Podcast: Ancient volcanic eruptions, and feeling peer pressure—from robots
On this week’s show: how finding a date for an ancient volcanic eruption may affect all radiocarbon calculations, and how robots might exert peer pressure on kids
Science Podcasts
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Podcast: debating the start date of our current geological age, and fighting off stink bugs
On this week’s show: a fight over the global drought that defines our new geological age, and battling stink bugs with samurai wasps -
Podcast: Self-domestication may have led to language, and what makes us lead or defer
On this week’s show: how kindness may have primed us for language, and the role of avoiding responsibility in leadership -
Podcast: liquid water on Mars, athletic performance in transgender women, and the lost colony of Roanoke
On this week’s show: Radar readings from Mars suggest a large lake of water under one of the polar ice caps, how gender transition affects an athlete’s physiology and performance, and Andrew Lawler’s book The Secret Token: Myth, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke -
Podcast: why the platypus gave up suckling, and how gravity waves clear clouds
On this week’s show: how mouth anatomy reveals the evolutionary history of suckling, and why researchers think gravity waves may be responsible for clearing immense clouds -
Podcast: a ghostly particle from deep space, and how rice grows in deep water
On this week’s show: A neutrino caught in polar ice ushers in new way to look at the universe, and how deep-water rice keeps its head above water -
Podcast: Polio outbreak and America's first dogs
On this week’s show: A vaccine-derived polio outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo leads to tough choices for public health experts, and new evidence points to Siberian origins for America’s first dogs. -
Podcast: Transparency in animal research and a plateau in human mortality
On this week’s show: Will telling the public more about animal research win back their good opinion? And what does it mean that our risk of dying plateaus after 105? -
Podcast: Cuba’s ‘sonic attack’ and ancient gibbon graves
On this week’s show: sonic attack or mass paranoia? New evidence suggests the mysterious illness affecting U.S. diplomats in Cuba is more than just a figment of the imagination. And newly uncovered bones in the tomb of China’s first emperor’s grandmother reveal a now-extinct species of gibbon. -
Podcast: HIV holdouts and bigger brain regions
On this week’s show: Why do Nigeria, Russia, and Florida have growing HIV problems? And which parts of the brain are bigger in people who have bigger brains?
