Online News Editor David Grimm joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about the health and environmental benefits of potty training cows.
Next, Peter Teske, a professor in the department of zoology at the University of Johannesburg, joins us to talk about his Science Advances paper on origins of the sardine run—a massive annual fish migration off the coast of South Africa.
How aquatic foods could help tackle world hunger, and how Australian wildfires spurred phytoplankton growth in the Southern Ocean.
In this episode:
00:45 The role of aquatic food in tackling hunger
Ahead of the UN’s Food Systems Summit, Nature journals are publishing research from the Blue Food Assessment, looking at how aquatic foods could help feed the world’s population in a healthy, sustainable and equitable way.
We speak to Ismahane Elouafi, Chief Scientist at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, who tells us about the role of blue foods in future food systems.
Immersive feature: Blue Foods
12:27 Research Highlights
The ingestible capsule that injects drugs straight into stomach tissue, and a soft material that changes colour when twisted.
Research Highlight: An easily swallowed capsule injects drugs straight into the gut
Research Highlight: Flowing crystals for quick camouflage
14:52 How Australian wildfires spurred phytoplankton blooms
The devastating Australian wildfires of 2019-2020 released plumes of iron-rich aerosols that circled the globe, fertilizing oceans thousands of miles away. New research suggests that these aerosols ultimately triggered blooms of microscopic phytoplankton downwind of the fires, in the Southern Ocean.
Research Article: Tang et al.
Staff Writer Paul Voosen talks with host Sarah Crespi about plans for NASA’s first visit to the Moon in 50 years—and the quick succession of missions that will likely follow.
Next, Eileen Roesler, an engineering psychologist at the Technical University of Berlin, discusses the benefits of making robots that look and act like people—it’s not always as helpful as you would think.
A new theory to explain missing geological time, the end of leaded petrol, and the ancient humans of Arabia.
In this episode:
00:29 Unpicking the Great Unconformity
For more than 150 years, geologists have been aware of ‘missing’ layers of rock from the Earth’s geological record. Up to one billion years appear to have been erased in what’s known as the Great Unconformity. Many theories to explain this have been proposed, and now a new one suggests that the Great Unconformity may have in fact been a series of smaller events.
BBC Future: The strange race to track down a missing billion years
05:23 The era of leaded petrol is over
In July, Algeria became the final country to ban the sale of leaded petrol, meaning that the fuel is unavailable to buy legally anywhere on Earth. However despite this milestone, the toxic effects of lead petrol pollution will linger for many years to come.
Chemistry World: Leaded petrol is finally phased out worldwide
08:26 The ancient humans who lived in a wetter Arabia
While much of modern day Arabia is covered by deserts, new research suggests that hundreds of thousands of years ago conditions were much wetter for periods on the peninsula. These lusher periods may have made the area a key migratory crossroads for ancient humans.
Research Article: Groucutt et al.
News and Views: Traces of a series of human dispersals through Arabia
How insects help release carbon stored in forests, and the upcoming biodiversity summit COP 15.
In this episode:
00:44 Fungi, insects, dead trees and the carbon cycle
Across the world forests play a huge role in the carbon cycle, removing huge amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But when those trees die, some of that carbon goes back into the air. A new project studies how fast dead wood breaks down in different conditions, and the important role played by insects.
Research Article: Seibold et al.
09:37 Research Highlights
Massive stars make bigger planets, and melting ice moves continents.
Research Highlight: Why gassy planets are bigger around more-massive stars
Research Highlight: So much ice is melting that Earth’s crust is moving
12:04 The UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity
After several delays, the fifteenth Conference of the Parties (COP 15) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, is now slated to take place next year. Even communicating the issues surrounding biodiversity loss has been a challenge, and reaching the targets due to be set at the upcoming meeting will be an even bigger one.
Editorial: The scientific panel on biodiversity needs a bigger role
19:32 Briefing Chat
We discuss some highlights from the Nature Briefing. This time, cannibal cane toads and a pterosaur fossil rescued from smugglers.
Nature News: Australia’s cane toads evolved as cannibals with frightening speed
Research Highlight: A plundered pterosaur reveals the extinct flyer’s extreme headgear
National Geographic: Stunning fossil seized in police raid reveals prehistoric flying reptile’s secrets
Contributing Correspondent Michael Price joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the newest Mars analog to be built on the location of the first attempt at a large-scale sealed habitat, Biosphere 2 in Arizona.
Next, William Brady, a postdoctoral researcher in the psychology department at Yale University, talks with Sarah about using an algorithm to measure increasing expressions of moral outrage on social media platforms.
A team is creating bespoke words for scientific terms in African languages, and the sustainability of the electric car boom.
00:46 Creating new words for scientific terms
Many words that are common to science have never been written in some African languages, or speakers struggle to agree what the right term is. Now a new project aims to change that, by translating 180 research papers into six languages spoken by millions of people across the continent of Africa.
11:48 Research Highlights
A rainbow of biodegradable inks derived from brown seaweed, and the enormous centipede that preys on baby birds.
Research Highlight: From drab to dazzling: seaweed yields sparkling coloured inks
Research Highlight: The giant centipede that devours fluffy baby seabirds
13:58 How sustainable is the electric car boom?
As electric cars become more ubiquitous, manufacturers will have to up the production of batteries needed to power them. But that begs the question – can they be mass produced in a sustainable way?
News Feature: Electric cars and batteries: how will the world produce enough?
24:06 Briefing chat
We discuss some highlights from the Nature Briefing. This time, how a tusk-based ‘chemical GPS’ revealed details of a mammoth’s enormous journeys , and why the Perseverance rover’s first efforts to collect a Mars rock sample didn’t go according to plan.
Nature: Mammoth’s epic travels preserved in tusk
Nature: Why NASA’s Mars rover failed to collect its first rock core
Charles Piller, an investigative journalist for Science, talks with host Sarah Crespi about a risky trial of vitamin D in asthmatic children that has caused a lot of concern among ethicists.
They also discuss how the vitamin D trial connects with a possibly dangerous push to compare new treatments with placebos instead of standard-of-care treatments in clinical trials.
Next, Birhanu Eshete, professor of computer and information science at the University of Michigan, Dearborn, talks with producer Joel Goldberg about the risks of exposing machine learning algorithms online—risks such as the reverse engineering of training data to access proprietary information or even patient data.
Researchers uncover how grid cells fire in a 3D space to help bats navigate, and a fabric that switches between being stiff and flexible.
In this episode:
00:47 Mapping a bat’s navigation neurons in 3D
Grid cells are neurons that regularly fire as an animal moves through space, creating a pattern of activity that aids navigation. But much of our understanding of how grid cells work has involved rats moving in a 2D plane. To figure out how the system works in a 3D space, researchers have mapped the brain activity of bats flying freely around a room.
Research Article: Ginosar et al.
07:44 Research Highlights
How a ‘toxin sponge’ may protect poison dart frogs from themselves, and the world’s oldest known coin foundry has been found.
Research Highlight: An absorbing tale: poison dart frogs might have a ‘toxin sponge’
Research Highlight: Found: the world’s oldest known mint and its jumbo product
09:59 A flexible fabric that transforms from soft to rigid (and back again)
Researchers have created a ‘tunable’ fabric, inspired by medieval chainmail, that when compressed changes from flexible to rigid. The stiffened structure can hold 30 times its own weight, and the team behind it suggest this material could be used to build temporary shelters or have medical applications.
Research article: Wang et al.
16:33 Stark warning from the IPCC’s latest report
This week the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its long awaited report detailing compiling the latest climate science data. Nature’s Jeff Tollefson joins us to discuss the report and the warnings it contains for our warming world.
News: IPCC climate report: Earth is warmer than it’s been in 125,000 years
International News Editor Martin Enserink talks with host Sarah Crespi about a moratorium on prion research after the fatal brain disease infected two lab workers in France, killing one.
Next, Abhay Goyal, a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University, talks with intern Claire Hogan about his Science Advances paper on figuring out how to reduce the massive carbon footprint of cement by looking at its molecular structure.
Finally, in a sponsored segment from the Science/AAAS Custom Publishing Office, Sean Sanders interviews Ansuman Satpathy, assistant professor in the department of pathology at Stanford University School of Medicine and 2018 winner of the Michelson Prize for Human Immunology and Vaccine Research, about the importance of supporting early-career research and diversity in science, technology, engineering, and math. This segment is sponsored by Michelson Philanthropies.
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