Science Magazine Podcast

On this week’s show: How urban spaces can help conserve species, and testing a gene therapy strategy for epilepsy in mice First up on the podcast, we explore urban ecology’s roots in Berlin. Contributing Correspondent Gabriel Popkin joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss turning wastelands and decommissioned airports into forests and grasslands inside the confines of a city. Next, we hear about a gene therapy strategy for epilepsy. Yichen Qiu, a recently graduated Ph.D. student and researcher at University College London, talks about introducing a small set of genes into neurons in mice. These genes detect hyperactivity in the brain and respond by quieting the cell, ultimately suppressing seizures. This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy. [Image: Maurice Weiss; Music: Jeffrey Cook] [alt: dim photo of the forest of the Schöneberger Südgelände with old railroad tracks receding into the distance, with podcast overlay symbol] Authors: Sarah Crespi; Gabriel Popkin Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adf6190 About the Science Podcast: https://www.science.org/content/page/about-science-podcast    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this week’s show: Cheaper launches could make solar power satellites a reality, machine learning helps chemists make small organic molecules, and a book on the extinction of foods First up on the podcast, space-based solar power gets closer to launch. Staff Writer Daniel Clery talks with host Sarah Crespi about how reusable rockets bring the possibility of giant solar array satellites that beam down gigawatts of uninterrupted power from space. After that, we hear about small organic molecule synthesis. Making large organic molecules such as proteins and DNA can be a cinch for chemists, but making new smaller organic molecules is tough—partially because optimized general reaction conditions are hard to come by. Nicholas Angello, a graduate research assistant and Department of Defense National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate fellow in the Burke group at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, talks about an approach that uses robots and machine learning to better optimize these reaction conditions. Also in the episode: the last in our series of books on food and agriculture. This month, host Angela Saini talks with author Dan Saladino about his book Eating to Extinction: The World’s Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them. This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy. [Image: NASA; Music: Jeffrey Cook] [alt: drawing of satellite solar panels with podcast overlay symbol] Authors: Sarah Crespi; Dan Clery; Angela Saini Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adf4939 About the Science Podcast: https://www.science.org/content/page/about-science-podcast  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this week’s show: How some snakes have adapted to the extremes of height and temperature on the Tibetan Plateau, and giving low-power sensors more processing power First up on the podcast, tough snakes reveal their secrets. Host Sarah Crespi talks with Staff Writer Liz Pennisi about how snakes have adapted to the harsh conditions of the Tibetan Plateau. Next on the show, Producer Meagan Cantwell talks about moving more computing power to the edges of the internet. She is joined by Alexander Sludds, a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Research Lab for Electronics. They discuss a faster, more energy-efficient approach to give edge devices—such as low-power smart sensors or tiny aerial drones—the computing power of far larger machines. This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy. [Image: JUN-FENG GUO; Music: Jeffrey Cook] [alt: photo of a Tibetan hot-spring snake near a geothermal pool with podcast overlay symbol] Authors: Sarah Crespi; Liz Pennisi; Meagan Cantwell Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adf3782 About the Science Podcast: https://www.science.org/content/page/about-science-podcast  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this week’s show: Rising waters and intense storms make siting high-performance computer centers a challenge, and matching up spider silk DNA with spider silk properties   (Main Text) First up on the podcast this week, News Intern Jacklin Kwan talks with host Sarah Crespi about how and where to build high-performance computing facilities as climate change brings extreme conditions to current locations. Spiders are creeping into the show this week. Kazuharu Arakawa, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Bioscience at Keio University, discusses his Science Advances paper on collecting spider silks and the genes that make them. His team used the data set to connect genetic sequences to the properties of spider silks in order to harness this amazing material for industrial use. Visit the spider silkomes database here: https://spider-silkome.org/  This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy. [Image: Dace Znotina/iStock; Music: Jeffrey Cook] [alt: a spiderweb with podcast overlay symbol] Authors: Sarah Crespi; Jacklin Kwan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this week’s show: A study suggests paleontological research has directly benefited from the conflict in Myanmar, and how dormant bacterial spores keep track of their environment First up on the podcast this week, Staff Writer Rodrigo Pérez Ortega joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss links between violent conflict in Myanmar and a boom in fossil amber research. Also on the show this week, we hear about how bacterial spores—which can lie dormant for millions of years—decide it’s time to wake up. Kaito Kikuchi, an image analysis scientist at Reveal Biosciences, joins Sarah to discuss how dormant spores act a bit like neurons to make these decisions. In a sponsored segment from the Science/AAAS Custom Publishing Office, Sean Sanders, director and senior editor for the Custom Publishing Office, interviews Ramon Parsons, director of the Tisch Cancer Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, about his institute’s innovative approach to cancer treatment. This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy. [Image: (public domain); Music: Jeffrey Cook] [alt: micrograph of the bacterium Bacillus subtilis with podcast overlay symbol] Authors: Sarah Crespi; Rodrigo Pérez Ortega Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adf2050 About the Science Podcast: https://www.science.org/content/page/about-science-podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this week’s show: Protecting a body of water by giving it a legal identity, intentional destruction of methane by the oil and gas industry is less efficient than predicted, and the latest book in our series on science and food First up on the podcast this week, Staff Writer Erik Stokstad talks with host Sarah Crespi about why Spain has given personhood status to a polluted lagoon. Also on the show this week is Genevieve Plant, an assistant research scientist at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in the Department of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering. Genny and Sarah talk about methane flaring—a practice common in the oil and gas industry—where manufactures burn off excess methane instead of releasing it directly into the atmosphere. Research flights over several key regions in the United States revealed these flares are leaky, releasing five times more methane than predicted. In this month’s installment of books on the science of food and agriculture, host Angela Saini talks with culinary historian and author Jessica B. Harris about her book High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America. This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy. [Image: Jeff Peischl/CIRES/NOAA; Music: Jeffrey Cook] [alt: methane flares with podcast overlay symbol] Authors: Sarah Crespi; Angela Saini, Erik Stokstad Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adf0584 About the Science Podcast: https://www.science.org/content/page/about-science-podcast  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this week’s show: Comparing human-dog bonds with human-wolf bonds, and monitoring termite decay rates on a global scale First up on the podcast this week, Online News Editor David Grimm talks with host Sarah Crespi about the bonds between dogs and their human caretakers. Is it possible these bonds started even before domestication? Also this week, Sarah talks with Amy Zanne, professor and Aresty endowed chair in tropical ecology in the Department of Biology at the University of Miami. They discuss a global study to determine whether climate change might accelerate the rate at which termites and microbes break down dead wood and release carbon into the atmosphere. This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy. [Image: Christina Hansen Wheat; Music: Jeffrey Cook] [alt: Björk, a female wolf, with podcast overlay symbol] Authors: Sarah Crespi; David Grimm Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ade9777  About the Science Podcast: https://www.science.org/content/page/about-science-podcast  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this week’s show: NASA’s unprecedented asteroid-deflection mission, and making storage space for fresh water underground in Bangladesh First up on the podcast this week, News Intern Zack Savitsky joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about the upcoming NASA mission, dubbed the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, that aims to ram a vending machine–size spacecraft into an asteroid and test out ideas about planetary defense. Also this week, Sarah talks with Mohammad Shamsudduha, an associate professor in humanitarian science at University College London’s Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction. He explains how millions of individual farmers in Bangladesh are creating the “Bengal water machine,” a giant underground sponge to soak up fresh water during monsoon season. This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy. [Image: SW Photography/Getty; Music: Jeffrey Cook] [alt: photo of agricultural fields and a big river at sunset in the city of Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, with podcast overlay symbol] Authors: Sarah Crespi; Zack Savitsky Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ade8885  About the Science Podcast: https://www.science.org/content/page/about-science-podcast  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this week’s show: After years of steep declines, researchers are investigating why malaria deaths have plateaued, and testing the stability of biosignatures in space First up on the podcast this week, freelance science journalist Leslie Roberts joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss why malaria deaths have plateaued in southern Africa, despite years of declines in deaths and billions of dollars spent. Leslie visited Mozambique on a global reporting grant from the Pulitzer Center where researchers are investigating the cause of the pause. Also this week, producer Kevin McLean talks with astrobiologists Mickael Baqué and Jean-Pierre de Vera of the German Aerospace Center. They discuss their Science Advances paper about an experiment on the International Space Station looking at the stability of biosignatures in space and what that means for our search for life on Mars. This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy. [Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS; Music: Jeffrey Cook] [alt: enhanced-color image of Mars’ Jezero crater was taken by NASA’s Perseverance with podcast overlay symbol] Authors: Sarah Crespi; Leslie Roberts; Kevin McLean Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ade7839 About the Science Podcast: https://www.science.org/content/page/about-science-podcast  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this week’s show: The U.S. government is partnering with academics to speed up the search for more than 80,000 soldiers who went missing in action, and how humans create their own “oxidation zone” in the air around them First up on the podcast this week, Tess Joosse is a former news intern here at Science and is now a freelance science journalist based in Madison, Wisconsin. Tess talks with host Sarah Crespi about attempts to use environmental DNA—free-floating DNA in soil or water—to help locate the remains of soldiers lost at sea. Also featured in this segment: University of Wisconsin, Madison, molecular biologist Bridget Ladell Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution marine biologist Kirstin Meyer-Kaiser Also this week, Nora Zannoni, a postdoctoral researcher in the atmospheric chemistry department at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, talks about people’s contributions to indoor chemistry. She chats with Sarah about why it’s important to go beyond studying the health effects of cleaning chemicals and gas stoves to explore how humans add their own bodies’ chemicals and reactions to the air we breathe. In a sponsored segment from Science/AAAS Custom Publishing Office, Sean Sanders, director and senior editor for Custom Publishing, interviews Benedetto Marelli, associate professor at MIT, about winning the BioInnovation Institute & Science Prize for Innovation and how he became an entrepreneur. This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy. [Image: Jeremy Borrelli/East Carolina University; Music: Jeffrey Cook] [alt: a scuba diver underwater near a World War II wreck off Saipan with podcast overlay symbol] Authors: Sarah Crespi; Tess Joosse Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ade6771 About the Science Podcast: https://www.science.org/content/page/about-science-podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices