

Big Picture Science
Big Picture Science
The surprising connections in science and technology that give you the Big Picture. Astronomer Seth Shostak and science journalist Molly Bentley are joined each week by leading researchers, techies, and journalists to provide a smart and humorous take on science. Our regular "Skeptic Check" episodes cast a critical eye on pseudoscience.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Oct 6, 2025 • 54min
Skeptic Check: Health Fads
The tiny bean-shaped structures in your cells – mitochondria – are little powerhouses. Recent research suggests they may unlock overall good health, or, when they fail, cause diseases such as diabetes and Alzheimer’s. How strong is the science for these claims and what, if anything, should we be doing to improve our mitochondrial health? Should we take a cue from influencers who suggest drinking an industrial dye called methylene blue? Meanwhile, there have been beefed up calls for adding protein to our diets by eating high protein ice cream, energy bars and huge slabs of meat. Protein builds muscles, but is the muscle of science behind these claims? This week, we consider recent health trends on Skeptic Check.
Guests:
Martin Picard – Professor of behavioral medicine and mitochondrial psychobiology at Columbia University, where he runs the Mitochondrial Psychobiology Group.
Howard LeWine – General internal medicine physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Chief Medical Editor at Harvard Health Publishing, and editor in chief of Harvard Men’s Health Watch.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
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Sep 29, 2025 • 54min
Not Just a Phage
We’re hurtling towards a post-antibiotic world, as the overuse of antibiotics has given rise to dangerous drug-resistant bacteria. Can we fight back using viruses as weapons? An obscure medical therapy uses certain viruses called bacteriophages to treat infection. For a century attempts to turn phage-therapy into a life-saving treatment have faltered, but today there’s renewed interest in this approach. Can we use phages to forestall the antibiotic crisis?
Guests:
Claas Kirchhelle – Medical historian at the University College, Dublin
Tom Ireland – Journalist, editor of The Biologist and author of “The Good Virus: The Amazing Story and Forgotten Promise of the Phage”
Steffanie Strathdee – Associate Dean of Global Health Sciences at the University of California San Diego
Tom Patterson – Professor of psychiatry at the University of California San Diego
Descripción en español
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Originally aired August 12, 2024
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
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Sep 22, 2025 • 54min
Spare (Body) Parts
Strapped-on brass noses, frog skin grafts, human organs grown in pigs: The world of replaceable body parts is both amazing and a bit unsettling. But who better give us a tour of the past and present of what medical engineering considers Plan B, than the inimitable science writer Mary Roach.
Guest:
Mary Roach – Science writer and author of “Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy”
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
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Sep 15, 2025 • 58min
Some Chemicals are Forever
As their name suggests, “forever chemicals” have extraordinary staying power. When these nearly indestructible compounds find their way into our soil and water, they don’t break down for hundreds or thousands of years. PFAS – the name for these synthetic chemicals – isn’t just in our natural environment. Scientists have found it everywhere, including in the blood of nearly every living being.
In this episode, we talk to the reporter who broke open the story about a decades-long corporate coverup regarding forever chemicals, look at what we know about their health effects, and consider how a kneecapping of the EPA’s regulatory power may weaken the best tool we have for protecting ourselves from PFAS contamination.
Guests:
Nathaniel Rich – Author of “Second Nature: Scenes from a World Remade,” and the New York Times Magazine article, “The Lawyer Who Became Dupont’s Worst Nightmare”
Rachel Frazin – Energy and Environment Policy reporter for The Hill, co-author of “Poisoning the Well: How Forever Chemicals Contaminated America”
Janet McCabe – visiting professor at the Robert McKinney School of Law at Indiana University, former deputy administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sep 8, 2025 • 54min
Animal Alphabets
Have scientists discovered an alphabet in whale calls? As researchers try to decipher the series of clicks made by sperm whales, we ask whether these cetaceans might have language, and if it follows that whales are thinking animals too. Could we one day get a peek into the thoughts of a humpback whale? Meanwhile, somewhere along the long path of evolution, one species emerged with an impressive gift for gab. Are speech and language unique human superpowers?
Guests:
Carl Zimmer – Columnist, The New York Times, including the article, “Scientists Find an ‘Alphabet’ in Whale Songs”.
Ev Fedorenko – Cognitive neuroscientist, director of the EV Lab, MIT
Tecumseh Fitch – Evolutionary biologist at the University of Vienna
Descripción en español
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Originally aired July 29, 2024
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sep 1, 2025 • 54min
Aliens Now
We are closer than ever to finding aliens according to astrophysicist Adam Frank. He isn’t alone in his optimism. Over the last two decades, the tools used to search for extraterrestrials have been advancing mightily. Where we were once only monitoring with radio telescopes, we are now actively looking for bio and technosignatures on exoplanets. Find out why scientists think new technology may be a game changer in the hunt for life off Earth.
Guest:
Adam Frank – Astrophysicist and author of a new book “The Little Book of Aliens”
Descripción en español.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Originally aired July 1, 2024
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Aug 25, 2025 • 54min
Don't Lighten Up
A canopy of stars in the night sky is more than breathtaking. Starlight is also an important tool that astronomers use to study our universe. But the growth of artificial light and light pollution are creating dramatic changes to the nighttime environment. Let your eyes adjust to the dark as we travel to a dark sky reserve to gaze upon an increasingly rare view of the Milky Way and explore what we lose when darkness disappears.
Guests:
Kim Arcand – Visualization scientist & emerging tech lead, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and author of “Light: The Visible Spectrum and Beyond".
Don Jolley – Teacher of Math and Sciences at the Bolinas School in Marin, California who has been leading dark sky tours for three decades.
Christopher Kyba – Interdisciplinary Geographic Information Sciences Research Fellow at Ruhr University Bochum.
Descripción en español
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Originally aired July 8, 2024
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Aug 18, 2025 • 1h 5min
Katrina and the River
“The Mississippi River will always have its own way; no engineering skill can persuade it to do otherwise,” said Mark Twain. In this, our final episode marking the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, we consider how efforts to control the Mighty Mississippi – a river engineered from its Minnesota headwaters to its Gulf Coast outlet – have responded to the devastating storm, and how New Orleans’ relationship to the river has changed. Can the city keep up with the pressure that climate change is putting on this engineered system, or is retreat the only viable response?
Plus, a wetland recovery project that aims to bolster protection from hurricanes and flooding in the Lower Ninth Ward.
Guests:
Boyce Upholt – Journalist and author of “The Great River: The Making and Unmaking of the Mississippi River”
Nathaniel Rich – Author of “Second Nature: Scenes From a World Remade” and the New York Times Op-Ed, “New Orleans’ Striking Advantage in the Age of Climate Change”
Harriet Swift – New Orleans resident
Andrew Horowitz – Historian, University of Connecticut, author of "Katrina: A History, 1915-2015"
Rashida Ferdinand – Founder and Executive Director of Sankofa Community Development Corporation, overseeing the Sankofa Wetland Park and Nature Trail in New Orleans
Jason Day – Biologist, wetland Scientist, Comite Resources in Louisiana
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
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Aug 11, 2025 • 60min
Beyond the Standard Model
Ever heard of a beauty quark? How about a glueball? Physics is full of weird particles that leave many of us scratching our heads. But these tiny particles make up everything in the quantum world and in us and are the basis of the fundamental scientific theory called The Standard Model. But it doesn’t explain everything. It can’t account for dark matter or dark energy, for example. We find out whether new physics experiments might force us to rewrite the Standard Model. Plus, we discuss a NASA proposal to fly spacecraft close to the sun in search of new physics.
Guests:
Phil Plait – Aka the Bad Astronomer, former astronomer on Hubble, teacher, lecturer and debunker of conspiracy theories. He is also the author of a new book “Under Alien Skies: A Sightseer’s Guide to the Universe.”
Harry Cliff – Particle physicist at the University of Cambridge who works on the LHCb experiment at the largest particle physics laboratory in the world, CERN. He is the author of: “Space Oddities, The Mysterious Anomalies Challenging Our Understanding of the Universe.”
Slava Turyshev – Research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
Originally aired May 20, 2024
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Aug 4, 2025 • 54min
Scoping Out the Universe
Telescopes are like light buckets. The bigger the telescope, the more light collected for astronomers to observe. With recent advances in technology, amateur astronomers can join professionals for a chance to observe stellar nurseries and exoplanets many light-years away. But as our capabilities increase, so do the mysteries, including those around high-energy bursts coming from an otherwise unremarkable part of the universe. Understanding fast radio bursts could turn physics on its head.
From the Vera Rubin Telescope in Chile to the backyard instruments of amateur astronomers, we share what new things we might learn about stars, the Earth, exoplanets, and the potential for life on other worlds.
Guests:
Clare Higgs – Astronomer working with the public outreach team for the Vera Rubin Observatory
Franck Marchis – Senior astronomer and director of citizen science at the SETI Institute, chief science officer and co-founder of Unistellar
Amanda Cook – Postdoctoral fellow at McGill University and member of the CHIME/FRB Collaboration
Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake
You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!
Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices