On this week’s show: The U.S. government is partnering with academics to speed up the search for more than 80,000 soldiers who went missing in action, and how humans create their own “oxidation zone” in the air around them.
First up on the podcast this week, Tess Joosse is a former news intern here at Science and is now a freelance science journalist based in Madison, Wisconsin. Tess talks with host Sarah Crespi about attempts to use environmental DNA—free-floating DNA in soil or water—to help locate the remains of soldiers lost at sea. Also featured in this segment:
University of Wisconsin, Madison, molecular biologist Bridget Ladell Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution marine biologist Kirstin Meyer-Kaiser
Also this week, Nora Zannoni, a postdoctoral researcher in the atmospheric chemistry department at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, talks about people’s contributions to indoor chemistry. She chats with Sarah about why it’s important to go beyond studying the health effects of cleaning chemicals and gas stoves to explore how humans add their own bodies’ chemicals and reactions to the air we breathe. In a sponsored segment from Science/AAAS Custom Publishing Office, Sean Sanders, director and senior editor for Custom Publishing, interviews Benedetto Marelli, associate professor at MIT, about winning the BioInnovation Institute & Science Prize for Innovation and how he became an entrepreneur.
A previously unidentified population of polar bears documented on the southeast coast of Greenland uses glacier ice to survive despite limited access to sea ice.
The burgeoning field of “nutrigenomics” claims that the food we eat can alter our genetics. Dietitians, scientists and lifestyle companies have all hopped on the bandwagon.
Nutrigenomics (also known as nutritional genomics) is broadly defined as the relationship between nutrients, diet, and gene expression. The launch of the Human Genome Project in the 1990s and the subsequent mapping of human DNA sequencing ushered in the ‘era of big science’, jump-starting the field of nutrigenomics that we know today.
No human has set foot on the Moon for decades. But an armada of exciting new missions are set to explore the lunar surface once more.
The DNA detective
The consumer genetic testing kits hitting the shelves have allowed scientists to piece together our family trees better than ever before. Geneticist Prof Turi King tells us more.
Fit to burst
Inflation is a pretty useful tool in nature. Zoologist Jules Howard takes a closer look at some of the incredible animals that can blow themselves up like balloons.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Metaverse
What is the metaverse, can anyone visit, and where’s the best place to go?
CRISPR is a technology that can be used to edit genes and, as such, will likely change the world. The essence of CRISPR is simple: it’s a way of finding a specific bit of DNA inside a cell. After that, the next step in CRISPR gene editing is usually to alter that piece of DNA.
With so many myths about COVID-19 vaccines regarding their impact on our health, many people don’t know what to believe. In our fact check, find out what you need to know about the mRNA vaccines — as we expose the myths and reveal the facts.
News, Views and Reviews For The Intellectually Curious
Boomers Daily 