Science Magazine Podcast

How to keep quantum computers cool, whether prediction markets harm public health, and podcasting on podcasting

16 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, quantum computers require extremely low temperatures—less than 1°C away from absolute zero. But getting down to those temp...

The Normals | Episode 2

14 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Last time on The Normals, we learned that in the 1950s, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) wanted to recruit many healthy volunteers for basic re...

A chimpanzee ‘civil war,’ and NASA plans for nuclear propulsion

09 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, freelance science journalist Hannah Richter joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss NASA’s plans to send a nuclear-powered space...

The Normals | Episode 1

07 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

How do we know what's normal in a person? In the early 1950s, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) set out to do something unprecedented. It wanted...

Resolving the dispute over the speed of the expanding universe, and seeking new drug targets for cognitive dysfunction

02 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, a new path to calculating the Hubble constant. This value for the universe’s speed of expansion is typically determined in ...

Resurrection plants, Project Hail Mary, and the trouble with sycophantic AI

26 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, Deputy News Editor Martin Enserink talks about so-called resurrection plants. These specialized plants can survive up to 95% ...

Rethinking the peopling of the Americas, and the best ways to get groundwater back

19 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, we discuss a finding that’s likely to reignite debate over how humans first spread through the Americas. In the late 1990s,...

What Alaska’s eroding coastline says about Earth’s future, and how Yellowstone ravens use their smarts to find wolf kills

12 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, freelance journalist Evan Howell traveled to Cape Blossom, Alaska, where the receding coastline has revealed an ancient trove...

An alleged nuclear blast may reignite weapons testing, and who owns the Moon

05 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, a peek into the roiling seas of U.S. science policy. ScienceInsider Editor Jocelyn Kaiser talks about shifting leadershi...

Tropical birds’ ‘silent spring,’ and mapping people’s brains during surgery

26 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, producer Meagan Cantwell talks to Contributing Correspondent Warren Cornwall about his visit to Brazil, where he observed fir...

Matching sounds to shapes, and stories from the AAAS annual meeting

19 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, Newsletter Editor Christie Wilcox, Associate Online News Editor Michael Greshko, and intern Perri Thaler share their experien...

Building better working dogs, and watching a black hole form

12 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, more than half of all dogs going through service animal training don’t make it to graduation. Producer Kevin McLean journey...

Engineering safer football helmets, and the science behind drug overdoses

05 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, host Sarah Crespi and Staff Writer Adrian Cho talk football and the latest science behind helmets engineered to reduce head i...

Shielding astronauts from cosmic rays, and planning the end of fossil fuels

29 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, how do we protect astronauts when they leave the shelter of Earth’s protective magnetic fields and face the slow, constant ...

Tracking falling space debris via sonic booms, and getting drunk off your own microbes

22 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

First up with Jennie Erin Smith, Science’s new senior biomedicine reporter, we delve into: autobrewery syndrome, when microbes inside the human gut ...

Reversing ecological destruction in the Galápagos, and finally mapping Antarctica’s surface

15 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, freelance science journalist Sofia Quaglia talks about her visit to the Galápagos archipelago and how researchers there are ...

The real da Vinci code, and the world’s oldest poison arrows

08 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, scholars are on a quest to find Leonardo da Vinci’s DNA. With no direct descendants, the hunt involves sampling the famous ...

Looking for continents on exoplanets, and math is hard for mathematicians, too

01 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, the best images of exoplanets right now are basically bright dots. We can’t see possible continents, potential oceans, or e...

This year’s biggest breakthrough and top news stories

18 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, Online News Editor David Grimm joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about this year’s best online news stories—top performers ...

Hunting asteroids from space, and talking to pollinators with heat

11 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, we’ve likely only found about half the so-called city-killer asteroids (objects more than 140 meters in diameter). Freelanc...

Grappling with declining populations, and the future of quantum mechanics

04 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, Science celebrates 100 years of quantum mechanics with a special issue covering the past, present, and future of the field. N...

When we’ll hit peak carbon emissions, and macaques that keep the beat

27 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, when will the world hit peak carbon emissions? It’s not an easy question to answer because emissions cannot be directly mea...

A headless mystery, and a deep dive on dog research

20 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast: the mysterious fate of Europe’s Neolithic farmers. They arrived from Anatolia around 5500 B.C.E. and began farming fertile ...

Solving the ‘golfer’s curse’ and using space as a heat sink

13 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, Online News Editor David Grimm joins host Sarah Crespi for a rundown of online news stories. They talk about lichen that dine...

Understanding early Amazon communities and saving the endangered pocket mouse

06 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, Contributing Correspondent Sofia Moutinho visited the Xingu Indigenous territory in Brazil to learn about a long-standing col...

Detecting the acidity of the ocean with sound, the role of lead in human evolution, and how the universe ends

30 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, increased carbon dioxide emissions sink more acidity into the ocean, but checking pH all over the world, up and down the wate...

The contagious buzz of bumble bee positivity, and when snow crabs vanish

23 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, the Bering Sea’s snow crabs are bouncing back after a 50-billion-crab die-off in 2020, but scientists are racing to predict...

Hunting ancient viruses in the Arctic, and how ants build their nests to fight disease

16 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, Contributing Correspondent Kai Kupferschmidt takes a trip to Svalbard, an Arctic archipelago where ancient RNA viruses may li...

How birds reacted to a solar eclipse, and keeping wildfire smoke out of wine 

09 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, producer Kevin McLean talks with Associate Online News Editor Michael Greshko about the impact of wildfires on wine; a couple...

A new generation of radiotherapies for cancer, and why we sigh

02 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, Staff Writer Robert F. Service joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about a boom in nuclear medicine, from new and more powerful r...

Salty permafrost’s role in Arctic melting, the promise of continuous protein monitoring, and death in the ancient world

25 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, Science News Editor Tim Appenzeller joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss why a salty layer of permafrost undergirding Arctic ic...

Protecting newborns from an invisible killer, the rise of drones for farming, and a Druid mystery

18 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, freelance science journalist Leslie Roberts joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about the long journey to a vaccine for group B s...

An aggressive cancer’s loophole, and a massive field of hydrogen beneath the ocean floor

11 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, aggressive tumors have a secret cache of DNA that may help them beat current drug treatments. Freelance journalist Elie Dolgi...

Finding HIV’s last bastion in the body, and playing the violin like a cricket

04 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, despite so many advances in treatment, HIV drugs can suppress the virus but can’t cure the infection. Where does suppresse...

A mother lode of Mexican mammoths, how water pollution enters the air, and a book on playing dead

28 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, Staff Writer Rodrigo Pérez Ortega joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about a megafauna megafind that rivals the La Brea Tar Pit...

New insights into endometriosis, and mapping dengue in Latin America

21 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, Staff Writer Meredith Wadman joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss recent advances in understanding endometriosis—a disease wh...

Why chatbots lie, and can synthetic organs and AI replace animal testing?

14 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, producer Meagan Cantwell and Contributing Correspondent Sara Reardon discuss alternative approaches to animal testing, from a...

Why anteaters keep evolving, and how giant whales get enough food to live

07 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, Online News Editor David Grimm brings stories on peacock feathers’ ability to emit laser light, how anteaters have evolved ...

Wartime science in Ukraine, what Neanderthals really ate, and visiting the city of the dead

31 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, Contributing Correspondent Richard Stone joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about the toll of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine an...

Robots that eat other robots, and an ancient hot spot of early human relatives

24 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, South Africa’s Cradle of Humankind is home to the world’s greatest concentration of ancestral human remains, including ou...

Studying a shark-haunted island, and upgrading our microbiomes with engineered bacteria

17 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, Réunion Island had a shark attack crisis in 2011 and closed its beaches for more than a decade. Former News Intern Alexa Rob...

A tardi party for the ScienceAdviser newsletter, and sled dog genomes

10 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, Newsletter Editor Christie Wilcox joins host Sarah Crespi to celebrate the 2-year anniversary of ScienceAdviser with many sto...

Losing years of progress against HIV, and farming plastic on Mars

03 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, U.S. aid helped two African countries rein in HIV. Then came President Donald Trump. Senior News Correspondent Jon Cohen talk...

Will your family turn you into a chatbot after you die? Plus, synthetic squid skin, and the sway of matriarchs in ancient Anatolia

26 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, Contributing Correspondent Andrew Curry joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss a pair of Science papers on kinship and culture in...

How effective are plastic bag bans? And a whole new way to do astronomy

19 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory is just coming online, and once fully operational, it will take a snapshot of the entire southe...

Why peanut allergy is so common and hot forests as test beds for climate change

12 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, Staff Writer Erik Stokstad talks with host Sarah Crespi about how scientists are probing the world’s hottest forests to bet...

Farming maize in ice age Michigan, predicting the future climate of cities, and our host takes a quiz on the sounds of science

05 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, we hear from Staff Writer Paul Voosen about the tricky problem of regional climate prediction. Although global climate change...

Tickling in review, spores in the stratosphere, and longevity research

29 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, Online News Editor Michael Greshko joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about stories set high above our heads. They discuss captu...

Strange metals and our own personal ‘oxidation fields’

22 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, freelance journalist Zack Savitsky joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about the strange metal state. Physicists are probing the ...

A horse science roundup and using dubious brain scans as evidence of crimes

15 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, freelance journalist Jonathan Moens talks with host Sarah Crespi about a forensic test called brain electrical oscillation si...

Analyzing music from ancient Greece and Rome, and the 100 days that shook science

08 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, producer Meagan Cantwell worked with the Science News team to review how the first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s adm...

Tales from an Italian crypt, and the science behind ‘dad bods’

01 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, Contributing Correspondent Andrew Curry talks with host Sarah Crespi about his visit to 17th century crypts under an old hosp...

A caterpillar that haunts spiderwebs, solving the last riddles of a famed friar, and a new book series

24 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, bringing Gregor Mendel’s peas into the 21st century. Back in the 19th century Mendel, a friar and naturalist, tracked trait...

Linking cat domestication to ancient cult sacrifices, and watching aurorae wander

17 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, Online News Editor David Grimm joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about how an Egyptian cult that killed cats may have also tame...

The metabolic consequences of skipping sleep, and cuts and layoffs slam NIH

10 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up on the podcast, ScienceInsider Editor Jocelyn Kaiser joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss big changes in science funding and government jobs th...

Talking about engineering the climate, and treating severe nausea and vomiting during pregnancy

03 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Geoengineering experiments face an uphill battle, and a way to combat the pregnancy complication hyperemesis gravidarum First up on the podcast, clim...

Studying urban wildfires, and the challenges of creating tiny AI robots

27 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up this week, urban wildfires raged in Los Angeles in January. Contributing Correspondent Warren Cornwall discusses how researchers have come to...

Why seals don’t drown, and tracking bird poop as it enters the sea

20 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up this week, Newsletter Editor Christie Wilcox joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss stories from the sea, including why scientists mounted camera...

Why sign language could be crucial for kids with cochlear implants, studying the illusion of pain, and recent political developments at NIH

13 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up this week, science policy editor Jocelyn Kaiser joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the latest news about the National Institutes of Health—...

Intrusive thoughts during pregnancy, paternity detectives, and updates from the Trump Tracker

06 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up this week, International News Editor David Malakoff joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the most recent developments in U.S. science under Don...

Keeping transgenic corn sustainable, and sending shrunken heads home

27 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up this week, Kata Karáth, a freelance journalist based in Ecuador, talks with host Sarah Crespi about an effort to identify traditionally prep...

Shrinking AI for use in farms and clinics, ethical dilemmas for USAID researchers, and how to evolve evolvability

20 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up this week, researchers face impossible decisions as U.S. aid freeze halts clinical trials. Deputy News Editor Martin Enserink joins host Sara...

Training AI to read animal facial expressions, NIH funding takes a big hit, and why we shouldn’t put cameras in robot pants

13 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up this week, International News Editor David Malakoff joins the podcast to discuss the big change in NIH’s funding policy for overhead or ind...

How the mantis shrimp builds its powerful club, and mysteries of middle Earth

06 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up this week, Staff Writer Paul Voosen joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss mapping clogs and flows in Earth’s middle layer—the mantle. They a...

Why it pays to scratch that itch, and science at the start of the second Trump administration

30 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up this week, we catch up with the editor of ScienceInsider, Jocelyn Kaiser. She talks about changes at the major science agencies that came abo...

Unlocking green hydrogen, and oxygen deprivation as medicine

23 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up this week, although long touted as a green fuel, the traditional approach to hydrogen production is not very sustainable. Staff writer Robert...

Rising infections from a dusty devil, and nailing down when our ancestors became meat eaters

16 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up this week, growing numbers of Valley fever cases, also known as coccidioidomycosis, has researchers looking into the disease-causing fungus. ...

Bats surf storm fronts, and public perception of preprints

09 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up this week, as preprint publications ramped up during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, so did media attention for these pre–peer-revi...

On the trail with a truffle-hunting dog, and why we should save elderly plants and animals

02 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

First up this week, Newsletter Editor Christie Wilcox talks with host Sarah Crespi about truffle hunting for science. Wilcox accompanied Heather Dawso...

Top online stories of the year, and revisiting digging donkeys and baby minds

19 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

First up this week, Online News Editor David Grimm shares a sampling of stories that hit big with our audience and staff in this year, from corpse-eat...

Science’s Breakthrough of the Year, and psychedelic drugs, climate, and fusion technology updates

12 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

First up this week, Breakthroughs Editor Greg Miller joins producer Meagan Cantwell to discuss Science’s 2024 Breakthrough of the Year. They also di...

Making Latin American science visible, and advances in cooling tech

05 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

First up this week, freelance science journalist Sofia Moutinho joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss making open-access journals from South and Latin Am...

Leaf-based computer chips, and evidence that two early human ancestors coexisted

28 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

First up this week, making electronics greener with leaves. Host Sarah Crespi talks with Newsletter Editor Christie Wilcox about using the cellulose s...

Testing whales’ hearing, and mapping clusters of extreme longevity

21 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

First up this week, where on Earth do people live the longest? What makes those places or people so special? Genes, diet, life habits? Or could it be ...

Resurrecting a ‘flipping ship,’ and solving the ‘bone paradox’ in ancient remains

14 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

First up this week, a ship that flips for science. Sean Cummings, a freelance science journalist, joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about the resurrecti...

Watching continents slowly break apart, and turbo charging robotic sniffers

07 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

First up this week, Staff Writer Paul Voosen talks with host Sarah Crespi about his travel to meet up with a lead researcher in the field, Folarin Kol...

The challenges of studying misinformation, and what Wikipedia can tell us about human curiosity

31 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

First up this week, Contributing Correspondent Kai Kupferschmidt joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the difficulties of studying misinformation. Altho...

Paleorobotics, revisiting the landscape of fear, and a book on the future of imagination

24 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Using robots to study evolution, the last installment of our series of books on a future to look forward to, and did reintroducing wolves really resto...

How to deal with backsliding democracies, and balancing life as a scientist and athlete

17 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

First up this week, host Sarah Crespi talks to Jon Chu, a presidential young professor in international affairs at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public P...

Graphene’s journey from hype to prime time, and harvesting lithium from briny water

10 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

First up this week, we celebrate 20 years of graphene—from discovery, to hype, and now reality as it finally finds its place in technology and scien...

Scientific evidence that cats are liquids, and when ants started their fungus farms

03 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

First up this week, online editor David Grimm joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about how cats think about their own bodies. Do cats think of themselves...

Burying trees to lock up carbon, notorious ‘Alzheimer’s gene’ fuels hope, and a book on virtual twins

26 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The gene variant APOE4 is finally giving up some of its secrets, how putting dead trees underground could make carbon sequestration cheap and scalable...

Looking for life on an icy moon, and feeling like a rat

19 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

First up this week, a preview of a NASA mission to Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. Science journalist Robin Andrews joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about...

Hail finally gets its scientific due, and busting up tumors with ultrasound

12 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Why don’t we know what is happening with hail? It’s extremely destructive and costs billions of dollars in property damage every year. We aren’t...

Linking long lives with smart brains, and India’s science education is leaning into its history and traditions—but at what cost?

05 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The latest in our series on global equity in science, and how better memory helps chickadees live longer  First up this week, as part of our series o...

A fungus-driven robot, counting snow crabs, and a book on climate capitalism

29 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

First up this week on the podcast, the latest conservation news with Staff Writer Erik Stokstad. Stokstad and host Sarah Crespi talk about the fate of...

Saving wildlife with AI, and randomized trials go remote

22 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

First up this week on the show, uncounted kilometers of fences are strung across the globe. Researchers know they interfere with wildlife migrations a...

The origins of the dino-killing asteroid, and remapping the scientific enterprise

15 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

First up this week, Deputy News Editors Elizabeth Culotta and Shraddha Chakradhar join host Sarah Crespi to talk about the launch of a new series high...

The humidity vs. heat debate, and studying the lifetime impacts of famine

08 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Researchers debate if humidity makes heat more deadly, and finding excess diabetes cases in Ukrainian people that were born right after the 1930s fami...

Iron-toothed dragons, and improving electron microscopy

01 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

First up this week, we hear about caves on the Moon, a shake-up at Pompeii, and the iron-lined teeth of the Komodo dragon. Reporter Phie Jacobs joins ...

Targeting dirty air, pollution from dead satellites, and a book on embracing robots

25 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Tackling air pollution—indoors and outdoors, how burned-up satellites in the atmosphere could destroy ozone, and the latest in our series of books o...

New treatments for deadly snake bites, and a fusion company that wants to get in the medical isotopes game

18 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

First up this week, Staff Writer Adrian Cho talks with host Sarah Crespi about a fusion company that isn’t aiming for net energy. Instead, it’s lo...

How rat poison endangers wildlife, and using sound to track animal populations

11 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Rodenticides are building up inside unintended targets, including birds, mammals, and insects; and bringing bioacoustics and artificial intelligence t...

What’s new in the world of synthetic blood, and how a bacterium evolves into a killer

04 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

First up this week, guest host Kevin McLean talks to freelance writer Andrew Zaleski about recent advancements in the world of synthetic blood. They d...

Targeting crop pests with RNA, the legacy of temporary streams, and the future of money

27 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Guest host Meagan Cantwell talks to Staff Writer Erik Stokstad about a new weapon against crop-destroying beetles. By making pesticides using RNA, far...

The hunt for habitable exoplanets, and how a warming world could intensify urban air pollution

20 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On this week’s show: Scientists are expanding the hunt for habitable exoplanets to bigger worlds, and why improvements in air quality have stagnated...

How dogs’ health reflects our own, and what ancient DNA can reveal about human sacrifice

13 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On this week’s show: Companion animals such as dogs occupy the same environment we do, which can make them good sentinels for human health, and DNA ...

Putting mysterious cellular structures to use, and when brown fat started to warm us up

06 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Despite not having a known function, cellular “vaults” are on the verge of being harnessed for all kinds of applications, and looking at the evolu...

Restoring sight to blind kids, making babies without a womb, and challenging the benefits of clinical trials

30 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Studying color vision in with children who gain sight later in life, joining a cancer trial doesn’t improve survival odds, and the first in our book...

Stepping on snakes for science, and crows that count out loud

23 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A roundup of online news stories featuring animals, and researchers get crows to “count” to four   This week’s show is all animals all the time...