Nature Podcast18 Kesä 2025

Flight simulator for moths reveals they navigate by starlight

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In this episode:

00:45 The tiny moths that use the stars to navigate

Bogong moths use the stars to help them navigate during their enormous migration across Australia, according to new research. Every year, billions of these nocturnal moths travel up to 1,000 km to cool caves in the Australian Alps, despite having never been there before. By placing moths in a flight-simulator that also acted as a planetarium, the team behind the work showed that moths could use the bright Milky Way to help them fly in the correct direction.

Research article: Dreyer et al.

10:17 Research Highlights

Nigeria's pangolins are under threat because their meat is delicious, and how the gravitational pull of other galaxies may prevent the Milky Way colliding with Andromeda.

Research Highlight: Why pangolins are poached: they’re the tastiest animal around

Research Highlight: A long-predicted cosmic collision might not happen after all

12:37 How humans expanded their habitats before migrating out of Africa

New research suggests that shortly before modern humans successfully migrated out of Africa, they massively expanded the range of ecosystems they lived in. By combining climate modelling with data from archaeological sites across the African continent, researchers put forward evidence that 70,000 years ago, humans expanded the ecosystems they lived in to include diverse habitat types from forests to deserts. The authors suggest this ability to live in different places may have helped the later humans that migrated out of the continent around 50,000 years ago.

Research article: Hallet et al.

21:59 Briefing Chat

Blowing bubble-rings could be humpback whales' way of trying to communicate with humans, and the research suggesting that everyone’s breathing pattern is unique.

Science Alert: Humpback Whale Bubble Rings May Be an Attempt to Communicate With Us

Nature: How you breathe is like a fingerprint that can identify you

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Togetherness: How co-operation built the world

In this episode, we speak with science journalist Rowan Hooper, whose book Togetherness: Symbiosis and the Hidden Story of Life's Greatest Collaborations takes a deep-dive into the world of co-operati...

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Audio long read: Is the peptide craze backed by science? The promise behind the hype

Peptides — short chains of amino acids — have become huge online. The popularity of these molecules has skyrocketed and they are now the latest cure-all trend on social media.But what does the science...

29 Kesä 16min

Briefing Chat: What tickling a chimpanzee can tell us about the evolution of speech

Nature staff discuss how apes share a rhythm of laughter, and how AI use may degrade skills in medicine and computer science.00:32 Early evidence suggests that AI use causes skills to atrophyNature: I...

26 Kesä 11min

Medical records could be revealed by AI training-data vulnerability

In this episode:00:46 How sensitive information can be gleaned from medical AIsResearch article: Knolle et al.Correction: The story about medical AI-data privacy incorrectly stated that the number of ...

24 Kesä 19min

Briefing Chat: Testosterone and sperm may get a boost from obesity drugs

Nature staff discuss preliminary data on the effects of GLP-1 drugs on male fertility plus a two-year trial of a brain-computer interface.00:18 Brain-computer interface makes a life-changing impactNat...

19 Kesä 12min

DNA from hunter-gatherer teeth reveals secrets of ancient plague

In this episode:00:45 Ancient evidence of deadly plague outbreaksResearch article: Macleod et al.12:33 Research HighlightsNature: Bones of Iron Age skeleton were whittled into toolsNature: Giant crust...

17 Kesä 26min

Briefing Chat: The epic journey of Stonehenge’s central stone

In this episode:00:37 Evidence that Stonehenge's Altar Stone travelled by glacierBBC Science Focus: We may have just cracked one of Stonehenge's greatest mysteries05:44 Fossilized faeces reveal DNA fr...

12 Kesä 11min

Newly-discovered whale graveyard dates back millions of years

In this episode:00:46 A giant, ancient whale necropolisResearch article: Peng et al.News & Views: A vast whale necropolis has been found08:52 Research HighlightsNature: Babies’ birth weight improves w...

10 Kesä 21min