Science Magazine Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Reducing cartel violence in Mexico, and what to read and see this fall Sep 21, 2023

Show notes

The key to shrinking cartels is cutting recruitment, and a roundup of books, video games, movies, and more

First up on this week’s show: modeling Mexico’s cartels. Rafael Prieto-Curiel, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Complexity Science Hub in Vienna, joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss how modeling cartel activities can help us understand the impact of potential interventions such as increased policing or reducing gang recruitment.

Lisa Sanchez, executive director of México Unido Contra la Delincuencia, talks with Sarah about just how difficult it would be to make the model results—which show that reducing recruitment is key—a reality.

Next on the show, Science books editor Valerie Thompson and books intern Jamie Dickman discuss a huge selection of science books, movies, video games, and even new exhibits—all due out this fall. See the complete roundup here.

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

About the Science Podcast

Authors: Sarah Crespi, Valerie Thompson, Jamie Dickman

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adk9453

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Why cats love tuna, and powering robots with tiny explosions Sep 14, 2023

Show notes

Receptors that give our feline friends a craving for meat, and using combustion to propel insect-size robots

First up on this week’s episode, Online News Editor David Grimm joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about why despite originating from a dry, desert environment cats seem to love to eat fish.

Next on the show, bugs such as ants are tiny while at the same time fast and strong, and small robots can’t seem to match these insectile feats of speed and power. Cameron Aubin, a postdoc at Cornell University who will shortly join the University of Michigan, discusses using miniscule combustion reactions to bring small robots up to ant speed.

Finally in a sponsored segment from the Science/AAAS Custom Publishing Office, Jackie Oberst, associate editor for custom publishing, discusses with Bobby Soni, chief business officer at the BioInnovation Institute, an international life science incubator in Copenhagen, Denmark, what it takes to bring a product from lab to market and how to make the leap from scientist to entrepreneur. This segment is sponsored by the BioInnovation Institute.

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

About the Science Podcast

Authors: Sarah Crespi, David Grimm

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adk8409

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Extreme ocean currents from a volcano, and why it’s taking so long to wire green energy into the U.S. grid Sep 07, 2023

Show notes

How the Tonga eruption caused some of the fastest underwater flows in history, and why many U.S. renewable energy projects are on hold

First up on this week’s show, we hear about extremely fast underwater currents after a volcanic eruption. Producer Meagan Cantwell talks with sedimentary geologist Michael Clare and submarine volcanologist Isobel Yeo, both at the U.K. National Oceanography Centre. They discuss the complex aftermath of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption, including fast and powerful ocean currents that severed seafloor cables.

Watch a related video on last year’s eruption by Meagan: How the Tonga volcanic eruption rippled through the earth, ocean and atmosphere.

Next on the show, an unexpected slowdown in connecting renewable power to the electrical grid. Freelance journalist Dan Charles joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss how problems with modeling energy flow in the electrical grid are holding up wind and solar power projects across the country.

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

About the Science Podcast

Authors: Sarah Crespi, Meagan Cantwell; Dan Charles

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adk7170

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Reducing calculus trauma, and teaching AI to smell Aug 31, 2023

Show notes

How active learning improves calculus teaching, and using machine learning to map odors in the smell space

First up on this week’s show, Laird Kramer, a professor of physics and faculty in the STEM Transformation Institute at Florida International University (FIU), talks with host Sarah Crespi about students leaving STEM fields because of calculus and his research into improving instruction.

We also hear from some Science staffers about their own calculus trauma, from fear of spinning shapes to thinking twice about majoring in physics (featuring Kevin McLean, Paul Voosen, Lizzie Wade, Meagan Cantwell, and FIU student and learning assistant Carolyn Marquez).

Next on the show, can a computer predict what something will smell like to a person by looking at its chemical structure? Emily Mayhew, a professor in the department of food science and human nutrition at Michigan State University, talks about how this was accomplished using a panel of trained smellers, and what the next steps are for digitizing the sense of smell.

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

About the Science Podcast

Authors: Sarah Crespi, Kevin McLean; Meagan Cantwell; Paul Voosen; Lizzie Wade

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adk6142

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The source of solar wind, hackers and salt halt research, and a book on how institutions decide gender Aug 24, 2023

Show notes

A close look at a coronal hole, how salt and hackers can affect science, and the latest book in our series on science, sex, and gender

First up on this week’s show, determining the origin of solar wind—the streams of plasma that emerge from the Sun and envelope the Solar System. Host Sarah Crespi talks with Lakshmi Pradeep Chitta, a research group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, about how tiny jets in so-called coronal holes seem to be responsible. Sarah also talks with Science Editor Keith Smith about the source of the data, the Solar Orbiter mission. Read a related Perspective.

Next, two stories on unlikely reasons for slowing science. First, cyberattacks on telescopes scramble ground-based astronomy in Hawaii and Chile, with Diverse Voices Interns Tanvi Dutta Gupta and Celina Zhao. Also, we hear about an unparalleled water crisis in Uruguay that has left scientists high and dry, with science journalist María de los Ángeles Orfila.

Finally, in this month’s books segment in our series on science, sex, and gender, host Angela Saini talks with author and political scientist Paisley Currah about his book, Sex Is as Sex Does: Governing Transgender Identity, on why and how government institutions categorize people by sex and gender.

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

About the Science Podcast

Authors: Sarah Crespi, Angela Saini; María de los Ángeles Orfila; Celina Zhao; Tanvi Dutta Gupta

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adk4714

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What killed off North American megafauna, and making languages less complicated Aug 17, 2023

Show notes

Ancient wildfires may have doomed Southern California’s big mammals, and do insular societies have more complex languages?

First up on this week’s show, what killed off North America’s megafauna, such as dire wolves and saber-toothed cats? Online News Editor Mike Price joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about the likely culprits: climate or humans, or one that combines both—fire. They discuss how the La Brea Tar Pits are helping researchers figure this out. Read the related Science paper.

Next up, do languages get less complex when spoken in multilingual societies? Olena Shcherbakova, a doctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, joins Sarah with a broad look at how the complexity of languages changes under different social and linguistic environments.

In a sponsored segment from the Science/AAAS Custom Publishing Office, Jackie Oberst, associate editor for custom publishing, discusses with Trine Bartholdy, chief innovation officer at the BioInnovation Institute, an international life science incubator in Copenhagen, Denmark, about the continued disparity in women’s health research and funding and ways in which these challenges are being overcome. This segment is sponsored by the BioInnovation Institute.

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

Authors: Sarah Crespi, Mike Price

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adk3475

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

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Why some trees find one another repulsive, and why we don’t know how much our hands weigh Aug 10, 2023

Show notes

First up on this week’s show, we hear about the skewed perception of our own hands, extremely weird giant viruses, champion regenerating flatworms, and more from Newsletter Editor Christie Wilcox. Christie also chats with host Sarah Crespi about her work on a daily newsletter and what it takes to do it 5 days a week. Read more newsletters and sign up for your daily dose of Science and science.

Next on the show, AAAS Intern Andrew Saintsing learns about why trees are repulsive—to one another. Michael Kalyuzhny, a postdoctoral fellow in the department of integrative biology at the University of Texas at Austin, discusses his Science paper on why trees of the same species avoid living close together in diverse habitats such as rainforests.

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

About the Science Podcast

Authors: Sarah Crespi, Andrew Saintsing, Christie Wilcox

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adk2064

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Tracing the genetic history of African Americans using ancient DNA, and ethical questions at a famously weird medical museum Aug 03, 2023

Show notes

Bringing together ancient DNA from a burial site and a giant database of consumer ancestry DNA helps fill gaps in African American ancestry, and a reckoning for Philadelphia’s Mütter Museum

First up on this week’s show, ancient DNA researchers and ancestry giant 23andMe joined forces to uncover present day ties to a cemetery at the Catoctin Furnace ironworks in Maryland, where enslaved people were buried. Contributing producers and hosts of the Dope Labs podcast Titi Shodiya and Zakiya Whatley spoke with authors Éadaoin Harney and David Reich about the historical significance of this work and how it may help some African American communities recover parts of their lost genealogy. Our News team also covered the paper here.

Next we have a conversation with Staff Writer Rodrigo Pérez Ortega about Philadelphia’s famously creepy Mütter Museum. He talks to producer Kevin McLean about his recent story on the ethics of showcasing the various medical curiosities that the museum is known for.

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

About the Science Podcast

Authors: Sarah Crespi, Kevin McLean, Titi Shodiya, Zakiya Whatley, Rodrigo Pérez Ortega

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adk1038

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Researchers collaborate with a social media giant, ancient livestock, and sex and gender in South Africa Jul 27, 2023

Show notes

On this week’s show: evaluating scientific collaborations between independent scholars and industry, farming in ancient Europe, and a book from our series on sex, gender, and science.

First up on this week’s show, a look behind the scenes at a collaboration between a social media company and 17 academics. Host Sarah Crespi speaks with Michael Wagner, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication who acted as an impartial observer for Meta’s U.S. 2020 election project. Wagner wrote a commentary piece about what worked and what didn’t in this massive project, which will spawn more than 15 papers, three of them out this week in Science.

Then, producer Meagan Cantwell speaks with Silvia Valenzuela Lamas about her talk about how sociopolitical changes shaped livestock in ancient Europe. Her talk was part of a session on migrations and exchanges in ancient civilizations from this year’s AAAS Annual Meeting.

Also this week, the latest in our book series on sex, gender, and science. Host Angela Saini talks with author Amanda Lock Swarr about her book: Envisioning African Intersex: Challenging Colonial and Racist Legacies in South African Medicine.

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

About the Science Podcast

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Adding thousands of languages to the AI lexicon, and the genes behind our bones Jul 20, 2023

Show notes

A massive effort by African volunteers is ensuring artificial intelligence understands their native languages, and measuring 40,000 skeletons

Our AI summer continues with a look at how to get artificial intelligence to understand and translate the thousands of languages that don’t have large online sources of text and audio. Freelance journalist Sandeep Ravindran joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss Masakhane, a volunteer-based project dedicated to spurring growth in machine learning of African languages. See the whole special issue on AI here.

Also this week on the show, Eucharist Kun, a Ph.D. student at the University of Texas at Austin, and colleagues used machine learning to take skeletal measurements from x-rays stored in the UK Biobank. Kun discusses links from these body proportions to genes, evolution, and disease.

Finally, in a sponsored segment from the Science Custom Publishing Office, Erika Berg, director and senior editor of custom publishing, interviews Aysha Akhtar, co-founder and CEO of the Center for Contemporary Sciences, about how the Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act 2.0 along with advances in technology are clearing the way for alternatives to animal testing in the development of new drugs. This segment is sponsored by Michelson Philanthropies.

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

About the Science Podcast

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Sandeep Ravindran

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adj7646

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