Tickling in review, spores in the stratosphere, and longevity research
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 Cantwell talks to Konstantina Kilteni, an assistant professor at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour and the Department of Neuroscience at the Karolinska Institute. They discuss how standardizing
approaches to testing tickling in the lab could get us closer to answers.
Finally in this episode, the first in our book series
on the science of death, with books host Angela Saini. Saini interviews Nobel Prize–winning biologist Venki Ramakrishnan about developments in longevity research and his book Why We Die: The New Science of Aging and the Quest for
Immortality.
This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.
About the Science Podcast
Authors: Sarah Crespi, Angela Saini, Michael Greshko, Meagan Cantwell
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53:30
Strange metals and our own personal ‘oxidation fields’
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 delivery and floating trains.
A few years ago, researcher Nora Zannoni came on the show to talk about our oxidation fields: zones of highly reactive radicals our bodies naturally produce that surround us and interact with nearby chemicals.
Now she’s back to discuss how our personal oxidation fields interact with personal care products—such as hand lotion, for example—and the resulting effects those products can end up having on the air
we breathe indoors.
Zannoni is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate of Italy’s National Research Council. The work for the paper was done when she was a postdoc scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry.
This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.
About the Science Podcast
Authors: Sarah Crespi; Zack Savitsky
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41:13
A horse science roundup and using dubious brain scans as evidence of crimes
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 understanding of horses, from identifying the mutations that make horses amazing athletes to showing how climate shaped intercontinental horse migrations 50,000 years ago. Science life sciences editor Sacha Vignieri joins us to discuss new horse-related studies published in Science—and how equine research has broader implications.
Other papers mentioned in this segment:
W. Taylor et al., Science 2023
C. Gaunitz et al., Science 2018
A. Outram et al., Science 2009
This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.
About the Science Podcast
Authors: Sarah Crespi; Sacha Vignieri; Jonathan Moens
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31:27
Analyzing music from ancient Greece and Rome, and the 100 days that shook science
First up on the podcast, producer Meagan Cantwell worked with the Science News team to review how the first 100 days of President
Donald Trump’s administration have impacted science. In the segment, originally produced for video, we hear about how the workforce, biomedical research, and global health initiatives all face widespread, perhaps permanent damage, with News staffers David Malakoff, Jocelyn Kaiser, and Rachel Bernstein.
Next on the show, acoustical analysis of ancient music from Greece and Rome shows different musical notation styles for different instruments. Dan Baciu, a professor at the Münster School of Architecture at the Münster University of Applied Sciences, talks with host Sarah Crespi about his analysis.
This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.
About the Science Podcast
Authors: Sarah Crespi; Meagan Cantwell; David Malakoff; Jocelyn Kaiser; Rachel Bernstein
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34:17
Tales from an Italian crypt, and the science behind ‘dad bods’
First up on the podcast, Contributing Correspondent Andrew Curry talks with host Sarah Crespi about his visit to 17th century crypts under an old hospital in Italy. Researchers are examining tooth plaque, bone lesions, and mummified brains to learn more about the health, diet, and drug habits of Milan’s working poor 400 years ago.
Next on the show, a mechanism for driving growth in fat stores with age. Or, the source of the “dad bod” trope. Producer Zakiya Whatley talks with Qiong “Annabel” Wang, associate professor in the department of molecular and cellular endocrinology at City of Hope, about her work showing how middle-age mice gain fat via dedicated progenitor cells that actually become more active as the animals age. Similar cells are also present in people, suggesting it’s not just lack of willpower or sedentary habits that give us gains as we get older.
This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.
About the Science Podcast
Authors: Sarah Crespi; Zakiya Whatley; Andrew Curry
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
South Africa