Science Magazine Podcast

Science Magazine Podcast


Latest Episodes

How Neanderthals got human Y chromosomes, and the earliest human footprints in Arabia
September 24, 2020

Contributing Correspondent Ann Gibbons talks with host Sarah Crespi about a series of 120,000-year-old human footprints found alongside prints from animals like asses, elephants, and camels in a dried-up lake on the Arabian Peninsula. These are the earlie

Performing magic for animals, and why the pandemic is pushing people out of prisons
September 17, 2020

Staff Writer Kelly Servick joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss how jail and prison populations in the United States have dropped in the face of coronavirus and what kinds of scientific questions about public health and criminal justice are arising as a res

Alien hunters get a funding boost, and checking on the link between chromosome ‘caps’ and aging
September 10, 2020

First up this week, Senior Correspondent Daniel Clery talks with host Sarah Crespi about how Breakthrough Listen—a privately funded initiative that aims to spend $100 million over 10 years to find extraterrestrial intelligent life—has changed the hunt for

Fighting Europe’s second wave of COVID-19, and making democracy work for poor people
September 03, 2020

First up this week, Contributing Correspondent Kai Kupferschmidt talks with host Sarah Crespi about rising numbers of coronavirus cases in Europe. Will what we’ve learned this summer about how the virus is transmitted and treated help prevent a second pea

Arctic sea ice under attack, ancient records that can predict the future effects of climate change, and Carl Bergstrom's Calling Bullshit
August 27, 2020

Staff Writer Paul Voosen talks with host Sarah Crespi about how Arctic sea ice is under attack from above and below—not only from warming air, but also dangerous hot blobs of ocean water. Next, Damien Fordham, a professor and global change ecologist at t

Wildlife behavior during a global lockdown, and electric mud microbes
August 20, 2020

Staff Writer Erik Stokstad joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about how wildlife biologists are taking advantage of humanity’s sudden lull. Scientists are launching studies of everything from sea turtles on suddenly quiet beaches to noise-averse birds living

A call for quick coronavirus testing, and building bonds with sports
August 13, 2020

Staff Writer Robert Service talks with host Sarah Crespi about a different approach to COVID-19 testing that might be useful in response to the high numbers of cases in the United States. To break chains of transmission and community spread, the new strat

Why COVID-19 poses a special risk during pregnancy, and how hair can split steel
August 06, 2020

Staff Writer Meredith Wadman joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the risk of the novel coronavirus infection to pregnant women. Early data suggest expectant women are more likely to get severe forms of the infection and require hospitalization. Meredith de

Fighting COVID-19 vaccine fears, tracking the pandemic’s origin, and a new technique for peering under paint
July 30, 2020

Science Editor-in-Chief Holden Thorp joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss his editorial on preventing vaccine hesitancy during the coronavirus pandemic. Even before the current crisis, fear of vaccines had become a global problem, with the World Health Orga

How Hiroshima survivors helped form radiation safety rules, and a path to stop plastic pollution
July 23, 2020

Contributing Correspondent Dennis Normile talks about a long-term study involving the survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Seventy-five years after the United States dropped nuclear bombs on the two cities in Japan, survivors are still helpin