Science Quickly

The 2024 U.S. presidential candidates have very different visions for the country. On today’s show, host Rachel Feltman is joined by associate sustainability editor Andrea Thompson to talk about the climate choices faced by the next president and the shifting energy landscape. Senior news reporter Meghan Bartels reviews the gun control policies of the Biden administration and the complicated cultural dynamics around gun ownership that faces the next president. Plus, we discuss how public education could be stymied by a future Trump administration and how immigration decisions will shape the STEM workforce.

Read more about the election:

– In-depth coverage explains the candidates’ climate and energy policies

– Kamala Harris and Donald Trump offer starkly different responses to gun violence

– How the 2024 election could reshape education, from pre-K to college

– The 2024 Election Will Define America’s Stance on Immigration, with Consequences for Science and Technology

– Deep dives from other SciAm editors report on the candidates’ positions on artificial intelligence, heath care, and more

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guests associate news editor Allison Parshall, senior editor of mind and brain Gary Stix, senior news reporter Meghan Bartels and associate editor of sustainability Andrea Thompson. Our show is edited by Madison Goldberg with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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The 2024 U.S. presidential candidates offer very different policy perspectives. On today’s show, host Rachel Feltman is joined by health editors Tanya Lewis and Lauren Young to discuss how Kamala Harris and Donald Trump plan to address reproductive rights and health care accessibility and affordability. Plus, senior opinion editor Dan Vergano draws on his coverage of nuclear weapons to preview what a win for each candidate would mean for the U.S.’s approach to nuclear policy. 

Read more about the election:

– In-depth coverage of the candidates’ health policies

– The nuclear decisions awaiting the next president

– Deep dives from other SciAm editors on the candidates’ positions on artificial intelligence, climate, and more

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with associate editor of health and medicine Lauren Young, senior editor of health and medicine Tanya Lewis and senior opinion editor Dan Vergano. Our show is edited by Madison Goldberg, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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Why do so many of us love a good scare? Whether it’s horror movies, haunted houses or creepy podcasts, there’s something thrilling about feeling spooked—especially around Halloween. In this episode, host Rachel Feltman dives into our fascination with fear and morbid curiosity with Coltan Scrivner, a behavioral scientist at the Recreational Fear Lab at Aarhus University in Denmark. They explore the evolutionary and psychological reasons behind why we’re drawn to the dark and eerie and why a dose of fear can be so much fun.

Recommended reading:

The Evolutionary Reasons We Are Drawn to Horror Movies and Haunted Houses

Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, along with Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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An enormous meteorite’s impact 3.26 billion years ago may have made conditions on Earth more hospitable for life in the long run. Washington State is the sixth state to report cases of bird flu in humans. Weight-loss procedures and treatments could lead to an uptick in scurvy cases if patients and physicians aren’t vigilant about vitamin C. And scientists are learning more from the remains of a Norse soldier whose body was dumped in a well some 800 years ago.

Recommended Reading

Bird Flu Is Infecting Pet Cats. Here’s What You Need to Know 

Teenagers Are Taking New Weight-Loss Drugs, but the Science Is Far from Settled 

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E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. Our show is edited by Fonda Mwangi with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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Artist and author Geo Rutherford created Spooky Lake Month to highlight the strange and eerie waters of the world. She first fell in love with the Great Lakes during graduate school in Milwaukee. Rutherford was an early educational video creator, but it was a video about spooky lakes that skyrocketed her to viral fame. She has a new book, Spooky Lakes: 25 Strange and Mysterious Lakes That Dot Our Planet. Rutherford joins host Rachel Feltman to discuss art, natural wonders and the deepest lake in the world. 

You can get Spooky Lakes: 25 Strange and Mysterious Lakes That Dot Our Planet at  www.georutherford.com/book 

Watch Spooky Lakes videos at www.tiktok.com/@geodesaurus

We’re still looking for listener submissions for our upcoming episode on the science of earworms. We’d love to hear a song you just can’t get out of your head. If you’re up for the challenge, sing or hum a few bars in a voice memo and send it over to [email protected] with your name and where you’re from. 

We value your input! Take our quick survey to share your feedback.

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest Geo Rutherford. Our show is edited by Fonda Mwangi with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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Host Rachel Feltman is joined by Jasmine McDonald, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, to discuss the disturbing trend of an increase in early-onset breast cancer diagnoses. They explore how chronic exposure to endocrine disruptors could be fueling this rise and examine the surprising role that societal beauty standards may play in shaping these risks.

We value your input! Take our quick survey to share your feedback.

Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have confirmed we’re in the solar maximum, a period of increased solar activity that could lead to more auroras. Also, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported a fivefold surge in whooping cough cases. And a new study suggests that some microbes might be using our disinfectants against us by chowing down on them.

Recommended reading:

Whooping Cough Is Spreading Again after Years of Relative Quiet

Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Anaissa Ruiz Tejada. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. 

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There’s a lot of excitement and apprehension over the seemingly sudden proliferation of artificial intelligence in just about everything. Technological progress often outpaces regulation, and the next U.S. president will set the tone for AI policy. Scientific American’s associate technology editor Ben Guarino walks us through AI policies and plans from Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Plus, we discuss the role AI generated images, videos and even voices could play in spreading misinformation around the election.

Recommended reading:

How the Next President Will Determine the Future of AI 

Lethal AI Weapons Are on the Rise. What’s Next? 

We Cannot Cede Control of Weapons to Artificial Intelligence 

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with associate technology editor Ben Guarino. Our show is edited by Fonda Mwangi with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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How do you stop implicit bias from getting in the way of better health? This doctor wants to make learning how to manage bias as important as learning how to suture.

SHOWNOTES:

Have you ever felt judged at the doctor’s office, even before you said a word? Unfortunately, that’s not uncommon, and it’s often not intentional. Like everyone, doctors have unconscious biases that can affect how they treat patients, which can pose real risks to health outcomes. In this episode, host Rachel Feltman is joined by Cristina Gonzalez, a physician and professor of medicine and population health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, to discuss how these biases form and what can be done to address them.

This podcast is part of “Health Equity Heros,” an editorially independent special report that was produced with financial support from Takeda Pharmaceuticals.

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new everyday: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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Everything you need to know about last week’s physics, chemistry, and physiology or medicine Nobels. COVID could raise the risk of heart attacks and strokes years after original infection. Hurricane Milton causes tornadoes across Florida and delays the launch of Europa Clipper.

Recommended reading:

How Does Sharing a Nobel Prize Work? https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-chemistry-physics-and-medicine-nobel-prizes-can-be-shared-and-how-that/ 

Why Hurricane Milton Caused So Many Tornadoes https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-hurricane-milton-caused-so-many-tornadoes/ 

NASA’s Europa Clipper Mission Carries Special Cargo: A Poem https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nasas-europa-clipper-mission-carries-special-cargo-a-poem/ 

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. Our show is edited by Anaissa Ruiz Tejada with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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Scientific American associate news editor and music enthusiast Allison Parshall takes Science Quickly through what we know about how singing came to be. Scientists aren’t sure why humans evolved to sing, but commonalities in traditional music offer clues to how the practice evolved. Neuroscience shows us where speech and singing live in the brain and what information the forms hold. And an upcoming experiment will look into how singing might make us more connected to one another.

Recommended reading:

New Folk Song Analysis Finds Similarities around the World

How Artificial Intelligence Helped Write This Award-Winning Song

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest Allison Parshall. Our show is edited by Madison Goldberg with fact-checking by Marielle Issa, Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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Hurricanes Beryl, Francine and Helene have battered the Gulf Coast this year. Hurricane Milton is expected to add to the destruction, particularly in parts of the west coast of central Florida that are already reeling from Hurricane Helene. Scientific American’s associate editor of sustainability Andrea Thompson joins Science Quickly to help us understand how we measure hurricanes and how climate change is magnifying the damage done by these massive storms. Plus, we discuss how the catastrophic flooding in western North Carolina dispels the myth that anywhere can be a true “climate haven.”

Recommended reading:

New Hurricane Forecasts Could Predict Terrifying Explosive Intensification https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-hurricane-forecasts-could-predict-terrifying-explosive-intensification/ 

Hurricanes Kill People for Years after the Initial Disaster  https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hurricanes-kill-people-for-years-after-the-initial-disaster/ 

Hurricane Helene Signals the End of the ‘Climate Haven’ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hurricane-helene-signals-the-end-of-the-climate-haven/ 

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest Andrea Thompson, Scientific American’s associate editor of sustainability. Our show is edited by Fonda Mwangi with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. 

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Hurricane Helene’s death toll continues to rise. Marburg virus is spreading in Rwanda, but risks for a global outbreak are low. Researchers in Beijing used stem cell treatments to reverse diabetes in a patient. Plus, we discuss a map of a fruit fly’s brain and dolphin smiles.

Recommended reading:

Hurricanes Kill People for Years after the Initial Disaster https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hurricanes-kill-people-for-years-after-the-initial-disaster/ 

See an Amazingly Detailed Map of the Fruit Fly Brain

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/see-an-amazingly-detailed-map-of-the-fruit-fly-brain/ 

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. Our show is edited by Anaissa Ruiz Tejada with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck.  The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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Drag queen and mathematics communicator Kyne Santos tells us the questions that modern mathematicians are grappling with, from infinite tiling to the structure of math itself.

We hope you enjoyed the final episode of this Friday miniseries about magical math. You can listen to parts one and two wherever you get your podcasts or at the links below. 

Recommended reading:

– Discover Math’s Elegance and Power with Drag Queen Kyne Santos

– Is Math Part of Nature or an Invention of the Mind?

– Inside Mathematicians’ Search for the Mysterious ‘Einstein Tile’

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest Kyne Santos. Our show is edited by Madison Goldberg with fact-checking by Shayna Posses, Emily Makowski and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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The Food and Drug Administration has granted priority review to suzetrigine, a novel painkiller. It’s part of a new class of medications that could provide relief to those with chronic pain. The drugs target sodium channels on nerve cells, stopping pain signaling at the periphery. Journalist Marla Broadfoot explains the biology of aches and pains and the reasons it is so challenging to develop well-tolerated medications for pain.

Recommended reading:

New Painkiller Could Bring Relief to Millions—Without Addiction Risk 

Ozempic Quiets Food Noise in the Brain—But How? 

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest Marla Broadfoot. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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From the United Nations General Assembly, host Rachel Feltman interviews Melissa Fleming, the U.N.’s undersecretary-general for global communications, on how misinformation and distrust in science are impacting global well-being. Plus, we note caveats to a major social media study and explain how food packaging can be harmful to the environment and human health.

Recommended reading:

Why It’s So Hard to Recycle Plastic https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-its-so-hard-to-recycle-plastic/ 

How Deadly Is Mpox, What Vaccines Are Effective, and Other Questions Answered https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-deadly-is-mpox-what-vaccines-are-effective-and-other-questions-answered/ 

61 Unexpected ‘Forever Chemicals’ Found in Food Packaging https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/61-unexpected-pfas-forever-chemicals-found-in-food-packaging/ 

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio.  This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest Melissa Fleming, undersecretary-general for global communications at the United Nations. Our show is edited by Anaissa Ruiz Tejada with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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Where does math come from? Mathematicians are still debating whether math is an inherent part of nature or an invention of the human mind. Mathematics communicator and drag queen Kyne will guide you through the question of what math really is in this three-part Friday miniseries.

Recommended reading:

– Gift Wrapping Five Oranges Has Outwitted the Best Minds in Mathematics for Generations 

– The SAT Problem That Everybody Got Wrong

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman and Kyne Santos. Our show is edited by Madison Goldberg with fact-checking by Shayna Posses, Emily Makowski and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) affects up to five million people in the U.S., yet it remains poorly understood. Many people with PCOS go undiagnosed while experiencing symptoms such as irregular periods, changes in hair and body shape, acne and infertility. Even after a diagnosis, they’re often told to lose weight to manage symptoms—advice that some researchers now say can be harmful. 

A recent study found that people with PCOS are more likely to have eating disorders, regardless of their body mass index. Laura Cooney, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, co-authored the study. She joins host Rachel Feltman to discuss why the focus on weight loss for PCOS treatment needs to be reconsidered.

This episode is part of “Health Equity Heroes,” an editorially independent special project that was produced with financial support from Takeda Pharmaceuticals.

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new everyday: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this week’s news roundup: Earth might have previously had a giant ring of space rocks like the one around Saturn, “scuba diving” lizards are using bubbles to breathe, and a new study mapped brain changes in a person throughout pregnancy. Additionally, we describe how NASA’s stranded astronauts will vote from space.

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new everyday: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Anaissa Ruiz Tejada. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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Mathematics communicator and drag queen Kyne Santos will help you discover the beauty and power of math in this three-part Friday miniseries. Kyne takes us back to ancient Greece to illustrate the elegance of mathematics. We meet mathematician Tom Crawford, who combines fieldwork and modeling to predict the impacts of pollution, as well as philosopher and logician Mark Jago. 

Recommended reading:

– Gift Wrapping Five Oranges Has Outwitted the Best Minds in Mathematics for Generations

– The SAT Problem That Everybody Got Wrong

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman and Kyne Santos. Our show is edited by Madison Goldberg with fact-checking by Shayna Posses, Emily Makowski and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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In recognition of Prostate Cancer Awareness Month this September, host Rachel Feltman sits down with Alfred Winkler, chief of urology at NewYork-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital, to discuss proactive steps individuals can take to protect themselves against prostate cancer. Black American men, in particular, face some of the highest rates of the disease in the world, with multiple factors contributing to this elevated risk. This episode explores efforts to raise awareness and promote early screening within this high-risk group.

This episode is part of “Health Equity Heroes,” an editorially independent special project that was produced with financial support from Takeda Pharmaceuticals.

Recommended reading:

New Prostate Cancer Treatments Offer Hope for Advanced Cases 

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new everyday: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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This week's news roundup: The European Space Agency’s Juice mission tested its instruments with a flyby of Earth in preparation for studying habitability on moons of Jupiter’. Also, a study found that Massachusetts has reduced food waste through composting and enforcement while four other states have not successfully done so despite also having bans on disposing of such waste in landfills. And researchers tested the generative artificial intelligence platform GPT-4 Turbo’s ability to counter conspiracy theories through personalized, fact-based conversations, yielding promising results.

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new everyday: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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Science Quickly host Rachel Feltman interviewed NASA flight engineer Matthew Dominick live—from space! In this first-ever interview conducted from the International Space Station’s (ISS’s) iconic cupola, Dominick talks about his path to space, his experience on the ISS and his incredible astrophotography. You can listen to the full video and watch the changing light from the cupola at the link below.

Watch the First-Ever Interview from the ISS Cupola https://www.scientificamerican.com/video/learn-how-astronauts-take-photos-from-nasa-in-flight-engineer-matthew/ 

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest Matthew Dominick. Our show is edited by Jeff DelViscio with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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Content warning: This episode contains some details about the 9/11 attacks and victims’ remains.

Twenty-three years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, forensic scientists are still working to identify victims from the World Trade Center site. Host Rachel Feltman speaks with Kathleen Corrado, forensics executive director at Syracuse University’s College of Arts & Sciences, about what unique challenges have been posed by the massive scale of the tragedy and how the lessons learned are now helping investigators solve cases from wildfires to criminal investigations—in addition to aiding efforts to identify the remaining victims of 9/11.

Recommended reading:

Health Effects of 9/11 Still Plague Responders and Survivors

What Structural Engineers Learned from 9/11

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new everyday: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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In this week’s new roundup, a new study finds no clear connection between phone use and brain or head cancers, putting some fears to rest. Meanwhile Sweden’s new screen-time guidelines suggest keeping kids under age two away from screens entirely and limiting time for older children—and echo concerns from other countries about how much time young people spend on devices. Also, jellyfish clones are invading lakes in British Columbia, Oregon faces its worst measles outbreak in three decades, and NASA clears up the mystery behind the strange noise on the ill-fated Boeing Starliner spacecraft.

Recommended reading:

How to Check If You’re Immune to Measles

How Worried Should We Be about Starliner’s Stranded Astronauts?

When Should Kids Get a Smartphone?

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

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As people live longer and family sizes shrink, fewer relatives are available to share the burden of caregiving for aging loved ones. The second episode of our two-part miniseries on caregiving explores what this means for the family members who take on this critical role. How do they provide the best care while also maintaining their own well-being? To hear firsthand how caregivers are navigating this challenge, Lauren Young and Tanya Lewis, Scientific American’s respective associate and senior editors of health and medicine, visited a support center in Queens, N.Y. Young shares some of the stories they gathered from the community there.

Listen to part one of this series.

This episode is part of “Health Equity Heroes,” an editorially independent special project that was produced with financial support from Takeda Pharmaceuticals.

Recommended reading:

Shrinking Family Sizes May Change Our Experience with Aging

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was reported and hosted by Lauren Young. Tanya Lewis also contributed reporting for this miniseries. Marielle Issa, Emily Makowski, Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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Discrimination may be speeding up the aging process for people of color and other minoritized groups. Research is revealing that structural and interpersonal racism could be key factors in why these communities often age faster and face age-related diseases sooner. Alexis Reeves, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University, studies how racism affects aging, with a focus on early menopause. In a conversation with Science Quickly host Rachel Feltman, Reeves discusses how traditional research methods might be overlooking these critical disparities.

This episode is part of “Health Equity Heroes,” an editorially independent special project that was produced with financial support from Takeda Pharmaceuticals.

Recommended reading:

Discrimination May Hasten Menopause in Black and Hispanic Women

How Racism in Early Life Can Affect Long-Term Health

“Systematic Exclusion at Study Commencement Masks Earlier Menopause for Black Women in the Study of Women’s Health across the Nation (SWAN),” by Alexis Reeves et al., in International Journal of Epidemiology, Vol. 52, No. 5; October 2023 

“Study Selection Bias and Racial or Ethnic Disparities in Estimated Age at Onset of Cardiometabolic Disease among Midlife Women in the US,” by Alexis Reeves et al, in JAMA Network Open, Vol. 5, No. 1, Article No. e2240665. Published online November 7, 2022 

Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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In this first episode of a two-part miniseries on caregiving, Tanya Lewis, Scientific American’s senior editor of health and medicine, shares her personal experience with becoming a caregiver for her mother after her mom was diagnosed with a serious illness. Her journey inspired her to explore the broader challenges faced by caregivers. Lewis and her colleague Lauren J. Young, SciAm’s associate editor of health and medicine, reached out to listeners and investigated the stresses of caregiving, uncovering common experiences and insights. Lewis joins host Rachel Feltman to delve into the scope of the caregiving crisis.

This episode is part of “Health Equity Heroes,” an editorially independent special project that was produced with financial support from Takeda Pharmaceuticals.

Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

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Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was reported and co-hosted by Tanya Lewis. Lauren J. Young also contributed reporting. Marielle Issa, Emily Makowski, Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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Marc Hachadourian, senior curator of orchids and director of glasshouse horticulture at the New York Botanical Garden, joins host Rachel Feltman to explore houseplant trends from the past and the present. Plus, they discuss how ethically sourcing your plants can prevent fad-driven overcollection.

Listen to the New York Botanical Garden’s new podcast Plant People.

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with Marc Hachadourian, senior curator of orchids and director of glasshouse horticulture at the New York Botanical Garden. Our show is edited by Jeff DelViscio and Fonda Mwangi with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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NASA’s Perseverance rover cautiously climbs Jezero Crater on Mars in search of new discoveries. We also explore recent revelations about the Red Planet’s hidden water reserves and puzzling sulfur findings. On the health front, a new device, described as an implant that acts like a pacemaker for the brain, shows promise for Parkinson’s treatment by reducing symptoms more effectively than conventional methods. Plus, we discuss a concerning side effect of the popular weight-loss drug semaglutide, fears of a polio outbreak in Gaza and the latest on mpox, which the World Health Organization declared a global health emergency earlier this month.

Recommended Reading: 

Mars Hides Colossal Ocean Deep Below Its Surface

People Are Overdosing on Semaglutide Drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy

Mpox Is a Global Health Emergency. Here’s What We Know

Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new everyday: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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The Democratic presidential ticket has literally diverse voices. While Vice President Kamala Harris’s speech is influenced by her Californian origins, the way Minnesota governor Tim Walz talks reflects his roots in Nebraska. In our podcast, linguist Nicole Holliday expands on her viral TikTok analyses of Harris’s speech patterns and the ideological stereotypes we attach to pronunciation and intonation. 

Recommended reading:

Watch one of Holliday’s viral TikToks

Bilingualism Is Reworking This Language’s Rainbow 

Grammar Changes How We See, an Australian Language Shows 

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. 

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Polymetallic nodules litter a stretch of ocean between Mexico and Hawaii. They contain metals, such as manganese and cobalt, that mining companies want to use for battery production. Researchers recently found that these seafloor blobs might make their own oxygen—and no one knows exactly how. Scientific American’s associate news editor Allison Parshall explains the hype behind this “dark oxygen.”

Recommended reading:

‘Dark Oxygen’ Discovered Coming from Mineral Deposits on Deep Seafloor https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dark-oxygen-discovered-coming-from-mineral-deposits-on-deep-seafloor/

Earth’s Coral Reefs Face a New, Deadly Mass Bleaching. They Can Still Be Saved

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earths-coral-reefs-face-a-new-deadly-mass-bleaching-they-can-still-be-saved/ 

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest and associate news editor Allison Parshall. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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Doris Tsao is the 2024 recipient of The Kavli Prize in Neuroscience for her research on facial recognition. Her work has provided insights into the complex workings of the brain and has the potential to advance our understanding of perception and cognition.

This podcast was produced for The Kavli Prize by Scientific American Custom Media, a division separate from the magazines board of editors.

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James Cameron is known for his ambitious filmmaking. His newest project is a six-part National Geographic miniseries that goes beneath the waves with the crew of the OceanXplorer. Cameron joins Science Quickly host Rachel Feltman to talk about the origins of his fascination with the ocean and the importance of seeing scientists at work.

Recommended reading:

Mysterious Galápagos Reefs Harbor Strawberry Squid and Other Fantastic Creatures https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mysterious-galapagos-reefs-harbor-strawberry-squid-and-other-fantastic-creatures1/ 

Healthy Coral Reefs Sound like a Symphony https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/this-is-how-a-healthy-coral-reef-sounds-and-why-it-matters/ 

Earth’s Coral Reefs Face a New, Deadly Mass Bleaching. They Can Still Be Saved https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earths-coral-reefs-face-a-new-deadly-mass-bleaching-they-can-still-be-saved/ 

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest James Cameron.Our show is edited by Fonda Mwangi with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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When the hit podcast Science Vs went to find the facts about the “male G-spot,” it was faced with remarkably little research to draw from. So the team collaborated with academics on one of the largest surveys about anal sex and masturbation. We discuss what they learned, on this episode of Science Quickly with Rachel Feltman and special guest Wendy Zukerman of Science Vs. 

Recommended reading:

Mind-Blowing Orgasms: Does the Male G-Spot Exist? 

How to Explore Your Sexuality, according to Science  

Asexuality Research Has Reached New Heights. What Are We Learning? 

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest Wendy Zukerman, host of Science Vs. Our show is edited by Fonda Mwangi with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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Debris from satellites, rockets and other space infrastructure are crowding low-Earth orbit. Occasionally, that space junk crashes down to Earth. For Samantha Lawler, an associate professor of astronomy at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan, such debris was mostly a theoretical nuisance. Then a nearby farmer found remnants of a SpaceX craft on his land, and Lawler was pulled into the murky legal landscape around space junk in the skies and on the ground.

Recommended reading: 

SpaceX Dropped Space Junk on My Neighbor’s Farm. Here’s What Happened Next 

Space Junk Is Polluting Earth’s Stratosphere with Vaporized Metal 

Space Trash Threatens the Global Economy

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest Samantha Lawler. Our show is edited by Fonda Mwangi with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris came to a close on Sunday—and swimmers swam the Seine as promised. The two astronauts sent to the International Space Station on a Boeing Starliner craft in June are still in limbo, with no set return flight. The EPA is acting quickly to suspend sales of products that contain the pesticide dimethyl tetrachloroterephthalate over safety concerns. Plus, we discuss a new theory of how the pyramids were built (and no, it doesn’t involve aliens).

Recommended reading:

Cleaning Up Paris’s Poop River for the Olympics  https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/cleaning-up-the-poop-polluted-seine-for-the-paris-olympics/ 

Lost Branch of the Nile May Solve Long-Standing Mystery of Egypt’s Famed Pyramids https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/egypts-famed-pyramids-overlooked-a-long-lost-branch-of-the-nile/ 

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. Our show is edited by Fonda Mwangi with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck.  The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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Content warning: This episode focuses in part on the archaeological study of ancient human sacrifice, including incidents involving young children. While we have taken care not to include gratuitous descriptions of violence, this episode does contain frank discussion of the circumstances of these deaths and the nature of these individuals’ remains.

In the final episode of our three-part series on unusual archaeology, science journalist Kata Karáth takes you on one more adventure—to a mountaintop with an extreme climate, where archaeologists investigate the practice of human sacrifice among the Inka.

Listen to the first two episodes of this series exploring humanity’s past:

— Sustainable Fishing with Ancient Chambers and Ocean Tides

— How Ancient Humans Interpreted the Cosmos

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was reported and hosted by Kata Karáth with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Special thanks to María Luz Endere and Carlos Molina-Vital for their assistance with parts of this script.

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Host Rachel Feltman is joined by conservation bioacoustics researcher Isla Keesje Davidson to explore the vibrant world of coral reefs through an unexpected lens: sound. They discuss how healthy coral reefs sound different from those in distress, why listening to the ocean could be key to its preservation and how you can be part of this groundbreaking research.

Recommended reading: 

— Earth’s Coral Reefs Face a New, Deadly Mass Bleaching. They Can Still Be Saved

— We Can Save Earth’s Coral Reefs

Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new everyday: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman, featuring guest Isla Keesje Davidson. Our show is fact-checked by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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The American Cancer Society published a study suggesting that for 8 or 34 cancers tracked, case rates are rising from one generation to the next. While headlines often point to sedentary lifestyles and higher weights as a possible cause, some experts say that these factors alone cannot explain the spike. In more hopeful oncology news, there’s a new blood test for colorectal cancer–though it doesn’t replace the importance of colonoscopies. 

SpaceX is delaying their attempt at the first-ever private spacewalk—billionaire Jared Isaacman will have to wait. And on the ground, move over hardwood and softwood—two surviving species of the Liriodendron genus point to a new categorization of midwood.

Recommended reading:

Gen X Faces Higher Cancer Rates Than Any Previous Generation 

Why We’ll Never Live in Space 

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

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Gazing up at the night sky is a universal human experience, likely as old as our species itself. But how did our ancient ancestors feel about what they saw in the heavens, and how did it shape their lives? In Episode Two of our three-part Fascination miniseries on unusual archaeology, science journalist Kata Karáth introduces us to archaeoastronomy—the study of how people in the past experienced and explained the phenomena of the cosmos.

Listen to the first episode of this series: “Sustainable Fishing with Ancient Chambers and Ocean Tides”

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Jeff DelViscio, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Rachel Feltman. This episode was reported and hosted by Kata Karáth. Special thanks to Saara Alakorva and Camilla Brattland for their assistance with parts of this script. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-checked this series. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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Sex testing has a long history in sports. As participation in events like the Olympics opened to women, organizers and audiences alike began questioning the sex of the athletes. The tests devised to “prove” an athlete’s sex have been invasive and inaccurate. Rose Eveleth, host of the NPR and CBC podcast Tested, brings us the story of sex testing and where the science stands.

Listen to Tested: https://link.chtbl.com/zQEKpQCE

Read Olympic coverage from Scientific American:

Is Technology in the Olympics a Form of Doping or a Reality of Modern Sport? https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-technology-in-the-olympics-a-form-of-doping-or-a-reality-of-modern-sport/

For Olympic Athletes, First Come the Games—Then Come the Post-Olympics Blues https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/for-olympic-athletes-first-come-the-games-then-come-the-post-olympics-blues/

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest Rose Eveleth, host of Tested. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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It’s a scorching summer, with record-breaking temperatures last Monday. Rain really is harder to predict, and greenhouse gasses are probably to blame. Polio is circulating in Gaza’s wastewater and could spread as conflict leads to crowding, poor sanitation and missing routine vaccinations. Plus, we discuss a shocking price for a promising HIV vaccine, cocaine sharks and komodo dragons with iron-tipped teeth. 

Recommended reading:

Sharks in Brazil Test Positive for a Surprising Contaminant: Cocaine 

Komodo Dragons’ Nightmare Iron-Tipped Teeth Are a Reptilian First 

Why Extreme Heat Is So Deadly 

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. This show was edited by Jeff DelViscio, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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Fish trapping is an ancient practice, reaching across the globe from at least as far back as 11,000 years ago. It takes advantage of coastal tides and human-made chambers to catch and release fish. The simple but ingenious ancient fishing structures are built on two intertwining principles: the ocean can provide for us if we properly care for it.

Archaeologists are mapping the possible locations of ancient traps. And on Penghu, a group of islands off of Taiwan, people are reviving the traditional tidal weirs, hoping to promote sustainable fishing and attract ecotourism. 

Stay tuned for more from science journalist Kata Karáth in part two of our three-part Fascination series on unusual archaeology.

Recommended reading:

– Oldest Deep-Sea Shipwreck Is a ‘Time Capsule’ from the Bronze Age

– The Oldest-Wine-in-the-World Title Goes to a 2,000-Year-Old White Found in Southwestern Spain

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman and journalist Kata Karáth. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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Meditation is mostly mainstream, with many people using mindfulness to manage stress. But dedicated practitioners of advanced meditation move beyond mindfulness into a state where consciousness “entirely falls away.” That’s according to today’s guest: Matthew Sacchet, an associate professor and director of the Meditation Research Program at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. Sacchet tells host Rachel Feltman about his journey from youthful meditator to neuroscience researcher. Plus, they discuss what meditation and psychedelic experiences are unlocking for consciousness researchers.

Recommended reading:

Read a feature co-authored by Sacchet in the July issue of SciAm 

And see our June issue feature on the neuroscience of near-death experiences

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest Matthew Sacchet. Our show is edited by Madison Goldberg and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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President Biden is far from the only positive as COVID is experiencing a summer surge. Windows malfunction grounds planes and causes outages for banks, hospitals and emergency services. The Perseid meteor shower gives you plenty of shooting stars to see. Plus, we use the Twisters premiere as an excuse to talk about wild weather.

Recommended reading

COVID Rates Are Rising Again. Why Does It Spread So Well in the Summer? 

Worldwide Tech Outage Started with Defective Crowdstrike Update to Microsoft Windows

[WATCH] Tornado Science is Evolving Fast 

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

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The Seine is set to feature prominently in the Paris 2024 Olympics’ Opening Ceremony—and in its marathon swimming events. But this urban waterway has been challenging to clean and keep clean after a particularly wet summer and high bacterial counts.

What can the Parisian organizers learn from the revitalization of a U.S. river that was so polluted that it inspired the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency? Scientific American associate news editor Allison Parshall takes us to the banks of the reformed Cuyahoga River in Ohio. 

Plus, she gives us a look at the growing urban river swimming movement in Europe.

Recommended Reading

Training with 'Digital Twins' Could Boost Olympic Swimmer Speeds 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest and Scientific American associate news editor Allison Parshall. Our show is edited by Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, Madison Goldberg and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

The Seine is set to feature prominently in the Paris 2024 Olympics’ Opening Ceremony—and in its marathon swimming events. But this urban waterway has been challenging to clean and keep clean after a particularly wet summer and high bacterial counts.

What can the Parisian organizers learn from the revitalization of a U.S. river that was so polluted that it inspired the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency? Scientific American associate news editor Allison Parshall takes us to the banks of the reformed Cuyahoga River in Ohio. 

Plus, she gives us a look at the growing urban river swimming movement in Europe.

Recommended Reading

Training with 'Digital Twins' Could Boost Olympic Swimmer Speeds https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/training-with-digital-twins-could-boost-olympic-swimmer-speeds/ 

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American: https://www.scientificamerican.com/getsciam/

And sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter: https://www.scientificamerican.com/account/email-preferences/

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Science journalist and Radiolab host Latif Nasser found himself at the center of a space mystery. A space poster in his child’s room showed Zoozve, a moon circling Venus. Only Nasser had never heard of Zoozve—and neither had anyone else. Nasser brings us the story of Zoozve the quasi-moon and brings listeners the opportunity to name a quasi-moon of their own.

Recommended listening

Zoozve 

Name a Quasi-Moon with Radiolab

Quasi-Moon Contest 

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with special guest Latif Nasser, Radiolab host. Our show is edited by Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, Madison Goldberg and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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Chad Mirkin, recipient of the 2024 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience, has spent his career exploring the possibilities of creating and inventing materials at the nanoscale.

This podcast was produced for The Kavli Prize by Scientific American Custom Media, a division separate from the magazine’s board of editors.

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We commemorate the 55th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, dive into NASA’s groundbreaking Mars habitat simulation and discuss the innovative ​​“stillsuits” designed to recycle astronaut pee and how they could enhance spacewalks. Plus, we discuss the record-breaking Hurricane Beryl and its implications for climate change policies, and a surprising case of the plague in Colorado. 

Recommended reading:

– One Small Step Back in Time: Relive the Wonder of Apollo 11

– Why Hurricane Beryl Underwent Unprecedented Rapid Intensification

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. Our show is edited by Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, Madison Goldberg and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

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We’re at the end of the Nathaniel B. Palmer’s Antarctic expedition. The researchers onboard are returning sea ice and thousands of gallons of seawater. These samples will allow them to examine biogeochemical processes, some of which are linked to climate change. As the research vessel makes its way back to port, the scientists reflect on the future of our planet and the question of whether the ice in Antarctica will always be around for sampling.

Listen to the first three episodes of this series: 

– Glacial Melting Could Change the Chemistry of Antarctic Seawater 

– Penguins and Ice Samples Make This Research Vessel Paradice

– Life for Researchers on This Icebreaker Is Cold and Fulfilling

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by journalist Sofia Moutinho. Our show is edited by Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, Madison Goldberg and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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Przewalski’s horses are truly wild horses, even the ones held in captivity. They traditionally roamed the Central Asian steppes, so you can imagine everyone’s surprise when two separate accounts on TikTok claimed to have found a Przewalski’s horse here in the U.S. But as guest and Scientific American associate news editor Allison Parshall will tell you, the real story is the remarkable conservation efforts that led to a resurgence for this horse, which was once considered extinct in the wild.

The Last Wild Horses Are Finally Returning to Their Natural Habitat 

How a Cloned Ferret Inspired a DNA Bank for Endangered Species 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest and associate news editor Allison Parshall. Our show is edited by Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, Madison Goldberg and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

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We’re looking at our reporting—from 100 years ago. In 1924 Scientific American’s pages were bemoaning traffic, waste management and pests. They were also praising the by-products of coal tar and those substances’ use in household items. While the record is clear on the toxicity of fossil fuels to our environment and our health, demand for fossil-fuel-based “petrochemical” products such as plastic is only increasing. Host Rachel Feltman advises on how to avoid petrochemicals in our everyday products. Plus, we take a lighthearted look at a telepathy study also featured in one of our 1924 issues. 

Recommended reading:

The Gas Industry Is Gaslighting the Public about Climate Change

Renewable Power Set to Surpass Coal Globally by 2025

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

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Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. Our show is edited by Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, Madison Goldberg and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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The Supreme Court dismissed a case about Idaho’s abortion ban, preserving a lower court ruling that allows for emergency access to abortion in the state. NASA pushed back a return flight for two Starliner astronauts so that Boeing and the agency can better understand the helium leaks and thruster failures that plagued the spacecraft’s launch. 

Infectious disease experts are still tracking the transmission of bird flu in the U.S., while Finland is set to offer preemptive vaccines to farmworkers. Higher temperatures are contributing to a spike in dengue fever. A new strain of mpox is spreading in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

We’re taking the holiday week off, so there won’t be an episode on Wednesday or Friday. Enjoy your Fourth of July, stay safe around fireworks and listen to our back catalog of episodes when you need a break from backyard barbecues. 

Recommended reading:

Supreme Court Allows Emergency Abortions in Idaho—For Now

Mosquitoes Carry Nasty Diseases. Here’s How to Protect Yourself

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Life onboard the Nathaniel B. Palmer can be cramped and cold. Chaotic work schedules and changing time zones can be disorienting, and the isolation of Antarctica is hard to handle. Research, routine and a mock trial with the god of the sea help these scientists stay grounded.

Stay tuned for the fourth and final episode of this Friday Fascination: researchers reflect on the emotional toll of witnessing climate change’s impact on Antarctica.

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by journalist Sofia Moutinho. Our show is edited by Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, Madison Goldberg and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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Summers are getting hotter, with heat waves that last longer and occur more often. That makes it even more important to communicate the risks of heat to vulnerable groups and keep communities and individuals cool. Sustainability editor Andrea Thompson explains why it feels hotter than ever and how to keep yourself and your community safe in the summer heat. 

Recommended reading:

This Isn’t Your Grandparents’ Summer Heat

How Some Common Medications Can Make People More Vulnerable to Heat

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman, with special guest Andrea Thompson. Our show is edited by Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, Madison Goldberg and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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Microplastics are everywhere—and we mean everywhere. These pesky plastic pollutants have been found in penis tissue, testicles, breast milk and blood. They’ve turned up in Antarctic snow, in the clouds above Mount Fuji, inside deep-sea creatures and near the top of Mount Everest. In Paris Olympic ambitions for the Seine’s are being complicated by bacteria. Far above Earth, the Starliner spacecraft faced a rocky road to the International Space Station (ISS). Starliner’s return to Earth is being delayed as Boeing and NASA officials take a look at the leaks and thruster failures that occurred during its journey to the ISS.

Recommended reading:

Microplastics Linked to Heart Attack, Stroke and Death

The Physics of Breakdancing, a New Olympic Sport 

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. Our show is edited by Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, Madison Goldberg and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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It’s important that researchers get samples of Antarctic sea ice before melting takes the opportunity away. But fieldwork is never straightforward, and in part two of our Friday Fascination series about Antarctica, journalist Sofia Moutinho and the scientists on the Nathaniel B. Palmer take a break to enjoy some adorable Adélie penguins, the smallest penguin species in the Antarctic.

Stay tuned for next Friday’s episode, when we’ll learn what it’s like to live and work onboard an icebreaker in Antarctica.

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by journalist Sofia Moutinho. Our show is edited by Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, Madison Goldberg and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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The U.S. Department of Defense has sounded the alarm on a worrying hypothetical program from Russia aimed at putting a nuclear weapon into orbit. Associate news editor Allison Parshall explains what we know about nukes in space from a satellite accident and a series of ill-advised low-orbit tests during the cold war.

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Carin Leong, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest Allison Parshall. Our show is edited by Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, Madison Goldberg and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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This week’s news roundup features spiders, space and the Supreme Court. “Flying” Joro spiders are making headlines, but are they really taking over the East Coast? Extreme heat leads Greece to close the Acropolis and worry about what the rest of the summer will bring. Levels of ozone-depleting hydrochlorofluorocarbons are on the decline. Plus, satellite reentry releases ozone-damaging aluminum oxide, and access to medication abortion is preserved. 

Recommended viewing: The Ozone Hole Showed Humans Could Damage Earth and That We Could Heal It

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for our daily Today in Science newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Carin Leong, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. Our show is edited by Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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All aboard the Nathaniel B. Palmer, a research vessel making its way through the waters of West Antarctica. Journalist Sofia Moutinho is joining a team of chemists trying to find out how glacial melting is changing ocean chemistry—and what those changes might mean for the global climate.

The researchers want to know whether a negative feedback loop could take shape in Antarctica’s seas. Carbon dioxide contributes to the rise in warming that is melting the glaciers. As glacial melting releases iron, phytoplankton feast. Phytoplankton in turn remove carbon from the air, potentially causing a cooling effect.

Stay tuned for next Friday’s episode, where Moutinho will embark on a hunt for sea ice and hear about the researchers’ special encounter with Adélie penguins.

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Carin Leong, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by journalist Sofia Moutinho. Our show is edited by Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, Madison Goldberg and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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Nearly a third of U.S. adults have tattoos, but how many people know what's really in the ink? Despite new regulations, researchers have found many commercial inks contain unlisted and potentially harmful ingredients. John Swierk, an assistant professor of chemistry at Binghamton University, and his team are trying to figure out exactly what goes into each vial of tattoo ink—and how tattoos actually work—to help make body art safer.

Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new everyday: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman, with guest John Swierk, assistant professor of chemistry at Binghamton University. Our show is edited by Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, Madison Goldberg and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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In this week’s news roundup, we present the latest from the skies and the pillbox. The Hubble Space Telescope is limping along, operating with just one gyroscope to preserve its research capabilities. China’s Chang’e-6 lunar probe is sending back the first ever samples from the far side of the moon. Plus, there are exciting advancements in the world of pharmaceuticals, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention endorsing a “morning-after pill” for STIs and artificial intelligence discovering potential novel antibiotics.

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for our daily Today in Science newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Kelso Harper, Carin Leong, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Kelso Harper. Our show is edited by Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, Madison Goldberg and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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Can plants “think?" Do they “talk” to one another? These are questions that scientists are asking—and the answers might surprise you. Zoë Schlanger, climate reporter at The Atlantic, sits down with Science Quickly host Rachel Feltman to discuss her new book The Light Eaters, which explores the surprising science of plant intelligence. 

Related Reading:

Brains Are Not Required When It Comes to Thinking and Solving Problems—Simple Cells Can Do It

How Plant Intelligence Can Soothe Climate Anxiety

Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new everyday: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Kelso Harper, Carin Leong Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest Zoë Schlanger from The Atlantic. Our show is edited by Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, Madison Goldberg and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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A “double brood” of cicadas is taking over much of the eastern half of the U.S. They’re loud and abundant. Have you considered–eating them? Chef Joseph Yoon, founder of Brooklyn Bugs, explains how to harvest and feast upon this year’s “double brood” and the many benefits of adding insects to our diet.  

Related Reading:

– Periodical Cicadas Emerge Every 13 or 17 Years. How Do They Keep Track of Time?

– Can You Eat Cicadas? Can Your Dog Do So? 

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Kelso Harper, Carin Leong, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman, with guest Joseph Yoon of Brooklyn Bugs. Our show is edited by Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, Madison Goldberg and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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In this week’s news roundup: Despite widespread concerns, a new study on adolescent smartphone use found that teens report improved moods when using their devices. Misleadingly framed but factually accurate stories shared on social media can drive vaccine hesitancy more effectively than outright false information. Updates on rising COVID-19 cases and the latest developments in the ongoing bird flu outbreak. Plus, the potential return of stunning auroral displays, thanks to upcoming solar activity. 

Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new everyday: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Kelso Harper. Our show is edited by Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, Madison Goldberg and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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Cape Cod communities are facing an expensive mandate to clean up their wastewater. Urine diversion or “pee-cycling” could be a cost-effective pollution solution. In the third and final installment of our three-part Fascination series about Cape Cod’s “yellow tide,” environmental reporter Barbara Moran meets a Falmouth couple championing this unconventional approach. 

You can check out more of Barbara Moran’s reporting on Cape Cod’s water pollution, including the “pee-cycling” pilot project in Falmouth. And watch WBUR and Scientific American’s documentary short exploring how pollution and algae overgrowth threaten this Massachusetts vacation hub.

Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for our daily newsletter. 

This series is a co-production of WBUR and Scientific American. It’s reported and hosted by WBUR’s Barbara Moran. Science Quickly is produced by Jeff DelViscio, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Rachel Feltman. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-checked this series, and Duy Linh Tu and Sebastian Tuinder contributed reporting and sound. WBUR’s Kathleen Masterson edited this series. Additional funding was provided by the Pulitzer Center.

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Research at the intersection of science and beauty is providing us with a better understanding of hair diversity.

This podcast was produced for L’Oréal by Scientific American Custom Media, a division separate from the magazine’s board of editors.

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Whether you have a large yard or a tiny planter, there are ways to use your outdoor space to protect wildlife. Senior news reporter Meghan Bartels takes us through what you can do, or stop doing, to make your yard and home friendlier to local critters. 

Related Reading:

– 8 Ways to Protect Wildlife Near Your Home

– Pollinators Flock to Flower-Filled Solar Panel Fields

Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest Meghan Bartels. Our show is edited by Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, Madison Goldberg and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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Cape Cod’s famed ponds and bays are suffering from pollution with a curious origin: human urine. Household septic systems are flushing nitrogen into the water, resulting in toxic algal blooms. In the second installment of our three-part Fascination series about Cape Cod’s “yellow tide,” environmental reporter Barbara Moran looks at the controversial and costly pollution solutions being considered.

You can check out more of Barbara Moran’s reporting on the efforts to improve Cape Cod’s water pollution, including a “pee-cycling” project being considered by one innovative town. And watch WBUR and Scientific American’s documentary short exploring how pollution and algae overgrowth threaten this Massachusetts vacation hub.

Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new everyday: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for our daily newsletter. 

This series is a co-production of WBUR and Scientific American. It’s reported and hosted by WBUR’s Barbara Moran. Science Quickly is produced by Jeff DelViscio, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Rachel Feltman. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-checked this series, and Duy Linh Tu and Sebastian Tuinder contributed reporting and sound. WBUR’s Kathleen Masterson edited this series. Additional funding was provided by the Pulitzer Center.

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Psychologist and cooperation theorist Athena Aktipis shares advice from her new book, A Field Guide to the Apocalypse, on how to survive and thrive in doomsday scenarios from catastrophic natural disasters to zombie outbreaks. 

Related Reading:

– Could the Zombie Fungus in TV’s The Last of Us Really Infect People?

– The Evolutionary Reasons We Are Drawn to Horror

Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new everyday: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest Athena Aktipis. Our show is edited by Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, Madison Goldberg and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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In this week's science roundup: drinking raw milk was always risky, but now there are added concerns over the spread of bird flu into dairy cows. An intense geomagnetic storm led to stunning auroras across the globe last week–and similar storms could mess with satellites and electricity infrastructure. Plus, hurricane forecasts are on the horizon.

Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! And discover something new everyday by subscribing to Scientific American or signing up for our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Kelso Harper, Carin Leong, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. Our show is edited by Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, Madison Goldberg and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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In the first episode of a three-part series, environmental reporter Barbara Moran is on Cape Cod to find out why the crystal clear water there is turning “pea-soup green”—and how communities are scrambling to clean it up.

For more information, read WBUR’s coverage of the efforts to improve Cape Cod’s water pollution, including a “pee-cycling” project being considered by one innovative town. And watch WBUR and Scientific American’s documentary short exploring how pollution and algae overgrowth threaten this Massachusetts vacation hub.

Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new everyday: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for our daily newsletter.

This series is a co-production of WBUR and Scientific American. It’s reported and hosted by WBUR’s Barbara Moran. Science Quickly is produced by Jeff DelViscio, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Rachel Feltman. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-checked this series, and Duy Linh Tu and Sebastian Tuinder contributed reporting and sound. WBUR’s Kathleen Masterson edited this series. Additional funding was provided by the Pulitzer Center.

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Cannabis consumers may be familiar with the paranoia that can come from taking too many gummies or smoking too much weed. New research into cannabis reveals how a lemon-scented terpene d-limonene can ease anxiety without diminishing the high. 

Join Scientific American, Springer Nature and Nature Portfolio in Washington, D.C. on May 17 for Science on the Hill. Register now!

Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new everyday: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest Allison Parshall. Our show is edited by Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, Madison Goldberg and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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AI-generated images of Katy Perry at Monday’s Met Gala looked so realistic they even duped her mom. And it just so happens that ChatGPT developer OpenAI released a new tool to detect fake images generated by DALL-E—the very next day.  

Join Scientific American, Springer Nature and Nature Portfolio in Washington, D.C. on May 17 for Science on the Hill. Register now!

Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new everyday: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. Our show is edited by Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, Madison Goldberg and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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Meet Rachel Feltman, the new host of Science Quickly! Bringing a fresh perspective and infectious enthusiasm, Rachel will take you on audio journeys to far-off places, inspire you to ponder deep questions, and introduce you to people changing the world with science. 

Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new everyday: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Kelso Harper, Carin Leong, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. Our show is edited by Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, Madison Goldberg and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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Doctors are starting to prescribe vegetables or entire meals to ward off disease.

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Amid Earth’s fourth global coral bleaching event, a leading expert says tackling climate change is the key to fighting back.

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Ahead of a project to spray carbon dioxide into jungle plots, researchers contemplate what its results might signal about the forest’s future.

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After years of delay, researchers are ready to inject carbon dioxide into jungle plots.

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Years in the making, a project in the Amazon rain forest is finally set to determine whether a rise in carbon dioxide could save one of the world’s largest carbon sinks.

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Cows and at least one person in the U.S. have been sickened by avian influenza. We asked experts about the risk to humans.

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Volcano detectives use artificial intelligence to sleuth out ancient secrets in Alaska.

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These marine mammals are very hard to observe, but in the past two decades the roughly 20 or so people in the world who study sperm whales have found some compelling evidence of culture among them.

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Today we’re going to look at how measles—a disease that was practically eliminated in the U.S.—has resurged in recent months, because people basically forgot how bad it was and got complacent about vaccines. 

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Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is a professional astronomer—with a passion for amateur astrophotography—and she's here to offer tips and tricks for want to get into capturing the night sky.

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The feeling of a total solar eclipse is intense, and the sights, sensations and emotions can overwhelm you even if you think you know what's coming. And we sat down with Kate Russo, a psychologist, author and Eclipse Chaser, who's seen 13 total solar eclipses over the last 25 years, to talk about what to expect.

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From the discovery of new elements to the testing of novel theories of gravity, solar eclipses have helped spark scientific progress for centuries.

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Eclipses can affect animals, and biologists are preparing to see what happens during totality on April 8.

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AI-generated art is creating new ethical issues—and competition—for digital artists. Nightshade and Glaze are two tools helping creators fight back.

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Mucus is a miracle of evolution, and some researchers are trying to re-create what nature makes naturally.

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The slimy substance is so powerful that doctors once made hog stomach mucus milkshakes to treat ulcers.

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If you take a journey into the depths of the slime all around us, you find yourself starting to understand that mucus is a miracle.

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Machine-learning algorithms allow composers to create all-new instruments.

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A quick nap can boost your memory, your mood and even your creativity.

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Our space and physics editors go head-to-head over a classic mind-bending question.

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Scientists have long wondered how baleen whales make their songs, and a new study has finally uncovered the anatomical workings behind their melodies.

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Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, long dismissed by doctors, causes immune system dysfunction and other problems. But treatments are lacking.

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Epigenetics research reveals how famines can cause health problems later in life — and how these changes might be passed down to later generations.

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On the African savanna, a single invasive ant species has upset the delicate balance between predator and prey.

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Nose-plus-throat could increase test accuracy—but could create problems too.

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A newly-examined munch mark on a tibia has become a real pleistocene whodunit. By Natalia Raegan.

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A recent GWAS investigation on risk-taking and bisexuality made some assumptions that some experts don’t agree with.

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A grassroots online movement has helped shift the way scientists think about asexuality. But much is still unknown. This is part four of a four-part series on the science of pleasure.

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Researchers once faced death threats for asking women what gives them pleasure. Now they’re helping individuals and couples figure it out themselves. Part three of a four-part series on the science of pleasure.

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Research shows rough sex is becoming more common. Dominatrices are helping the general public catch up. Hosted by Meghan McDonough, this is part two of a four-part series on the science of pleasure.

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Part one of a four-part series on the science of pleasure, hosted by Meghan McDonough.

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Individual interventions for burnout don’t work. Researchers explain why. Hosted by Shayla Love.

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On April 8, we’re in for a treat. A total solar eclipse will be visible across a broad swath of North America, giving us a view of the edges of the sun as the moon passes in front of its face. 

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Portugal is one of the most vulnerable countries in Europe to climate change. Straddling the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic regions, it’s part of a climate change hot spot. Some of the biggest fuels are shrubs. One study found that shrubland covers 1.6 million hectares in Portugal—about 18 percent of the nation’s land area. And those shrubs are gaining ground. That’s because, for decades, people have been moving out of rural communities such as the one Tommy Ferreira lives in. Most leave to pursue better-paying jobs in the cities or in wealthier European Union countries. Portugal has lost 30 percent of its rural population since 1960. The same trend is occurring across the Mediterranean region. Abandoning these farmlands is increasing wildfire risk, according to an Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development report released last spring. When people who work the land leave it, grazing pastures and farm fields become thick with fuels. But these ancient Maronesa cattle can help solve both of these modern-day problems. It was a solution hiding in plain sight.

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For the last decade, reports of UFO sightings have filled headlines and news broadcasts, and some of these have from a surprising place—the Pentagon. Former defense officials have made a number of claims about, and released videos of, strange sightings made by military pilots.

These days, the objects are officially called “UAPs”—unidentified anomalous phenomena.

But regardless of the new branding, Congress has demanded answers on them, especially after one former official this summer claimed that he believed that the U.S. possessed “nonhuman” spacecraft and possibly their “dead pilots.”

We talk to the former intelligence official and physicist, Sean Kirkpatrick, who until December headed the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, the Pentagon office that Congress told to find some answers to all this. He recently published an op-ed in Scientific American called  "Here's What I Learned as the U.S. Government's UFO Hunter".

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Experts are starting to plan for the moment when a quantum computer large enough to crack the backbone of the math that keeps things secret will be turned on.

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This year, healthcare providers have tools to help prevent lower respiratory tract disease caused by RSV for older adults. 

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Today’s episode covers a topic that many parents-to-be have struggled with: fertility. In vitro fertilization offers a path to pregnancy for people fortunate enough to be able to access it. But predicting the success of an implanted embryo is hard. Now researchers are developing a test that could make it easier.

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From Papua New Guinea to the Andaman Islands, Indigenous languages are under threat. An Indian linguist helped preserve one language family.

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A new study used machine learning on 6 million Danish people to "autocomplete" their life trajectories –— and when they might kick the bucket.

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In today’s episode, we want to talk about some of the current challenges with using home COVID tests. When you first have symptoms, a change in how your body reacts to the virus could lead to a test result showing you’re negative when you’re actually infected.  

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We all have our tricks for sobering up after a night of drunken revelry: maybe a pot of black coffee or an ice-cold shower. But for mice in a certain lab in Texas, all it takes is a shot. No, not more alcohol—it’s an injection of a hormone called fibroblast growth factor 21, or FGF21. 

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Imagine for a moment that you’re a very hungry bird soaring over 30-foot ocean swells in high winds, with no land for thousands of miles.

How do you know where you’re going?

If you’re a wandering albatross, you listen. But listen to what, exactly?

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The moon has guided our movements and cultures, and though we may think we know it well, it still guards some of its deepest secrets from us. A new book from Rebecca Boyle take us on a deep dive into our sister celestial orb.

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Nell Greenfieldboyce discusses her new book Transient and Strange, the intimacy of the essays and the science that inspired them.

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Dogs are good for you, science says

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In 2013 a new user named Cleo took an online math forum by storm with unproved answers. Today she’s an urban legend. But who was she? 2023 editor's pick.

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Advanced sensors and artificial intelligence could have us at the brink of interspecies communication

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The holidays are a time for indulgence, but there are ways to drink alcohol without suffering the painful effects.

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We’re looking back at 2023 for our favorite podcast shows and one about the largest bird to ever fly the skies just flew to the top of the list.

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The stories we tell about orcas might say more about us than about them

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The beloved fish that feed orcas and humans depend on kelp forests’ unique habitat.

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The Arctic Permafrost Atlas, which took years to create, is both beautiful and sobering, given the pace of climate change.

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Problems with the heart, kidneys and metabolic health are all connected

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Thanks to researchers, new AI tech is delving into feline feelings to see when cats could need medical help. 

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The research focused on figuring out what enables certain sperm to gain some competitive advantage over millions of others fighting for the same prize.

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A long-term decline in unsupervised activity may be contributing to mental health declines in children and adolescents.

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Three experts break down how misinformation and propaganda spread through conflict and how to debunk it yourself.

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Fewer kids got their routine childhood vaccines since before the pandemic. Are lack of access and a loss of trust in science to blame?

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The choices we make in how we adapt to climate change can sometimes come back to bite us

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The Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara peoples are learning more about the missiles siloed on their lands, and that knowledge has put the preservation of their culture and heritage in even starker relief.

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The missiles on the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota make it a potential target for a nuclear attack. And that doesn’t come close to describing what the reality would be for those on the ground.

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The Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota has had nuclear missile silos on its land for decades. Now the U.S. government wants to take the old weapons out and replace them with new ones, and it’s unclear how many living there know about that.

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15 nuclear missiles deployed in underground concrete silos across the Fort Berthold reservation in North Dakota. It took displacement and flood to get them there.

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A member of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation digs into a decades-long mystery: how 15 intercontinental ballistic missiles came to be siloed on her ancestral lands.

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Daytime naps of about 30 minutes really improve your thinking and may spark creativity.

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As interest and support for psychedelic research grows, scientists share their hopes for the future.

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Psychedelic researchers are engaged in heated debate over whether the mind-altering effects of the drugs are necessary for realizing their therapeutic potential.

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As companies join the hunt, can the field of mind-altering synthetic substances stay true to its original pioneering spirit of wonder, curiosity and connection?

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More than half of our diet consists of foods that have been industrially processed in some way, and they may be harmful to our health

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Under the right conditions, the spadefoot tadpole will transform into a voracious predator of its own species.

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Lions, tigers, bears: this creature sends all of those beasts running for the hills.

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Can something spring back to life if it last moved around when woolly mammoths roamed the earth? The answer appears to be yes.

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In the rush to build and train ever larger AI models, developers have swept up much of the searchable Internet, quite possibly including some of your own public data—and potentially some of your private data as well.

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If you’re a silphid beetle, a dead body is all your children really want, and it’s your job—no matter how difficult—to get one for them.

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The dangerous virus is still here. Here’s how you can stay safe.

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Sea ice is changing fast. Are forecasts created by artificial intelligence the best way to keep up with the pace of a warming climate in the far north?

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Researchers have been banned from working in Indonesia’s tropical rain forests after the government disagreed with their scientific conclusions.

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A needlelike tower, hung with sensors, “sniffs” the air above the Arctic Circle for signs of catastrophic thaw in the sodden ground below.

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In a tiny village north of the Arctic Circle in the Northwest Territories, the Inuvialuit of Tuktoyaktuk have taken climate science into their own hands. 

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What is a permafrost thaw slump? Just imagine a massive hole with an area the size of more than nine football fields—and growing—where ice-cold ground once stood.

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The popular decongestant phenylephrine is not effective, an FDA panel found. Here’s what to use instead.

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We present the latest updates on ChatGPT, Bard and other competitors in the artificial intelligence arms race.

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An astronomy festival in Italy opted to make all of its events and workshops multisensory. The organizers wanted to see whether sound, touch and smell can, like sight, transmit the wonders of the cosmos.

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A blind astronomer “sonified” the universe’s most explosive events: gamma-ray bursts. By listening to, rather than looking at, the data, she made a critical discovery and changed the field of astronomy.

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Space is famously silent, but astronomers and musicians are increasingly turning astronomical data into sound as a way to make discoveries and inspire people who are blind or visually impaired.

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One researcher has been hiring planes to strafe the sky over the Amazon rain forest to collect the air coming off the trees, and what she is finding is cause for alarm.

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Consumers can now get easy tests for Alzheimer’s. But these tests may not really help patients that much—yet.

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U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón discusses her involvement in NASA’s Europa Clipper mission and the inspiration behind her poem, which will travel onboard the spacecraft.

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Caterpillars can’t regulate their body temperatures, so they have to come up with a totally different strategy to make it through the coldest months of the year.

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A honeybee swarm has as much electric charge as a thundercloud, and the insects’ mass movements in the atmosphere might even have some influence on the weather.

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The new field of digital bioacoustics is using machine learning to try decipher animal speak, including honeybee toots and quacks and whoops.

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Are you working really hard to learn something? Remember this counterintuitive fact, and you might improve your learning curve.

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The bite of the lone star tick makes people allergic to a sugar found in mammalian products, and many doctors don’t know about it.

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A “Darwinian paradox” is that homosexual activity occurs even though it does not lead to or aid in reproduction. But if you visit three capuchin monkeys in Los Angeles, they’ll show you how beneficial their liaisons are.

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The Luddites did not hate technology—but they did fight the way it was used to exploit humans.

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Xenotransplants could help to solve the organ transplant crisis—if researchers can get the science right.

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Light is a very dangerous, if not so obvious, threat to birds who migrate at night. But researchers are using weather radar to track birds and provide “lights out” forecasts to help keep their paths clear of visual distraction.

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Science is turning to machines to unlock the secrets of the vast, mysterious pulse-of-the-planet phenomenon that is nocturnal migration.

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If you really want to challenging your bird identification skills, try using them at night, when bird calls are less than 100 milliseconds long.

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For thousands of years, no one truly knew how birds migrated—that is, until a few unlikely pioneers sat in an empty field with hundreds of pounds of kludged together recording gear and waited to hear sounds that no one had ever captured.

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On any given night, dense clouds of dark, ghostly figures pass over your head as you sleep. Maybe you never knew they were there, but there are people out there who are deciphering all the unseen movement that happens amid the darkness.

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Hearing aids may help maintain better brain functions in older people and better health overall.

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Apothecaries founded this famous garden—one of the most ancient botanical gardens in Europe—to teach their students which plants poison and which plants cure. 

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Here’s how scientists are planning on getting underground fungi data from space using satellites.

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Atmospheric carbon is a currency that plants use to “buy” nutrients from fungi in the soil. To find out where this economy will go next, the devil is in the details. And the details are in the dirt.

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Like us, plants and fungi have complex economies. By burning fossil fuels, we’ve been devaluing their currency.

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Drugs such as Wegovy and Ozempic might help people tackle substance abuse as well as shed pounds.

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Scientists used a smoking machine—complete with a 3-D-printed mouthpiece—to figure out how to get the most cannabinoid per puff. 

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New AI technology predicts hit songs—by listening to someone’s body. 

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Here’s what’s behind the A.I technology that has worried so many actors—including something called “the orb.”

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A sleep researcher who studies what dreams can tell us about the possible onset of some mental disorders believes lucid dreamers might hold a lot of answers in their head.

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Here’s what a historian who has studied J. Robert Oppenheimer for two decades has to say about the new Christopher Nolan film on the father of the atomic bomb.

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Inflammatory bowel disease flare-ups can be traced to mental stress

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Here’s how large language models, or LLMs, actually work. 

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Very small delays in swing jazz point to our evolution as a supremely auditory species.

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New research has discovered that wildfire smoke hurts these primates’ voice—and health.

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ChatGPT and other AI programs can offer medical advice. But how good are they?

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The famous climate pattern El Niño could usher in a new hottest year on record and will have domino effects on the world’s weather.

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John O’Keefe shared the Kavli Prize in Neuroscience in 2014 for discovering that neurons in the hippocampus encode an animal’s location and create a cognitive map for navigation.

This podcast was produced for the Kavli Prize by Scientific American Custom Media, a division separate from the magazine’s board of editors.

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Researchers, using the galaxy as a detector, believe they have detected gravitational waves from monster black holes for the first time.

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Toxic dust plagues marginalized communities on the shores of this disappearing salt lake.

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Desert ants living in the featureless salt plains of Tunisia count their steps and erect tall entrances at their nests to find their way back home.

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Your body has a secret cooling method, and scientists explain how to use it.

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Along with an expert, we take you into some of nature's most monstrous storms. 

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The James Webb Space Telescope is giving us our first glimpse of stars in the early universe.

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In 2013 a new user named Cleo took an online math forum by storm with unproved answers. Today she’s an urban legend. But who was she?

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The party drug MDMA could soon be approved for treating people with severe PTSD.

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Where is it coming from? How long will it last? What's in the smoke? Whose health is at risk? How do you clean your own air?

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Terror birds were the grizzly bears of birds, the great white sharks of the land, Jack the Ripper but with feathers. They were also truly fascinating.

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Officially, these prehistoric birds are the dromornithids, but everyone who studies them calls them thunderbirds—and for good reason.

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The elephant bird was the heaviest bird to ever walk the earth. Also, its eggs were 150 times the size of a chicken egg and thick as a dinner plate.

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The fossil was a prehistoric bird called Pelagornis sandersi, and its wings stretched out twice as wide as those of the great albatross. 

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