Science Magazine Podcast

Latest Episodes:

An active volcano on Venus, and a concerning rise in early onset colon cancer Mar 16, 2023

Show notes

On this week’s show: Spotting volcanic activity on Venus in 30-year-old data, and giving context to increases in early onset colon cancer

First up this week, a researcher notices an active volcano on Venus in data from the Magellan mission—which ended in 1994. News Staff Writer Paul Voosen joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss how to find a “fresh” lava flow in 30-year-old readings.

Next up, a concerning increase in early onset colon cancer. Kimmie Ng, director of the Young-Onset Colorectal Cancer Center at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, is here to talk about how these early colon cancers—those diagnosed before age 50—are different from those diagnosed later in life. We also talk about what needs to be learned about diet, environment, and genetics to better understand this condition.

This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.

About the Science Podcast

[Image: NASA; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

[alt: Maat Mons volcano on Venus with podcast symbol overlay]

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Paul Voosen

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adh8158

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Compassion fatigue in those who care for lab animals, and straightening out ocean conveyor belts Mar 09, 2023

Show notes

On this week’s show: Compassion fatigue will strike most who care for lab animals, but addressing it is challenging. Also, overturning ideas about ocean circulation

First up this week: uncovering compassion fatigue in those who work with research animals—from cage cleaners to heads of entire animal facilities. Host Sarah Crespi and Online News Editor David Grimm discuss how to recognize the anxiety and depression that can be associated with this work and what some institutions are doing to help.

Featured in this segment:

Next up on the show, a segment from the annual meeting of AAAS (which publishes Science) on overturning assumptions in ocean circulation. Physical oceanographer Susan Lozier, dean of the College of Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, talks with producer Kevin McLean about the limitations of the ocean conveyor belt model, and how new tools have been giving us a much more accurate view of how water moves around the world.

This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.

About the Science Podcast

[Image: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

[alt: Global sea surface currents and temperature with podcast symbol overlay]

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Kevin McLean; David Grimm

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adh4938

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Battling bias in medicine, and how dolphins use vocal fry Mar 02, 2023

Show notes

On this week’s show: Researchers are finding new ways to mitigate implicit bias in medical settings, and how toothed whales use distinct vocal registers for echolocation and communication

First up this week: how to fight unconscious bias in the clinic. Staff Writer Rodrigo Pérez Ortega talks with host Sarah Crespi about how researchers are attempting to fight bias on many fronts—from online classes to machine learning to finding a biomarker for pain.

Next up on the show: a close look at toothed whale vocalization. Though we have known for more than 50 years that toothed whales such as orcas, sperm whales, and dolphins make diverse and useful sounds, how these noises are produced by their bodies has not been well understood. Coen Elemans, a professor in biology and head of the sound communication and behavior group at the University of Southern Denmark, joins Sarah to talk about using endoscopy and high-speed cameras as well as tissue samples and tracking data to learn how they achieve such amazing feats of sound.

This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.

About the Science Podcast

[Image: Thumy Phan; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

[alt: looking through glasses at a distorted face in what looks like a medical setting with podcast overlay]

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Rodrigo Pérez Ortega

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adh3706

About the Science Podcast: https://www.science.org/content/page/about-science-podcast

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Shrinking MRI machines, and the smell of tsetse fly love Feb 23, 2023

Show notes

On this week’s show: Portable MRI scanners could revolutionize medical imaging, and pheromones offer a way to control flies that spread disease

First up this week: shrinking MRI machines. Staff Writer Adrian Cho talks with host Sarah Crespi about how engineers and physicists are teaming up to make MRI machines smaller and cheaper.

Next up on the show, the smell of tsetse fly love. Producer Kevin McLean talks with Shimaa Ebrahim, a postdoctoral researcher in the department of molecular, cellular, and developmental biology at Yale University, about understanding how tsetse flies use odors to attract one another and how this can be used to prevent the flies from transmitting diseases such as African sleeping sickness.

This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.

About the Science Podcast

[Image: GEOFFREY ATTARDO/UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

[alt: tsetse fly with podcast symbol overlay]

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Kevin McLean; Adrian Cho

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adh3128

About the Science Podcast: https://www.science.org/content/page/about-science-podcast

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Earth’s hidden hydrogen, and a trip to Uranus Feb 16, 2023

Show notes

On this week’s show: The hunt for natural hydrogen deposits heats up, and why we need a space mission to an ice giant

First up this week: a gold rush for naturally occurring hydrogen. Deputy Editor Eric Hand joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss drilling for hidden pockets of hydrogen, which companies are just now starting to explore as a clean energy option.

Next up, big plans for a mission to Uranus. Kathleen Mandt, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, shares what a mission to Uranus could tell us about the formation of our Solar System and all these exoplanets we keep finding.

This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.

About the Science Podcast

[Image: Austin Fisher; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

[alt: Uranus illustration with podcast symbol overlay]

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Eric Hand

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adh1873

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Using sharks to study ocean oxygen, and what ancient minerals teach us about early Earth Feb 09, 2023

Show notes

On this week’s show: Shark tags to measure ocean deoxygenation, and zircons and the chemistry of early Earth

First up this week: using sharks to measure ocean deoxygenation. Contributing Correspondent Warren Cornwall joins us to talk about a group of researchers putting data logging tags on sharks in order to study how climate change is affecting oxygen levels in some of the ocean’s darkest depths.

Next up, what can 4-billion-year-old minerals teach us about chemistry on early Earth? Producer Meagan Cantwell talks to geochemist Dustin Trail about using minerals called zircons to deduce the chemical properties of the early hydrothermal pools where life began.

This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.

About the Science Podcast

[Image: David Salvatori/VWPICS/Alamy Stock Photo; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

[alt: Underwater photo of mako shark with podcast symbol overlay]

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Warren Cornwall; Meagan Cantwell

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Visiting a mummy factory, and improving the IQ of … toilets Feb 02, 2023

Show notes

On this week’s show: New clues to the chemicals used for mummification, and the benefits and barriers to smart toilets

First up this week: What can we learn from a mummy factory? Contributing Correspondent Andrew Curry talks with host Sarah Crespi about mummy chemistry and why we don’t know much about what was used to preserve these ancient bodies. Online News Editor Michael Price makes a special appearance.

Next up, how having a smart toilet can contribute to your health. Seung-Min Park, an instructor in the Department of Urology at Stanford University School of Medicine, wrote this week in Science Translational Medicine about the powers of data-collecting toilets to improve health and the psychological and ethical barriers to adopting a smart toilet of your very own.

This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.

[Image: Portugal2004/iStock; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

[alt: toilet with podcast symbol overlay]

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Andrew Curry; Michael Price

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adg9654

About the Science Podcast: https://www.science.org/content/page/about-science-podcast

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Wolves hunting otters, and chemical weathering in a warming world Jan 26, 2023

Show notes

On this week’s show: When deer are scarce these wolves turn to sea otters, and chemical weathering of silicates acts as a geological thermostat

First up on this week’s show we have a story about a group of Alaskan wolves that has switched to eating sea otters as deer populations have dwindled. Science journalist Jack Tamisiea tells host Sarah Crespi about some of the recently published work on this diet shift, and wildlife biologist Gretchen Roffler weighs in on the conditions on the island where this is happening.

Also on this week’s show: Chemical weathering and the global carbon cycle. Sarah speaks with Susan Brantley, Evan Pugh university professor in the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute and Department of Geosciences at Pennsylvania State University, about how weathering of silicates in rocks pulls carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. They talk about how this temperature-sensitive process could increase as Earth warms, as well as the potential and limitations of this effect on the global carbon budget.

Take the podcast audience survey here.

This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.

About the Science Podcast

[Image: Landon Bazeley; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

[alt: Wolf pup pulling a sea otter carcass up a rocky beach with podcast symbol overlay]

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Kevin McLean; Jack Tamisiea

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Bad stats overturn ‘medical murders,’ and linking allergies with climate change Jan 19, 2023

Show notes

Statisticians fight bad numbers used in medical murder trials, and the state of allergy science

First up on this week’s show, we have a piece on accusations of medical murder. Contributing Correspondent Cathleen O’Grady joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss her story on how statisticians are weighing in on cases where nurses and doctors are convicted of murdering patients based on bad statistics. This segment was produced by Kevin McLean with sound design by James Rowlands.

Also on this week’s show: Allergies are on the rise and this increase is linked with climate change. Sarah speaks with Kari Nadeau, Naddisy Foundation endowed professor of medicine and pediatrics at Stanford University, about her review in Science Translational Medicine on the status of allergy science, and how recommendations have changed from when to give children peanuts to opting for sublingual exposure therapy.

Take the podcast audience survey at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/TLKCHC8

This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.

[Image: bobtphoto/iStock; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

[alt: ragweed field with podcast symbol overlay]

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Kevin McLean; Cathleen O’Grady

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adg7524

About the Science Podcast: https://www.science.org/content/page/about-science-podcast

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Peering beyond the haze of alien worlds, and how failures help us make new discoveries Jan 12, 2023

Show notes

Data on hazes and clouds may be key to understanding exoplanets, and NextGen letter writers share the upside of failure

Hazes and clouds could keep exoplanets’ secrets hidden, unless researchers can re-create them here on Earth. After celebrating JWST and its ability to look far back in time and help us look for habitable exoplanets as the 2022 Science Breakthrough of the Year, News Intern Zack Savitsky talks with host Sarah Crespi about an overlooked problem with using telescopes to examine exoplanets’ atmospheres.

What was your greatest mistake? In a chat with producer Kevin McLean, Letters Editor Jennifer Sills shares stories from NextGen Voices about failures that led them in unexpected directions in their science careers.

Take the podcast audience survey at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/TLKCHC8

This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.

[Image: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

[alt: exoplanet with cloudy and hazy atmosphere with podcast symbol overlay]

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Kevin McLean; Jennifer Sills; Zack Savitsky

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adg6078

About the Science Podcast: https://www.science.org/content/page/about-science-podcast

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