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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

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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33:34

Bats surf storm fronts, and public perception of...

Science Magazine Podcast ·

2025/01/09

First up this week, as preprint publications ramped up during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, so did media attention for these pre–peer-review results. But what do the readers of news reports based on preprints know about them? Associate News Editor Jeff Brainard joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss studies that look at the public perception of preprints in the news and how to inject skepticism into stories about them.Next, placing tiny tags on bats to follow them across central Europe

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29:33

On the trail with a truffle-hunting dog, and why we...

Science Magazine Podcast ·

2025/01/02

First up this week, Newsletter Editor Christie Wilcox talks with host Sarah Crespi about truffle hunting for science. Wilcox accompanied Heather Dawson, a Ph.D. student at the University of Oregon, and her sister Hilary Dawson, a postdoctoral researcher at Australian National University, on a hunt for nonculinary truffles—the kind you don’t eat—with the help of a specially trained dog. These scientists and their dog are digging up many new species of these hard-to-find fungi with the ultimate aim

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38:31

Top online stories of the year, and revisiting...

Science Magazine Podcast ·

2024/12/19

First up this week, Online News Editor David Grimm shares a sampling of stories that hit big with our audience and staff in this year, from corpse-eating pets to the limits of fanning ourselves.Next, host Sarah Crespi tackles some unfinished business with Producer Kevin McLean. Three former guests talk about where their research has taken them since their first appearances on the podcast. Erick Lundgren, a researcher at the Centre for Open Science and Research Synthesis at the University of

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45:46

Science’s Breakthrough of the Year, and psychedelic...

Science Magazine Podcast ·

2024/12/12

First up this week, Breakthroughs Editor Greg Miller joins producer Meagan Cantwell to discuss Science’s 2024 Breakthrough of the Year. They also discuss some of the other scientific achievements that turned heads this year, from ancient DNA and autoimmune therapy, to precision pesticides, and the discovery of a new organelle.Next, host Sarah Crespi is joined by news staffers to catch up on threads they’ve been following all year. First a bumpy road for certain medicines. Editor Kelly Servick

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32:11

Making Latin American science visible, and advances...

Science Magazine Podcast ·

2024/12/05

First up this week, freelance science journalist Sofia Moutinho joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss making open-access journals from South and Latin America visible to the rest of the world by creating platforms that help with the publishing process and discovery of journal articles. This story is part of a News series about global equity in science.Next on the show, departing Physical Sciences Editor Brent Grocholski discusses highlights from his career at Science, particularly his work on

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27:44

Leaf-based computer chips, and evidence that two...

Science Magazine Podcast ·

2024/11/28

First up this week, making electronics greener with leaves. Host Sarah Crespi talks with Newsletter Editor Christie Wilcox about using the cellulose skeletons of leaves to create robust, biodegradable backings for computer chips. This sustainable approach can be used for printing circuits and making organic light-emitting diodes and if widely adopted, could massively reduce the carbon footprint of electronics. Next on the show, Kevin Hatala, a biology professor at Chatham University, joins

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37:36

Testing whales’ hearing, and mapping clusters of...

Science Magazine Podcast ·

2024/11/21

First up this week, where on Earth do people live the longest? What makes those places or people so special? Genes, diet, life habits? Or could it be bad record keeping and statistical flukes? Freelance science journalist Ignacio Amigo joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the controversies around so-called blue zones—regions in the world where clusters of people appear to have extreme longevity.Next on the show, producer Kevin Mclean talks with Dorian Houser, director of conservation biology at the

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32:20

Resurrecting a ‘flipping ship,’ and solving the ‘bone...

Science Magazine Podcast ·

2024/11/14

First up this week, a ship that flips for science. Sean Cummings, a freelance science journalist, joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about the resurrection of the Floating Instrument Platform (R/V FLIP), a research vessel built by the U.S. Navy in the 1960s and retired in 2023. FLIP is famous for turning vertically 90° so the bulk of the long ship is underwater, stabilizing it for data gathering. Additional audio from Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Watch FLIP flipping here.Next on the show,

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26:04

Watching continents slowly break apart, and turbo...

Science Magazine Podcast ·

2024/11/07

First up this week, Staff Writer Paul Voosen talks with host Sarah Crespi about his travel to meet up with a lead researcher in the field, Folarin Kolawole, and the subtle signs of rifting on the African continent.Next on the show, Nik Dennler, a Ph.D. student in the Biocomputation Group at the University of Hertfordshire and the International Center for Neuromorphic Systems at Western Sydney University, discusses speeding up electronic noses. These fast sniffing devices could one day be mounted

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39:40

The challenges of studying misinformation, and what...

Science Magazine Podcast ·

2024/10/31

First up this week, Contributing Correspondent Kai Kupferschmidt joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the difficulties of studying misinformation. Although misinformation seems like it’s everywhere, researchers in the field don’t agree on a common definition or shared strategies for combating it.Next, what can Wikipedia tell us about human curiosity? Dani Bassett, a professor in the department of bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania, observed three different curiosity styles in people

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46:48

Paleorobotics, revisiting the landscape of fear, and...

Science Magazine Podcast ·

2024/10/24

Using robots to study evolution, the last installment of our series of books on a future to look forward to, and did reintroducing wolves really restore an ecosystem?First up this week, a new study of an iconic ecosystem doesn’t support the “landscape of fear” concept. This is the idea that bringing back apex predators has a huge impact on the behavior of their prey, eventually altering the rest of the ecosystem. Host Sarah Crespi talks with Contributing Correspondent Virginia Morell about the

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40:25

How to deal with backsliding democracies, and...

Science Magazine Podcast ·

2024/10/17

First up this week, host Sarah Crespi talks to Jon Chu, a presidential young professor in international affairs at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, about how people around the world define democracy. Does democracy mean elections, freedom of the press, social mobility, or something else? Chu’s team found there was common ground across six countries. In many places with backsliding democracies, leaders may be tempted to change the definition of

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32:16

Graphene’s journey from hype to prime time, and...

Science Magazine Podcast ·

2024/10/10

First up this week, we celebrate 20 years of graphene—from discovery, to hype, and now reality as it finally finds its place in technology and science. Science journalist Mark Peplow joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss graphene’s bumpy journey.Next, producer Meagan Cantwell talks with Seth Darling, chief science and technology officer for the Advanced Energy Technologies Directorate at Argonne National Laboratory, about two new ways to harvest lithium from water. One approach harnesses sunlight to

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617 results

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