Science Magazine Podcast
Weekly podcasts from Science Magazine, the world's leading journal of original scientific research, global news, and commentary.
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Breakthrough of the Year, our favorite online news stories, and the year in books
12/19/2019
Breakthrough of the Year, our favorite online news stories, and the year in books
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 Thompson brings her favorites from the world of science-inflected media. She and Sarah talk about some of the best books reviewed in Science this year, a food extinction book we should have reviewed, a pair of science-centric films, and even an award-winning birding board game. For more science books, films, and games, visit the books et al blog at . This week’s episode was edited by . Ads on this week’s show: ; ; . ++ [Image: Roots, Craig Cloutier/Flickr; Music: Jeffrey Cook] Authors: Sarah Crespi; David Grimm; Tim Appenzeller; Valerie Thompson
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Hunting for new epilepsy drugs, and capturing lightning from space
12/12/2019
Hunting for new epilepsy drugs, and capturing lightning from space
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 National Space Institute in Kongens Lyngby about capturing high-altitude “transient luminous events” from the International Space Station (ISS). These lightning-induced bursts of light, color, and occasionally gamma rays were first reported in the 1990s but had only been recorded from the ground or aircraft. With new measurements from the ISS come new insights into the anatomy of lightning. This week’s episode was edited by . Ads on this week’s show: ; ; . ++ [Image: Gemini Observatory; Music: Jeffrey Cook] Authors: Sarah Crespi; Jennifer Couzin-Frankel
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Debating lab monkey retirement, and visiting a near-Earth asteroid
12/05/2019
Debating lab monkey retirement, and visiting a near-Earth asteroid
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 also talks with , principal investigator for NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) and a professor at the University of Arizona in Tucson, about the latest news from the asteroid . Within 1 week of beginning its orbit of the asteroid, OSIRIS-REx was able ejecting material. It’s extremely rocky surface also took researchers by surprise and forced a recalculation of the sample return portion of the craft’s mission. This week’s episode was edited by . Ads on this week’s show: ; Parcast’s podcast; . ++ [Image: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona/Lockheed Martin; Music: Jeffrey Cook] Authors: Sarah Crespi; David Grimm
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Double dipping in an NIH loan repayment program, and using undersea cables as seismic sensors
11/28/2019
Double dipping in an NIH loan repayment program, and using undersea cables as seismic sensors
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 designed to move data into a sensor for activity in the ocean and the land underneath. During a 4-day test in Monterey Bay, California, the cable detected earthquakes, faults, waves, and even ocean-going storms. For this month’s books segment, Kiki Sandford talks with Dan Hooper about his book . You can find more books segments on the . This week’s episode was edited by . Ads on this week’s show: ; . [Image: Adam Reeder/Flickr; Music: Jeffrey Cook] Authors: Sarah Crespi; Charles Pillar
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Building a landslide observatory, and the universality of music
11/21/2019
Building a landslide observatory, and the universality of music
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 second rocking segment, Sarah also talks with Manvir Singh about the universality of music. His team asked the big questions in a Science paper out this week: Do all societies make music? What are the common elements that can be picked out from songs worldwide? Sarah and Manvir listen to songs and talk about what love ballads and lullabies have in common, regardless of their culture of origin. This week’s episode was edited by . Ads on this week’s show: ; KiwiCo; . [Image: Martin Lewinson/Flickr; Music: Jeffrey Cook] ++ Authors: Sarah Crespi; Katherine Kornei
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How to make an Arctic ship ‘vanish,’ and how fast-moving spikes are heating the Sun’s atmosphere
11/14/2019
How to make an Arctic ship ‘vanish,’ and how fast-moving spikes are heating the Sun’s atmosphere
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 the Sun’s corona, which can be up to 1 million K hotter than the surface of the Sun. His team’s careful measurements of spicules—small, plentiful, short-lived spikes of plasma that constantly ruffle the Sun’s surface—and the magnetic networks that seem to generate these spikes, suggest a solution to the long-standing problem of and, at the same time, their likely role in the heating of the corona. This week’s episode was edited by . Ads on this week’s show: .
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Unearthing slavery in the Caribbean, and the Catholic Church’s influence on modern psychology
11/07/2019
Unearthing slavery in the Caribbean, and the Catholic Church’s influence on modern psychology
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 Department of Economics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, about a role for the medieval Roman Catholic Church in so-called —western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic. The bulk of psychology experiments have used participants that could be described as WEIRD, and according to many psychological measures, WEIRD subjects tend to have some extreme traits, like a stronger tendency toward individuality and more friendliness with strangers. Schulz and colleagues used historical maps and measures of kinship structure to in Western Europe. Read a . This week’s episode was edited by . Ads on this week’s show: ; .
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How measles wipes out immune memory, and detecting small black holes
10/31/2019
How measles wipes out immune memory, and detecting small black holes
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. Usually black holes are detected because they are accruing matter and as the matter interacts with the black hole, x-rays are released. Without this flashy signal, black hole detection gets much harder. Astronomers must look for the gravitational influence of the black holes on nearby stars—which is easier to spot when the black hole is massive. Thompson talks with Sarah about a new approach to finding . This week’s episode was edited by . Ads on this week’s show: . ++ Authors: Sarah Crespi; Eva Frederick
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A worldwide worm survey, and racial bias in a health care algorithm
10/24/2019
A worldwide worm survey, and racial bias in a health care algorithm
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 climate. Sarah also talks with , a professor in the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley, about dissecting out in the United States to recommend patients for additional health services. With unusual access to a proprietary algorithm, inputs, and outputs, Obermeyer and his colleagues found that the low amount of health care dollars spent on black patients in the past caused the algorithm to underestimate their risk for poor health in the future. Obermeyer and Sarah discuss how this happened and remedies that are already in progress. Finally, in the monthly books segment, books host Kiki Sanford interviews author Alice Gorman about her book . Listen to more book segments on the Science books blog: This week’s episode was edited by . Ads on this week’s show: by David Quanmen; . [Music: Jeffrey Cook] ++ Authors: Sarah Crespi;
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Trying to find the mind in the brain, and why adults are always criticizing ‘kids these days’
10/17/2019
Trying to find the mind in the brain, and why adults are always criticizing ‘kids these days’
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 have complained about their lack of respect, intelligence, and tendency to distraction, compared with previous generations. A new study out this week in Science Advances suggests . Sarah Crespi talks with of the University of California, Santa Barbara, about how terrible people thought kids were in 3800 B.C.E. and whether understanding those biases might change how people view Generation Z today. This week’s episode was edited by . Ads on this week’s show: by David Quanmen; ; . [Image: Andrea Kirkby/Flickr; Music: Jeffrey Cook] ++ Authors: Sarah Crespi; Sara Reardon
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Fossilized dinosaur proteins, and making a fridge from rubber bands
10/10/2019
Fossilized dinosaur proteins, and making a fridge from rubber bands
Have you ever tried to scrub off the dark, tarlike residue on a grill? That tough stuff is made up of polymers—basically just byproducts of cooking—and it is so persistent that researchers have found similar molecules that have survived hundreds of millions of years. And these aren't from cook fires. They are actually the byproducts of death and fossilization. Host Sarah Crespi talks with Contributing Correspondent Gretchen Vogel about how these molecules can be found on the surface of certain fossils and . And Sarah talks with , a professor at Nankai University in Tianjin, China, about a new cooling technology based on a 100- -year-old observation that . It’s going to be hard to beat the 60% efficiency of compression-based refrigerators and air conditioning units, but Zunfeng and colleagues aim to try, with twists and coils that can cool water by 7°C when relaxed. This week’s episode was edited by . Ads on this week’s show: by David Quammen [Image: Twila Cheeseborough/Flickr; Music: Jeffrey Cook] ++ Authors: Sarah Crespi; Gretchen Vogel
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An app for eye disease, and planting memories in songbirds
10/03/2019
An app for eye disease, and planting memories in songbirds
Host Sarah Crespi talks with undergraduate student in Waco, Texas, about a smartphone app that . And Sarah talks with of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Houston, Texas, about . Using a technique called —in which specific neurons can be controlled by pulses of light—the researchers introduced false song memories by turning on neurons in different patterns, with longer or shorter note durations than typical zebra finch songs. This week’s episode was edited by . Ads on this week’s show: ; . [Image: Jim Brendon/Flickr; Music: Jeffrey Cook] ++ Authors: Sarah Crespi;
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Privacy concerns slow Facebook studies, and how human fertility depends on chromosome counts
09/26/2019
Privacy concerns slow Facebook studies, and how human fertility depends on chromosome counts
On this week’s show, senior news correspondent Jeffrey Mervis talks with host Sarah Crespi about a stalled who want to study the site’s role in elections. Sarah also talks with , a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Copenhagen Center for Chromosome Stability, about counting chromosomes in human egg cells. It turns out that cell division errors that cause too many or too few chromosomes to remain in the egg may . Finally, in this month’s book segment, Kiki Sanford talks with Daniel Navon about his book . Visit the books blog for more author interviews: This week’s episode was edited by . Ads on this week’s show: ; by David Quammen [Image: Jennifer Gruhn; Music: Jeffrey Cook]
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Cooling Earth with asteroid dust, and 3 billion missing birds
09/19/2019
Cooling Earth with asteroid dust, and 3 billion missing birds
On this week’s show, science journalist Josh Sokol talks about a global cooling event sparked by space dust that lead to a [huge shift in animal and plant diversity 466 million years ago-linkTK.] (Read the in Science Advances.) And I talk with , an applied conservation scientist at Cornell University, about steep declines in bird abundance in the United States and Canada. His team estimates about . This week’s episode was edited by . Ads on this week’s show: ; . [Image: Public domain; Music: Jeffrey Cook] ++ Authors: Sarah Crespi; Josh Sokol
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Studying human health at 5100 meters, and playing hide and seek with rats
09/12/2019
Studying human health at 5100 meters, and playing hide and seek with rats
In , a town 5100 meters up in the Peruvian Andes, residents get by breathing air with 50% less oxygen than at sea level. International News Editor Martin Enserink [visited the site with researchers studying chronic mountain sickness-linkTK]—when the body makes excess red blood cells in an effort to cope with oxygen deprivation—in these extreme conditions. Martin talks with host Sarah Crespi about how understanding why this illness occurs in some people and not others could help the residents of La Rinconada and the 140 million people worldwide living above 2500 meters. Read all the research and news in the . Sarah also talks with Annika Stephanie Reinhold about her work at the in Berlin training rats to play hide and seek. Surprisingly, rats —sometimes playing as the seeker, other times the hider. Annika talks with Sarah about why studying play behavior in animals is important for understanding the connections between play and learning in both rats and humans. This week’s episode was edited by . Ads on this week’s show: ; Kroger’s campaign . [Image: Tambako The Jaguar/Flickr; Music: Jeffrey Cook] Authors: Sarah Crespi; Martin Enserink
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Searching for a lost Maya city, and measuring the information density of language
09/05/2019
Searching for a lost Maya city, and measuring the information density of language
This week’s show starts with Contributing Correspondent Lizzie Wade, who spent 12 days with archaeologists [searching for a lost Maya city-linkTK] in the Chiapas wilderness in Mexico. She talks with host Sarah Crespi about how you lose a city—and how you might go about finding one. And Sarah talks with , an associate professor in the department of linguistics at the University of Hong Kong in China, about the information density of different languages. His work, published this week in Science Advances, suggests very different languages—from Chinese to Japanese to English and French—. This week’s episode was edited by . Ads on this week’s show: Kroger’s campaign; . [Image: Lizzie Wade/Science; Music: Jeffrey Cook] ++ Authors: Sarah Crespi; Lizzie Wade
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Where our microbiome came from, and how our farming and hunting ancestors transformed the world
08/29/2019
Where our microbiome came from, and how our farming and hunting ancestors transformed the world
Micro-organisms live inside everything from the human gut to coral—but where do they come from? Host Meagan Cantwell talks to Staff Writer Elizabeth Pennisi about the first comprehensive survey of microbes in Hawaii’s Waimea Valley, which revealed that plants and animals get their unique microbiomes from organisms . Going global, Meagan then speaks with , professor of geography and environmental science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, about a project that aggregated the expertise of more than 250 archaeologists to map human land use over the past 10,000 years. This will help fine-tune climate models. This week’s episode was edited by . Ads on this show: ; [Image: Chris Couderc/Flickr; Music: Jeffrey Cook] ++ Authors: Meagan Cantwell; Elizabeth Pennisi
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Promising approaches in suicide prevention, and how to retreat from climate change
08/22/2019
Promising approaches in suicide prevention, and how to retreat from climate change
Changing the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline from 1-800-273- 8255 (TALK) to a three-digit number could save lives—especially when coupled with other strategies. Host Meagan Cantwell talks to Greg Miller, a science journalist based in Portland, Oregon, about to prevent suicides—crisis hotlines, standardizing mental health care, and restricting lethal means. Greg’s feature is part of a larger package in Science exploring paths out of darkness. With more solutions this week, host Sarah Crespi speaks with , a social scientist at the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware in Newark, about her on the need for “managed climate retreat”—strategically moving people and property away from high-risk flood and fire zones. Integrating relocation into a larger strategy could maximize its benefits, supporting equality and economic development along the way. This week’s episode was edited by . Ads on this show: ; [Image: Scott Woods-Fehr/Flickr; Music: Jeffrey Cook] ++ Authors: Meagan Cantwell; Greg Miller; Sarah Crespi
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One million ways to sex a chicken egg, and how plastic finds its way to Arctic ice
08/15/2019
One million ways to sex a chicken egg, and how plastic finds its way to Arctic ice
Researchers, regulators, and the chicken industry are all united in their search for a way to make eggs more ethical by stopping culling—the killing of male chicks born to laying hens. Contributing Correspondent Gretchen Vogel talks with host Sarah Crespi about the many approaches being tried to [determine the sex of chicken embryos before they hatch-linkTK], from robots with lasers, to MRIs, to AI, to gene editing with CRISPR. Also this week, Sarah talks with , a marine biologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, Germany, about all the way up at the , between Greenland and the Svalbarg archipelago in Norway. This week’s episode was edited by . Ads on this week’s show: ; . [Image: fruchtzwerg’s world/Flickr; Music: Jeffrey Cook] ++ Authors: Sarah Crespi; Gretchen Vogel
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Next-generation cellphone signals could interfere with weather forecasts, and monitoring smoke from wildfires to model nuclear winter
08/08/2019
Next-generation cellphone signals could interfere with weather forecasts, and monitoring smoke from wildfires to model nuclear winter
In recent months, telecommunications companies in the United States have purchased a new part of the spectrum for use in 5G cellphone networks. Weather forecasters are concerned that these powerful signals could swamp out weaker signals from water vapor—which are in a nearby band and important for weather prediction. Freelance science writer Gabriel Popkin joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about the possible impact of cellphone signals on weather forecasting and some suggested regulations. In other weather news this week, Sarah talks with Pengfei Yu, a professor at Jinan University in Guangzhou, China, about his group’s work using a huge smoke plume from the 2017 wildfires in western Canada as a . They found the wildfire smoke lofted itself 23 kilometers into the stratosphere, spread across the Northern Hemisphere, and took 8 months to dissipate, which line up with models of nuclear winter and suggests these fires can help predict the results of a nuclear war. This week’s episode was edited by . Ads on this week’s show: . ++ Authors: Sarah Crespi; Gabriel Popkin
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Earthquakes caused by too much water extraction, and a dog cancer that has lived for millennia
08/01/2019
Earthquakes caused by too much water extraction, and a dog cancer that has lived for millennia
After two mysterious earthquake swarms occurred under the Sea of Galilee, researchers found a relationship between these . Science journalist Michael Price talks with host Sarah Crespi about making this connection and what it means for water-deprived fault areas like the Sea of Galilee and the state of California. Also this week, Sarah talks with graduate student from the University of Cambridge’s Transmissible Cancer Group about the genome of a canine venereal cancer that has been leaping from dog to dog for about 8000 years. By comparing the genomes of this , the researchers were able to learn more about its origins and spread around the world. They also discuss how such a long-lived cancer might help them better understand and treat human cancers. This week’s episode was edited by . Ads on this week’s show: from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . [Image: Carl Campbell/Flickr; Music: Jeffrey Cook] ++ Authors: Sarah Crespi; Michael Price
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Breeding better bees, and training AIs on emotional imagery
07/25/2019
Breeding better bees, and training AIs on emotional imagery
Imagine having a rat clinging to your back, sucking out your fat stores. That’s similar to what infested bees endure when the Varroa destructor mite comes calling. Some bees fight back, wiggling, scratching, and biting until the mites depart for friendlier backs. Now, researchers, professional beekeepers, and hobbyists are working on ways to breed into bees these mite-defeating behaviors to rid them of these damaging pests. Host Sarah Crespi and Staff Writer Erik Stokstad discuss the tactics of, and the hurdles to, pesticide-free mite control. Also this week, Sarah talks to of the Institute of Cognitive Science at the University of Colorado in Boulder about training an AI on emotionally charged images. The ultimate aim of this research: to understand how the human visual system is involved in processing emotion. And in books, Kate Eichorn, author of , joins books host Kiki Sanford to talk about how the monetization of digital information has led to the ease of social media sharing and posting for kids and adults. This week’s episode was edited by . Ads in this episode: . [Image: Steve Baker/Flickr; Music: Jeffrey Cook] ++ Authors: Sarah Crespi; Erik Stokstad; Kiki Sanford
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Can we inherit trauma from our ancestors, and the secret to dark liquid dances
07/18/2019
Can we inherit trauma from our ancestors, and the secret to dark liquid dances
Can we inherit trauma from our ancestors? Studies of behavior and biomarkers have suggested the stress of harsh conditions or family separations can be passed down, even beyond one’s children. Journalist Andrew Curry joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss a possible mechanism for this mode of inheritance and mouse studies that suggest possible . Spiky, pulsating ferrofluids are perpetual . The secret to these dark liquid dances is the manipulation of magnetic nanoparticles in the liquid by external magnets. But when those outside forces are removed, the dance ends. Now, researchers writing in Science have created that respond to other magnets, electricity, and pH by changing shape, moving, and—yes—probably even dancing. Sarah Crespi talks to of the University of Massachusetts in Amherst about the about the applications of these squishy, responsive magnets. This week’s episode was edited by . [Image: X. Liu et al., Science 2019; Music: Jeffrey Cook] ++ Authors: Sarah Crespi; Andrew Curry
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The point of pointing, and using seabirds to track ocean health
07/11/2019
The point of pointing, and using seabirds to track ocean health
You can learn a lot about ocean health from seabirds. For example, breeding failures among certain birds have been linked to the later collapse of some fisheries. Enriqueta Velarde of the Institute of Marine Sciences and Fisheries at the University of Veracruz in Mexico, joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about what these and its inhabitants. Also this week, Sarah and Cathal O’Madagain of the discuss pointing—a universal human gesture common to almost all children before age 1. They discuss , and how this simple gesture may underlie humans’ amazing ability to collaborate and coordinate. This week’s episode was edited by . Ads on the show: [Image: C. O'Madagain et al., Science Advances 2019; Music: Jeffrey Cook] ++ Authors: Sarah Crespi;
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Converting carbon dioxide into gasoline, and ‘autofocal’ glasses with lenses that change shape on the fly
07/04/2019
Converting carbon dioxide into gasoline, and ‘autofocal’ glasses with lenses that change shape on the fly
Chemists have long known how to convert carbon dioxide into fuels—but up until now, such processes have been too expensive for commercial use. Staff Writer Robert Service talks with host Sarah Crespi about using new filters and catalysts to close the gap between air-derived and fossil-derived gasoline. Also this week, host Sarah Crespi talks with Nitish Padmanaban of in Palo Alto, California, about These auto-focusing glasses track your eye position and measure the distance to the visual target before adjusting the thickness of their liquid lenses. The prototype glasses have an onboard camera and batteries that make them particularly bulky; however, they still outperformed progressive lenses in tests of focus speed and acuity. This week’s episode was edited by . . [Image: N. Padmanaban et al., Science Advances 2019; Music: Jeffrey Cook] ++ Authors: Sarah Crespi; Robert Service
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Creating chimeras for organ transplants and how bats switch between their eyes and ears on the wing
06/27/2019
Creating chimeras for organ transplants and how bats switch between their eyes and ears on the wing
Researchers have been making animal embryos from two different species, so-called “chimeras,” for years, by introducing stem cells from one species into a very early embryo of another species. The ultimate goal is to coax the foreign cells into forming an organ for transplantation. But questions abound: Can evolutionarily distant animals, like pigs and humans, be mixed together to produce such organs? Or could species closely related to us, like chimps and marques, stand in for tests with human cells? Staff writer Kelly Servick joins host Sarah Crespi to [discuss the research, the regulations, and the growing ethical debate-linkTK]. Also this week, Sarah talks with of the School of Zoology and the Sagol School of Neuroscience at Tel Aviv University about his work on sensory integration in bats. Writing in Science Advances, he and his colleagues show through several clever experiments when bats . Yossi and Sarah discuss how these tradeoffs in bats can inform larger questions about our own perception. For our monthly books segment, Science books editor Valerie Thompson talks with of the Seismological Laboratory of Caltech about a song she created, based on 130 years of temperature data, for an instrument called the “viola de gamba.” Read more on the . This week’s episode was edited by . Ads on the show: ; [Image: The Legend Kay/Flickr; Music: Jeffrey Cook] ++ Authors: Sarah Crespi; Kelly Servick
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The why of puppy dog eyes, and measuring honesty on a global scale
06/20/2019
The why of puppy dog eyes, and measuring honesty on a global scale
How can you resist puppy dog eyes? This sweet, soulful look might very well have by their intended victims—humans. Online News Editor David Grimm talks with host Meagan Cantwell about a new study on the evolution of this endearing facial maneuver. David also talks about what diseased dog spines can tell us about early domestication—were these marks of hard work or a gentler old age for our doggy domestics? Also this week, host Sarah Crespi talks with in Switzerland about honesty around the globe. By tracking about 17,000 wallets left at hotels, post offices, and banks, his team found that than either economic models or our own intuitions give us credit for. This week’s episode was edited by . Ads on the show: . [Image: Molly Marshall/Flickr; Music: Jeffrey Cook] ++ Authors: Sarah Crespi; Meagan Cantwell; David Grimm
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Better hurricane forecasts and spotting salts on Jupiter’s moon Europa
06/13/2019
Better hurricane forecasts and spotting salts on Jupiter’s moon Europa
We’ve all seen images or animations of hurricanes that color code the wind speeds inside the whirling mass—but it turns out we can do a better job measuring these winds and, as a result, better predict the path of the storm. Staff Writer Paul Voosen talks with host Sarah Crespi about how a microsatellite-based project for measuring hurricane wind speeds is showing signs of success—despite unexpected obstacles from the U.S. military’s tweaking of GPS signals. Also this week, Sarah talks with graduate student , a Ph.D. candidate in planetary science at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, about spotting . What can these salts on the surface tell us about the oceans that lie beneath Europa’s icy crust? This week’s episode was edited by . Ads on the show: ; [Image: Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute; Music: Jeffrey Cook] ++ Authors: Sarah Crespi; Paul Voosen
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The limits on human endurance, and a new type of LED
06/06/2019
The limits on human endurance, and a new type of LED
Cheap and easy to make, perovskite minerals have become the wonder material of solar energy. Now, scientists are turning from using perovskites to capture light to using them to emit it. Staff Writer Robert Service joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about , from cellphones to flat screen TVs. in Science Advances. Also this week, Sarah talks with , a biologist at Nassau Community College in Garden City, New York, about . Her group used data from —who ran 957 kilometers over the course of 20 weeks—and found that after about 100 days, their metabolism settled in at about 2.5 times the baseline rate, suggesting a hard limit on human endurance at long timescales. Earlier studies based on the 23-day Tour de France found much higher levels of energy expenditure, in the four- to five- times-baseline range. This week’s episode was edited by . Ads on the show: . [Image: N. Zhou et al., Science Advances 2019; Music: Jeffrey Cook] ++ Authors: Sarah Crespi; Robert Service
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Grad schools dropping the GRE requirement and AIs play capture the flag
05/30/2019
Grad schools dropping the GRE requirement and AIs play capture the flag
Up until this year, most U.S. graduate programs in the sciences required the General Record Examination from applicants. But concerns about what the test scores actually say about potential students and the worry that the cost is a barrier to many have led to a [rapid and dramatic reduction in the number of programs requiring the test-linkTK]. Science Staff Writer Katie Langin joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about this trend and how it differs across disciplines. Also this week, Sarah talks with DeepMind’s in London about training artificial agents to play a video game version of capture the flag. The agents played approximately 4 years’ worth of Quake III Arena and came out better than even expert human players at both cooperating and collaborating, even when their computer-quick reflexes were hampered. And in this month’s book segment, new host interviews Marcus Du Satoy about his book The Creativity Code: Art and Innovation in the Age of AI. This week’s episode was edited by . Ads this week: . [Image: DeepMind; Music: Jeffrey Cook] ++ Authors: Sarah Crespi; Katie Langin; Kiki Sanford
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