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)

Resolving the dispute over the speed of the expanding universe, and seeking new drug targets for cognitive dysfunction

First up on the podcast, a new path to calculating the Hubble constant. This value for the universe’s speed of expansion is typically determined in one of two ways, one favored by cosmologists, the ot...

2 Apr 33min

Resurrection plants, Project Hail Mary, and the trouble with sycophantic AI

First up on the podcast, Deputy News Editor Martin Enserink talks about so-called resurrection plants. These specialized plants can survive up to 95% water loss, whereas most plants struggle when thei...

26 Mar 36min

Rethinking the peopling of the Americas, and the best ways to get groundwater back

First up on the podcast, we discuss a finding that’s likely to reignite debate over how humans first spread through the Americas. In the late 1990s, a site in southern Chile called Monte Verde forced ...

19 Mar 33min

What Alaska’s eroding coastline says about Earth’s future, and how Yellowstone ravens use their smarts to find wolf kills

First up on the podcast, freelance journalist Evan Howell traveled to Cape Blossom, Alaska, where the receding coastline has revealed an ancient trove of glacial ice that may have survived for 350,000...

12 Mar 42min

An alleged nuclear blast may reignite weapons testing, and who owns the Moon

First up on the podcast, a peek into the roiling seas of U.S. science policy. ScienceInsider Editor Jocelyn Kaiser talks about shifting leadership at the National Science Foundation and the Cente...

5 Mar 38min

Tropical birds’ ‘silent spring,’ and mapping people’s brains during surgery

First up on the podcast, producer Meagan Cantwell talks to Contributing Correspondent Warren Cornwall about his visit to Brazil, where he observed firsthand what it takes for researchers to understand...

26 Feb 32min

Matching sounds to shapes, and stories from the AAAS annual meeting

First up on the podcast, Newsletter Editor Christie Wilcox, Associate Online News Editor Michael Greshko, and intern Perri Thaler share their experiences from the AAAS annual meeting in Phoenix. Chri...

19 Feb 41min

Building better working dogs, and watching a black hole form

First up on the podcast, more than half of all dogs going through service animal training don’t make it to graduation. Producer Kevin McLean journeys with Online News Editor David Grimm to Canine Comp...

12 Feb 34min