Stay ConnectedThe Nature Podcast brings you the best stories from the world of science each week. We cover everything from astronomy to zoology, highlighting the most exciting research from each issue of the Nature journal. We meet the scientists behind the results and provide in-depth analysis from Nature‘s award-winning journalists.
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Copyright: © Springer Nature Limited
In this episode:
When it comes to the structure of DNA, everyone thinks they know Rosalind Franklin’s role in its discovery. The story goes that her crucial data was taken by James Watson without her knowledge, helping him and Francis Crick solve the structure. However, new evidence has revealed that this wasn’t really the case. Rosalind Franklin was not a ‘wronged heroine’, she was an equal contributor to the discovery.
Nature Podcast: 25 April 2023
Comment: What Rosalind Franklin truly contributed to the discovery of DNA’s structure
To prevent the loss of wildlife, forest restoration is key, but monitoring how well biodiversity actually recovers is incredibly difficult. Now though, a team has collected recordings of animal sounds to determine the extent of the recovery. However, while using these sounds to identify species is an effective way to monitor, it’s also labour intensive. To overcome this, they trained an AI to listen to the sounds, and found that although it was less able to identify species, its findings still correlated well with wildlife recovery, suggesting that it could be a cost-effective and automated way to monitor biodiversity.
Nature Podcast: 25 October 2023
Research article: Müller et al.
The first brain recording from a freely swimming octopus, and how a Seinfeld episode helped scientists to distinguish the brain regions involved in understanding and appreciating humour.
Research Highlight: How to measure the brain of an octopus
Research Highlight: One brain area helps you to enjoy a joke — but another helps you to get it
It’s recognized that multisensory experiences can create strong memories and that later-on, a single sensory experience can trigger memories of the whole event, like a specific smell conjuring a visual memory. But the neural mechanisms behind this are not well understood. Now, a team has shown that rich sensory experiences can create direct neural circuit between the memory regions involved with different senses. This circuit increases memory strength in the flies, and helps explain how sense and memories are interlinked.
Nature Podcast: 25 April 2023
Research article: Okray et al.
How elephant seals catch some shut-eye while diving.
New York Times: Elephant Seals Take Power Naps During Deep Ocean Dives
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Many AIs are 'black box' in nature, meaning that part of all of the underlying structure is obfuscated, either intentionally to protect proprietary information, due to the sheer complexity of the model, or both. This can be problematic in situations where people are harmed by decisions made by AI but left without recourse to challenge them.
Many researchers in search of solutions have coalesced around a concept called Explainable AI, but this too has its issues. Notably, that there is no real consensus on what it is or how it should be achieved. So how do we deal with these black boxes? In this podcast, we try to find out.
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In this episode:
01:55 “Oh GPT”
In the first of our festive songs, we pay homage to LLMs, the generative AI chat bots which have taken 2023 by storm.
05:32 Twenty questions
In this year’s festive game, our competitors try to guess some of the biggest science stories of the year, solely by asking yes/no questions.
24:40 “Warming night”
In our final song this year, we take stock as 2023 is named the hottest year since records began. As worsening climate change continues to threaten lives, can science provide hope for the future?
28:24 Nature’s 10
Every year, Nature’s 10 highlights some of the people who have shaped science. We hear about a few of the people who made the 2023 list.
News feature: Nature’s 10
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In the latest episode of Nature hits the books, astronomer Aomawa Shields discusses her memoir Life on Other Planets: A Memoir of Finding My Place in the Universe.
The book tracks her career path as a scientist and a classically-trained actor, explores her experiences as an African American woman in STEM, and interrogates science’s place in culture — some of the things we discussed in this podcast.
Life on Other Planets: A Memoir of Finding My Place in the Universe Aomawa Shields Constable (2023)
Music supplied by Airae/Epidemic Sound/Getty images.
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Current COVID-19 vaccines offer great protection from serious illness, but they don't prevent people from becoming infected in the first place. Because of this, researchers have been searching for ways to boost mucosal immunity — the immune response on mucosal surfaces — as this is where the virus is first encountered by the body. Now a team have shown that mucosal immunity can be improved enough to block infection in rhesus macaques by administering booster vaccines directly into their lungs, through inhalation. They hope this could offer a way to stop humans getting COVID-19 in the future.
Research Article: McMahan et al.
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In this episode:
Toxoplasma gondii, the parasite that causes the zoonotic disease toxoplasmosis, has a complex, multi-stage life cycle. Some of these stages will only grow in the intestines of cats, making it difficult to study. Now, a team has found a way to grow one of these stages in vitro for the first time, which they hope will help researchers learn more about this parasite, estimated to have infected around 30% of the world’s population.
Research Article: Antunes et al.
The tiny VR goggles designed for mice, and how a squirt of water could give coffee a bigger kick.
Research Highlight: Wee VR googles give mice a true immersive experience
Research Highlight: Why coffee particles clump and make a mess during grinding
Genetic searches reveal a potential super-sized protein, and the rise of ‘non-stop’ authors who publish a science paper every five days
Nature News: The world’s largest proteins? These mega-molecules turn bacteria into predators
Nature News: Surge in number of ‘extremely productive’ authors concerns scientists
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In this episode:
Confining photons within materials opens up potential applications in quantum computing and telecommunications. But capturing light requires nanoscale cavities, which are difficult to make. This week, a team has created the smallest silicon gap yet for this purpose, just two nano-metres wide, by exploiting the intermolecular forces that are usually an obstacle when creating such small structures. They show this gap can trap light effectively, but they also believe that their method could be used to create tiny cavities for use in a range of different fields.
Research Article: Babar et al.
News and Views: Self-assembling structures close the gap to trap light
Researchers head into the wilderness to search for dark matter, and the discovery that bottlenose dolphins can sense weak magnetic fields.
Research Highlight: The hunt for dark-matter particles ventures into the wild
Research Highlight: Dolphins have a feel for electric fields
Extreme poverty, defined as living on less than US$2.15 a day, affects around 10% of the world’s population. In the past, economic growth has generally been seen as key to reducing poverty; however, such growth has also led to an increase in climate-warming emissions. To find out whether poverty can be tackled without costing the planet, a team of researchers modelled how different levels of economic growth would affect global emissions. They found that ending poverty has only a negligible impact on emissions, which could be lowered even further by decarbonising energy production.
Research Article: Wollburg et al.
News and Views: Tackling extreme poverty around the world need not impede climate action
News: Catastrophic change looms as Earth nears climate ‘tipping points’, report says
News: Scientists skip COP28 to demand climate action at home
Scientists create a robotic octopus arm that you can control with a finger, and how disruptive science seems to elude farflung teams.
Nature News: How does it feel to have an octopus arm? This robo-tentacle lets people find out
Nature News: ‘Disruptive’ science: in-person teams make more breakthroughs than remote groups
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Around 500 million people are estimated to be in period poverty, lacking adequate access to sanitary products. Many of these people rely on donations, but this is far from a long-term solution. To tackle this researchers have developed a method to extract absorbent materials for menstrual pads from a common plant, Agave sisalana. The researchers say that their method can be performed using local techniques and has a lower environmental impact than the manufacture of other period products. They're aiming to scale-up this approach to help those in period poverty.
Research Article: Molina et al.
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In this episode:
The UN’s annual climate change conference is starting soon in Dubai. This time will be the first time that humanity formally assesses its progress under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, so we ask if this challenge of keeping warming below 1.5 ˚C can be met and what needs to happen at COP28 to make it a reality.
News Feature: Is it too late to keep global warming below 1.5 °C? The challenge in 7 charts
Falcons show off their smarts, and how smoke from California wildfires made Europe cloudy.
Research Highlight: These falcons excel at problem-solving — and outdo some of the world’s smartest birds
Research Highlight: Huge California wildfires seeded cirrus clouds half a world away
The mystery surrounding a powerful cosmic ray, and how to make super hot plasma easily.
Nature News: The most powerful cosmic ray since the Oh-My-God particle puzzles scientists
Research Article: Xie et al.
Video: Super hot plasma made easy with stabilising fibres
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Researchers have been resurrecting apple trees to revive forgotten varieties of the fruit. They hope that sequencing these apples' genomes could uncover mutations that influence flavour, colour, crispness and other characteristics. This knowledge could help unlock the next blockbuster fruit, and develop trees that are more resistant to disease, climate change and other environmental pressures.
This is an audio version of our Feature Apple revival: how science is bringing historic varieties back to life
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