Science Quickly

Latest Episodes:

Summer Meteor Showers, Short Summer Days and Ancient Arthropods Jul 28, 2025

Show notes

If last Tuesday seemed to fly by, you can blame the rotation of Earth. Try to look up this week to see the Southern Delta Aquariids and the Alpha Capricornids meteor showers. Plus, we discuss FEMA cuts and ancient arthropods.

Recommended reading:

Texas Failed to Spend Millions in Federal Aid for Flood Protection https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/texas-failed-to-spend-federal-aid-for-flood-disaster-protection/

Leap Seconds May Be Abandoned by the World’s Timekeepers

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/leap-seconds-may-be-abandoned-by-the-worlds-timekeepers/

E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. Our show is fact-checked by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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Greenland’s Ice Sheet Is at Risk—And So Are We Jul 25, 2025

Show notes

Chief multimedia editor Jeffery DelViscio ventured to Greenland for a month to learn from the scientists studying the country’s ice sheet. He speaks with host Rachel Feltman about his time in the field and his takeaways from conversations with climate scientists.

This story was supported by a grant from the Pulitzer Center. This story was made possible through the assistance of the U.S. National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs.

Read the cover story and see stunning pictures from DelViscio’s time on the ice:

What Greenland’s Ancient Past Reveals about Its Fragile Future https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/greenlands-ice-sheet-collapse-could-be-closer-than-we-think/

E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. This show is edited by Jeff DelViscio with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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What to Read on the Beach This Summer Jul 23, 2025

Show notes

Scientific American has been reading, reviewing and recommending books for more than 100 years. These days Brianne Kane, our resident reader, is in charge of organizing our book recommendation lists to help science-minded people find the perfect read, including novels. She joins fellow book nerd Rachel Feltman to talk about the nonfiction and fiction books she’s recommending this summer—and gives a preview of our end-of-year lists.

Recommended reading:

See The 4 Books Scientific American Loved Reading in June https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/4-nonfiction-books-scientific-american-recommended-in-june/

Your Garbage Has a ‘Wild Afterlife’ on the International Black Market https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/waste-wars-tracks-the-wild-afterlife-of-garbage-on-an-international-black/

Get more great summer reads every week: sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American.

E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

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Time Travel to Tide Pool 101 from Our July 1925 Issue Jul 21, 2025

Show notes

Time travel to an introduction to tide pools, the start of commercial air travel and an intercontinental aviation museum dispute. Host Rachel Feltman is taking a look at a 1925 issue of Scientific American for this archival episode. If you don’t find the past to be a blast, don’t worry! We’ll be back to our regular schedule of science news, deep dives and editor picks next week. In the meantime, read some recent coverage of marine marvels and flight!

Recommended reading:

Yes, Airline Flights Are Getting Bumpier: Here’s Why https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/yes-airline-flights-are-getting-bumpier-heres-why/

See the Lush Kelp Forests Scientists Are Fighting for as Oceans Warm https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/as-oceans-warm-scientists-fight-to-save-lush-kelp-forests/

E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. Our show is edited by Alex Sugiura with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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Dungeons and Dragons’ Popularity Grows—And Science Follows Jul 18, 2025

Show notes

Brennan Lee Mulligan is a professional dungeon master, playing Dungeons and Dragons (D&D), a popular tabletop role-playing game, for audiences online and in person. In January his D&D show on Dropout.tv, Dimension 20, played a live game at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The show—and the game—experienced a resurgence during the COVID pandemic. Now researchers are diving into D&D science, showing how the game and the togetherness it creates can benefit mental health. Rachel Feltman chats with Lee Mulligan about the success of Dimension 20 and the psychological and cultural need the game may serve for its players.

Recommended reading:

LARPing Made Me a Stronger Person. It Can Do the Same for You, Too

Find the Perfect Game to Play with This Interactive Quiz

E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Naeem Amarsy and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. Our show is edited by Alex Sugiura with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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

The LIGO Lab Is Pushing the Boundaries of Gravitational-Wave Research Jul 16, 2025

Show notes

Come with Science Quickly on a field trip to the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Host Rachel Feltman is joined by Matthew Evans, MIT’s MathWorks professor of physics, to talk about the last 10 years of gravitational-wave research. Gravitational waves were discovered in 2015 by the LIGO team. Since then, innovations from the LIGO Lab have changed our understanding of the universe and made major shifts across physics. Now they’re preparing for the next generation of gravitational-wave detectors.

Recommended reading:

The 2015 Paper Announcing the Discovery of Gravitational Waves: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1602.03837

Listen to the Astonishing ‘Chirp’ of Two Black Holes Merging https://www.scientificamerican.com/video/listen-to-the-astonishing-chirp-of-two-black-holes-merging1/

5 New Types of Gravitational-Wave Detectors Could Reshape Astrophysics https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/5-new-types-of-gravitational-wave-detectors-could-reshape-astrophysics/

E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

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

This Surgery Can Lead to Weight Loss—But Stigma Is Harder to Shake Off Jul 14, 2025

Show notes

Each year more than half a million people undergo bariatric surgery, a procedure geared toward weight loss. But research shows that stigma around weight can continue to affect people’s lives even during recovery from the procedure.

Larissa McGarrity is a clinical associate professor at the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine at the University of Utah and lead psychologist at the school’s comprehensive Weight Management Program. She and her colleagues assessed 148 people who received bariatric surgery before their procedure and one and a half and three years after to learn more about their physical, mental and emotional health over the recovery period.

Recommended reading:

The New Science of Diet, Weight and Health

The Impact of Weight Stigma on Health

E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Naeem Amarsy and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman.

Our show is edited by Alex Sugiura with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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

Why Do We Sing? Musicologists and Neuroscientists Seek an Answer Jul 11, 2025

Show notes

Last year Science Quickly looked across disciplines to piece apart the science of singing. To understand why humans sing, musicologists collaborated on an international study of folk music. To understand how we sing, neuroscientists differentiated how our brain processes speech and singing. Music enthusiast and associate mind and brain editor Allison Parshall takes us through some hallmark 2024 studies that, taken together, piece together the evolutionary origins of singing.

Recommended reading:

Hidden Patterns in Folk Songs Reveal How Music Evolved https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hidden-patterns-in-folk-songs-reveal-how-music-evolved/

Why You Can’t Get That Song Out of Your Head https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/why-do-songs-get-stuck-in-your-head/

E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest associate mind and brain editor Allison Parshall. Our show is fact-checked by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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

What Does an Ailing Coral Reef Sound Like? Jul 09, 2025

Show notes

Sick coral reefs are visually striking—bleached and lifeless, far from the vibrancy we’ve come to expect. But what does an unhealthy coral system sound like? In this rerun, conservation bioacoustics researcher Isla Keesje Davidson tells Science Quickly all about the changing soundscape of the seas.

Recommended reading:

84 Percent of Corals Impacted in Mass Bleaching Event https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/worst-coral-mass-bleaching-on-record-caused-by-warming-oceans/

How Corals Fight Back against Warming Seas

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-corals-fight-back-against-warming-seas/

E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

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

An Astronaut Shares His Passion for Space Photography—Live, from the ISS Cupola Jul 07, 2025

Show notes

Ten months ago Science Quickly made space history by conducting the first-ever live interview from the cupola of the International Space Station (ISS). Astronaut Matthew Dominick spoke with Rachel Feltman about his work on the ISS and the stunning space photography that first caught our attention.

Watch a video of the interview

See more stunning space photographs from Matthew Dominick

E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. Our show is edited by Jeff DelViscio with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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

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