Podcast Episodes
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Cosmic rays from beyond our galaxy, sleeping jellyfish, and counting a language’s words for colors
This week we hear stories on animal hoarding, how different languages have different numbers of colors, and how to tell a wakeful jellyfish from a sl…
8 years, 6 months ago
Cargo-sorting molecular robots, humans as the ultimate fire starters, and molecular modeling with quantum computers
This week we hear stories on the gut microbiome’s involvement in multiple sclerosis, how wildfires start—hint: It’s almost always people—and a new re…
8 years, 6 months ago
Taking climate science to court, sailing with cylinders, and solar cooling
This week we hear stories on smooth sailing with giant, silolike sails, a midsized black hole that may be hiding out in the Milky Way, and new water-…
8 years, 6 months ago
Mysteriously male crocodiles, the future of negotiating AIs, and atomic bonding between the United States and China
This week we hear stories on involving more AIs in negotiations, tiny algae that might be responsible for killing some (not all) dinosaurs, and a che…
8 years, 7 months ago
What hunter-gatherer gut microbiomes have that we don’t, and breaking the emoji code
Sarah Crespi talks to Sam Smits about how our microbial passengers differ from one culture to the next—are we losing diversity and the ability to fig…
8 years, 7 months ago
A jump in rates of knee arthritis, a brief history of eclipse science, and bands and beats in the atmosphere of brown dwarfs
This week we hear stories on a big jump in U.S. rates of knee arthritis, some science hits and misses from past eclipses, and the link between a rece…
8 years, 7 months ago
Coddled puppies don’t do as well in school, some trees make their own rain, and the Americas were probably first populated by ancient mariners
This week we hear stories on new satellite measurements that suggest the Amazon makes its own rain for part of the year, puppies raised with less smo…
8 years, 7 months ago
The biology of color, a database of industrial espionage, and a link between prions and diabetes
This week we hear stories on diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease in chimps, a potential new pathway to diabetes—through prions—and what a database of indu…
8 years, 8 months ago
DNA and proteins from ancient books, music made from data, and the keys to poverty traps
This week we hear stories on turning data sets into symphonies for business and pleasure, why so much of the world is stuck in the poverty trap, and …
8 years, 8 months ago
Paying cash for carbon, making dogs friendly, and destroying all life on Earth
This week we have stories on the genes that may make dogs friendly, why midsized animals are the fastest, and what it would take to destroy all the l…
8 years, 8 months ago