Will AI replace astronomers, how healthy are ultraprocessed foods, and a peek behind the scenes of ‘The Normals’
First up on the podcast, freelance science journalist Joshua Sokol talks about the intense discussion happening in the astrophysics community as artif...
Disembodied human brains, immortal bits of sea cucumber, and fame in Galileo’s time
First up on the podcast, a company is using whole brains—maintained with specialized life support—to study new drugs. Freelance science journalist Sar...
USAID cuts linked to violence, unexpected parallels between humans and bacteria, and how to rule the world
First up on the podcast, Senior International Correspondent Richard Stone joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the surprising commonalities between our ...
Fighting deepfakes, and using bacteria to deliver medicine inside the body
First up on the podcast, Meagan Cantwell produced a segment with Contributing Correspondent Kai Kupferschmidt on the fight against deepfakes. Kupfersc...
A team effort to save a giant fish, the power of moonlight, and how scientists can navigate a tough political environment
First up on the podcast, along Brazil’s Juruá River, local residents have been working with scientists to manage a giant fish called the arapaima—affe...
Watching a spiders’ heart beat, epigenetic ethics, and what science biographies reveal about fame
First up on the podcast, Online News Editor David Grimm shares a batch of fun stories with podcast host Sarah Crespi—from spider hearts racing when tr...
Cleaning up uranium mining, and how the heart avoids cancer
First up on the podcast, freelance science and environmental journalist Quentin Septer joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about a controversial uranium m...
The normals | Episode 3
The final of a three-part limited Science Podcast series that looks at the history of normal human subjects in research In episode two, we heard what...
How to keep quantum computers cool, whether prediction markets harm public health, and podcasting on podcasting
First up on the podcast, quantum computers require extremely low temperatures—less than 1°C away from absolute zero. But getting down to those tempera...
The Normals | Episode 2
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...