New Scientist Podcasts
302 episodes - English - Latest episode: 2 days ago -Podcasts for the insatiably curious by the world’s most popular weekly science magazine. Everything from the latest science and technology news to the big-picture questions about life, the universe and what it means to be human.
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Episodes
Weekly: What India elections mean for climate change; why animals talk; “tree of life” for plants
April 26, 2024 14:40 - 33 minutes - 45.6 MB#247 What does India’s election season mean for climate change? Last year India overtook the European Union as the third largest annual emitter of greenhouse gases. And as voters head to the polls in the middle of an intense heat wave, it’s critical whichever party wins continues to push towards the goal of net zero emissions by 2070. But as the country continues to invest in expanding coal power, is that target achievable? Animals of all kinds communicate in so many different ways, but wh...
CultureLab: Meredith Broussard on trusting artificial intelligence
April 22, 2024 23:01 - 28 minutes - 39.1 MBHow much faith should we be putting in artificial intelligence? As large language models and generative AI have become increasingly powerful in recent years, their makers are pushing the narrative that AI is a solution to many of the world’s problems. But Meredith Broussard says we’re not there yet, if we even get there at all. Broussard is the author of More than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech. She coined the term “technochauvinism,” which speaks to a pro-tech...
Weekly: Carbon storage targets ‘wildly unrealistic’; world’s biggest brain-inspired computer; do birds dream?
April 19, 2024 14:37 - 33 minutes - 45.4 MB#246 Our best climate models for helping limit global warming to 1.5oC may have wildly overestimated our chances. To reach this goal, models are relying heavily on geological carbon storage, a technology that removes carbon from the atmosphere and places it underground. But it may not be nearly as effective as models have suggested, making the task of decarbonising much more difficult. Do we need to rethink our approach? Intel has announced it has constructed the world’s biggest computer m...
Dead Planets Society: How to Destroy A Black Hole
April 15, 2024 23:05 - 24 minutes - 34.3 MBHow do you destroy a black hole? Turns out they're pretty tough cookies. Kicking off a brand new series of Dead Planets Society, Chelsea Whyte and Leah Crane take on the universe's most powerful adversaries. With the help of their cosmic toolbelt and black hole astronomer Allison Kirkpatrick at the University of Kansas, they test all the destructive ideas they can think of. Whether it’s throwing masses of TNT at it, blasting it with a t-shirt gun full of white holes, loading it up with a m...
Weekly: The multiverse just got bigger; saving the white rhino; musical mushrooms
April 12, 2024 12:17 - 29 minutes - 40.5 MB#245 The multiverse may be bigger than we thought. The idea that we exist in just one of a massive collection of alternate universes has really captured the public imagination in the last decade. But now Hugh Everett’s 60-year-old “many worlds interpretation”, based on quantum mechanics, has been upgraded. The northern white rhino is on the brink of extinction but we may be able to save it. Scientists plan to use frozen genes from 12 now dead rhinos to rebuild the entire subspecies. But ho...
CultureLab: Jen Gunter on the taboo science of menstruation
April 08, 2024 23:05 - 39 minutes - 54 MBHalf of the human population undergoes the menstrual cycle for a significant proportion of their lifetimes, yet periods remain a taboo topic in public and private life. And that makes it harder both to prioritise necessary scientific research into conditions like endometriosis and for people to understand the basics of how their bodies work. Blood: The Science, Medicine, and Mythology of Menstruation is gynaecologist Jen Gunter’s latest book. In this practical guide, she dispels social, his...
Weekly: Miniature livers made from lymph nodes in groundbreaking medical procedure
April 05, 2024 14:32 - 30 minutes - 42.5 MB#244 Researchers have successfully turned lymph nodes into miniature livers that help filter the blood of mice, pigs and other animals – and now, trials are beginning in humans. If successful, the groundbreaking medical procedure could prove life-saving for thousands of people waiting for liver transplants around the world. So far, no complications have been seen from the procedure, but it will be several months before we know if the treatment is working as hoped in the first of 12 trial pa...
Escape Pod: #8 Escape from predators and escape from the planet
April 01, 2024 23:07 - 18 minutes - 25.8 MBThis is a re-airing of a podcast originally released in March 2021. From beetle explosions to the deep dark depths of the ocean, this episode is all about escape. The team discusses the amazing (and sometimes disgusting) way bombardier beetles escape predators. They explain what it takes for an object to reach escape velocity, celebrating the mathematical mind of Katherine Johnson while they’re at it. And they explore the daunting realms of free-diving, and the lengths people will go to ...
Weekly: Immune system treatment makes old mice seem young again; new black hole image; unexploded bombs are becoming more dangerous
March 29, 2024 15:09 - 26 minutes - 35.9 MB#243 As we age our immune systems do too, making us less able to fight infections and more prone to chronic inflammation. But a team of scientists has been able to reverse these effects in mice, rejuvenating their immune systems by targeting their stem cells. But there’s a long road to trying the same thing in humans. Have you seen the incredible new black hole image? Just a couple of years since the Event Horizon Telescope’s first, fuzzy image of Sagittarius A* – the black hole at the cen...
CultureLab: Stranded on a fantastical planet: The strange creatures of Scavengers Reign
March 26, 2024 00:05 - 33 minutes - 45.4 MBFish you wear like a gas mask, moss that turns a robot sentient and critters that will eat your rash – all these oddities and more cohabit on the planet Vesta, the setting for the animated miniseries Scavengers Reign, where a group of human space travellers must innovate with what they find in the landscape to survive. While all this sounds fantastical, there are many parallels with Earth’s ecosystem and the way we regularly borrow technology from the natural world. New Scientist physics r...
Weekly: How declining birth rates could shake up society; Humanoid robots; Top prize in mathematics
March 22, 2024 16:15 - 27 minutes - 37.5 MB#242 Human population growth is coming to an end. The global population is expected to peak between 2060 and 2080, then start falling. Many countries will have much lower birth rates than would be needed to support ageing populations. These demographic projections have major implications for the way our societies function, including immigration and transportation, and what kinds of policies and systems we need. Remember Rosie the Robot from The Jetsons? Humanoid robots capable of many dif...
Escape Pod: #7 Speed: From the quickest animal in the world to the fastest supercomputer
March 19, 2024 00:05 - 16 minutes - 22.6 MBThis is a re-airing of a podcast originally released in March 2021. From the quickest animal in the world to the fastest supercomputer, this episode is all about speed. Opening with the cries of the peregrine falcon, the team finds out how the bird has evolved to endure flying at more than 200mph. Then they explain how scientists, starting from Galileo, attempted to measure the speed limit of the universe, the speed of light, and how Einstein understood what it meant. And they explore th...
#7 Speed: From the quickest animal in the world to the fastest supercomputer
March 19, 2024 00:05 - 16 minutes - 22.6 MBThis is a re-airing of a podcast originally released in February 2021. From the quickest animal in the world to the fastest supercomputer, this episode is all about speed. Opening with the cries of the peregrine falcon, the team finds out how the bird has evolved to endure flying at more than 200mph. Then they explain how scientists, starting from Galileo, attempted to measure the speed limit of the universe, the speed of light, and how Einstein understood what it meant. And they explore...
Weekly: Gaza’s impending long-term health crisis
March 15, 2024 14:16 - 26 minutes - 36.1 MB#241 More than 2 million Palestinians in Gaza face widespread hunger, disease and injury as the war quickly becomes the worst humanitarian crisis in modern memory. Even once the war ends, the devastating physical and emotional health consequences will be felt for many years to come, especially by children. And aid groups like UNICEF and the World Health Organization have no long-term plans to meet the post-war health needs of the population. Gravity on Mars may occasionally be strong enoug...
CultureLab: Rebecca Boyle on how the moon transformed Earth and made us who we are
March 12, 2024 16:20 - 35 minutes - 48.2 MBThere’s no moon like our moon. A celestial body twinned with Earth, the moon guides the tides, stabilises our climate, leads the rhythms of animal behaviour and has long been a source of wonder and awe. Our Moon: How Earth's Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are, is a new book from science journalist Rebecca Boyle. In it she takes an intimate look at our satellite and how it’s influenced everything from our species’ understanding of long cycle...
Weekly: Woolly mammoth breakthrough?; The Anthropocene rejected; Bumblebee culture
March 08, 2024 15:37 - 27 minutes - 38 MB#240 A major step has been made toward bringing woolly mammoths back from extinction – sort of. The company Colossal has the ambitious goal of bringing its first baby mammoth into the world by 2028. And its newest advance, announced this week, is in turning adult Asian elephant cells into stem cells. But it’s still a long way from here to the company’s vision of cold-adapted elephants fighting climate change in the Arctic – or even that 2028 baby mammoth. When did humans begin to affect t...
Escape Pod: #6 All About Warmth: Emotional, Physiological and Geological
March 05, 2024 00:05 - 16 minutes - 22.7 MBThis is a re-airing of a podcast originally released in February 2021. Keeping you cosy this week is an episode all about warmth - emotional, physiological and geological. We have an unexpected start to the show, with bees taking the spotlight, but it turns out these cold-blooded little insects can generate immense warmth when necessary. The team then takes a much bigger view of warmth, discussing the heat of the planet, and of the many uses of geothermal energy. Finally they wrap up by ...
Weekly: Is personalised medicine overhyped?; Pythagoras was wrong about music; How your brain sees nothing
March 01, 2024 15:41 - 26 minutes - 36.1 MB#239 Two decades ago, following the Human Genome Project’s release of a first draft in 2001, genetic testing was set to revolutionise healthcare. “Personalised medicine” would give us better treatments for serious conditions, clear pictures of our risks and individualised healthcare recommendations. But despite all the genetic tests available, that healthcare revolution has not exactly come to fruition. Amid news that genetic testing poster child firm 23andMe has hit financial troubles, we ...
CultureLab: What would life on Mars be like? The science behind TV series For All Mankind
February 27, 2024 00:05 - 45 minutes - 62.6 MBFreezing temperatures, dust storms, radiation, marsquakes – living on Mars right now would be hellish. And getting there remains a multi-year journey. But what if we could make it habitable? Could we one day build settlements on the Red Planet or send human scientists to search for life? That’s the premise of the TV series For All Mankind, which explores a future where the space race continued after the moon landing and humanity kept spreading out across space. But in the name of a good sto...
Weekly: ADHD helps foraging?; the rise of AI “deepfakes”; ignored ovary appendage
February 23, 2024 15:17 - 24 minutes - 33.2 MB#238 ADHD is a condition that affects millions of people and is marked by impulsivity, restlessness and attention difficulties. But how did ADHD evolve in humans and why did it stick around? Through the help of a video game, a study shows that these traits might be beneficial when foraging for food. In 2023, we hit record after record when it comes to high temperatures on Earth, including in the oceans and seas. From the surface to 2000 metres down, it was hard to find a part of the ocean...
Escape Pod #5 Sound: Prepare to feel relaxed, tingly and amazed, in the space of 20 minutes
February 21, 2024 19:46 - 17 minutes - 24.1 MBThis is a re-airing of a podcast originally released in February 2021. Prepare to feel relaxed, tingly and amazed all in the space of 20 minutes. This episode is all about sound. We start with the musical tones of an elephant trumpeting, followed by a recording from Cornell University’s Elephant Listening Project, showing how they communicate at an infrasonic frequency, which humans can’t ordinarily detect. The team then attempts to send shivers down your spine by recreating ASMR, explain...
Weekly: Reversing blindness; power beamed from space; animal love languages
February 16, 2024 16:23 - 23 minutes - 32.9 MB#237 Glaucoma, which can cause blindness by damaging the optic nerve, may be reversible. Researchers have managed to coax new optic nerve cells to grow in mice, partly restoring sight in some. How the treatment works through an eyeball injection and why, for humans, prevention and early detection are still the best options. Black holes, just like planets and stars, spin. But they may be spinning a lot slower than we thought. When black holes gobble up matter around them, they start spinnin...
CultureLab: Where billionaires rule the apocalypse: Naomi Alderman’s ‘The Future’
February 13, 2024 09:06 - 20 minutes - 28.1 MBReal tech billionaires are reportedly building secret bunkers in case of post-apocalyptic societal collapse. It’s a frightening prospect, a world where only the super rich survive catastrophe. But it’s a world one author is exploring in her latest novel. Naomi Alderman is the prize-winning and best-selling author of The Power. Her latest book The Future imagines a world where billionaires survive a world-shaking cataclysm, only to find out they’re not as in charge of events as they think th...
Weekly: Record-breaking fusion experiments inch the world closer to new source of clean energy
February 09, 2024 15:27 - 23 minutes - 32.1 MB#236 This week marks two major milestones in the world of fusion. In 2022 a fusion experiment at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory created more power than was required to sustain it – now, the same team has improved this record by 25 per cent, releasing almost twice the energy that was put in. Meanwhile, the UK’s JET reactor set a new world record for total energy output from any fusion reaction, just before it shut down for good late last year. Why these two milestones inch us clo...
Escape Pod: #4 Mass: from lightest creates on earth, to the heaviest things in the cosmos
February 06, 2024 00:05 - 17 minutes - 24 MBThis is a re-airing of a podcast originally released in February 2021. From some of the lightest creatures on earth, to the heaviest things in the cosmos, this episode is all about mass. It’s a magical opening to the show as the team discusses a group of insects called fairy wasps which are so light it’s near impossible to weigh them. They then turn to matters of massive proportions, discussing a little thing called dark matter. Finally the team wraps up by looking at the surprising, and...
Weekly: Alzheimer’s from contaminated injections; Musk's Neuralink begins human trials; longest living dogs
February 02, 2024 16:08 - 21 minutes - 29.6 MB#235 In very rare cases, Alzheimer’s disease could be transmitted from person to person during medical procedures. This finding comes as five people have developed the disease after receiving contaminated human growth hormone injections in the late 1950s to early 1980s – a practice that is now banned. What this finding means for medical settings and why most people don’t need to be concerned. Elon Musk’s mind-reading brain implant company Neuralink is carrying out its first human trial. ...
CultureLab: Earth’s Last Great Wild Areas – Simon Reeve on BBC series ‘Wilderness’
January 30, 2024 14:43 - 26 minutes - 36.3 MBVery few places on our planet appear untouchedby humans, but in those that do, nature is still very much in charge – and the scenery is breathtaking. In the new BBC series Wilderness with Simon Reeve, journalist Simone Reeve takes us into the heart of Earth's last great wild areas, including the Congo Basin rainforest, Patagonia, the Coral Triangle and the Kalahari desert in Southern Africa. In this episode of CultureLab, TV columnist Bethan Ackerley asks Simon about the series and his many...
Weekly: Why AI won’t take your job just yet; how sound helps fungi grow faster; chickpeas grown in moon dust for first time
January 26, 2024 14:55 - 23 minutes - 32.9 MB#234 Is AI really ready to take our jobs? A team looked at whether AI image recognition could replace tasks like checking price tags on items or looking at the pupils of patients in surgery. The researchers found only a small fraction of these vision-reliant tasks could be cost-effectively taken over by AI – for now, anyway. There’s an old myth that singing to your plants helps them grow – apparently this actually works with fungus. A pair of experiments has found that fungus grows much m...
Escape Pod: #3 Music: the jazz swing of birdsong and the sonification of the orbits of planets
January 23, 2024 10:34 - 16 minutes - 22.3 MBThis is a re-airing of a podcast originally released in February 2021. This episode is all about music, so today’s journey of escapism comes complete with odd, relaxing, soothing and interesting sounds to guide you through. The team opens with the sounds of animals, specifically the singing - if you can call it that - of gorillas, and the jazzy birdsong of the thrush. They then treat you to the sounds of data sonification, courtesy of Milton Mermikides, who translates motion into music, l...
Weekly: Cloned rhesus monkey lives to adulthood for first time; fermented foods carry antibiotic resistant bugs; an impossible cosmic object
January 19, 2024 15:38 - 23 minutes - 32 MB#233 A cloned rhesus monkey named ReTro is said to be in good health more than three years after his birth – a landmark achievement, as no other rhesus clone has lived to adulthood.. However, the method used to clone ReTro used fetal cells, a method that cannot create identical clones of adult primates. The method could still be useful for medical research. Fermented foods are meant to be healthy and good for our guts, but there’s a problem. Researchers have found antibiotic resistant bac...
CultureLab: Breaking space records, human bowling and a trip to the Moon with astronaut Christina Koch
January 16, 2024 00:05 - 22 minutes - 30.9 MBNASA astronaut Christina Koch not only took part in the first ever all-female spacewalks, but she also holds the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman, after spending 328 days on board the International Space Station. So what does it take to live in space for such a long time, what does it mean to be a record-breaking astronaut – and how do you get used to gravity again when you finally come back home? New Scientist space reporter Leah Crane asks Chrstina all of these questio...
Weekly: Brain regions shrink during pregnancy; oldest and largest Amazon cities discovered; corals that change their sex like clockwork
January 12, 2024 15:35 - 22 minutes - 31 MB#232 During pregnancy the brain undergoes profound changes – almost every part of the cortex thins out and loses volume by the third trimester. It’s such a big change that you can tell if someone’s pregnant just by looking at a scan of their brain. How researchers discovered these changes and why they might be occurring. A massive, ancient group of cities has been discovered in the Amazon rainforest using lasers. It’s the biggest pre-Columbian urban area ever found in the Amazon and parts ...
Escape Pod: #2 Alliances in matters biological, mathematical and atomical
January 09, 2024 00:05 - 17 minutes - 23.4 MBThis is a re-airing of a podcast originally released in January 2021. The theme of this episode is alliances - human, biological and atomic. We start by celebrating the amazing properties of lichen, the symbiotic relationships it forms, how it shaped the earth and simply how beautiful it is to look at. Then we explore how carbon is able to create such an incredibly diverse range of materials, including soot, diamonds and graphite. We wrap up by delving into the life of renowned Hungarian ...
Weekly: What’s next for science in 2024? A year of moons; weight-loss drugs; and a massive new supercomputer for Europe
January 05, 2024 00:05 - 30 minutes - 41.5 MB#231 It’s a new year and that means new science. But what (that we know so far) does 2024 hold? On the space front, agencies around the world have as many as 13 missions to Earth’s moon, while Japan’s MMX mission will launch to take samples from the Martian moon Phobos. NASA will finally launch the Europa Clipper mission to explore Jupiter’s ocean-bearing moon. On the technology front, Europe’s first ever exascale supercomputer, capable of performing billions of operations per second – ...
Escape Pod: #1 Understanding the self-awareness of dolphins
January 02, 2024 00:05 - 21 minutes - 29.9 MBThis is a re-airing of a podcast originally released in January 2021. An episode of Escape Pod all about understanding. We start by discussing the self-awareness of dolphins and whales, and the intricacies of their language and vocalisations. Then we marvel at the seemingly impossible abilities of gymnasts and ballerinas, most notably Simone Biles who performed a legendary triple double. And then we take a look at the Chinese board game Go - a game with more possible moves than there are at...
Best of 2023, part 2: India lands on the moon; the orca uprising; birds make use of anti-bird spikes
December 29, 2023 00:05 - 27 minutes - 37.5 MBWhat was your favorite science story of 2023? Was it the rise of orca-involved boat sinkings? Or maybe the successful landing of India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission at the moon’s south pole? This week, it’s the second and final part of our annual event about the best science stories of the year, with a roundup of some of the good news, animal news and all-around most important stories of 2023. Like how researchers discovered the high-tech material called graphene can also occur naturally…and did...
CultureLab: The best books of 2023, from joyful escapism to sobering reads
December 26, 2023 00:01 - 28 minutes - 38.6 MBAre you looking forward to catching up on some reading over the holiday season? Or perhaps you are on the prowl for book recommendations after receiving a few literary gift cards? If so, you are in luck – this episode is all about the books we think you’ll love to read. In this episode of CultureLab, culture and comment editor Alison Flood appears in her role as professional bookworm to share some of her favorite reads of the year. From a sobering story of life in the human-polluted ocean (...
Best of 2023, part 1: Euclid telescope’s big year; AI is everywhere (for better and worse); why doctors searched their poo for tiny toys
December 22, 2023 00:05 - 27 minutes - 37.3 MB#229 Your hands are heavier than you think. Beer goggles aren’t real. And many water utilities in the United Kingdom still use dowsing to find leaks in pipes. It’s the first part of our annual best-in-show of science stories from the year, with a roundup of some of the funniest and most futuristic-feeling headlines from 2023. Like the Euclid Space Telescope’s successful start to a mission that will map the sky and offer new insights into dark matter and the very structure of the universe....
CultureLab: A duet between music and the natural world with Erland Cooper’s playful compositions
December 19, 2023 09:33 - 37 minutes - 51.2 MBComposer Erland Cooper is known for playful, innovative, experimental projects. For example, he buried the only audio copy of a 2021 composition – then left treasure hunt clues for people to try to find it. Which one couple, eventually, did. In this episode of CultureLab, Cooper talks to writer Arwa Haider about his newest album, Folded Landscapes, where he is deep in conversation with the environment and our changing climate. The movements of the piece were recorded with the Scottish Ensem...
Science of cannabis: #3 The weed of the future
December 17, 2023 00:01 - 23 minutes - 32.2 MBCannabis is one of the oldest products of human cultivation. And as it becomes increasingly legal for medical and recreational use around the world, its popularity is growing as well – even as researchers, limited by government prohibitions of the past and present, race to understand how the hundreds of chemicals in pot actually affect us and what the benefits and risks may be. But the object of all this research is itself changing: cannabis consumed today is more than ten times more potent...
Weekly: New climate deal at COP28; AI mathematician; a problem with the universe
December 15, 2023 15:02 - 24 minutes - 34.2 MB#228 We have a new, landmark climate deal, signalling the beginning of the end of fossil fuels. But even as the announcement at COP28 includes commitments for some of the most pressing issues, including giving money to countries most affected by climate change and setting goals for more renewables, some critics aren’t satisfied. With weak language around “transitioning away from” fossil fuels, does the deal go far enough? The first ever scientific discoveries have been made by an artifici...
CultureLab: The Royal Flying Doctors - Saving lives in the Australian outback
December 12, 2023 00:05 - 15 minutes - 21.6 MBThe Australian outback is vast and the population is really spread out. This makes getting access to emergency healthcare incredibly challenging, as you may be a thousand kilometres or more from the nearest major hospital. The solution? Australia’s Royal Flying Doctor Service – one of the largest aeromedical organisations in the world, and, at nearly 100 years old, the first of its kind. In this bonus episode of the podcast, Australia reporter Alice Klein speaks to two RFDS team members abo...
Science of cannabis: #2 The anatomy of a high
December 10, 2023 00:05 - 24 minutes - 33.2 MBHuman beings have cultivated cannabis for thousands of years. We have been using it for its euphoric effects for at least several thousand. And as prohibition in the United States and other nations gives way to legal, recreational use, more people are picking up pot for help with sleep, pain, or simple relaxation. But as medical and recreational use become more popular and increasingly accessible, what’s actually going on inside your body and brain when you imbibe? Cannabinoids, the chemica...
Weekly: IBM’s powerful new quantum computers; climate wins and flops at COP28; our sweet partnership with honeyguide birds
December 08, 2023 15:30 - 26 minutes - 35.8 MB#227 Quantum computing researchers at IBM have stepped up the power of their devices by a huge amount. The company’s new device Condor has more than doubled the number of quantum bits of its previous record-breaking machine, which was released just last year. This massive increase in computational power is just one of the company’s latest achievements. It has also announced Heron, a smaller quantum computer but one that’s less error-prone – and therefore more useful – than any IBM has made....
CultureLab: Teaching science through cooking with Pia Sorenson’s real life ‘Lessons in Chemistry’
December 05, 2023 00:05 - 24 minutes - 34.3 MBDid your chemistry lessons involve baking chocolate lava cakes? Have you ever wanted to eat your biology homework? While ‘Lessons in Chemistry’ brought a fictional cooking-as-chemistry story to TV viewers this fall, real-life scientist Pia Sörensen’s students are some of the few who can actually answer “yes.” Sörensen’s directs Harvard University’s Science and Cooking program, which teaches science lessons through the culinary arts. She is the author and editor of several books, including t...
Weekly: Biggest climate summit since Paris; thanking dirt for all life on Earth; what if another star flew past our solar system?
December 01, 2023 15:04 - 22 minutes - 30.4 MB#226 This year’s COP28 could be the most important climate summit since the Paris Agreement in 2015. After opening in Dubai on Thursday, this will be the first time countries will formally take stock of climate change since agreeing to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. While we can expect world leaders to make some major commitments regarding renewable energy, sceptics are concerned the location of the summit will mean that fossil fuel interests end up disproportionately shaping ...
Science of cannabis: #1 A long history and a seismic shift
November 28, 2023 09:24 - 21 minutes - 29.6 MBCannabis is having a moment. Half of the US population lives in a state where marijuana is legal, and 9 in 10 people nationwide support legalisation in some form. This is a stark difference from mere decades ago, when prohibition was the norm in the entire US. Meanwhile, if you live in Malta, Uruguay, Canada – and maybe soon, Germany – your entire country is one with legal recreational pot. And access to medical marijuana extends to even more countries, including the UK and Australia. But a...
Weekly: Salt glaciers could host life on Mercury; brain cells that tell us when to eat; powerful cosmic ray hits Earth
November 24, 2023 15:02 - 24 minutes - 33.4 MB#225 Life on Mercury? That would be a shocking discovery. The planet is incredibly inhospitable to life… as we know it. But the discovery of salt glaciers on its surface has opened up the possibility that extremophile bacteria could be buried beneath its surface. Lucky then that the BepiColombo mission is planned to take another look at Mercury soon. Ever wondered why you can go all night without getting hungry but can’t last a few hours in the day? Well, there may be cells in our brains t...
Dead Planets Society: #11 Cube Earth Part Two
November 22, 2023 00:10 - 14 minutes - 20.2 MBTurning the Earth into a cube, the gift that just keeps giving. Last episode we had fish bowl spaceships, this time we have sea monsters! If you thought cubifying the Earth couldn’t get more wacky, you’re in for a treat. In the Dead Planets Society season finale, Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte are once again joined by geophysicist Mika McKinnon. This time she explains what time would be like on a 6-faced planet, how you’d be able to experience all four seasons in a single day on Cube Earth an...
Dead Planets Society: #10 Cube Earth Part One
November 21, 2023 00:10 - 18 minutes - 24.9 MBThis is it, the moment we’ve all been waiting for. We’ve killed the sun, smushed the asteroid belt, burrowed into other planets… but now it’s time for the big one… Earth. In this two-part season finale, Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte do irreparable damage to our planet by turning it into a cube. Joining the pair in this mammoth task is geophysicist and disaster consultant Mika McKinnon. In this first episode Mika tackles the many life-changing knock-on effects of cubifying Earth, such as how ...