The long road to launching the James Webb Space Telescope, and genes for a longer life span
The James Webb Space Telescope was first conceived in the late 1980s. Now, more than 30 years later, it’s finally set to launch in December. After such a long a road, anticipation over what the telesc...
11 Nov 202127min
The folate debate, and rewriting the radiocarbon curve
Some 80 countries around the world add folic acid to their food supply to prevent birth defects that might happen because of a lack of the B vitamin—even among people too early in their pregnancies to...
4 Nov 202131min
Sleeping without a brain, tracking alien invasions, and algorithms of oppression
Simple animals like jellyfish and hydra, even roundworms, sleep. Without brains. Why do they sleep? How can we tell a jellyfish is sleeping? Staff Writer Liz Pennisi joins host Sarah Crespi to talk ab...
28 Okt 202142min
Soil science goes deep, and making moldable wood
There are massive telescopes that look far out into the cosmos, giant particle accelerators looking for ever tinier signals, gargantuan gravitational wave detectors that span kilometers of Earth—what ...
20 Okt 202143min
The ripple effects of mass incarceration, and how much is a dog’s nose really worth?
This week we are covering the Science special issue on mass incarceration. Can a dog find a body? Sometimes. Can a dog indicate a body was in a spot a few months ago, even though it’s not there now? ...
14 Okt 202132min
Swarms of satellites could crowd out the stars, and the evolution of hepatitis B over 10 millennia
In 2019, a SpaceX rocket released 60 small satellites into low-Earth orbit—the first wave of more than 10,000 planned releases. At the same time, a new field of environmental debate was also launched—...
7 Okt 202130min
Whole-genome screening for newborns, and the importance of active learning for STEM
Today, most newborns get some biochemical screens of their blood, but whole-genome sequencing is a much more comprehensive look at an infant—maybe too comprehensive? Staff Writer Jocelyn Kaiser joins ...
30 Sep 202134min
Earliest human footprints in North America, dating violins with tree rings, and the social life of DNA
Contributing Correspondent Lizzie Wade joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss fossilized footprints left on a lake shore in North America sometime before the end of Last Glacial Maximum—possibly the earli...
23 Sep 202145min
