#181 New York goes quantum; a tipping point in human culture; JUICE mission to Jupiter

How many people can we physically feed on Earth? As the global population is predicted to reach 11 billion by the end of the century, do we have enough land to feed all those mouths? The team discusses the safest ways to feed the world, and finds out the absolute limit of Earth’s capacity.

You know those fetching tunics Stone Age people wore? Well, we may have figured out how they stitched them together. The team discusses the discovery of a 40,000 year old horse (or bison) bone, and what it tells us about a vital tipping point in human cultural evolution.

An unhackable quantum internet is being constructed in New York City. While this isn’t the first quantum network ever built, the team explains how this particular experiment is bringing us closer than ever before to a quantum internet we can all use.

This episode goes live on launch day of the European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer - JUICE. The mission will stop by Ganymede, Callisto and Europa, and the team explains what they’ll be looking for. Sadly you’ll have to wait 8 years before you can check back into the podcast for the next update though…

And we hear a report from Abby Beall who’s been stargazing in the Atacama Desert in Chile on a New Scientist Discovery tour. She speaks to Elke Schulz, who runs stargazing tours nearby and is trying to get her valley recognised as a dark sky sanctuary.

On the pod are Rowan Hooper, Penny Sarchet, Leah Crane, Madeleine Cuff, Alison George, Karmela Padavic Callaghan and Abby Beall. To read about these subjects and much more, you can subscribe to New Scientist magazine at newscientist.com.

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