The future of PCB-laden orca whales, and doing genomics work with Indigenous people
Release Date: 09/27/2018
Breakthrough of the Year, our favorite online news stories, and the year in books
Science Magazine Podcast
As the year comes to a close, we review the best science, the best stories, and the best books from 2019. Our end-of-the-year episode kicks off with Host Sarah Crespi and Online News Editor David Grimm talking about the top online stories[linkTK] on things like human self-domestication, the “wood wide web,” and more. News Editor Tim Appenzeller joins Sarah to discuss Science’s 2019 , some of the contenders for breakthrough, also known as runners-up, and the breakdowns—when science and politics just didn’t seem to mix this year. Finally, Science books editor Valerie...
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Hunting for new epilepsy drugs, and capturing lightning from space
Science Magazine Podcast
About one-third of people with epilepsy are treatment resistant. Up until now, epilepsy treatments have focused on taming seizures rather than the source of the disease and for good reason—so many roads lead to epilepsy: traumatic brain injury, extreme fever and infection, and genetic disorders, to name a few. Staff Writer Jennifer Couzin-Frankel talks with host Sarah Crespi about researchers that are turning back the pages on epilepsy, trying to get to the beginning of the story where new treatments might work. And Sarah also talks with at the Technical University of Denmark’s...
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Debating lab monkey retirement, and visiting a near-Earth asteroid
Science Magazine Podcast
After their life as research subjects, what happens to lab monkeys? Some are euthanized to complete the research, others switch to new research projects, and some retire from lab life. Should they retire in place—in the same lab under the care of the same custodians—or should they be sent to retirement home–like sanctuaries? Online News Editor David Grimm joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss recently penned legislation that [pushes for monkey retirements-linkTK] and a new collaboration between universities and sanctuaries to create a retirement pipeline for these primates. And Sarah...
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Double dipping in an NIH loan repayment program, and using undersea cables as seismic sensors
Science Magazine Podcast
The National Institutes of Health’s largest loan repayment program was conceived to help scientists pay off school debts without relying on industry funding. But by investigative correspondent Charles Piller has revealed that many participants are taking money from the government to repay their loans, while at the same time taking payments from pharmaceutical companies. Piller joins Host Sarah Crespi to talk about the steps he took to uncover this double dipping and why ethicists say this a conflict of interest. Sarah also talks , about turning a 50-meter undersea fiber optic cable...
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Building a landslide observatory, and the universality of music
Science Magazine Podcast
You may have seen the aftermath of a landslide, driving along a twisty mountain road—a scattering of rocks and scree impinging on the pavement. And up until now, that’s pretty much how scientists have tracked landslides—roadside observations and spotty satellite images. Now, researchers are hoping to track landslides systematically by instrumenting an entire . The park is riddled with landslides—so much so that visitors wear helmets. Host Sarah Crespi talks with one of those visitors—freelance science journalist Katherine Kornei—about what we can learn from landslides. In a...
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How to make an Arctic ship ‘vanish,’ and how fast-moving spikes are heating the Sun’s atmosphere
Science Magazine Podcast
The Polarstern research vessel will spend 1 year locked in an Arctic ice floe. Aboard the ship and on the nearby ice, researchers will take measurements of the ice, air, water, and more in an effort to understand this pristine place. Science journalist Shannon Hall joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about her time aboard the Polarstern and are, when the researchers’ temporary Arctic home is the noisiest, smokiest, brightest thing around. After that icy start, Sarah talks also with , a postdoctoral researcher at Peking University in Beijing, about the source of the extreme temperature of...
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Unearthing slavery in the Caribbean, and the Catholic Church’s influence on modern psychology
Science Magazine Podcast
Most historical accounts of slavery were written by colonists and planters. Researchers are now using the tools of archaeology to learn more about the day-to-day lives of enslaved Africans—how they survived the conditions of slavery, how they participated in local economies, and how they maintained their own agency. Host Sarah Crespi talks with Contributing Correspondent Lizzie Wade about a Caribbean archaeology project based on St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands and launched by the founders of the that aims to unearth these details. Sarah also talks with , a professor in the...
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How measles wipes out immune memory, and detecting small black holes
Science Magazine Podcast
Measles is a dangerous infection that can kill. As many as 100,000 people die from the disease each year. For those who survive infection, the virus leaves a lasting mark—it appears to wipe out the immune system’s memory. News Intern Eva Fredrick joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about a pair of studies that looked at how this happens in children’s immune systems. Read the related studies in and . In our second segment this week, Sarah talks with , of Ohio State University in Columbus, about his effort to find a small black hole in a binary pair with a red giant star....
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A worldwide worm survey, and racial bias in a health care algorithm
Science Magazine Podcast
Earthworms are easy … to find. But despite their prevalence and importance to ecosystems around the world, there hasn’t been a comprehensive survey of earthworm diversity or population size. This week in Science, , a postdoctoral fellow at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research and the Institute of Biology at Leipzig University, and colleagues published the results of their , composed of data sets from many worm researchers around the globe. Host Sarah Crespi gets the lowdown from Philips on collaborating with worm researchers, and links between worm populations and...
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Trying to find the mind in the brain, and why adults are always criticizing ‘kids these days’
Science Magazine Podcast
We don’t know where consciousness comes from. And we don’t know whether animals have it, or whether we can detect it in patients in comas. Do neuroscientists even know where to look? A new competition aims to [narrow down the bewildering number of theories of consciousness-link TK] and get closer to finding its biological signs by pitting different theories against each other in experimental settings. Freelance journalist talks with host Sarah Crespi about the how the competition will work. In our second segment, we talk about how we think about children. For thousands of years, adults...
info_outlineScience has often treated Indigenous people as resources for research—especially when it comes to genomics. Now, Indigenous people are exploring how this type of study can be conducted in a way that respects their people and traditions. Meagan Cantwell talks with contributing correspondent Lizzie Wade about a summer workshop for Indigenous scientists that aims to start a new chapter in genomics.
We’ve known for decades that PCBs—polychlorinated biphenyls—are toxic and carcinogenic. In the 1970s and 1980s, these compounds were phased out of use in industrial and electronic applications, worldwide. But they are still in the environment—in soil and air—and in animal tissues, particularly those of killer whales. These toxic compounds start out at minute levels in tiny organisms, but as the small are eaten by the slightly larger, the PCB concentration increases—from plankton, to fish, to seals—until you are at killer whales with PCB-packed blubber. Ailsa Hall, director of the Sea Mammal Research Unit at St. Andrews University in Scotland, talks with host Sarah Crespi about her group’s work measuring PCB levels in different killer whale populations and calculating the effect of PCBs on those populations 100 years from now.
In this month’s book segment, Jen Golbeck interviews Damon Centola about his book How Behavior Spreads: The Science of Complex Contagions. You can listen to more books segment and read more reviews on our books blog, Books et al.
This week’s episode was edited by Podigy.
[Image: Public domain; Show music: Jeffrey Cook]