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:
By analysing ancient DNA recovered from bone fragments found in two Siberian caves, researchers have identified a set of closely related Neanderthals: a father and daughter, as well as several other more-distant relatives. The work suggests that Neanderthal communities were small, and that females may have left their families to join other groups.
Research article: Skov et al.
News and Views: The first genomic portrait of a Neanderthal family
The robotic falcon that frightens nuisance flocks, and how climate change could lead to power loss in low-income households.
Research Highlight: Plagued by problem birds? Call RobotFalcon!
Research Highlight: Loss of power looms for some families as climate changes
We discuss some highlights from the Nature Briefing. This time, assessing why women are cited less often than men in physics, and uncovering a long-lost star-map from ancient Greece.
Science: Women researchers are cited less than men. Here’s why—and what can be done about it
Nature News: First known map of night sky found hidden in Medieval parchment
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In this episode:
Brain organoids — lab-grown, self-organizing structures made of stem cells — are used in research to better understand brain development and disease progression. However, these structures lack connections seen in real brains, limiting their usefulness. To overcome this, a team has now transplanted human organoids into the brains of newborn rats, showing that these implanted organoids respond to stimuli and could influence the animals’ behaviour.
Research article: Revah et al.
News and Views: Human brain organoids influence rat behaviour
The subtle timing shift that gives jazz music its ‘swing’, and why hydrogen power could be a cost-effective way to reduce heavy industry emissions in China.
Research Highlight: What gives jazz its swing? A delay makes the difference
Research Highlight: Hydrogen could help China’s heavy industry to get greener
Wearable robotic exoskeletons that aid or enhance movement are fast becoming a reality, but there are challenges to overcome — to work best these devices frequently require careful calibration for their user using specialist equipment and time in a lab. Now, a team have created exoskeleton boots that can help people walk faster and more efficiently by learning and adapting to the wearer’s gait as they walk. They hope that this approach could be used to develop personalised assistive devices in the future.
Research article: Slade et al.
Nature Video: The robot boot that learns as you walk
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In this episode:
00:46 A virtual chemical library uncovers potential antidepressants
Certain psychedelic drugs are of interest to researchers due to their promising antidepressant effects. To help speed up the discovery of molecules with useful properties, researchers have built a virtual library of 75 million compounds related to these drugs. This approach yielded two molecules that showed antidepressant properties in mice, but without the hallucinogenic activity of psychedelic drugs.
Research article: Kaplan et al.
Research Briefing: Bespoke library docking for 5-HT2A receptor agonists with antidepressant activity
08:25 Research Highlights
Research suggests that ancient artificial island settlements were hubs of activity for society’s elite, and astronomers spot possibly the most luminous star ever observed.
Research Highlight: Ancient DNA suggests that artificial islands were party spots for the elite
Research Highlight: Scientists face down ‘Godzilla’, the most luminous star known
10:42 Nobel News
Flora Graham from the Nature Briefing joins us to talk about the winners of this year’s Nobel Prizes.
Nature News: Geneticist who unmasked lives of ancient humans wins medicine Nobel
Nature News: ‘Spooky’ quantum-entanglement experiments win physics Nobel
Nature News: Chemists who invented revolutionary 'click' reactions win Nobel
Enter Nature’s ‘Scientist at Work’ photo competition, full details here
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The ongoing war in Ukraine has devastated the global economy, rocked geopolitics, killed thousands of people and displaced millions. Science too has been affected and the impacts on research are being felt more widely than just in Ukraine and Russia.
In this episode of Nature's Takes we discuss the war's impact on publishing, international collaborations, climate change and energy, and the destructive impacts on scientists themselves. And as the war continues, we consider the future of science in the face of a new political climate.
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At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries introduced strict lockdowns to help prevent spread of the disease. Since then, researchers have been studying the effects of these measures to help inform responses to future crises.
Conclusions suggest that countries that acted swiftly to bring in strict measures did best at preserving lives and their economies, but analysing the competing costs and benefits of lockdowns has been tough, as this work often comes down not to scientific calculations, but value judgements.
This is an audio version of our Feature: What scientists have learnt from COVID lockdowns
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In this episode:
00:45 Piecing together the early history of jawed vertebrates
A wealth of fossils discovered in southern China shed new light onto the diversity of jawed and jawless fish during the Silurian period, over 400 million years ago. Nature editor Henry Gee explains the finds and what they mean for the history of jawed vertebrates like us.
Research article: Zhu et al.
Research article: Gai et al.
Research article: Andreev et al.
Research article: Andreev et al.
News and Views: Fossils reveal the deep roots of jawed vertebrates
09:09 Research Highlights
Mice studies help explain why some people with a rare genetic condition have heightened musical abilities, and high-resolution images reveal how bees build honeycomb.
Research Highlight: How a missing gene leads to super-sensitivity to sound
Research Highlight: X-rays reveal how bees achieve an engineering marvel: the honeycomb
11:27 A lack of evidence in transgender policy making
Around the world, many laws are being proposed – and passed – regarding the rights of transgender people to participate in various aspects of society. We talk to Paisley Currah, who has written a World View for Nature arguing that these policies are frequently not backed up by data, and that policy affecting trans people’s lives needs to take a more evidence-based approach.
World View: To set transgender policy, look to the evidence
Watch our video about research trying to crack the nature of consciousness by dosing volunteers with psychedelic drugs and scanning their brains.
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In the US, where a person gained their PhD can have an outsized influence on their future career. Now, using a decade worth of data, researchers have shown there are stark inequalities in the hiring process, with 80% of US faculty trained at just 20% of institutions.
Research article: Wapman et al.
How wildlife can influence chocolate production, and the large planets captured by huge stars.
Research Highlight: A chocoholic’s best friends are the birds and the bats
Research Highlight: Giant stars turn to theft to snag jumbo planets
We discuss some highlights from the Nature Briefing. This time, what science says about grieving for a public figure, and why suburban Australians are sharing increasingly sophisticated measures to prevent cockatoos from opening wheelie bins.
Nature News: Millions are mourning the Queen — what’s the science behind public grief?
The Guardian: ‘Interspecies innovation arms race’: cockatoos and humans at war over wheelie bin raids
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For years researchers have been interested in creating artificial cells, as they could be useful for manufacturing compounds and understanding how life works. Now a new method shows how this can be accomplished using polymer droplets that integrate components of burst bacteria. The synthesised cells are able to perform translation and transcription and have several features that resemble real cells, like a proto-nucleus and a cytoskeleton.
Research article: Xu et al.
News and Views: Life brought to artificial cells
A mysterious ancient creature identified from its vomit, and the combination of immunity, diet and bacteria that could protect from metabolic disorders.
Research Highlight: The Jurassic vomit that stood the test of time
Research Highlight: A sugary diet wrecks gut microbes — and their anti-obesity efforts
We discuss some highlights from the Nature Briefing. This time, research on the safety of three-person embryos, and the gene that gave our ancestors an edge over neanderthals.
Nature News: Embryos with DNA from three people develop normally in first safety study
Nature News: Did this gene give modern human brains their edge?
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A skeleton with an amputated foot discovered in Borneo has been dated to 31,000 years ago, suggesting that complex surgery might be much older than previously thought. The person whose foot was removed survived the procedure, which the researchers behind the find say shows the ‘surgeon’ must have had detailed knowledge of anatomy, and likely had access to antiseptic compounds.
Research article: Maloney et al.
News and Views: A surgical dawn 31,000 years ago in Borneo
Mummified reptiles hint at severe drought 250 million years ago, and mapping avalanche risk in remote locations.
Research Highlight: Quick-dried Lystrosaurus ‘mummy’ holds clues to mass death in the Triassic
Research Highlight: Avalanches in remote peaks are revealed with old satellites’ aid
We discuss some highlights from the Nature Briefing. This time, how extreme heat has likely contributed to Pakistan’s devastating floods, and what the James Webb Space Telescope has revealed about exoplanets so far?
Nature News: Why are Pakistan’s floods so extreme this year?
Nature News: Webb telescope wows with first image of an exoplanet
Nature News: Webb telescope spots CO2 on exoplanet for first time: what it means for finding alien life
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The development of brain chimaeras – made up of human and animal neurons – is an area of research that has hugely expanded in the past five years. Proponents say that these systems are yielding important insights into health and disease, but others say the chimeras represent an ethical grey zone, because of the potential to blur the line between humans and other animals, or to recapitulate human-like cognition in an animal.
This is an audio version of our Feature: Hybrid brains: the ethics of transplanting human neurons into animals
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