Science Magazine Podcast3 Mar 2022

A global treaty on plastic pollution, and a dearth of Black physicists

On this week’s show: The ins and outs of the first global treaty on plastic pollution, and why the United States has so few Black physicists First up, Staff Writer Erik Stokstad joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the world’s first global treaty on plastics pollution–and the many questions that need answers to make it work. Read a related Policy Forum here. Up next, we hear from some of more than 50 Black physicists interviewed for a special news package in Science about the barriers Black physicists face, and potential models for change drawing on a 2020 report that documents how the percentage of undergraduates physics degrees going to Black students has declined over the past 20 years. In his excerpt, Willie Rockward, chair and professor of physics at Morgan State University, describes how a study group dubbed the “Black Hole” provided much-needed support for him and four colleagues who were part of the first cohort of Black graduate physics students at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Next, Fana Mulu-Moore, a physics and astronomy instructor at Aims Community College in Greeley, Colorado, explains her ‘life-changing’ transition from research to teaching, and how it has given her a sense of purpose. This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy. [Image: Carl Campbell/Flickr; Music: Jeffrey Cook] [alt: sheaves of plastic wrap photographed against a black background] Authors: Sarah Crespi; Erik Stokstad Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adb1765 About the Science Podcast: https://www.science.org/content/page/about-science-podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Episoder(641)

A team effort to save a giant fish, the power of moonlight, and how scientists can navigate a tough political environment

First up on the podcast, along Brazil’s Juruá River, local residents have been working with scientists to manage a giant fish called the arapaima—affecting the land, the people, and the economy. Contr...

7 Mai 53min

Watching a spiders’ heart beat, epigenetic ethics, and what science biographies reveal about fame

First up on the podcast, Online News Editor David Grimm shares a batch of fun stories with podcast host Sarah Crespi—from spider hearts racing when traffic gets loud to a disease-preventing house. Sta...

30 Apr 46min

Cleaning up uranium mining, and how the heart avoids cancer

First up on the podcast, freelance science and environmental journalist Quentin Septer joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about a controversial uranium mine getting fast-tracked in South Dakota. Septer c...

23 Apr 30min

The normals | Episode 3

The final of a three-part limited Science Podcast series that looks at the history of normal human subjects in research In episode two, we heard what happened to the normals program after church volu...

21 Apr 33min

How to keep quantum computers cool, whether prediction markets harm public health, and podcasting on podcasting

First up on the podcast, quantum computers require extremely low temperatures—less than 1°C away from absolute zero. But getting down to those temperatures has usually required dilution fridges using ...

16 Apr 50min

The Normals | Episode 2

Last time on The Normals, we learned that in the 1950s, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) wanted to recruit many healthy volunteers for basic research. Two peace churches, the Mennonites and the...

14 Apr 27min

A chimpanzee ‘civil war,’ and NASA plans for nuclear propulsion

First up on the podcast, freelance science journalist Hannah Richter joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss NASA’s plans to send a nuclear-powered spacecraft to Mars in less than 3 years. Having not launc...

9 Apr 42min

The Normals | Episode 1

How do we know what's normal in a person? In the early 1950s, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) set out to do something unprecedented. It wanted to start studying normal humans on a grand scale....

7 Apr 23min