Science Magazine Podcast

Latest Episodes:

The state of science in Ukraine, and a conversation with Anthony Fauci Dec 08, 2022

Show notes

On this week’s show: The impact of war on science in Ukraine, and a conversation with Anthony Fauci as he prepares to step down

Some scientists in Ukraine have been risking their lives to protect scientific facilities, collections, and instruments amid the war. Contributing Correspondent Richard Stone traveled to Kharkiv and Chornobyl earlier this year to meet researchers living and working through the conflict. He spoke with host Sarah Crespi to share some of their stories.

Then we have a conversation with Anthony Fauci, who will be stepping down from his government roles this month after more than 50 years in public service. He shares his thoughts on the ongoing challenges of communicating about science and public health, combating misinformation, and his goals for the future with Science Editor-and-Chief Holden Thorp.

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

[Image: Rich Stone; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

[alt: photo of rubble damaged during war in Ukraine with building spire in background]

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Rich Stone; Kevin McLean; Holden Thorp

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adg1712

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

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A genetic history of Europe’s Jews, and measuring magma under a supervolcano Dec 01, 2022

Show notes

On this week’s show: A medieval German cemetery yields clues to Jewish migrations in Europe, and supercomputers help researchers estimate magma under Yellowstone

First up this week on the podcast, we explore the genetic history of Jewish people in Europe. Contributing Correspondent Andrew Curry talks with host Sarah Crespi about researchers working with rabbis and the local Jewish community to apply new techniques to respectfully study remains in a medieval Jewish cemetery in Germany.

We also have a story on how much magma has accumulated inside Yellowstone National Park’s supervolcano. Producer Meagan Cantwell talks with Ross Maguire, an assistant professor in the geology department at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, about using supercomputers to get a clearer picture of the volcanic system’s subsurface. Although this new study shows more magma than previous estimates, it’s still not nearly enough for an eruption anytime soon.

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

[Image: Eric Vaughn/Flickr; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

[alt: photo of sunset over Yellowstone National Park with podcast overlay symbol]

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Meagan Cantwell; Andrew Curry

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adg0498

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

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Artificial intelligence takes on Diplomacy, and how much water do we really need? Nov 24, 2022

Show notes

On this week’s show: Meta’s algorithm tackles both language and strategy in a board game, and measuring how much water people use on a daily basis

First up this week on the podcast, artificial intelligence (AI) wins at the game Diplomacy. Freelance science journalist Matthew Hutson joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about the advances needed for an AI to win a game that requires cooperation and trust between human and AI players.

Next, we hear about how much water people need to stay hydrated. It’s not the eight glasses a day recommendation we’ve heard so much about. Herman Pontzer, a professor in Duke University’s Department of Evolutionary Anthropology and the Duke Global Health Institute, talks about a study that involved recording water turnover from 5000 people around the world. It turns out daily water needs vary from person to person and place to place.

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

[Image: manus1550/iStock; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

[alt: photo of a stack of drinking water bottles with podcast overlay symbol]

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Matt Hutson

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adf8979

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

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Mammoth ivory trade may be bad for elephants, and making green electronics with fungus Nov 17, 2022

Show notes

On this week’s show: The potentially harmful effects of prehistoric ivory on present-day elephants, and replacing polymers in electronics with fungal tissue

First up this week on the podcast, we hear about the effect of mammoth and mastodon ivory on the illegal elephant ivory trade. Online News Editor Michael Price joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss how as melting permafrost has uncovered fossilized ivory from these extinct creatures, more has entered the ivory trade. The question is: Does the availability of this type of ivory reduce the demand for ivory from elephants, or does it endanger them more?

Next, making electronics greener with fungus with Doris Danninger, a Ph.D. student in the Soft Matter Physics Division at the Institute of Experimental Physics at Johannes Kepler University, Linz. Doris and Sarah discuss the feasibility of replacing the bulky backing of chips and the casing of batteries with sheets of fungal tissue to make flexible, renewable, biodegradable electronics.

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

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

[alt: photo of an elephant tusk with point facing the camera with podcast overlay symbol]

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Michael Price

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adf8340

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

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Kurt Vonnegut’s contribution to science, and tunas and sharks as ecosystem indicators Nov 10, 2022

Show notes

On this week’s show: How sci-fi writer Kurt Vonnegut foresaw many of today’s ethical dilemmas, and 70 years of tunas, billfishes, and sharks as sentinels of global ocean health

First up this week on the podcast, we revisit the works of science fiction author Kurt Vonneugt on what would have been his 100th birthday. News Intern Zack Savitsky and host Sarah Crespi discuss the work of ethicists, philosophers, and Vonnegut scholars on his influence on the ethics and practice of science.

Researchers featured in this segment:

Peter-Paul Verbeek, a philosopher of science and technology at the University of Amsterdam and chair of the World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology
David Koepsell, a philosopher of science and technology at Texas A&M University, College Station
Christina Jarvis, a Vonnegut scholar at the State University of New York, Fredonia, and author of the new book Lucky Mud & Other Foma: A Field Guide to Kurt Vonnegut’s Environmentalism and Planetary Citizenship
Sheila Jasanoff, a science studies scholar at Harvard University

Next, producer Kevin McLean discusses the connection between fishing pressure and extinction risk for large predatory fish such as tunas and sharks. He’s joined by Maria José Juan Jordá, a postdoc at the Spanish Institute for Oceanography, to learn what a new continuous Red List Index using the past 70 years of fisheries data can tell us about the effectiveness and limits of fishing regulations.

Finally, in a sponsored segment from the Science/AAAS Custom Publishing Office, Sean Sanders, director and senior editor for custom publishing, interviews Joseph Hyser, assistant professor in the Department of Molecular Virology and Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine about his use of wide-field fluorescence live cell microscopy to track intercellular calcium waves created following rotavirus infection. This segment is sponsored by Nikon.

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

[Image: richcarey/istock; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

[alt: underwater photo of a swirling mass of tunas, with podcast overlay symbol]

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Kevin McLean; Zack Savitsky

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adf7398

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

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Cities as biodiversity havens, and gene therapy for epilepsy Nov 03, 2022

Show notes

On this week’s show: How urban spaces can help conserve species, and testing a gene therapy strategy for epilepsy in mice

First up on the podcast, we explore urban ecology’s roots in Berlin. Contributing Correspondent Gabriel Popkin joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss turning wastelands and decommissioned airports into forests and grasslands inside the confines of a city.

Next, we hear about a gene therapy strategy for epilepsy. Yichen Qiu, a recently graduated Ph.D. student and researcher at University College London, talks about introducing a small set of genes into neurons in mice. These genes detect hyperactivity in the brain and respond by quieting the cell, ultimately suppressing seizures.

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

[Image: Maurice Weiss; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

[alt: dim photo of the forest of the Schöneberger Südgelände with old railroad tracks receding into the distance, with podcast overlay symbol]

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Gabriel Popkin

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adf6190

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

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Space-based solar power gets serious, AI helps optimize chemistry, and a book on food extinction Oct 27, 2022

Show notes

On this week’s show: Cheaper launches could make solar power satellites a reality, machine learning helps chemists make small organic molecules, and a book on the extinction of foods

First up on the podcast, space-based solar power gets closer to launch. Staff Writer Daniel Clery talks with host Sarah Crespi about how reusable rockets bring the possibility of giant solar array satellites that beam down gigawatts of uninterrupted power from space.

After that, we hear about small organic molecule synthesis. Making large organic molecules such as proteins and DNA can be a cinch for chemists, but making new smaller organic molecules is tough—partially because optimized general reaction conditions are hard to come by. Nicholas Angello, a graduate research assistant and Department of Defense National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate fellow in the Burke group at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, talks about an approach that uses robots and machine learning to better optimize these reaction conditions.

Also in the episode: the last in our series of books on food and agriculture. This month, host Angela Saini talks with author Dan Saladino about his book Eating to Extinction: The World’s Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them.

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

[Image: NASA; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

[alt: drawing of satellite solar panels with podcast overlay symbol]

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Dan Clery; Angela Saini

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adf4939

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

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Snakes living the high-altitude life, and sending computing power to the edges of the internet Oct 20, 2022

Show notes

On this week’s show: How some snakes have adapted to the extremes of height and temperature on the Tibetan Plateau, and giving low-power sensors more processing power

First up on the podcast, tough snakes reveal their secrets. Host Sarah Crespi talks with Staff Writer Liz Pennisi about how snakes have adapted to the harsh conditions of the Tibetan Plateau.

Next on the show, Producer Meagan Cantwell talks about moving more computing power to the edges of the internet. She is joined by Alexander Sludds, a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Research Lab for Electronics. They discuss a faster, more energy-efficient approach to give edge devices—such as low-power smart sensors or tiny aerial drones—the computing power of far larger machines.

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

[Image: JUN-FENG GUO; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

[alt: photo of a Tibetan hot-spring snake near a geothermal pool with podcast overlay symbol]

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Liz Pennisi; Meagan Cantwell

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adf3782

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

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Climate change threatens supercomputing, and collecting spider silks Oct 13, 2022

Show notes

On this week’s show: Rising waters and intense storms make siting high-performance computer centers a challenge, and matching up spider silk DNA with spider silk properties

(Main Text)

First up on the podcast this week, News Intern Jacklin Kwan talks with host Sarah Crespi about how and where to build high-performance computing facilities as climate change brings extreme conditions to current locations.

Spiders are creeping into the show this week. Kazuharu Arakawa, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Bioscience at Keio University, discusses his Science Advances paper on collecting spider silks and the genes that make them. His team used the data set to connect genetic sequences to the properties of spider silks in order to harness this amazing material for industrial use.

Visit the spider silkomes database here: https://spider-silkome.org/

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

[Image: Dace Znotina/iStock; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

[alt: a spiderweb with podcast overlay symbol]

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Jacklin Kwan

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Linking violence in Myanmar to fossil amber research, and waking up bacterial spores Oct 06, 2022

Show notes

On this week’s show: A study suggests paleontological research has directly benefited from the conflict in Myanmar, and how dormant bacterial spores keep track of their environment

First up on the podcast this week, Staff Writer Rodrigo Pérez Ortega joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss links between violent conflict in Myanmar and a boom in fossil amber research.

Also on the show this week, we hear about how bacterial spores—which can lie dormant for millions of years—decide it’s time to wake up. Kaito Kikuchi, an image analysis scientist at Reveal Biosciences, joins Sarah to discuss how dormant spores act a bit like neurons to make these decisions.

In a sponsored segment from the Science/AAAS Custom Publishing Office, Sean Sanders, director and senior editor for the Custom Publishing Office, interviews Ramon Parsons, director of the Tisch Cancer Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, about his institute’s innovative approach to cancer treatment.

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

[Image: (public domain); Music: Jeffrey Cook]

[alt: micrograph of the bacterium Bacillus subtilis with podcast overlay symbol]

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Rodrigo Pérez Ortega

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adf2050

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

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