Science Magazine Podcast Folgen

On this week’s show: Exploring the historic Maya’s astronomical knowledge and how grasshoppers clone themselves without decreasing their fitness First this week, Science contributing correspondent Joshua Sokol talks with producer Meagan Cantwell about the historic Maya’s sophisticated astronomical knowledge. In recent decades, researchers have set out to understand how city structures relate to astronomical phenomena and decipher ancient texts. Now, collaboration between Western scholars and living Indigenous people hopes to further illuminate the field. Also this week, Mike Kearney, a professor at the school of biosciences at the University of Melbourne, chats with host Sarah Crespi about a species of grasshopper that can reproduce asexually. After studying the insect’s genetics, Kearney and his group didn’t find harmful mutations—or traits that made the grasshopper better adapted to its environment than the two species of grasshopper it hybridized from. Kearney and his team suggest this way of reproducing might not be rare because it’s harmful, but because most animal have safeguards in place to prevent asexual reproduction from arising. This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy. [Image: Sergio Montúfar/pinceladasnocturnas.com—Estrellas Ancestrales “Astronomy in the Maya Worldview”; Music: Jeffrey Cook] Authors: Meagan Cantwell; Joshua Sokol; Sarah Crespi Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.add3058  About the Science Podcast: https://www.science.org/content/page/about-science-podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What we learned from a seismometer on Mars, why it’s so difficult to understand the relationship between our microbes and our brains, and the first in our series of books on the science of food and agriculture First up this week, freelance space journalist Jonathan O’Callaghan  joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the retirement of NASA’s Mars InSight lander. After almost 4 years of measuring quakes on the surface of the Red Planet, the  lander’s solar panels are getting too dusty to continue providing power. O'Callaghan  and Crespi look back at the insights  that InSight has given us about Mars’s interior, and they talk about where else in the Solar System it might make sense to place a seismometer. Also this week, we have a special issue on the body’s microbiome beyond the gut. As part of the special issue, John Cryan, principal investigator at APC Microbiome Ireland, University College Cork, wrote a commentary piece  on tightening the connections research has made between microbes and the brain—the steps needed to go from seeing connections to understanding how the microbiome might be tweaked to change what’s happening in the brain. Finally this week, we have the first installment of our series of author interviews  on the science of food and agriculture. In this inaugural segment, host and science journalist Angela Saini talks to Ousmane Badiane, an expert on agricultural policy and development in Africa, and a co-author of Food For All In Africa: Sustainable Intensification for African Farmers, a 2019 book looking at the possibilities and reality of sustainable intensive farming in Africa. This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy. [Illustration: Hannah Agosta; Music: Jeffrey Cook] [alt: overlapping drawings of microbial populations] Authors: Sarah Crespi; Jonathan O’Callaghan; Angela Saini Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.10.1126/science.add1406 About the Science Podcast: https://www.science.org/content/page/about-science-podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this week’s show: The shadow of Milky Way’s giant black hole has been seen for the first time, and bottlenose dolphins recognize each other by signature whistles—and tastes  It’s been a few years since the first image of a black hole was published—that of the supermassive black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy came about in 2019. Now, we have a similar image of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way—our very own galaxy. Staff Writer Daniel Clery joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss why these images look so much alike, even though M87’s black hole is 1600 times larger than ours. We also discuss what’s next for the telescope that captured these shots. Also this week, we take to the seas. Bottlenose dolphins are known to have a “signature whistle” they use to announce their identity to other dolphins. This week in Science Advances, Jason Bruck and colleagues write about how they may also recognize other dolphins through another sense: taste. Jason, an assistant professor in the department of biology at Stephen F. Austin State University, talks with Sarah about what this means for dolphin minds. In a sponsored segment from the Science/AAAS Custom Publishing Office, Sean Sanders, director and senior editor, interviews Gary Michelson, founder and co-chair of Michelson Philanthropies, about the importance of supporting research in the field of immunology—and where that support should be directed. This segment is sponsored by Michelson Philanthropies. This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy. [Image: Dolphin Quest ; Music: Jeffrey Cook] [alt: bottlenose dolphin peeking its head out of the water with podcast symbol overlay] Authors: Sarah Crespi; Daniel Clery Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.add0515 About the Science Podcast: https://www.science.org/content/page/about-science-podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices