Nature Podcast

Tiny satellite sets new record for secure quantum communication

19 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

00:46 Microsatellite makes messaging secureA tiny satellite has enabled quantum-encrypted information to be sent between China and South Africa, the f...

Sapphire anvils squeeze metals atomically-thin

12 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

00:46 2D metals made using sapphire pressTaking inspiration from industrial forging, researchers have demonstrated a way to squeeze molten metals into...

Earliest crafted bone tools date back 1.5 million years

05 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

00:46 Ancient humans made bone tools 1.5 million years agoA 1.5-million-year-old cache of animal-bone tools reveals that ancient humans systematically...

Audio long read: Why kids need to take more risks — science reveals the benefits of wild, free play

28 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Over the past two decades, research has emerged showing that opportunities for risky play are crucial for children's healthy physical, mental and emot...

If your heart stops, this smartwatch-AI can call for help

26 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

00:47 A ‘smart’ way to quickly detect cardiac arrestGoogle researchers have developed an AI for a smartwatch that will call for help if its wearer...

Racist ratings linger in five-star systems — a thumbs up could fix that

19 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

01:14 A simple switch to reduce racist ratingsA study of almost 70,000 ratings showed that racial discrimination could be eliminated from an online pl...

Record-breaking neutrino detected by huge underwater telescope

12 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode:00:45 An elusive, cosmic neutrino with a record-breaking energyAn enormous array of detectors, deep under the Mediterranean Sea, has c...

From viral variants to devastating storms, how names shape the public's reaction to science

07 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In episode 2 of 'What's in a name' we look how choosing names can help, or hinder, attempts to communicate important messages.Categorizing things is c...

Kids' real-world arithmetic skills don't transfer to the classroom

05 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode:00:45 How arithmetic skills don’t transfer between applied and academic environmentsMathematics skills learnt in real-world situatio...

The AI revolution is running out of data. What can researchers do?

31 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The explosive improvement in artificial intelligence (AI) technology has largely been driven by making neural networks bigger and training them on mor...

Asteroid Bennu contains building blocks of life

29 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode:00:46 Evidence of ancient brine reveals Bennu’s watery pastAnalysis of samples taken from the asteroid Bennu reveal the presence of ...

What's the best way to become a professor? The answer depends on where you are

22 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

00:56 How the paths to professorship varyA huge analysis of hiring practices has revealed that criteria to get a promotion to full professorship is hu...

AI-designed antivenoms could help treat lethal snakebites

15 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

00:46 Designing new antivenoms to treat snakebitesResearchers have shown that machine learning can quickly design antivenoms that are effective agains...

A new-year round-up of the science stories you may have missed

08 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of the Nature Podcast, we catch up on some science stories from the holiday period by diving into the Nature Briefing.00:53 ...

Science in 2025: what to expect this year

01 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, reporter Miryam Naddaf joins us to talk about the big science events to look out for in 2025. We’ll hear about: the latest Moon mis...

Audio long read: How a silly science prize changed my career

27 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Marc Abrahams created the Ig Nobel prizes in 1991, after years of collecting examples of weird research that he included in the Journal of Irrepr...

The Nature Podcast highlights of 2024

25 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

00:36 How melting ice is affecting global timekeepingNature Podcast: 27 March 2024Research article: Agnew09:19 Sex and gender discussions do...

Behind the scenes of Nature News and Views in 2024

20 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

02:54 The death star moon and a win for the little guysThe shifting orbit of one of Saturn’s moons indicates that the satellite has a subsurface oce...

The Nature Podcast festive spectacular 2024

18 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

01:11 “Ozempic you’re able”In the first of our annual festive songs celebrating the science of the past year, we pay homage to Ozempic, or Semag...

Should offensive species names be changed? The organisms that honour dictators, racists and criminals

16 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Categorizing things is central to science. And there are dozens of systems scientists have created to name everything from the trenches on the sea bed...

Targeted mRNA therapy tackles deadly pregnancy condition in mice

11 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

00:45 A potential treatment for pre-eclampsiaResearchers have shown in mice experiments that an mRNA-based therapy can reverse the underlying causes o...

Will humans ever speak wolf? A scientist unravels the complexities of animal chatter

09 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Zoologist Arik Kershenbaum has spent his career studying animals and how they communicate in the wild. In his book Why Animals Talk: The New Scie...

Why breast cancer treatments might work best just after your period

04 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

00:48 Chemotherapy efficacy varies with the menstrual cycleBreast cancer cells are more susceptible to chemotherapy at certain points in the menstrual...

Audio long read: AI has dreamt up a blizzard of new proteins. Do any of them actually work?

29 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

AI tools that help researchers design new proteins have resulted in a boom in designer molecules. However, these proteins are being churned out faster...

Fossilised faeces helps explain dinosaurs' rise to dominance

27 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

00:50 Fossilised faeces give news insights into dinosaurs’ diets and riseA huge collection of fossilised digestive contents has provided clues as to...

Squid-inspired pills squirt drugs straight into your gut

20 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

00:45 A squid-inspired device for needle-free drug deliveryInspired by squids’ ability to shoot ink, a team of researchers have developed swallowabl...

Bone marrow in the skull plays a surprisingly important role in ageing

13 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

00:46 The role of skull bone marrow in ageingDuring ageing, bone marrow in the skull becomes an increasingly important site of blood-cell production. ...

’Rapture and beauty’: a writer's portrait of the International Space Station

08 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Samantha Harvey's Booker Prize shortlisted novel Orbital is set inside an International Space Station-like vessel circling 250 miles above E...

Surprise finding reveals mitochondrial 'energy factories' come in two different types

06 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

00:46 Mitochondria divide their labour to help cells thriveResearchers have uncovered that mitochondria divide into two distinct forms when cells are ...

REBROADCAST: Talking politics, talking science

03 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This series was originally broadcast in 2020.Science and politics are not easy bedfellows - "Stick to the science" is a three part series which aims t...

REBROADCAST: Politics of the life scientific

02 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This series was originally broadcast in 2020.Science and politics are not easy bedfellows - "Stick to the science" is a three part series which aims t...

REBROADCAST: A brief history of politics and science

01 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This series was originally broadcast in 2020.Science and politics are not easy bedfellows - "Stick to the science" is a three part series which aims t...

How to recover from the trauma of a climate disaster

30 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

00:48 Rebuilding mental health after the floodsResearchers have been investigating the best ways to help people deal with trauma in the wake of a clim...

Audio long read: Which is the fairest electoral system? Mega-election year sparks debate

25 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

By the end of 2024 up to two billion people will have gone to the polls, in a pivotal year of elections around the globe. This is giving political sci...

Massive lost mountain cities revealed by lasers

23 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

00:48 The hidden cities of UzbekistanResearchers have uncovered the scale of two ancient cities buried high in the mountains of Uzbekistan. The cities...

Star-eating black hole could power cosmic particle accelerator

16 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode:00:46 An unusual γ-ray producing microquasarA type of binary-system known as a microquasar has been found to be firing out γ-rays at...

This AI powered 'tongue' can tell Coke and Pepsi apart

09 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

00:55 Graphene TongueResearchers have developed a graphene ‘tongue’ that uses AI to tell the subtle differences between drinks. Graphene has long ...

Strange gamma-ray flickers seen in thunderstorms for the first time

02 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

00:46 Physicists spot new types of high-energy radiation in thunderstormsPhysicists have identified new forms of γ-ray radiation created inside thund...

Audio long read: A day in the life of the world’s fastest supercomputer

27 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The world's fastest supercomputer, known as Frontier, is located at the Leadership Computing Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. T...

Children with Down's syndrome are more likely to get leukaemia: stem-cells hint at why

25 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode:00:46 Unravelling why children with Down’s syndrome are at a higher risk of leukaemiaChildren with Down’s syndrome have a 150-fold...

Colossal 'jets' shooting from a black hole defy physicists' theories

18 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode:00:45 The biggest black hole jets ever seenAstronomers have spotted a pair of enormous jets emanating from a supermassive black hole w...

Ancient DNA debunks Rapa Nui ‘ecological suicide’ theory

11 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode:00:45 What ancient DNA has revealed about Rapa Nui’s pastAncient DNA analysis has further demonstrated that the people of Rapa Nui d...

The baseless stat that could be harming Indigenous conservation efforts

06 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The often repeated claim that "80% of the world's biodiversity is found in the territories of Indigenous Peoples" appears widely in policy documents a...

Long-sought 'nuclear clocks' are one tick closer

04 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode:00:45 Why a 'nuclear clock' is now within researchers’ reachResearchers have made a big step towards the creation of the long theori...

Audio long read: So you got a null result. Will anyone publish it?

30 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The 'file-drawer problem', where findings with null or negative results gather dust and are left unpublished, is well known in science. There has been...

Covert racism in AI chatbots, precise Stone Age engineering, and the science of paper cuts

28 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode:00:31 Chatbots makes racist judgements on the basis of dialectResearch has shown that large language models, including those that powe...

Can ageing be stopped? A biologist explains

22 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For millennia, humanity has obsessed about halting ageing and, ultimately, preventing death. Yet while advances in medicine and public-health have see...

AI can't learn new things forever — an algorithm can fix that

21 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

00:46 Old AIs can’t learn new tricksAn algorithm that reactivates dormant ‘neurons’ in deep learning based AIs could help them overcome their in...

The mystery of Stonehenge's central stone unearthed

14 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

00:48 The mystery of Stonehenge’s Altar StoneStonehenge’s central stone came from Northern Scotland, more than 600 miles away from the monument, a...

ChatGPT has a language problem — but science can fix it

09 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

AIs built on Large Language Models have wowed by producing particularly fluent text. However, their ability to do this is limited in many languages. A...

Where weird plants thrive: aridity spurs diversity of traits

07 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

00:48 Plant trait diversity in drylandsA study reveals that, unexpectedly, plants display a greater diversity of traits in drier environments. Trait d...

How light-based computers could cut AI’s energy needs

31 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

00:45 Increasing the energy efficiency of light-based computersComputer components based on specialised LEDs could reduce the energy consumption of po...

Audio long read: Hope, despair and CRISPR — the race to save one woman’s life

26 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In India, a group of researchers raced to develop a CRISPR-based genome editing therapy to save the life of a young woman with a rare neurodegenerativ...

Rapid sepsis test identifies bacteria that spark life-threatening infection

24 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

00:48 A rapid way to identify serious bacterial infectionsA newly-developed method that can rapidly identify the type of bacteria causing a blood-infe...

The plastic that biodegrades in your home compost

17 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

01:04 A gel to safely transport proteinsA gel that encases proteins could be a new way to safely transport medicines without requiring them to be kept...

Breastfeeding should break down mothers' bones — here's why it doesn't

10 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

00:45 In situ editing of the gut microbiomeResearchers have developed a method to directly edit the genes of specific bacteria in the guts of live mic...

These frog 'saunas’ could help endangered species fight off a deadly fungus

03 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

00:47 Searching for dark matter in black holesResearchers have been scanning the skies looking for black holes that formed at the very beginning of th...

Audio long read: How NASA astronauts are training to walk on the Moon in 2026

28 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 2026, NASA aims to send humans back to the Moon's surface, as part of the Artemis III mission. In preparation, astronauts have been performing moon...

Why ‘open source’ AIs could be anything but, the derailment risks of long freight trains, and breeding better wheat

26 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

00:31 How open are ‘open source’ AI systems?Many of the large language models powering AI systems are described as ‘open source’ but critics s...

How do fish know where a sound comes from? Scientists have an answer

19 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

00:46 How light touches are sensed during sex150 years after they were discovered, researchers have identified how specific nerve-cell structures on t...

Hybrid working works: huge study reveals no drop in productivity

12 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

00:48 Short-haul spaceflight's effect on the human body.A comprehensive suite of biomedical data, collected during the first all-civilian spaceflight,...

Twitter suspended 70,000 accounts after the Capitol riots and it curbed misinformation

05 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode:00:46 Making a molecular Bose-Einstein condensateFor the first time, researchers have coaxed molecules into a bizarre form of matter c...

How AI could improve robotics, the cockroach’s origins, and promethium spills its secrets

29 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode:00:25 What the rise of AI language models means for robotsCompanies are melding artificial intelligence with robotics, in an effort to...

How mathematician Freeman Hrabowski opened doors for Black scientists

28 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Growing up in Alabama in the 1960s, mathematician Freeman Hrabowski was moved to join the civil rights moment after hearing Martin Luther King Jr spea...

Audio long read: How does ChatGPT ‘think’? Psychology and neuroscience crack open AI large language models

24 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

AIs are often described as 'black boxes' with researchers unable to to figure out how they 'think'. To better understand these often inscrutable syste...

Fentanyl addiction: the brain pathways behind the opioid crisis

22 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

00:45 The neuroscience of fentanyl addictionResearch in mice has shown that fentanyl addiction is the result of two brain circuits working in tandem, ...

Lizard-inspired building design could save lives

15 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode:00:45 A recyclable 3D printing resin from an unusual sourceMany 3D printers create objects using liquid resins that turn into robust s...

Alphafold 3.0: the AI protein predictor gets an upgrade

08 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode:00:45 A nuclear timekeeper that could transform fundamental-physics research.Nuclear clocks — based on tiny shifts in energy in an a...

Talking about sex and gender doesn't need to be toxic

02 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Ever since scientific enquiry began, people have focused mainly on men, or if studies involve animals, on male mice, male rats or whatever it may be. ...

Dad's microbiome can affect offsprings' health — in mice

01 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode:00:46 Using genomics to explain geographic differences in cancer riskThe risk of developing cancer can vary hugely depending on geogra...

Audio long read: Why loneliness is bad for your health

26 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Many people around the world feel lonely. Chronic loneliness is known to have far-reaching health effects and has been linked to multiple conditions a...

How gliding marsupials got their 'wings'

24 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode:00:46 Optical clocks at seaOptical atomic clocks are the most precise timekeeping devices on the planet, but these devices are huge an...

Living on Mars would probably suck — here's why

19 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Humans setting up home in outer space has long been the preserve of science fiction. Now, thanks to advances in technology and the backing of billiona...

Keys, wallet, phone: the neuroscience behind working memory

17 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode:00:46 Mysterious methane emission from a cool brown dwarfThe James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is revealing the makeup of brown dwarfs...

The 'ghost roads' driving tropical deforestation

10 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode:00:46 Mapping ‘ghost roads’ in tropical forestsAcross the world, huge numbers of illegal roads have been cut into forests. However...

Audio long read: Why are so many young people getting cancer? What the data say

05 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Around the world, rates of cancers that typically affect older adults are increasing in those under 50 years old. Models based on global data predict ...

Pregnancy's effect on 'biological' age, polite birds, and the carbon cost of home-grown veg

03 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode:00:35 Pregnancy advances your ‘biological’ age — but giving birth turns it backGrowing a baby leads to changes in the distributi...

How climate change is affecting global timekeeping

27 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode:01:28 Inflammation’s role in memoryHow memories are stored is an ongoing question in neuroscience. Now researchers have found an inf...

AI hears hidden X factor in zebra finch love songs

20 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This podcast has been corrected: in a previous version at 5:55 we stated that that the team's 200mm devices currently contain only a couple of magneti...

Killer whales have menopause. Now scientists think they know why

13 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode:00:45 Making a map of the human heartThe human heart consists of multiple, specialised structures that all work together to enable the...

These tiny fish combine electric pulses to probe the environment

06 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode:00:48 Bumblebees can learn new tricks from each otherOne behaviour thought unique to humans is the ability to learn something from you...

Could this one-time ‘epigenetic’ treatment control cholesterol?

28 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode:00:49 What caused the Universe to become fully transparent?Around 13 billion years ago, the Universe was filled with a dense ‘fog’...

Audio long read: Chimpanzees are dying from our colds — these scientists are trying to save them

26 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The phenomenon of animals catching diseases from humans, called reverse zoonoses, has had a severe impact on great ape populations, often representing...

How whales sing without drowning, an anatomical mystery solved

23 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The deep haunting tones of the world's largest animals, baleen whales, are iconic - but how the songs are produced has long been a mystery. Whales evo...

Why are we nice? Altruism's origins are put to the test

21 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode:00:45 Why are humans so helpful?Humans are notable for their cooperation and display far more altruistic behaviour than other animals,...

Smoking changes your immune system, even years after quitting

14 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

00:45 Smoking's long-term effects on immunityIt's well-known that smoking is bad for health and it has been linked to several autoimmune disorders, bu...

Why we need to rethink how we talk about cancer

09 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For over a century, cancer has been classified by areas of the body - lung cancer, breast cancer, skin cancer etc. And yet modern medical researc...

Cancer's power harnessed — lymphoma mutations supercharge T cells

07 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode:0:46 Borrowing tricks from cancer could help improve immunotherapyT cell based immunotherapies have revolutionised the treatment of ce...

Cervical cancer could be eliminated: here's how

04 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Cervical cancer is both treatable and preventable, and the WHO has called for countries to come together to to eliminate the disease in the next centu...

Ancient DNA solves the mystery of who made a set of stone tools

31 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode:0:48 How hominins spread through EuropeAncient stone tools are often uncovered in Europe, but it can be difficult to identify who craf...

Audio long read: Long COVID is a double curse in low-income nations — here’s why

26 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Evidence so far suggests that the prevalence of long COVID in low- and middle-income countries could be similar to that of wealthier countries. For ex...

Toxic red mud could be turned into 'green' steel

24 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode:0:46 Turning a toxic by-product into ironRed mud is a toxic by-product of aluminium manufacture, and millions of tonnes of it is produ...

This AI just figured out geometry — is this a step towards artificial reasoning?

17 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode:0:55 The AI that deduces solutions to complex maths problemsResearchers at Google Deepmind have developed an AI that can solve Interna...

The science stories you missed over the holiday period

10 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of the Nature Podcast, we catch up on some science stories from the holiday period by diving into the Nature Briefing.We chat about: a...

Science in 2024: what to expect this year

03 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, reporter Miryam Naddaf joins us to talk about the big science events to look out for in 2024. We'll hear about the mass of the n...

Audio long read: A new kind of solar cell is coming — is it the future of green energy?

29 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Perovskites are cheap, abundant photovoltaic materials that some have hailed as the future of green energy.Around the world, companies are layering pe...

The Nature Podcast highlights of 2023

27 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode:00:54 Franklin’s real roleWhen it comes to the structure of DNA, everyone thinks they know Rosalind Franklin’s role in its discove...

How AI works is often a mystery — that's a problem

22 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Many AIs are 'black box' in nature, meaning that part of all of the underlying structure is obfuscated, either intentionally to protect proprietary in...

The Nature Podcast Festive Spectacular 2023

20 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode:01:55 “Oh GPT”In the first of our festive songs, we pay homage to LLMs, the generative AI chat bots which have taken 2023 by storm...

Navigating planets, plays and prejudice — a conversation with Aomawa Shields

15 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the latest episode of Nature hits the books, astronomer Aomawa Shields discusses her memoir Life on Other Planets: A Memoir of Finding My Place in ...