Hear the latest science news, with Benjamin Thompson and Shamini Bundell. This week, a computer beats the best human players in StarCraft II, and a huge study of insects and other arthropods.
In this episode:
00:51 Learning to play
By studying and experimenting, an AI has reached Grandmaster level at the video game Starcraft II. Research Article: Vinyals et al.; News Article: Google AI beats experienced human players at real-time strategy game StarCraft II
10:08 Research Highlights
A record-breaking lightning bolt, and identifying our grey matter’s favourite tunes. Research Highlight: Here come the lightning ‘megaflashes’; Research Highlight: Why some songs delight the human brain
12:24 Arthropods in decline
Researchers have surveyed how land-use change has affected arthropod diversity. Research article: Seibold et al.
18:30 News Chat
Young Canadians file a lawsuit against their government, an Alzheimer’s drug gets a second chance, and South Korean efforts to curb a viral epidemic in pigs.
Scientists believe they have located the ancestral home of one of humanity’s early ancestors—in northern Botswana. Tom Siebel, a Silicon Valley veteran and the founder of C3.ai, explains how digital transformation stops companies from going extinct. And, host Kenneth Cukier takes a trip to the Natural History Museum in London to learn about
Kiplinger’s vice president of content Sarah Stevens joins our podcast hosts Sandy Block and Ryan Ermey to talk about the advantages, risks, obstacles and other things to consider when having your DNA tested.

This week in Science,
In our second segment, we talk about how we think about children. For thousands of years, adults have complained about their lack of respect, intelligence, and tendency to distraction, compared with previous generations. A new study out this week in Science Advances suggests
Age change should be allowed when the following three conditions are met. First, the person is at risk of being discriminated against because of age. Second, the person’s body and mind are in better shape than would be expected based on the person’s chronological age (that is, the person is biologically younger than he is chronologically). Third, the person does not feel that his legal age is befitting.