Science Magazine Podcast

Weekly podcasts from Science Magazine, the world's leading journal of original scientific research, global news, and commentary.

Episodes

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

April 2, 2026 • 33 mins

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 one of two ways, one favored by cosmologists, the other by astronomers. But the resulting values from these methods are consistently different. Staff Writer Daniel Clery joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss how reappearing bursts from deep space, lensed by gravity, could resolve the dispu...

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

March 26, 2026 • 36 mins

First up on the podcast, Deputy News Editor Martin Enserink talks about so-called resurrection plants. These specialized plants can survive up to 95% water loss, whereas most plants struggle when their water levels dip below 60%. We also hear from Jill Farrant, a professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of Cape Town, about her work dissecting the desiccation survival pathways in resurrection plants and how they mig...

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

March 19, 2026 • 33 mins

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, a site in southern Chile called Monte Verde forced archaeologists to adjust their views of the peopling of South America because it dated to about 14,500 years before present, which challenged the prevailing idea of when human inhabitants appeared on the continent. Contributing Corresp...

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

March 12, 2026 • 42 mins

First up on the podcast, freelance journalist Evan Howell traveled to Cape Blossom, Alaska, where the receding coastline has revealed an ancient trove of glacial ice that may have survived for 350,000 years—making it the oldest ice in the Northern Hemisphere. Now researchers just need to figure out how to date it. Next on the show, tracking wolves and ravens in Yellowstone National Park shows the birds don’t follow the wolves in h...

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

March 5, 2026 • 38 mins

First up on the podcast, a peek into the roiling seas of U.S. science policy. ScienceInsider Editor Jocelyn Kaiser talks about shifting leadership at the National Science Foundation and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as a dip in funding rates by the National Institutes of Health. Staff Writer Robert F. Service covers proposed restrictions on access by international researchers and students to the Nat...

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

February 26, 2026 • 32 mins

First up on the podcast, producer Meagan Cantwell talks to Contributing Correspondent Warren Cornwall about his visit to Brazil, where he observed firsthand what it takes for researchers to understand why bird populations in the Amazon and beyond are shrinking. Next on the show, Raouf Belkhir, an M.D.-Ph.D. student at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Carnegie Mellon University, joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss...

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

February 19, 2026 • 41 mins

First up on the podcast, Newsletter Editor Christie Wilcox, Associate Online News Editor Michael Greshko, and intern Perri Thaler share their experiences from the AAAS annual meeting in Phoenix. Christie recorded on location with David Rand regarding his prize-winning Science paper on using a large language model to combat conspiracy theories. Check out the live version of his team’s Debunk Bot. Michael chats with host Sarah Cres...

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Building better working dogs, and watching a black hole form

February 12, 2026 • 34 mins

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 journeys with Online News Editor David Grimm to Canine Companions, one of the biggest organizations in the United States for training working dogs. At the facility, they meet puppies in preparation and learn about the behavioral testing and genetics that could be used to improve service animal...

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Engineering safer football helmets, and the science behind drug overdoses

February 5, 2026 • 39 mins

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 injuries. Have better materials and testing led to fewer concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy in players? Next on the show, more than 100,000 people die from opioid overdoses in North America per year. Although much study has gone into addiction research, less attention ha...

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

January 29, 2026 • 38 mins

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 bombardment of space radiation? Freelance science journalist Elie Dolgin joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss what we know about the damage from high-velocity particles and the research being done to curb their biological toll. Next on the show, modeling the fall of fossil fuels during t...

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

January 22, 2026 • 32 mins

First up with Jennie Erin Smith, Science’s new senior biomedicine reporter, we delve into: autobrewery syndrome, when microbes inside the human gut make too much alcohol; how doctors can use a public repository, the Mexican Biobank, to guide patient care; and preliminary findings that surgery on the brain’s plumbing shows promise for Alzheimer’s disease. Next on the show, it’s tough to calculate when and where deorbiting spacecraf...

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

January 15, 2026 • 30 mins

First up on the podcast, freelance science journalist Sofia Quaglia talks about her visit to the Galápagos archipelago and how researchers there are working to restore the islands to their former ecological glory. *Note this episode has been updated to reflect that the Ecuadorian government is not responsible for primarily funding these efforts. Next on the show, Antarctica’s deep ice coating obscures the hills and valleys on it...

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

January 8, 2026 • 27 mins

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 polymath’s papers, paintings, and distant cousins. Contributing Correspondent Richard Stone talks with host Sarah Crespi about what researchers hope to learn from Leonardo’s genes and the new field of “arteomics.” Next on the show, new evidence for poisoned arrows from 60,000 years ago...

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

January 1, 2026 • 43 mins

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 even varying colors. To improve our view, scientists are proposing a faraway fleet of telescopes that would use light bent by the Sun’s gravity to magnify a distant exoplanet. Staff Writer Daniel Clery joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss where to aim such a magnificent telescope and all t...

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This year’s biggest breakthrough and top news stories

December 18, 2025 • 33 mins

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 and staff picks alike. Together they journey the scientific gamut, from bird feeders’ influence on hummingbird beak evolution to the use of “artificial spacetimes” to guide tiny robots through their environments. Next on the show, a discussion of this year’s pick for Breakthrough of the ...

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Hunting asteroids from space, and talking to pollinators with heat

December 11, 2025 • 27 mins

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). Freelance science journalist Robin George Andrews joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the upcoming launch of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Surveyor, an asteroid hunter that will improve our ability to look for large objects that might crash into Earth, particularly those hiding in the Sun’s glare. N...

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Grappling with declining populations, and the future of quantum mechanics

December 4, 2025 • 38 mins

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. News Contributing Correspondent Zack Savitsky joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about a more philosophical approach to quantum physics and the mysterious measurement problem. Next on the show we have Anne Goujon, program director at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analys...

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

November 27, 2025 • 26 mins

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 measured in real time. Instead, there are proxies, satellite measures, and many, many calculations. Staff Writer Paul Voosen joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss how close we are to the top of carbon mountain and the tough road to come after the peak passes. Vani Rajendran, senior researche...

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A headless mystery, and a deep dive on dog research

November 20, 2025 • 32 mins

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 land across Europe. Five hundred years later, their buildings, cemeteries, and pottery stopped showing up in the archaeological record, and mass graves with headless bodies started to appear across the continent. Contributing Correspondent Andrew Curry talks with host Sarah Crespi about...

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

November 13, 2025 • 28 mins

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 on dino bones, the physics of the lip-out problem in golf, and a brain-computer interface that can decode a tonal language (Chinese) from brain waves. Next on the show, Jeremy Munday, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at University of California, Davis, talks about ...

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Science Magazine Podcast

Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Resolving the dispute over the speed of the expanding universe, and seeking new drug targets for cognitive dysfunction

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Resurrection plants, Project Hail Mary, and the trouble with sycophantic AI

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

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

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

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

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

Building better working dogs, and watching a black hole form

Engineering safer football helmets, and the science behind drug overdoses

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

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

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

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

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

This year’s biggest breakthrough and top news stories

Hunting asteroids from space, and talking to pollinators with heat

Grappling with declining populations, and the future of quantum mechanics

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

A headless mystery, and a deep dive on dog research

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

Popular Podcasts

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

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