Science

Science Magazine Podcast

Science Magazine

Weekly podcasts from Science Magazine, the world's leading journal of original scientific research, global news, and commentary.

300 episodes

Stimulating the brain for women’s health, and the long-term implications of menopausal symptoms 1 Oct 2026 · 37 min First up on the podcast, Staff Writer Jennie Erin Smith joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about new research on how noninvasive technologies such as transcranial magnetic stimulatio…

Studying the changing of AI language inside swarms, how orangutans learn to forage, and an astrophysicist talks about loss 24 Sept 2026 · 49 min First up on the podcast, Staff Reporter Tom Howarth joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about the language artificial intelligence agents evolve inside their swarms. Next on the show,…

Can ‘assisted migration’ save forests? And the role of philosophy in science 17 Sept 2026 · 40 min First up on the podcast, as the planet warms and forests burn, can we replant them with new trees that will thrive in the decades ahead? Associate Editor Katie Langin joins host S…

Psychoactive substances helped spur Andean civilization, and breaking barriers to education 10 Sept 2026 · 33 min First up on the podcast, producer Meagan Cantwell and freelance journalist Andrew Lawler discuss how psychoactive drugs might have shaped culture in pre-Inca Andean societies. The…

Sex-reversing frogs, and Europe’s rising rates of a deadly tick-borne disease 3 Sept 2026 · 28 min First up on the podcast, Senior International Correspondent Richard Stone joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss how climate is pushing the disease-carrying tick Hyalomma marginatum o…

Making drugs in space, the man who fed India, and what narwhals can teach us about changing seas 27 Aug 2026 · 50 min First up on the podcast, will it ever make economic sense to produce drugs and biomedical supplies in space? Associate Online News Editor Michael Greshko discusses his story on th…

Why tracing cyclosporiasis is so tough, and a digestible probe for the microbiome 20 Aug 2026 · 29 min First up on the podcast, the News team’s Diverse Voices in Science Journalism interns Mona Patterson and Laura Martín Agudelo join host Sarah Crespi to talk over some of their rep…

A vest for blocking cosmic rays, and updates on NIH funding 13 Aug 2026 · 27 min First up on the podcast, ScienceInsider Editor Jocelyn Kaiser joins host Sarah Crespi for the latest science policy news. The two discuss recent grant cancellations by the U.S. Na…

Did meat or fruit give people big brains, and protecting bison diversity using ancient DNA 6 Aug 2026 · 38 min First up on the podcast, Deputy News Editor Michael Price discusses the history of the North American bison population, its decline, and resurrection—and links to Indigenous cultu…

AI’s influence on society, measuring muscles, and a Crick biography 30 Jul 2026 · 47 min First up on the podcast, we catch up with Celina Zhao, a staff reporter for Science’s AI In Science reporting initiative. She talks with host Sarah Crespi about artificial intelli…

Death in a gene-editing trial, and insect larvae surviving in deep waters 23 Jul 2026 · 37 min First up on the podcast, freelance science journalist Brendan Borrell talks about his work reporting on the previously undisclosed death of a 6-year-old girl in a gene-editing cli…

Health care in Malawi after USAID’s end, and a rocky exoplanet with an atmosphere 16 Jul 2026 · 42 min First up on the podcast, we continue our coverage of the fallout from cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), this time focusing on how one of the largest r…

Owl wars and the immune system’s memory 9 Jul 2026 · 35 min First up on the podcast, Contributing Correspondent Warren Cornwall goes on an owl hunt in the woods of Northern California. After surviving logging and habitat destruction in the…

How Antarctica got its ice sheets, and what happens when geopolitical relationships turn chilly in the Arctic 2 Jul 2026 · 33 min First up on the podcast, relationships turn chilly in the polar research haven of Svalbard in Norway. Senior International Correspondent Richard Stone joins host Sarah Crespi to d…

Cracking color vision, U.S. science policy changes, and a trailblazing biography 25 Jun 2026 · 45 min First up on the podcast, ScienceInsider editor Jocelyn Kaiser joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss big policy stories from the past month, including a proposal from President Donald…

An electronic nose that detects spoiled chicken, and wolves make a spectacular comeback in Europe 18 Jun 2026 · 47 min First up on the podcast, wrangling wolves in Europe. After near extermination in much of the continent, wolf numbers have surged up to about 20,000 individuals. Contributing Corre…

How childhood environments shape the brain, and how susceptible is the Atlantic Ocean’s current to climate change? 11 Jun 2026 · 32 min First up on the podcast, producer Kevin McLean talks with Staff Writer Paul Voosen about the latest on the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC. Researchers have l…

Will AI replace astronomers, how healthy are ultraprocessed foods, and a peek behind the scenes of ‘The Normals’ 4 Jun 2026 · 50 min First up on the podcast, freelance science journalist Joshua Sokol talks about the intense discussion happening in the astrophysics community as artificial intelligence and machin…

Disembodied human brains, immortal bits of sea cucumber, and fame in Galileo’s time 28 May 2026 · 45 min First up on the podcast, a company is using whole brains—maintained with specialized life support—to study new drugs. Freelance science journalist Sara Reardon joins host Sarah Cr…

USAID cuts linked to violence, unexpected parallels between humans and bacteria, and how to rule the world 21 May 2026 · 41 min First up on the podcast, Senior International Correspondent Richard Stone joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the surprising commonalities between our immune systems and the tools…

Fighting deepfakes, and using bacteria to deliver medicine inside the body 14 May 2026 · 32 min First up on the podcast, Meagan Cantwell produced a segment with Contributing Correspondent Kai Kupferschmidt on the fight against deepfakes. Kupferschmidt talks with Hany Farid,…

A team effort to save a giant fish, the power of moonlight, and how scientists can navigate a tough political environment 7 May 2026 · 54 min First up on the podcast, along Brazil’s Juruá River, local residents have been working with scientists to manage a giant fish called the arapaima—affecting the land, the people, a…

Watching a spiders’ heart beat, epigenetic ethics, and what science biographies reveal about fame 30 Apr 2026 · 47 min First up on the podcast, Online News Editor David Grimm shares a batch of fun stories with podcast host Sarah Crespi—from spider hearts racing when traffic gets loud to a disease-…

Cleaning up uranium mining, and how the heart avoids cancer 23 Apr 2026 · 31 min First up on the podcast, freelance science and environmental journalist Quentin Septer joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about a controversial uranium mine getting fast-tracked in S…

The normals | Episode 3 21 Apr 2026 · 33 min The final of a three-part limited Science Podcast series that looks at the history of normal human subjects in research In episode two, we heard what happened to the normals progr…

How to keep quantum computers cool, whether prediction markets harm public health, and podcasting on podcasting 16 Apr 2026 · 51 min First up on the podcast, quantum computers require extremely low temperatures—less than 1°C away from absolute zero. But getting down to those temperatures has usually required di…

The Normals | Episode 2 14 Apr 2026 · 27 min Last time on The Normals, we learned that in the 1950s, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) wanted to recruit many healthy volunteers for basic research. Two peace churches, t…

A chimpanzee ‘civil war,’ and NASA plans for nuclear propulsion 9 Apr 2026 · 42 min First up on the podcast, freelance science journalist Hannah Richter joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss NASA’s plans to send a nuclear-powered spacecraft to Mars in less than 3 ye…

The Normals | Episode 1 7 Apr 2026 · 24 min How do we know what's normal in a person? In the early 1950s, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) set out to do something unprecedented. It wanted to start studying normal hum…

Resolving the dispute over the speed of the expanding universe, and seeking new drug targets for cognitive dysfunction 2 Apr 2026 · 34 min First up on the podcast, a new path to calculating the Hubble constant. This value for the universe’s speed of expansion is typically determined in one of two ways, one favored by…