Nature Podcast14 Maj 2025

How to transport antimatter — stick it on the back of a van

00:46 An antimatter delivery van takes its first road trip

Researchers have developed a portable antimatter containment device and tested it by putting it in a truck and driving it around CERN. Their system could represent a big step forward in efforts to take particles made at CERN’s ‘antimatter factory’ and transport them to other labs, something currently impossible due to antimatter being destroyed upon contact with matter. The team showed the feasibility of their approach by using the system to safely transport particles of matter and are now looking to adapt it to ferry antimatter particles.

Research article: Leonhardt et al.

11:45 Research Highlights

How a tradition of female diving on a South Korean island might have shaped the genomes of the island’s population, and a poison-dart frog that curiously seems to be monogamous.

Research Highlight: How Korea’s female divers have adapted to cold plunges

Research Highlight: A ‘hidden gem’ of the Amazon is a frog with odd habits

13:46 The mathematics of a near-miss between black holes

Physicists have tackled a longstanding problem in physics — understanding how two black holes gravitationally interact as they fly past each other — which could help with future detections of the gravitational waves that would be created by these events. Rather than repeatedly running expensive computer simulations to approximate the answer to this problem, a team of theorists have come up with a mathematical formula to describe a black hole fly-by, which can be run in a matter of seconds. Their results could be used to identify the tell-tale signatures of these events when they actually occur.

Research article: Driesse et al.

22:10 Briefing Chat

How physicists turned lead into gold, for a microsecond and at tremendous cost, and the genetics of the skunk cabbage’s foul odour.

Nature: Physicists turn lead into gold — for a fraction of a second

Video: Scientists turn lead into gold

Nature: How skunk cabbages and other smelly plants brew their foul odour

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A black hole's spin could finally be measured by a high-speed star

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Briefing Chat: Anthropic rolls out new AI watermark — will it make a difference?

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The probiotic bacteria engineered to treat diabetes

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12 Aug 19min