, also known as coccidioidomycosis, has researchers looking into the disease-causing fungus. They’re exploring its links to everything from drought and wildfires to climate change and rodent populations. Staff Writer Meredith Wadman joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss her visit to a Valley fever research site in the desert near Bakersfield, California, where researchers are sampling air and soil for the elusive fungus.Next up, scientists are

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610 results

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