New Scientist Podcasts

How 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 multiverse worth of matter, or sending it back in time – they try everything to kill a black hole. Will they succeed?Dead Planets Society is a podcast that takes outlandish ideas about how to tinker with the cosmos – from punching a hole in a planet to unifying the asteroid belt to destroying the sun – and subjects them to the laws of physics to see how they fare.Your hosts are Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte.If you have a cosmic object you’d like to figure out how to destroy, email the team at deadplanets@newscientist.com. It may just feature in a later episode… Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

#246Our 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 modelled on the human brain and nervous system. This neuromorphic computer, called Hala Point, may only be the size of a microwave oven, but its innovative technology could someday run artificial intelligence that’s smarter and more energy efficient.After a blast of sound from a keyboard shot through her whole body, experimental musician Lola De La Mata was hit with debilitating tinnitus. It was so profound it left her with vertigo, difficulty walking, speech problems and unable to make music. Years later, she is now putting a spotlight on the condition with a new album, Oceans on Azimuth. Hear her story and music from the album in a special feature. Plus, read Clare Wilson’s recent feature about the future of tinnitus and hearing loss.Do birds dream? They just might. Birds’ vocal cords move in their sleep, as if they’re singing, but don’t actually make a sound. Now researchers have managed to use these vocal movements to synthesise their songs and hear them aloud – with surprising results. Does this prove that birds dream?Plus: The biggest stellar mass black hole ever found is very close by; fossil hunters uncover the jawbone of an extinct reptile that may have been the biggest ever to swim the oceans; how skin wounds can cause gut problems.Hosts Timothy Revell and Christie Taylor discuss with guests Madeleine Cuff, Matt Sparkes and Karmela Padavic-Callaghan. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

#245The 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 how do you turn skin cells into actual rhinos and will it work?A single-celled alga has done something thought to have happened just three times in the entire history of life on Earth. Braarudosphaera bigelowii has formed a unique bond with a bacterium living inside it and has developed a new cellular structure. This organelle may be why this alga became so successful and widespread.We’ve got a new way of looking for aliens without having to go planet hopping. The method involves scouting the universe for planets that are close together and look similar to each other – hinting that an advanced civilisation may have colonised them.We’ve had the orbits of the planets turned into music, we’ve heard the sonification of data and even heard what a black hole sounds like. This time, it’s the turn of mushrooms. Musician and artist Brian D’Souza has used a process called biosonification to produce musical tones from Shiitake and Reishi mushrooms. Learn more about Brian D’Souza here. And get details of his live performance on April 19th here.Plus, we mark the passing this week of Peter Higgs, who first proposed the existence of the Higgs boson and later won the Nobel Prize for his efforts.Hosts Timothy Revell and Rowan Hooper discuss with guests Karmela Padavic-Callaghan, Michael Le Page and Corryn Wetzel. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

#244Researchers 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 participants with end-stage liver disease.Even on a remote island untouched by tourists, fishing, pollution and development, the climate crisis is still wreaking havoc on the coral of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Reporter James Woodford visited One Tree Island, a refuge ordinarily spared from the reef’s past catastrophic bleaching events, and discovered that this year’s marine heatwave has managed to reach even that protected spot. There, he spoke with coral experts and now shares both the science and the difficult experience of witnessing environmental devastation. Russia is suspected of launching a record-breaking GPS jamming attack, a form of electronic warfare that’s been on the rise in parts of Europe since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Lasting more than 63 hours, the newest attack impacted thousands of aircraft, which rely on GPS for navigation. Is the threat set to continue – and how can GPS-reliant airlines adjust?Snakes might be self-aware just like humans – another animal to add to the growing list. The mirror test, which investigates how animals respond to versions of their reflections, has long been used to detect self-recognition in everything from orangutans to roosters and horses. To test snakes, however, a smell-based method had to be invented, which garter snakes have passed. Does this change our understanding of reptiles?Plus: Detecting what may be the smallest galaxy in the known universe; how babies recognise spoken nursery rhymes heard in the womb; and why you should “yell at” your misbehaving robot.Hosts Christie Taylor and Timothy Revell discuss with guests Grace Wade, James Woodford, Jeremy Hsu and Chen Ly. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

#243As 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 centre of our galaxy – a new picture offers a closer look. The stunning image released this week features the spiralling lines of Sgr A*’s magnetic field, which is seeding new questions about how black holes behave.Millions of tonnes of unexploded ordnance litter the globe from conflicts both ongoing and long past. And as time passes these bombs are not getting any less dangerous – new research finds some are actually becoming more prone to exploding.Physicists have theorised that there is a particle called the graviton that carries the force of gravity – much like a photon carries light, or a gluon carries the strong nuclear force. But the graviton has so far remained elusive. Now, researchers think they’ve seen one, or at least a particle with the correct properties to be a graviton. How this experiment unfolded, and why even a possible sighting is exciting to theorists.Plus: How a bad night’s sleep makes you feel older; why therapy horses get stressed when they don’t have a choice; and a robot that can design, build and test paper planes.Hosts Christie Taylor and Sophie Bushwick discuss with guests Grace Wade, Alex Wilkins, Michael Le Page and Karmela Padavic-Callaghan. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

#242Human 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 different tasks may be one step closer after two big announcements from chip-making giant NVIDIA. The company revealed what it calls its most powerful AI chip yet, as well as a new computer for humanoid robots called Jetson Thor.A group of California orcas known as transient killer whales have been observed using a never-before seen way of hunting down prey in the deep waters of the open ocean. Until now, their distance from the coast had kept this group’s hunting methods mysterious. It turns out these orcas have ingenious and brutal methods for hunting whale calves and other mammals. Two big maths stories this week. The Abel prize has gone to mathematician Michel Talagrand for his groundbreaking work in understanding randomness. His work has been integral in everything from weather forecasts to large language models and quantum computers. Plus, a group of mathematicians plans to direct a computer to prove the famously complex final theorem of the long-dead Pierre de Fermat – which could advance the field of mathematics research immensely if successful. Plus: Archaeologists uncover a perfectly preserved ancient settlement in Britain; bad news for life in the universe as one in twelve stars may be gobbling up their orbiting planets; why teenagers’ sweat is particularly smelly.Hosts Christie Taylor and Timothy Revell discuss with guests Clare Wilson, Jeremy Hsu, Chen Ly and Alex Wilkins. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

#241More 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 enough to stir up the oceans on Earth, even from 225 million kilometres away. A team led by researchers at the University of Sydney says Mars could be responsible for creating tiny wobbles in Earth’s orbit – just enough to slightly warm the oceans.What if every piece of music ever recorded was replaced by AI-generated Taylor Swift covers? Researchers dreamed up this implausible-sounding thought-experiment to demonstrate the vulnerability of data to AI corruption – but is this actually a risk?Phonon lasers, which use ultra-concentrated sound vibrations instead of light, may one day help us with things like medical imaging and deep-sea monitoring. A team has now created the most powerful phonon laser ever made. It’s brighter and narrower than its competition and can stay on far longer. But challenges remain in moving this technology out of the lab. Plus: Why Jupiter’s moon Europa may be less likely to host life than scientists hoped; how North America’s threatened sequoia trees are thriving thousands of miles from home; and why pythons may be the most sustainable meat for us to eat.Hosts Christie Taylor and Sophie Bushwick discuss with guests Grace Wade, Jacob Aron, Matthew Sparkes and Karmela Padavic-Callaghan. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

#240A 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 the Earth’s systems enough to mark the beginning of a new geological era? The Anthropocene is often informally used to describe the current era of Earth’s geological timeline, one in which human activity has reshaped the planet – and some geologists have been lobbying to say it began officially in 1950, with the first detectable nuclear fallout. But in a leaked decision that shocked many, scientists have apparently voted not to make the Anthropocene textbook-official yet. But the story doesn’t end there.US Army researchers are trying to figure out if AI can help them make better decisions during conflict. Using commercial chatbots powered by models like OpenAI’s GPT-4, the US military has been letting AI call the shots in the midst of battle – in the video game Starcraft II. Is the technology good enough? Bumblebees may be capable of culture. It’s a finding that’s causing much debate in the scientific community. Researchers challenged bees to complete a tricky puzzle box, which the bees could not do without being shown how – but the bees who were trained to solve the puzzle then quickly taught their hivemates. Teaching others something they can’t do alone could be considered cumulative culture, which was thought to be unique to humans. Is it time to rethink our exceptionalism?Plus: How the creation of new strains of cheese mould could lead to brand new flavours of blue cheese and even new drugs; how microplastics found in our bodies may increase heart disease risk; why some white dwarfs look younger than they are – with consequences for astronomy.Hosts Christie Taylor and Timothy Revell discuss with guests Michael Le Page, Chen Ly, Jeremy Hsu and Sofia Quaglia. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

#239Two 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 ask whether personalised medicine was overhyped.Ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras once established strict mathematical rules for what constitutes pleasing music – those rules involve ratios and harmonies that were the basis of much of Western music theory. But comprehensive new research finds people’s preferences have little to do with Pythagoras’ rules.The invention of the numeral zero to represent nothing is a cornerstone of some of our greatest accomplishments as a species, like calculus, literature and philosophy. Now researchers have figured out how our brains comprehend the idea of nothing – and it may have started as registering the absence of predators, prey, or even weather conditions. The experiment finds where “nothing” lives in our brain and traces back the invention of the numeral zero to our animal roots.If you want to make friends with a dog but are wary of petting them, there is a way. All you need to do is follow them around and copy their movements. Research into this behavioural synchronisation could prove beneficial to helping nervous pups connect better with people.Plus: Making plankton poo heavier with clay – for the environment; YouTube’s recommendation algorithm seems to have stopped inadvertently radicalising people; the specific chemical compounds that make an orange taste orangey.Hosts Christie Taylor and Timothy Revell discuss with guests Clare Wilson, Jacob Aron, James Woodford and Sam Wong. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com.Music credit:“Bonang,” Wesleyan University Virtual Instrument Museum 2.0, accessed February 29th, 2024, https://wesomeka.wesleyan.edu/vim2/items/show/3 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

#238ADHD 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 not affected. This week, about 5000 scientists gathered in New Orleans for the American Geophysical Union’s biennial Ocean Sciences Meeting. Heat was the one thing on everyone’s mind, as researchers grapple to understand the drivers and consequences these new records have – but also look for promising solutions.The future of AI deepfake technology is not looking good. You might remember the infamous fake images of Taylor Swift that included non-consensual, intimate images of her on social media. Or the fake robotcall that mimicked President Joe Biden’s voice and discouraged voters from coming to the polls. As voice, picture and video generating technologies become cheaper and easier to use, can anything be done to prevent more harm?A “useless” structure on the ovary may in fact be key to fertility in mammals. The structure, a tiny series of tubes called the rete ovarii, was first discovered in 1870  and doesn’t even appear in modern textbooks. Now, researchers accidentally stumbled back onto it – and suggest that the rete ovarii may help control ovulation and the menopause. Plus: Humpback whales’ huge and specialised larynxes; physicists are excited about a new “unicorn” in the world of black holes; the “dogbot” that becomes three-legged to open doors.Hosts Christie Taylor and Timothy Revell discuss with guests Chen Ly, James Dinneen, Jeremy Hsu and Michael Le Page. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

#237Glaucoma, 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 spinning faster and we’ve largely used this understanding to guess their speed. But new research also weighs the slowing effect of massive gas jets that black holes emit – revealing that many may have slowed dramatically since their births. How these new estimates of spin also offer insights into a black hole’s history. What if we could generate solar power in space, far more efficiently than on Earth – and then beam it down to our houses? An MIT experiment has managed to do one of the most crucial steps of that science fiction-seeming process, converting electricity from a satellite into microwaves that were then successfully received by a collector in California. How these microwaves could supply the power grid on Earth and help ween us off of fossil fuels – if they can overcome some major hurdles. Apes like to playfully tease each other, just like humans do. While their methods may be a bit different from ours – poking, hitting, pulling on hair and stealing – it looks like they’re often doing it for fun, rather than to harass or assert dominance. This new finding could explain why humans evolved to enjoy jokes.Plus: A weird cooling quirk of Antarctica’s atmosphere; the microbes that make your tea taste delicious; and the flamboyant love languages of cuttlefish, scorpions and even dog-loving humans.Hosts Christie Taylor and Chelsea Whyte discuss with guests Michael Le Page, Alex Wilkins and Chen Ly. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

#236This 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 closer to practical, sustainable fusion energy – but still leave a significant distance to go.A historic drought has caused a shipping traffic jam in the Panama Canal, one of the world’s most important shipping routes. Record low levels of water mean fewer ships can pass through the intricate system of locks that carry them across the narrow strip of land. As climate change increases the likelihood of extreme drought, how could this impact both the cost of shipping goods and Panama’s economy?Microdosing LSD may not have psychedelic effects, but it still causes noticeable changes in the brain. Researchers gave people tiny amounts of the drug while measuring their brain activity and noticed their brain signals became far more complex, even though they didn’t feel any hallucinatory effects. What this study tells us about the relationship between consciousness and neural complexity.Magma flowing into a giant crack formed by this year’s volcanic eruption in Iceland was caught moving at a rate of 7400 cubic metres per second – the fastest ever recorded for this kind of event. The kilometres-long crack first began producing eruptions in December last year, and another began just this week. So what’s next for the people living nearby? Plus: The asteroid Bennu may be a chunk of an ocean world; a new, lightning-dense thunderstorm spotted by satellites; rediscovering the bizarre-looking sharp-snouted Somali worm lizard after more than 90 years.Hosts Christie Taylor and Sophie Bushwick discuss with guests Matt Sparkes, James Dinneen, Grace Wade and Michael Le Page. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This 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 slightly hilarious ways that a kilogram is measured.On the podcast are Rowan Hooper, Anna Demming and Timothy Revell.Find out more at newscientist.com/podcasts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

#235In 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. The volunteer who has received the surgically implanted device and is now, Musk said earlier this week, “recovering well”. Neuralink promises to connect users to their smartphones and computers, reading brain signals and translating a person’s intentions into text or other functions. While this isn’t the first device of its kind, it is the only one being marketed as a consumer technology device, as opposed to a medical device. Contrails, the streams of white vapour that form behind planes in the sky, are to blame for a huge proportion of air travel’s impact on the climate. But there’s good news. Small changes in altitude may be sufficient to reduce their formation – and implementing these changes may be easier than we thought. Plus why flying at night has a bigger climate impact.Tiny tornadoes have been discovered inside the egg cells of fruit flies. These twisters circulate the jelly-like cytoplasm inside the cells and could be essential to the successful reproduction of these fruit flies. Excitingly, these tornadoes may be happening in the cells of other animals too – just not humans.Plus: Revealing which dogs live the longest; how an army of Twitter bots spreaded fake news about 2023’s Chinese spy balloon incident; an ancient gadget that turns fibres into rope.Hosts Timothy Revell and Christie Taylor discuss with guests Chen Ly, Matt Sparkes, James Dinneen and Alex Wilkins. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

#234Is 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 more quickly when it’s blasted with an 80 decibel tone, compared to fungus that receives the silent treatment. Roe v Wade, the landmark US Supreme Court decision that protected the right to an abortion, was overturned in 2022. Many states passed new restrictions on the procedure in the years that followed, some total or near-total – meaning few exceptions for pregnancies that result from sexual assault. New estimates suggest that more than 65,000 people in those states have since experienced rape-related pregnancy and been unable to legally receive abortion care where they live.Chickpeas have been grown in moon dust for the first time. Moon dust is low on nutrients and full of toxic heavy metals, making it a difficult place for plants to grow.But by turning the dust into more of an ecosystem, complete with fungi and earthworms, a team has gotten a generation of chickpeas to survive and even flower. And given chickpeas are more nutrient dense than other plants we’ve managed to grow so far, this is great news if we ever want to settle on the lunar surface.Plus: Maybe owls can actually turn their heads around, 360 degrees. A robot avatar that lets you see and feel what it sees and feels. And a bacteria that turns from prey to predator when the temperature drops.Hosts Timothy Revell and Christie Taylor discuss with guests Jeremy Hsu, James Woodford, Grace Wade and Leah Crane. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This 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, like the swinging of a pendulum, the crystallisation of salt, or the orbits of planets.Finally they tackle the small matter of just why exactly it is we humans love music so much.On the podcast are Rowan Hooper, Bethan Ackerley and Timothy Revell.Find out more at newscientist.com/podcasts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

#233A 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 bacteria in a small pilot study of some fermented foods. In vulnerable people, these bacteria could damage the gut and cause more severe health issues – and be resistant to antibiotic treatment. This ancient practice may need an update to deal with a modern problem.Is it a black hole, is it a neutron star? No it’s a… mystery. A strange object has been found in the depths of space that could be the smallest black hole we’ve ever detected, or a neutron star that’s larger than we thought possible. Either result would be interesting, offering exciting new insights into our understanding of the universe.A new type of computer promises to be more efficient than your standard PC. Normal Computing’s device uses the laws of thermodynamics – and tiny, random fluctuations in electrical current – to compute. And maybe most importantly, it’s already been used to solve some difficult problems.Tardigrades are some of the hardiest creatures on the planet. These microscopic “water bears” can survive harsh conditions by entering a deep, dehydrated state of hibernation. And now researchers have figured out how they do it.Hosts Timothy Revell and Christie Taylor discuss with guests Sam Wong, James Woodford, Alex Wilkins, Karmela Padavic-Callaghan and Chen Ly. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

#232During 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 of it date back further than any other settlement too. So why have we only just found it and why was it abandoned?Where does stuff go when it’s sucked into a black hole? Based on Stephen Hawking’s theory that black holes slowly evaporate, most of it just disappears. But in physics, information about that matter can’t just disappear – so what’s going on? Many teams have tried to solve this paradox, but an intriguing new idea may bring us closer to an answer. Once we develop a whole range of groundbreaking new spacecraft technology, that is.Every single year, hammer corals change their sex, swapping between male and female. While many animals, including corals, change their sex across their lifetimes, this clockwork, routine schedule is quite unusual. But it turns out a habit of change might be useful to help ensure successful reproduction in the ocean. Plus: Making lithium-ion batteries with 70 per cent less lithium – with help from AI; staving off the amphibian apocalypse with fungus-resistant frogs; and the discovery of the oldest known fossil skin.Hosts Timothy Revell and Christie Taylor discuss with guests Alex Wilkins, Grace Wade, Michael Le Page and Sophie Bushwick. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This 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 mathematician Paul Erdős, the world’s greatest human alliance maker, who wrote research papers with over 500 mathematicians.On the podcast are Rowan Hooper, Anna Demming and Timothy Revell.Find out more at newscientist.com/podcasts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

#231It’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 – only the third officially recognised such machine in the world, and an extraordinary tool for physicists, mathematicians and even AI development. Plus why we’re increasingly close to the time when quantum computers may break encryption as we know it.And while 2023 was officially the hottest year on record, 2024 is poised to be even hotter, thanks to even higher concentrations of greenhouse gases and more months of El Niño conditions in the Pacific Ocean. How this combination should leave us expecting the unexpected when it comes to drought and rainfall, while nations grapple with the renewable energy and fossil fuel transition pledges they made at 2023’s COP28 climate summit. And why the story isn’t over for hormone-mimicking weight loss injections like Ozempic and Wegovy – or the many similar drugs that are following close on their heels.Host Christie Taylor discusses all of this and more with guests Leah Crane, Matthew Sparkes, James Dinneen and Clare Wilson. To read more about these stories, visit newscientist.com/2024preview. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.