On this show, we’ve been talking about uncertainty from a variety of different angles. We’ve heard how uncertainty can be a spark for creativity and scientific discovery. We’ve discussed how uncertainty can go unseen and make science really difficult. And we’ve explored some of the research techniques and habits of mind that researchers use to deal…

Science is an iterative process. Progress comes from people coming up with ideas that are sort of right and then new evidence and ideas coming in to update them to become even more correct. Underlying this process is a willingness by scientists to accept that they might be wrong and be open to updating their ideas. It turns out that social scientis…

Today’s episode of Uncertain is about the ways that studies can leave us overconfident and how “just-so stories” can make us feel overly certain about results that are still a work in progress. And sometimes studies get misleading results because of random error or weird samples or study design. But sometimes science gets things wrong because it’s …

In this episode, we’ll talk with two researchers whose work probes the uncertainty surrounding how we perceive the world around us. It turns out that what we see may not always be a perfect reflection of reality. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesBy Scientific American

Welcome to Uncertain, a five-part podcast miniseries from Scientific American. Here we will dive head first into the possibilities of the unknowing. Over the next five episodes, I’ll be talking with people like her: explorers who work in the realm of uncertainty. Through them, we’ll discover the ways that uncertainty can spark curiosity and scienti…

Does the word "uncertainty" make you nervous? Does it rule your life? Would you say it kinda describes the state of the world these days? Enter Uncertain, a new limited podcast series from Scientific American. In this series, host Christie Aschwanden will help to demystify uncertainty. She's going to take away its scariness–or, rather, a cast of sc…

What is behind the Black maternal mortality crisis, and what needs to change? In this podcast from Nature and Scientific American, leading academics unpack the racism at the heart of the system. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesBy Scientific American

In the newest season of Lost Women of Science, we enter a world of secrecy, computers and nuclear weapons—and see how Klára Dán von Neumann was a part of all of it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesBy Scientific American

The World Economic Forum and Scientific American team up to highlight technological advances that could change the world—including self-fertilizing crops, on-demand drug manufacturing, breath-sensing diagnostics and 3-D-printed houses. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesBy Scientific American

A new podcast is on a mission to retrieve unsung female scientists from oblivion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesBy Scientific American

In her new book Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction, science journalist Michelle Nijhuis looks into the past of the wildlife conservation field, warts and all, to try to chart its future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesBy Scientific American

It is a tale of sound: the song of a solitary whale that vocalizes at a unique frequency of 52 hertz, which no other whale—as the story goes—can seemingly understand. It is also a tale about science and ocean life, laced with fantasy and mystery and mostly shrouded in darkness. The whale, who is of unknown species and nicknamed “52,” was originally…

This is a story of desperation, anger, poverty—and triumph over long odds to crack the code of a degenerative disease that had been stealing the lives of children since it was first discovered more than a century ago. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesBy Scientific American

In Science Book Talk, a new four-part podcast miniseries, host Deboki Chakravarti acts as literary guide to two science books that share a beautiful and sometimes deeply resonant entanglement. In this week’s show: World of Wonders, by Aimee Nezhukumatathil, and Vesper Flights, by Helen Macdonald. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm…

In Science Book Talk, a new four-part podcast miniseries, host Deboki Chakravarti acts as literary guide to two science books that share a beautiful and sometimes deeply resonant entanglement. In this week’s show: Underland, by Robert MacFarlane, and Islands of Abandonment, by Cal Flyn. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

In Science Book Talk, a new four-part podcast miniseries, host Deboki Chakravarti acts as literary guide to two science books that share a beautiful and sometimes deeply resonant entanglement. In this week’s show: Entangled Life, by Merlin Sheldrake, and Gathering Moss, by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/ad…

In Science Book Talk, a new four-part podcast miniseries, host Deboki Chakravarti acts as literary guide to two science books that share a beautiful and sometimes deeply resonant entanglement. In this week’s show: Why Fish Don’t Exist, by Lulu Miller, and The Book of Eels, by Patrik Svensson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adc…

Here is our next installment of a new pop-up podcast miniseries that takes your ears into the deep sound of nature. Host Jacob Job, an ecologist and audiophile, brings you inches away from a multitude of creatures, great and small, amid the sonic grandeur of nature. You may not be easily able to access these places amid the pandemic, but after you …

Here is our next installment of a new pop-up podcast miniseries that takes your ears into the deep sound of nature. Host Jacob Job, an ecologist and audiophile, brings you inches away from a multitude of creatures, great and small, amid the sonic grandeur of nature. You may not be easily able to access these places amid the pandemic, but after you …

Here is our next installment of a new pop-up podcast miniseries that takes your ears into the deep sound of nature. Host Jacob Job, an ecologist and audiophile, brings you inches away from a multitude of creatures, great and small, amid the sonic grandeur of nature. You may not be easily able to access these places amid the pandemic, but after you …

Here is our next installment of a new pop-up podcast miniseries that takes your ears into the deep sound of nature. Host Jacob Job, an ecologist and audiophile, brings you inches away from a multitude of creatures, great and small, amid the sonic grandeur of nature. You may not be easily able to access these places amid the pandemic, but after you …

Here is our next installment of a new pop-up podcast miniseries that takes your ears into the deep sound of nature. Host Jacob Job, an ecologist and audiophile, brings you inches away from a multitude of creatures, great and small, amid the sonic grandeur of nature. You may not be easily able to access these places amid the pandemic, but after you …

On Earth Day, Scientific American sits down with National Geographic underwater photographer Brian Skerry to talk about free diving with whales and filming the giant mammals within five meters or less. “We have to get within a few meters of our subject to get good pictures,” Skerry says. “I can't use a 1,000-millimeter lens underwater. Also, the su…

Here is our next installment of a new pop-up podcast miniseries that takes your ears into the deep sound of nature. Host Jacob Job, an ecologist and audiophile, brings you inches away from a multitude of creatures, great and small, amid the sonic grandeur of nature. You may not be easily able to access these places amid the pandemic, but after you …

It’s been 60 years, to the day, since Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the first human to travel to space in a tiny capsule attached to an R-7 ballistic missile, a powerful rocket originally designed to carry a three- to five-megaton nuclear warhead. In this new episode marking the 60th anniversary of this historic space flight—the first of its ki…

Here is our next installment of a new pop-up podcast miniseries that takes your ears into the deep sound of nature. Host Jacob Job, an ecologist and audiophile, brings you inches away from a multitude of creatures, great and small, amid the sonic grandeur of nature. You may not be easily able to access these places amid the pandemic, but after you …

Here is our next installment of a new pop-up podcast miniseries that takes your ears into the deep sound of nature. Host Jacob Job, an ecologist and audiophile, brings you inches away from a multitude of creatures, great and small, amid the sonic grandeur of nature. You may not be easily able to access these places amid the pandemic, but after you …

Here is our next installment of a new pop-up podcast miniseries that takes your ears into the deep sound of nature. Host Jacob Job, an ecologist and audiophile, brings you inches away from a multitude of creatures, great and small, amid the sonic grandeur of nature. You may not be easily able to access these places amid the pandemic, but after you …

Today we launch a new pop-up podcast miniseries that takes your ears into the deep sound of nature. Host Jacob Job, an ecologist and audiophile, brings you inches away from a multitude of creatures, great and small, amid the sonic grandeur of nature. You may not be easily able to access these places amid the pandemic, but after you take this acoust…

Today on the Science Talk podcast, Noam Slonim of IBM Research speaks to Scientific American about an impressive feat of computer engineering: an AI-powered autonomous system that can engage in complex debate with humans over issues ranging from subsidizing preschool and the merit of space exploration to the pros and cons of genetic engineering. In…

It is the wood that the rock greats have sworn by—swamp ash, in the form of their Fender Telecaster and Stratocaster guitars—for more than 70 years. If you have ever listened to rock, you have probably heard a solid-body swamp ash guitar. But now climate change is threatening the wood that helped build rock and roll. In today’s podcast, veteran gui…

Today on the Science Talk podcast, Alexis Gambis, a New York University biologist and independent filmmaker, speaks about making Son of Monarchs, which won the 2021 Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. The film is about a Mexican scientist who studies the evolution of monarch butterfly wings. It is a cultural piece abou…

Environmental journalist Ben Goldfarb talks about his book Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesBy Scientific American

Kidney disease affects millions of Americans, but corporate capture of dialysis, along with disparities in treatment and transplant access, mean that not everyone's journey is the same. On this Science Talk podcast, we speak with Carrie Arnold, lead reporter in an ambitious, year-long reporting project into the current state of chronic kidney disea…

About a year ago, SARS-CoV-2 (which wasn’t called that yet) was just beginning to emerge in a cluster of cases inside China. We know what has happened since then, but it bears repeating: there have been 69 million cases and more than 1.5 million deaths globally as of December 10, 2020, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. And…

Scientific American and the World Economic Forum sifted through more than 75 nominations for the most innovative and potentially game-changing technologies in 2020. The final top 10 span the fields of medicine, engineering, environmental sciences and chemistry. And to win the nod, the technologies must have the potential to spur progress in societi…

Materials scientist and science writer Ainissa Ramirez talks about her latest book The Alchemy of Us: How Humans and Matter Transformed One Another. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesBy Scientific American

We look back at some highlights, midlights and lowlights of the history of Scientific American, featuring former editor in chief John Rennie. Astrophysicist Alan Guth also appears in a sponsored segment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesBy Scientific American

“Baking is applied microbiology,” according to the book Modernist Bread. During pandemic lockdowns, many people started baking their own bread. Scientific American contributing editor W. Wayt Gibbs talks about Modernist Bread, for which he was a writer and editor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

Former Scientific American editor Mark Alpert talks about his latest sci-fi thriller The Coming Storm, which warns about the consequences of unethical scientific research and of ignoring the scientific findings you don’t like. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesBy Scientific American

Contributing editor W. Wayt Gibbs spoke with Arthur Caplan, head of the NYU Grossman School of Medicine’s division of medical ethics, about some of the ethical issues that researchers have to consider in testing and distributing vaccines against COVID-19. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

Journalist and author Emily Anthes talks about her book The Great Indoors: The Surprising Science of How Buildings Shape Our Behavior, Health, and Happiness. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesBy Scientific American

Journalist Bob Hirshon reports from the Taking Nature Black conference, reporter Shahla Farzan talks about tracking copperhead snakes, and nanoscientist Ondrej Krivanek discusses microscopes with subangstrom resolution. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesBy Scientific American

Journalist and author Florence Williams talks about her book The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier and More Creative. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesBy Scientific American

Behavioral scientist Stephen Martin and psychologist Joseph Marks talk about their book Messengers: Who We Listen To, Who We Don’t, and Why. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesBy Scientific American

Biological oceanography expert Miriam Goldstein talks about issues facing the oceans. Reporter Adam Levy discusses air pollution info available because of the pandemic. And astrophysicist Andrew Fabian chats about black holes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesBy Scientific American

For the fourth Science on the Hill event, Future Climate: What We Know, What We Don’t, experts talked with Scientific American senior editor Mark Fischetti about what goes into modeling our climate—and how such models are used in addition to long-term climate prediction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices…

Stanford University neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky talks about human behavior, the penal system and the question of free will. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesBy Scientific American

Physicist Brian Keating talks about his book Losing the Nobel Prize: A Story of Cosmology, Ambition, and the Perils of Science’s Highest Honor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesBy Scientific American

Astrophysicist and author Mario Livio talks about his latest book, Galileo: And the Science Deniers, and how the legendary scientist’s battles are still relevant today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesBy Scientific American