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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Inspired by the ear, a team of researchers have developed an acoustic fibre that can be woven into fabrics to create a sensitive microphone. This fabric microphone is capable of detecting human speech and heartbeats, and the team think it could be used to develop new, wearable sensors for long-term health monitoring.
Research article: Yan et al.
News and Views: A smart sensor that can be woven into everyday life
How a shark’s posture lets you know if it’s asleep, and the desert dust that helps cirrus clouds form.
Research Highlight: The secrets of shark sleep
Research Highlight: Wispy clouds are born of dust in the wind
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, the government of Togo needed to distribute financial aid to citizens most in need of assistance. As running a nationwide survey to find out people’s financial situations was impossible, they turned to machine learning to discover how best to distribute aid.
Research article: Aiken et al.
We discuss some highlights from the Nature Briefing. Using machine learning to find meteorite fragments in a desert, and using radiocarbon dating to detect forged paintings.
Physics World: ‘Huge leap’ as scientists report first drone-assisted space rock recovery after observed meteorite fall
Nature: Police rely on radiocarbon dating to identify forged paintings
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Researchers have developed an artificial intelligence that can restore and date ancient Greek inscriptions. They hope that it will help historians by speeding up the process of reconstructing damaged texts.
Research article: Assael et al.
News and Views: AI minds the gap and fills in missing Greek inscriptions
Video: The AI historian: A new tool to decipher ancient texts
Pollinators prefer nectar with a pinch of salt, and measurements of a megacomet’s mighty size.
Research Highlight: Even six-legged diners can’t resist sweet-and-salty snacks
Research Highlight: Huge comet is biggest of its kind
This week Nature publishes a Comment article from a group who aim to reverse biodiversity loss by reintroducing species to areas where they are extinct. We speak to one of the Comment’s authors about the project and their hopes that it might kick start ecosystem restoration.
Comment: Rewilding Argentina: lessons for the 2030 biodiversity targets
We discuss some highlights from the Nature Briefing. This time, giant bacteria that can be seen with the naked eye, and how record-breaking rainfall has caused major floods in Australia.
Science: Largest bacterium ever discovered has an unexpectedly complex cell
New Scientist: Record flooding in Australia driven by La Niña and climate change
The Conversation: The east coast rain seems endless. Where on Earth is all the water coming from?
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As many countries start to ease or even remove COVID restrictions entirely, there are growing concerns from researchers that this will lead governments to take their eye off the ball and crucially stop collecting and reporting vital data. In this episode of Coronapod we discuss calls from two researchers to improve COVID testing and data reporting. What do they want done differently? Why does it matter? And what could such changes mean for the future of the pandemic and public health more broadly?
World View: Tracking COVID-19 infections: time for change
World View: Commit to transparent COVID data until the WHO declares the pandemic is over
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The G20 economies spent $14 trillion dollars on recovery packages to escape the global recession driven by the COVID-19 pandemic. Many governments made pledges to deliver emissions reductions as part of these packages. This week, a team of researchers have analysed the spending to see if these promises were kept.
Comment: G20’s US$14-trillion economic stimulus reneges on emissions pledges
An artificial nerve cell triggers a Venus flytrap’s snap, and a fossil shows that pterosaurs in the Jurassic period were larger than previously thought.
Research Highlight: Venus flytrap snaps shut at synthetic neuron’s command
Research Highlight: The surprisingly huge reptile that prowled the Jurassic skies
This week, a team of researchers have used lab-based studies to show how learning a little about a stranger makes a person feel that the stranger knows something about them. The team took this work out of the lab and into New York City, where they showed that providing residents with knowledge about community police officers temporarily reduced crime.
Research article: Shah & LaForest
News and Views: Letters and cards telling people about local police reduce crime
Following Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on 24 February, we hear about the experiences of Ukranian researchers as the conflict continues, and the outpouring of condemnation from the wider academic world.
News: Global research community condemns Russian invasion of Ukraine
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Almost everything we do on the Internet is made possible by cryptographic algorithms, which scramble our data to protect our privacy. However, this privacy could be under threat. If quantum computers reach their potential these machines could crack current encryption systems — leaving our online data vulnerable.
To limit the damage of this so called 'Q-day', researchers are racing to develop new cryptographic systems, capable of withstanding a quantum attack.
This is an audio version of our feature: The race to save the Internet from quantum hackers
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Around 66 million years ago, an enormous asteroid struck the Earth, leading to the end of the time of the dinosaurs. In a new paper, a team of scientists looked at evidence from fossilised fish, and suggest it happened in springtime in the Northern Hemisphere.
Research article: During et al.
Transparency shrinks the gender pay-gap in academia, and how Tutankhamen’s meteorite-metal dagger was forged.
Research Highlight: Gender pay gap closes after salary information goes public
Research Highlight: How a space rock became King Tut’s dagger
Cool, damp nights are a critical barrier to fire progression around the world. But a recent study has revealed that the duration and intensity of nighttime fires has increased in many places, as a result of climate change. The researchers say this trend is likely to continue, hampering efforts to control blazes.
Research article: Balch et al.
We discuss some highlights from the Nature Briefing. This time, how transgenic, fluorescent fish found their way into Brazil’s watercourses, and the ecological impact of a giant oil spill in Peru.
Science: Transgenic glowing fish invades Brazilian streams
Nature News: Unprecedented oil spill catches researchers in Peru off guard
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Scientists scramble to understand the devastating Tongan volcano eruption, and modelling how societal changes might alter carbon emissions.
In this episode:
00:46 Understanding the Tongan eruption
On the 15th of January, a volcano in the South Pacific Ocean erupted, sending ash into the upper atmosphere, and unleashing a devastating tsunami that destroyed homes on Tonga’s nearby islands. Now scientists are trying to work out exactly what happened during the eruption — and what it means for future volcanic risks.
News Feature: Why the Tongan eruption will go down in the history of volcanology
08:49 Research Highlights
The genes associated with reindeers’ roaming behaviour, and how fossilised puke has thrown up new insights into pterosaurs’ stomachs.
Research Highlight: A reindeer’s yearning to travel can be read in its genes
Research Highlight: Petrified puke shows that ancient winged reptiles purged
11:29 Modelling societal changes to carbon emissions
A team of researchers have modelled what humans might do in the face of climate change, and looked at how societal, political and technological changes could alter future emissions.
Research article: Moore et al.
18:12 Briefing Chat
We discuss some highlights from the Nature Briefing. This time, China alters its guidelines for gene-edited crops, and how Guinea worm infections have been driven down from millions of cases a year to just 14.
Nature News: China’s approval of gene-edited crops energizes researchers
Nature News: Just 14 cases: Guinea worm disease nears eradication
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Vaccine inequity continues to be one of the greatest challenges in the pandemic - with only 10% of those in low- and middle-income countries fully vaccinated. One of the biggest hold-ups is a lack of vaccine manufacturing capacity in poorer nations. But now, researchers at the WHO technology-transfer hub have completed the first step in a project aimed at building vaccine manufacturing capacity in the Global South, by successfully replicating Moderna's COVID vaccine without assistance from the US-based biotech company. In this episode of Coronapod, we ask how they did it? What happens next? What the legal ramifications might be and what this could mean for the future of vaccine manufacture in low- and middle-income countries? Both during the pandemic and beyond.News: South African scientists copy Moderna's COVID vaccineNews: The fight to manufacture COVID vaccines in lower-income countriesEditorial: Africa is bringing vaccine manufacturing homeSubscribe to Nature Briefing, an unmissable daily round-up of science news, opinion and analysis free in your inbox every weekday.
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RNA in blood shows signs of pre-eclampsia before symptoms occur, and the issues of urine in our sewage and what can be done about it.
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The word endemic is often mistakenly used to describe a rosy end to the pandemic where COVID-19 becomes a mild, but ever-present infection akin to the common cold. But this is by no means guaranteed and the reality could be much less favourable. In this episode of Coronapod we get the evolutionary virologist's take - asking what endemicity might really look like, and what control we still have in shaping the future of SARS-CoV-2.World View: COVID-19: endemic doesn’t mean harmlessSubscribe to Nature Briefing, an unmissable daily round-up of science news, opinion and analysis free in your inbox every weekday.
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