Science Magazine Podcast

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

Episodes

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

September 25, 2025 • 46 mins

First up on the podcast, Science News Editor Tim Appenzeller joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss why a salty layer of permafrost undergirding Arctic ice is turning frozen landscapes into boggy morasses. Next on the show, glucose isn’t the only molecule in the body that can be monitored in real time; proteins can be, too. Freelancer producer Zakiya Whatley talks with Jane Donnelly, an MD/Ph.D. candidate at Northwestern University...

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

September 18, 2025 • 35 mins

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 streptococcus, a microbe that sickens 400,000 babies a year and kills at least 91,000. Next on the show, there are about 250,000 agricultural drones employed on farms in China. Countries such as South Korea, Turkey, and Thailand are swiftly increasing agricultural drone use, whereas t...

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

September 11, 2025 • 35 mins

First up on the podcast, aggressive tumors have a secret cache of DNA that may help them beat current drug treatments. Freelance journalist Elie Dolgin joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about targeting so-called extrachromosomal DNA—little gene-bearing loops of DNA—that help difficult-to-treat cancers break the laws of inheritance. Next on the show, producer Meagan Cantwell talks with Weidong Sun, director of the Center of Deep Se...

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

September 4, 2025 • 32 mins

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 suppressed HIV hide within the body? Staff Writer Jon Cohen joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about the Last Gift Study, in which people with HIV donate their bodies for rapid autopsy to help find the last reservoirs of the virus. Next on the show, Christine Elliott, a doctoral candidate in the...

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

August 28, 2025 • 55 mins

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 Pits. In addition to revealing tens of thousands of bones from everything from dire wolves to an ancient human, the site has yielded the first DNA from ammoths that lived in a warm climate. Next on the show, the Tijuana River crosses the U.S.-Mexican border from Tijuana to San Dieg...

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New insights into endometriosis, and mapping dengue in Latin America

August 21, 2025 • 32 mins

First up on the podcast, Staff Writer Meredith Wadman joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss recent advances in understanding endometriosis—a disease where tissue that resembles the lining of the uterus grows outside the uterus, causing pain and other health effects. The pair talk about how investigating the role of the immune system in this disease is leading researchers to new potential diagnostic tools and treatments. Next on t...

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

August 14, 2025 • 31 mins

First up on the podcast, producer Meagan Cantwell and Contributing Correspondent Sara Reardon discuss alternative approaches to animal testing, from a heart on a chip to a miniorgan in a dish. Next on the show, Expert Voices columnist Melanie Mitchell and host Sarah Crespi dig into AI lies. Why do chatbots fabricate answers and pretend to do math? Mitchell describes the stress tests large language models undergo—called red tea...

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

August 7, 2025 • 28 mins

First up on the podcast, Online News Editor David Grimm brings stories on peacock feathers’ ability to emit laser light, how anteaters have evolved at least 12 times, and why we should be thanking ketchup for our French fries. Next on the show, rorqual whales, such as the massive blue whale, use a lunging strategy to fill their monster maws with seawater and prey, then filter out the tasty parts with baleen sieves. Lunging for ...

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

July 31, 2025 • 51 mins

First up on the podcast, Contributing Correspondent Richard Stone joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about the toll of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and how researchers have been mobilized to help the war effort. In June, Stone visited the basement labs where Ukrainian students modify off-the-shelf drones for war fighting and the facilities where biomedical researchers develop implants and bandages for wounded soldiers. Next on...

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

July 24, 2025 • 34 mins

First up on the podcast, South Africa’s Cradle of Humankind is home to the world’s greatest concentration of ancestral human remains, including our own genus, Homo, Australopithecus, and a more robust hominin called Paranthropus. Proving they were there at the same time is challenging, but new fossil evidence seems to point to coexistence. Producer Kevin McLean discusses what a multihominin landscape might have looked like with Con...

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

July 17, 2025 • 36 mins

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 Robles-Gil joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about how researchers have used that time to study the island’s shark populations and test techniques for preventing attacks, in the hopes of protecting lives and reopening the island’s shores. Next on the show, engineering gut microbes to b...

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

July 10, 2025 • 25 mins

First up on the podcast, Newsletter Editor Christie Wilcox joins host Sarah Crespi to celebrate the 2-year anniversary of ScienceAdviser with many stories about the amazing water bear. They also discuss links between climate change, melting glaciers, and earthquakes in the Alps, as well as what is probably the first edible laser. Next on the show, freelance producer Elah Feder talks with Tatiana Feuerborn, a postdoctoral fell...

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

July 3, 2025 • 31 mins

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 talks with producer Kevin McLean about how in Lesotho and Eswatini, treatment and prevention cutbacks are hitting pregnant people, children, and teens especially hard. This story is part of a series about the impacts of U.S. funding cuts on global health, supported by the Pulitzer Ce...

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

June 26, 2025 • 44 mins

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 Neolithic Anatolia. The researchers used ancient DNA and isotopes from 8000 to 9000 years ago to show how maternal lines were important in Çatalhöyük culture. ● E. Yüncü et al., Female lineages and changing kinship patterns in Neolithic Çatalhöyük, 2025 ● D. Koptekin et a...

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

June 19, 2025 • 37 mins

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 southern sky every 3 days. Producer Meagan Cantwell guides us through Staff Writer Daniel Clery’s trip to the site of the largest camera ever made for astronomy. Next on the show, probing the impact of plastic bag regulations. Environmental economist Anna Papp joins host Sarah Crespi to...

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

June 12, 2025 • 37 mins

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 better understand how plants will cope with climate change. His story is part of a special issue on plants and heat, which includes reviews and perspectives on the fate of plants in a warming world. Next on the show, “convergent” antibodies may underlie the growing number of people al...

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

June 5, 2025 • 42 mins

First up on the podcast, we hear from Staff Writer Paul Voosen about the tricky problem of regional climate prediction. Although global climate change models have held up for the most part, predicting what will happen at smaller scales, such as the level of a city, is proving a stubborn challenge. Just increasing the resolution of global models requires intense computing power, so researchers and city planners are looking to other ...

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

May 29, 2025 • 52 mins

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 capturing fungal spores high in the stratosphere, the debate over signs of life on the exoplanet K2-18b, and a Chinese contender for world’s oldest star catalog. Next on the show, a look into long-standing questions on why and how our bodies respond to tickling. Producer Meagan Cantwel...

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Strange metals and our own personal ‘oxidation fields’

May 22, 2025 • 40 mins

First up on the podcast, freelance journalist Zack Savitsky joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about the strange metal state. Physicists are probing the behavior of electrons in these materials, which appear to behave like a thick soup rather than discrete charged particles. Many suspect insights into strange metals might lead to the creation of room-temperature superconductors, highly desired materials that promise lossless energy de...

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

May 15, 2025 • 30 mins

First up on the podcast, freelance journalist Jonathan Moens talks with host Sarah Crespi about a forensic test called brain electrical oscillation signature (BEOS) profiling, which police in India are using along with other techniques to try to tell whether a suspect participated in a crime, despite these technologies’ extremely shaky scientific grounding. Next on the show, scientists have recently made strides in our understa...

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

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Protecting newborns from an invisible killer, the rise of drones for farming, and a Druid mystery

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

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

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

New insights into endometriosis, and mapping dengue in Latin America

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Strange metals and our own personal ‘oxidation fields’

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

Popular Podcasts

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

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