Science Magazine Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Hail finally gets its scientific due, and busting up tumors with ultrasound Sep 12, 2024

Show notes

Why don’t we know what is happening with hail? It’s extremely destructive and costs billions of dollars in property damage every year. We aren’t great at predicting hailstorms and don’t know much about how climate change will affect them, but scientists are working to change that. News Intern Hannah Richter joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss deploying new technologies in this long-neglected area of research.

Next on the show, ultrasound—it’s not just for looking inside the body anymore. Meaghan O’Reilly is a senior scientist in physical sciences at the Sunnybrook Research Institute, an associate professor of medical biophysics at the University of Toronto, and is the Canada Research Chair in biomedical ultrasound. She talks about how researchers are using focused sound waves to disrupt tumors, change the permeability of the blood-brain barrier, stimulate the immune system, and more.

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

About the Science Podcast

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Hannah Richter

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.zm3x6zq

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

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Linking long lives with smart brains, and India’s science education is leaning into its history and traditions—but at what cost? Sep 05, 2024

Show notes

The latest in our series on global equity in science, and how better memory helps chickadees live longer

First up this week, as part of our series on global equity in science, Contributing Correspondent Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about an initiative in India intended to increase education about early “Indian knowledge systems” amid concerns about homogenization and misinformation.

Next, producer Kevin McLean climbs a mountain to visit a test bed for intelligence. He met up with Joe Welklin and Vladimir Pravosudov of the University of Nevada, Reno to talk about their research on how memory helps mountain chickadees survive.

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

About the Science Podcast

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Kevin McLean; Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar

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

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A fungus-driven robot, counting snow crabs, and a book on climate capitalism Aug 29, 2024

Show notes

First up this week on the podcast, the latest conservation news with Staff Writer Erik Stokstad. Stokstad and host Sarah Crespi talk about the fate of snow crabs in the Bering Sea, how much we have been overestimating fishing stocks worldwide, and invasive snakes in Guam that bite off more than they can chew.

Next, a fungus takes the wheel. Anand Mishra, a research associate in the department of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Cornell University, discusses a method of integrating electronics with fungal cells in a biohybrid robot. By using the hardy cells from a mushroom instead of the delicate cells of an animal, Mishra and colleagues hope to durably introduce the sensing and signaling capacity of these living organisms into robots.

Finally, the fourth installment of our six-part series on books that look to an optimistic future. This month, host Angela Saini talks with science writer Akshat Rathi about how capitalism might just save us from climate change and his book Climate Capitalism: Winning the Race to Zero Emissions and Solving the Crisis of Our Age.

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

About the Science Podcast

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Erik Stokstad; Angela Saini

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.zt21ifv

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Saving wildlife with AI, and randomized trials go remote Aug 22, 2024

Show notes

First up this week on the show, uncounted kilometers of fences are strung across the globe. Researchers know they interfere with wildlife migrations and sometimes make finding food and safety difficult for animals. But they don’t know where all these fences are. Freelancer science journalist Christine Peterson joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss how artificial intelligence and aerial photos could help create fence inventories and eventually reopen spaces for native species.

Next, Azizi Seixas, interim chair of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine’s department of informatics and health data science and a professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, discusses his review on decentralized randomized trials. Randomized, controlled trials based in a research center or centers have long been the gold standard for determining the effectiveness of a medical intervention. This week on the podcast, Seixas argues that distributed research designs with home-based measurements and reporting have the potential to speed up research, allow greater participation, and make the results of studies more equitable.

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

About the Science Podcast

Authors: Sarah Crespi, Christine Peterson

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

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The origins of the dino-killing asteroid, and remapping the scientific enterprise Aug 15, 2024

Show notes

First up this week, Deputy News Editors Elizabeth Culotta and Shraddha Chakradhar join host Sarah Crespi to talk about the launch of a new series highlighting the latest in postcolonial science. They cover how researchers around the world, but especially in the Global South, are reckoning with colonial legacies and what is in store for the rest of the series.

Next, producer Meagan Cantwell talks with Mario Fischer-Gödde, a research scientist at the University of Cologne about the origins of the giant asteroid thought to have killed off the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.

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

About the Science Podcast

Authors: Sarah Crespi, Elizabeth Culotta, Shraddha Chakradhar, Meagan Cantwell

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

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

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The humidity vs. heat debate, and studying the lifetime impacts of famine Aug 08, 2024

Show notes

Researchers debate if humidity makes heat more deadly, and finding excess diabetes cases in Ukrainian people that were born right after the 1930s famine

First up this week, which is worse: the heat or the humidity? Staff writer Meredith Wadman joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about conflicting reports on the risk of increased mortality when humidity compounds heat, and how to resolve the debate in the field.

Next, LH Lumey, a professor of epidemiology at the Columbia University Medical Center, discusses what the catastrophe of a famine can teach us about the importance of maternal and fetal health for the long term. His work focuses on records of a 1930s Ukrainian famine painstakingly reconstructed by Ukrainian demographers after being obscured by the former Soviet Union. The famine records combined with newer data show that babies gestated during famine are more likely to acquire type 2 diabetes later in life.

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

About the Science Podcast

Authors: Sarah Crespi, Meredith Wadman

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.z6yms94

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

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Iron-toothed dragons, and improving electron microscopy Aug 01, 2024

Show notes

First up this week, we hear about caves on the Moon, a shake-up at Pompeii, and the iron-lined teeth of the Komodo dragon. Reporter Phie Jacobs joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss these news stories and more from our daily newsletter, ScienceAdviser.

Next on the show, electron microscopes allow us to view a world inaccessible to light—at incredible resolution and tiny scales. But bombarding samples with a beam of electrons has downsides. The high-energy electrons used for visualizing minute structures can cause damage to certain materials. Jonathan Peters, a research fellow in the School of Physics at Trinity College Dublin, joins the podcast to talk about a new approach that protects samples while keeping resolution sharp.

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

About the Science Podcast

Authors: Sarah Crespi, Phie Jacobs,

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

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Targeting dirty air, pollution from dead satellites, and a book on embracing robots Jul 25, 2024

Show notes

Tackling air pollution—indoors and outdoors, how burned-up satellites in the atmosphere could destroy ozone, and the latest in our series of books on a future to look forward to

First up this week, Science Senior Editor Michael Funk joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about the magazine’s special issue on air pollution. The two discuss the broad scope of air pollution, from home cooking to transmissible disease.

Next, how burned-up satellites may cause pollution problems as megaconstellations take to the skies. Staff Writer Daniel Clery talks about how metals from deorbiting spacecrafts might change the chemistry of the upper atmosphere.

Finally, books host Angela Saini is joined by author Daniela Rus, a roboticist and professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They discuss Rus’s book The Heart and the Chip: Our Bright Future with Robots for this year’s books series that takes an optimistic look at the future.

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

About the Science Podcast

Authors: Sarah Crespi, Micheal Funk, Angela Saini; Daniel Clery

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.z01x70o

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New treatments for deadly snake bites, and a fusion company that wants to get in the medical isotopes game Jul 18, 2024

Show notes

First up this week, Staff Writer Adrian Cho talks with host Sarah Crespi about a fusion company that isn’t aiming for net energy. Instead, it’s looking to sell off the high-energy neutrons from its fusion reactors for different purposes, such as imaging machine parts and generating medical isotopes. In the long run, the company hopes to use money from these neutron-based enterprises for bigger, more energetic reactors that may someday make fusion energy.

Next, we hear from Tian Du, a Ph.D. candidate in the Dr John and Anne Chong Lab for Functional Genomics at the University of Sydney. She talks about finding antivenom treatments by screening all the genes in the human genome. Her Science Translational Medicine paper focuses on a strong candidate for treating spitting cobra bites, but the technique may prove useful for many other venomous animal bites and stings, from jellyfish to spiders.

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

About the Science Podcast

Authors: Sarah Crespi, Adrian Cho

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How rat poison endangers wildlife, and using sound to track animal populations Jul 11, 2024

Show notes

Rodenticides are building up inside unintended targets, including birds, mammals, and insects; and bringing bioacoustics and artificial intelligence together for ecology

First up this week, producer Kevin McLean and freelance science journalist Dina Fine Maron discuss the history of rodent control and how rat poisons are making their way into our ecosystem.

Next on the episode, host Sarah Crespi talks with Jeppe Rasmussen, a postdoctoral fellow in the behavior ecology group at the University of Copenhagen, about why researchers are training artificial intelligence to listen for seals, frogs, and whales.

Additional sound in this segment (some played, some mentioned):

· Monk seal noises care of Jeppe Rasmussen

· Frog and crickets from Pond5

· Lyrebird sounds (Youtube link)

· Cod fish sounds (Fishbase link)

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

About the Science Podcast

Authors: Kevin McLean, Sarah Crespi, Dina Fine Maron

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.zq42hy5

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