Science Magazine Podcast

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Analyzing music from ancient Greece and Rome, and the 100 days that shook science May 08, 2025

Show notes

First up on the podcast, producer Meagan Cantwell worked with the Science News team to review how the first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s administration have impacted science. In the segment, originally produced for video, we hear about how the workforce, biomedical research, and global health initiatives all face widespread, perhaps permanent damage, with News staffers David Malakoff, Jocelyn Kaiser, and Rachel Bernstein.

Next on the show, acoustical analysis of ancient music from Greece and Rome shows different musical notation styles for different instruments. Dan Baciu, a professor at the Münster School of Architecture at the Münster University of Applied Sciences, talks with host Sarah Crespi about his analysis.

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

About the Science Podcast

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Meagan Cantwell; David Malakoff; Jocelyn Kaiser; Rachel Bernstein

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Tales from an Italian crypt, and the science behind ‘dad bods’ May 01, 2025

Show notes

First up on the podcast, Contributing Correspondent Andrew Curry talks with host Sarah Crespi about his visit to 17th century crypts under an old hospital in Italy. Researchers are examining tooth plaque, bone lesions, and mummified brains to learn more about the health, diet, and drug habits of Milan’s working poor 400 years ago.

Next on the show, a mechanism for driving growth in fat stores with age. Or, the source of the “dad bod” trope. Producer Zakiya Whatley talks with Qiong “Annabel” Wang, associate professor in the department of molecular and cellular endocrinology at City of Hope, about her work showing how middle-age mice gain fat via dedicated progenitor cells that actually become more active as the animals age. Similar cells are also present in people, suggesting it’s not just lack of willpower or sedentary habits that give us gains as we get older.

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

About the Science Podcast

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Zakiya Whatley; Andrew Curry

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A caterpillar that haunts spiderwebs, solving the last riddles of a famed friar, and a new book series Apr 24, 2025

Show notes

First up on the podcast, bringing Gregor Mendel’s peas into the 21st century. Back in the 19th century Mendel, a friar and naturalist, tracked traits in peas such as flower color and shape over many generations. He used these observations to identify basic concepts about inheritance such as recessive and dominant traits. Staff Writer Erik Stokstad talks with host Sarah Crespi about the difficulty of identifying genes for these phenotypes all these years later. We also hear some other stories from the plant world, including evidence that wavy fields are more attractive to insects and a tree benefits from being struck by lightning.

Next on the show, a carnivorous caterpillar that haunts spiderwebs, camouflaged in its insect prey’s body parts. Producer Kevin McLean talks with Daniel Rubinoff, a professor in the department of plant and environmental protection sciences at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, about how such an adaptation might have evolved and the overlooked importance of insect conservation.

Finally, we kick off our 2025 books series on the science of death and dying. Books host Angela Saini and books editor Valerie Thompson talk about the challenges of putting this year’s list together and the reads they are looking forward to.

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

About the Science Podcast

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Erik Stokstad; Kevin McLean; Valerie Thompson; Angela Saini

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Linking cat domestication to ancient cult sacrifices, and watching aurorae wander Apr 17, 2025

Show notes

First up on the podcast, Online News Editor David Grimm joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about how an Egyptian cult that killed cats may have also tamed them.

Next on the show, we hear about when the aurorae wandered. About 41,000 years ago, Earth’s magnetic poles took an excursion. They began to move equatorward and decreased in strength to one-tenth their modern levels. Agnit Mukhopadhyay, a research affiliate at the University of Michigan, talks about how his group mapped these magnetic changes, and what it would be like if such a big change took place today.

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

About the Science Podcast

Authors: Sarah Crespi; David Grimm

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The metabolic consequences of skipping sleep, and cuts and layoffs slam NIH Apr 10, 2025

Show notes

First up on the podcast, ScienceInsider Editor Jocelyn Kaiser joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss big changes in science funding and government jobs this month, including an order to cut billions in contracts, lawsuits over funding caps and grant funding cancellations, and mass firings at the National Institutes of Health.

Next on the show, taking sleep loss more seriously. Jennifer Tudor, an associate professor of biology at Saint Joseph’s University, talks about how skipping out on sleep has many metabolic consequences, from reducing protein synthesis in our brains to making our muscles less efficient at using ATP. Her new review in Science Signaling suggests that given these impacts, we should stop putting sleep last on our to-do lists.

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

About the Science Podcast

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Jocelyn Kaiser

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Talking about engineering the climate, and treating severe nausea and vomiting during pregnancy Apr 03, 2025

Show notes

Geoengineering experiments face an uphill battle, and a way to combat the pregnancy complication hyperemesis gravidarum

First up on the podcast, climate engineers face tough conversations with the public when proposing plans to test new technologies. Freelance science journalist Rebekah White joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the questions people have about these experiments and how researchers can get collaboration and buy-in for testing ideas such as changing the atmosphere to reflect more sunlight or altering the ocean to suck up more carbon dioxide.

Next on the show, hyperemesis gravidarum—severe nausea and vomiting during pregnancy—is common in many pregnant people and can have lasting maternal and infant health effects. This week, Marlena Fejzo wrote about her path from suffering hyperemesis gravidarum to finding linked genes and treatments for this debilitating complication. For her essay, Fejzo was named the first winner of the BioInnovation Institute & Science Translational Medicine Prize for Innovations in Women’s Health. Fejzo is a scientist at the Center for Genetic Epidemiology in the department of population and public health sciences at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine.

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

About the Science Podcast

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Rebekah White

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Studying urban wildfires, and the challenges of creating tiny AI robots Mar 27, 2025

Show notes

First up this week, urban wildfires raged in Los Angeles in January. Contributing Correspondent Warren Cornwall discusses how researchers have come together to study how pollution from buildings at such a large scale impacts the environment and health of the local population.

Next on the show, Mingze Chen, a graduate student in the mechanical engineering department at the University of Michigan, talks with host Sarah Crespi about the challenges of placing artificial intelligence in small robots. As you add more sensors and data, the demand for computing power and energy goes up. To reduce the power demand, Chen’s team tried a different kind of physics for collecting and processing data using a type of resistance switching memory device called a “memristor.”

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

About the Science Podcast

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Warren Cornwall

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Why seals don’t drown, and tracking bird poop as it enters the sea Mar 20, 2025

Show notes

First up this week, Newsletter Editor Christie Wilcox joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss stories from the sea, including why scientists mounted cameras on seabirds, backward and upside-down; newly discovered organisms from the world’s deepest spot, the Mariana Trench; and how extremely venomous, blue-lined octopus males use their toxin on females in order to mate. Read more or subscribe at science.org/scienceadviser.

Next on the show, J. Chris McKnight, a senior research fellow in the Sea Mammal Research Unit at the University of St. Andrews, talks about testing free-living seals to see how they respond to different carbon dioxide or oxygen levels in the air. It turns out they don’t respond like other mammals, which go into panic under high carbon dioxide; instead, seals appear to directly detect oxygen, a safer bet when your life is mostly spent diving deep underwater.

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

About the Science Podcast

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Christie Wilcox

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Why sign language could be crucial for kids with cochlear implants, studying the illusion of pain, and recent political developments at NIH Mar 13, 2025

Show notes

First up this week, science policy editor Jocelyn Kaiser joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the latest news about the National Institutes of Health—from reconfiguring review panels to canceled grants to confirmation hearings for a new head, Jay Bhattacharya.

Next, although cochlear implants can give deaf children access to sound, it doesn’t always mean they have unrestricted access to language. Producer Meagan Cantwell talks with Contributing Correspondent Cathleen O’Grady about why some think using sign language with kids with cochlear implants gives them the best chance at communicating fully and fluently.

Finally, using a pain illusion to better understand how the brain modulates pain. Francesca Fardo, an associate professor in the department of clinical medicine at Aarhus University, talks with host Sarah Crespi about the role of learning and uncertainty in pain perception. It turns out, the more uncertain we are about a sensation that could be painful, the more pain we feel.

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

About the Science Podcast

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Meagan Cantwell; Cathleen O’Grady; Jocelyn Kaiser

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Intrusive thoughts during pregnancy, paternity detectives, and updates from the Trump Tracker Mar 06, 2025

Show notes

First up this week, International News Editor David Malakoff joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the most recent developments in U.S. science under Donald Trump’s second term, from the impact of tariffs on science to the rehiring of probationary employees at the National Science Foundation.

Next, we tackle the question of extra-pair paternity in people—when marriage or birth records of parentage differ from biological parentage. Contributing Correspondent Andrew Curry writes about researchers looking into the question of how often children are genetically unrelated to their presumed fathers by using genealogy and genetic testing.

Finally, Susanne Schweizer, Scientia associate professor at the University of New South Wales, talks about her article on intrusive thoughts in the perinatal period as part of a special issue on women’s health in Science Advances. Almost all pregnant and recent mothers experience intrusive thoughts about harm coming to their offspring. Schweizer and colleagues suggest gaining a better understanding of intrusive thoughts during this highly predictable window could help explain the phenomenon more broadly.

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

About the Science Podcast

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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