Science Magazine Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Next-generation gravitational wave detectors, and sponges that soak up frigid oil spills Mar 11, 2021

Show notes

Science Staff Writer Adrian Cho joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about plans for the next generation of gravitational wave detectors—including one with 40-kilometer arms. The proposed detectors will be up to 10 times more sensitive than current models and could capture all black hole mergers in the observable universe.

Sarah also talks with Pavani Cherukupally, a researcher at Imperial College London and the University of Toronto, about her Science Advances paper on cleaning up oil spills with special cold-adapted sponges that work well when crude oil gets clumpy.

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

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[Image: VLCC tanker Amoco Cadiz oil spill/Collection of Doug Helton/NOAA/NOS/ORR/Flickr; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Adrian Cho

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The world’s oldest pet cemetery, and how eyeless worms can see color Mar 04, 2021

Show notes

Science’s Online News Editor David Grimm joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about a 2000-year-old pet cemetery found in the Egyptian city of Berenice and what it can tell us about the history of human-animal relationships.

Also this week, Dipon Ghosh, a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, talks about how scientists missed that the tiny eyeless roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, which has been intensively studied from top to bottom for decades, somehow has the ability to detect colors.

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

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[Image: HINRICH SCHULENBURG; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

Authors: Sarah Crespi; David Grimm

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Measuring Earth’s surface like never before, and the world’s fastest random number generator Feb 25, 2021

Show notes

First up, science journalist Julia Rosen talks with host Sarah Crespi about a growing fleet of radar satellites that will soon be able to detect minute rises and drops of Earth’s surface—from a gently deflating volcano to a water-swollen field—on a daily basis.

Sarah also talks with Hui Cao, a professor of applied physics at Yale University, about a new way to generate enormous streams of random numbers faster than ever before, using a tiny laser that can fit on a computer chip.

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

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[Image: Kyungduk Kim/Yale; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Julia Rosen

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All your COVID-19 vaccine questions answered, and a new theory on forming rocky planets Feb 18, 2021

Show notes

Science Staff Writer Jon Cohen joins host Sarah Crespi to take on some of big questions about the COVID-19 vaccines, such as: Do they stop transmission? Will we need boosters? When will life get back to “normal.”

Sarah also talks with Anders Johansen, professor of planetary sciences and planet formation at the University of Copenhagen, about his Science Advances paper on a new theory for the formation of rocky planets in our Solar System. Instead of emerging out of ever-larger collisions of protoplanets, the new idea is that terrestrial planets like Earth and Mars formed from the buildup of many small pebbles.

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

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[Image: European Space Agency/Stuart Rankin/Flickr; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Jon Cohen

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Building Africa’s Great Green Wall, and using whale songs as seismic probess Feb 11, 2021

Show notes

Science journalist Rachel Cernansky joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about progress on Africa’s Great Green Wall project and the important difference between planting and growing a tree.

Sarah also talks with Václav Kuna, a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Geophysics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, about using loud and long songs from fin whales to image structures under the ocean floor.

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

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[Image: Holly Gramazio/Flickr; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Rachel Cernansky

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Looking back at 20 years of human genome sequencing Feb 04, 2021

Show notes

This week we’re dedicating the whole show to the 20th anniversary of the publication of the human genome. Today, about 30 million people have had their genomes sequenced. This remarkable progress has brought with it issues of data sharing, privacy, and inequality.

Host Sarah Crespi spoke with a number of researchers about the state of genome science, starting with Yaniv Erlich, from the Efi Arazi School of Computer Science and CEO of Eleven Biotherapeutics, who talks about privacy in the age of easily obtainable genomes.

Next up Charles Rotimi, director of the Center for Research on Genomics and Global Health at the National Human Genome Research Institute, discusses diversity—or lack thereof—in the field and what it means for the kinds of research that happens.

Finally, Dorothy Roberts, professor in the departments of Africana studies and sociology and the law school at the University of Pennsylvania, talks about the seemingly never-ending project of disentangling race and genomes.

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

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[Image: Holly Gramazio/Flickr; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

Authors: Sarah Crespi;

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Calculating the social cost of carbon, and listening to mole-rat chirps Jan 28, 2021

Show notes

On its first day, the new Biden administration announced plans to recalculate the social cost of carbon—a way of estimating the economic toll of greenhouse gases. Staff Writer Paul Voosen and host Sarah Crespi discuss why this value is so important and how it will be determined.

Next up, Alison Barker, a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, talks with Sarah about the sounds of naked mole-rats. You may already know naked mole-rats are pain and cancer resistant—but did you know these eusocial mammals make little chirps to identify themselves as colony members? Can these learned local dialects make naked mole-rats a new research model for language learning?

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

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[Image: Smithsonian’s National Zoo/Flickr; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Paul Voosen

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Counting research rodents, a possible cause for irritable bowel syndrome, and spitting cobras Jan 21, 2021

Show notes

Online News Editor David Grimm joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss a controversial new paper that estimates how many rodents are used in research in the United States each year. Though there is no official number, the paper suggests there might be more than 100 million rats and mice housed in research facilities in the country—doubling or even tripling some earlier estimates.

Next, Staff Writer Jennifer Couzin-Frankel talks with Sarah about a new theory behind the cause of irritable bowel syndrome—that it might be a localized allergic reaction in the gut.

Sarah also chats with Taline Kazandjian, a postdoctoral research associate at the Centre for Snakebite Research & Interventions in Liverpool, U.K., about how the venom from spitting cobras has evolved to cause maximum pain and why these snakes might have developed the same defense mechanism three different times.

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

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[Image: Rushen/Flickr; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

Authors: Sarah Crespi; David Grimm; Jennifer Couzin-Frankel

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An elegy for Arecibo, and how our environments may change our behavior Jan 14, 2021

Show notes

Science Senior Correspondent Daniel Clery regales host Sarah Crespi with tales about the most important work to come from 57 years of research at the now-defunct Arecibo Observatory and plans for the future of the site.

Sarah also talks with Toman Barsbai, an associate professor in the school of economics at the University of Bristol, about the influence of ecology on human behavior—can we figure out how many of our behaviors are related to the different environments where we live? Barsbai and colleagues took on this question by comparing behaviors around finding food, reproduction, and social hierarchy in three groups of animals living in the same places: foraging humans, nonhuman mammals, and birds.

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

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[Image: University of Central Florida; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Daniel Clery

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The uncertain future of North America’s ash trees, and organizing robot swarms Jan 07, 2021

Show notes

Freelance journalist Gabriel Popkin and host Sarah Crespi discuss what will happen to ash trees in the United States as federal regulators announce dropping quarantine measures meant to control the emerald ash borer—a devastating pest that has killed tens of millions of trees since 2002. Instead of quarantines, the government will use tiny wasps known to kill the invasive beetles in hopes of saving the ash.

Sarah also talks with Pavel Chvykov, a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, about the principles for organizing active matter—things like ant bridges, bird flocks, or little swarms of robots.

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

Listen to previous podcasts.

About the Science Podcast

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[Image: Donald Macauley/Flickr; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Gabriel Popkin

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