Episode list

Basking Sharks Vs Great White Sharks

Invasive grasses get help from fire, and a global map of ant diversity

Cougars caught killing donkeys in Death Valley, and decoding the nose

Chasing Arctic cyclones, brain coordination in REM sleep, and a book on seafood in the information age

Why the fight against malaria has stalled in southern Africa, and how to look for signs of life on Mars

Can wolves form close bonds with humans, and termites degrade wood faster as the world warms

Giving a lagoon personhood, measuring methane flaring, and a book about eating high on the hog

Linking violence in Myanmar to fossil amber research, and waking up bacterial spores

Climate change threatens supercomputing, and collecting spider silks

Snakes living the high-altitude life, and sending computing power to the edges of the internet

Space-based solar power gets serious, AI helps optimize chemistry, and a book on food extinction

Cities as biodiversity havens, and gene therapy for epilepsy

Mammoth ivory trade may be bad for elephants, and making green electronics with fungus

Artificial intelligence takes on Diplomacy, and how much water do we really need?

The state of science in Ukraine, and a conversation with Anthony Fauci

Breakthrough of the Year, and the best in science books

Year in review 2022: Best of online news, and podcast highlights

A controversial dam in the Amazon unites Indigenous people and scientists, and transplanting mitochondria to treat rare diseases

Peering beyond the haze of alien worlds, and how failures help us make new discoveries

Wolves hunting otters, and chemical weathering in a warming world

Using sharks to study ocean oxygen, and what ancient minerals teach us about early Earth

Shrinking MRI machines, and the smell of tsetse fly love

Battling bias in medicine, and how dolphins use vocal fry

Compassion fatigue in those who care for lab animals, and straightening out ocean conveyor belts

An active volcano on Venus, and a concerning rise in early onset colon cancer

How the Maya thought about the ancient ruins in their midst, and the science of Braille

Why not vaccinate chickens against avian flu, and new form of reproduction found in yellow crazy ants

More precise radiocarbon dating, secrets of hibernating bear blood, and a new book series

Mapping uncharted undersea volcanoes, and elephant seals dive deep to sleep

The value of new voices in science and journalism, and what makes something memorable

Building big dream machines, and self-organizing landscapes

Debating when death begins, and the fate of abandoned lands

The earliest evidence for kissing, and engineering crops to clone themselves

Talking tongues, detecting beer, and shifting perspectives on females

How we measure the world with our bodies, and hunting critical minerals

Contraception for cats, and taking solvents out of chemistry

A space-based telescope to hunt dark energy, and what we can learn from scaleless snakes

Putting organs into the deep freeze, a scavenger hunt for robots, and a book on race and reproduction

Putting the man-hunter and woman-gatherer myth to the sword, and the electron's dipole moment gets closer to zero

The AI special issue, adding empathy to robots, and scientists leaving Arecibo

Adding thousands of languages to the AI lexicon, and the genes behind our bones

Researchers collaborate with a social media giant, ancient livestock, and sex and gender in South Africa

Tracing the genetic history of African Americans using ancient DNA, and ethical questions at a famously weird medical museum

What killed off North American megafauna, and making languages less complicated

The source of solar wind, hackers and salt halt research, and a book on how institutions decide gender

Reducing calculus trauma, and teaching AI to smell

Why cats love tuna, and powering robots with tiny explosions

Reducing cartel violence in Mexico, and what to read and see this fall

How long can ancient DNA survive, and how much stuff do we need to escape poverty?

Mysterious objects beyond Neptune, and how wildfire pollution behaves indoors