Privacy concerns slow Facebook studies, and how human fertility depends on chromosome counts
On this week’s show, Senior News Correspondent Jeffrey Mervis talks with host Sarah Crespi about a stalled Facebook plan to release user data to social scientists who want to study the site’s role in ...
26 Sep 201938min
Cooling Earth with asteroid dust, and 3 billion missing birds
On this week’s show, science journalist Josh Sokol talks about a global cooling event sparked by space dust that lead to a huge shift in animal and plant diversity 466 million years ago. (Read the rel...
19 Sep 201928min
Studying human health at 5100 meters, and playing hide and seek with rats
In La Rinconada, Peru, a town 5100 meters up in the Peruvian Andes, residents get by breathing air with 50% less oxygen than at sea level. International News Editor Martin Enserink visited the site wi...
12 Sep 201929min
Searching for a lost Maya city, and measuring the information density of language
This week’s show starts with Contributing Correspondent Lizzie Wade, who spent 12 days with archaeologists searching for a lost Maya city in the Chiapas wilderness in Mexico. She talks with host Sarah...
5 Sep 201928min
Where our microbiome came from, and how our farming and hunting ancestors transformed the world
Micro-organisms live inside everything from the human gut to coral—but where do they come from? Host Meagan Cantwell talks to Staff Writer Elizabeth Pennisi about the first comprehensive survey of mic...
29 Aug 201931min
Promising approaches in suicide prevention, and how to retreat from climate change
Changing the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline from 1-800-273- 8255 (TALK) to a three-digit number could save lives—especially when coupled with other strategies. Host Meagan Cantwell talks to Greg...
22 Aug 201928min
One million ways to sex a chicken egg, and how plastic finds its way to Arctic ice
Researchers, regulators, and the chicken industry are all united in their search for a way to make eggs more ethical by stopping culling—the killing of male chicks born to laying hens. Contributing Co...
15 Aug 201924min
Next-generation cellphone signals could interfere with weather forecasts, and monitoring smoke from wildfires to model nuclear winter
In recent months, telecommunications companies in the United States have purchased a new part of the spectrum for use in 5G cellphone networks. Weather forecasters are concerned that these powerful si...
8 Aug 201924min
