Nature Podcast

By Springer Nature Limited

Technology

What's Nature Podcast about?

The Nature Podcast brings you the best stories from the world of science each week. We cover everything from astronomy to zoology, highlighting the most exciting research from each issue of the Nature journal. We meet the scientists behind the results and provide in-depth analysis from Nature's journalists and editors. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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This isn't the Nature Podca...

09.27.2023

In this episode: 00:45 How to tackle AI deepfakesIt has long been possible to create deceptive images, videos or audio to entertain or mislead audiences. Now, with the rise of AI technologies, such manipulations have become easier than ever. These ...

Nature Podcast episodes:

09.27.2023 This isn't the Nature Podcast — how deepfakes are distorting reality In this episode: 00:45 How to tackle AI deepfakesIt has long been possible to create deceptive images, videos or audio to entertain or mislead audiences. Now, with the rise of AI technologies, such manipulations have become easier than ever. These ...
09.20.2023 Why does cancer spread to the spine? Newly discovered stem cells might be the key In this episode: 00:45 A new insight into cancers' selective spreadCancer cells can spread to bones in the late stages of disease and in many cancers, cells actually preferentially metastasise to the spine. The reason for this has been a ...
09.13.2023 A mussel-inspired glue for more sustainable sticking In this episode: 00:46 A sustainably-sourced, super-strong adhesiveThe modern world is held together by adhesives, but these fossil-fuel derived materials come at an environmental cost. To overcome this, a team have developed a soya-oil based adhesive, which also takes inspiration ...
09.06.2023 Our ancestors lost nearly 99% of their population, 900,000 years ago In this episode:00:30 Early humans pushed to brink of extinctionAround 900,000 years ago the ancestors of modern humans were pushed to the brink of extinction, according to new research. Genetic studies suggest that the breeding population of our ancestors in ...
08.30.2023 Physicists finally observe strange isotope Oxygen 28 – raising fundamental questions In this episode: 00:47 First observation of oxygen 28Oxygen 28 is an isotope of oxygen with 20 neutrons and eight protons. This strange isotope has long been sought after by physicists, as its proposed unusual properties would allow them to ...
08.25.2023 Audio long read: Medicine is plagued by untrustworthy clinical trials. How many studies are faked or flawed? Investigations suggest that, in some fields, at least one-quarter of clinical trials might be problematic or even entirely made up. Faked or unreliable trials are dangerous, as they could end up being included in the reviews that help inform clinical ...
08.23.2023 Brain-reading implants turn thoughts into speech In this episode:00:47 The brain-computer interfaces that help restore communicationPeople with certain neurological conditions can lose the ability to speak as a result of facial paralysis. This week, two teams demonstrate the potential of devices called brain-computer interfaces to help ...
08.16.2023 Fruit flies' ability to sense magnetic fields thrown into doubt In this episode:00:49 The search for animals’ magnetic sense sufferers a potential setbackExactly how animals sense Earth’s magnetic field has long eluded researchers. To understand it, many have turned to the fly model Drosophila melanogaster, long thought to be able ...
08.10.2023 Racism in health: the roots of the US Black maternal mortality crisis A perfect storm of factors has led to huge racial disparities in maternal healthcare. In the USA, as abortion clinics continue to close, this inequity is projected to widen. In this podcast from Nature and ScientificAmerican, we hear from leading ...
08.09.2023 How welcome are refugees in Europe? A giant study has some answers In this episode: 00:46 A measure of refugees’ welcome in EuropeWith repeated humanitarian crises displacing millions of people, researchers have been considering how this might affect acceptance of refugees. Will some refugees be more welcome than others? Will continued movements ...
08.02.2023 How to get more women in science, with Athene Donald In the latest episode of Nature hits the books, physicist Athene Donald joins us to discuss her book Not just for the boys, why we need more women in science. We discuss how science has historically excluded women, the barriers ...
07.31.2023 Audio long read: Lab mice go wild — making experiments more natural in order to decode the brain Neuroscientists are creating more naturalistic experiments that they hope will provide a more nuanced understanding of animal — and human — behaviour. These set-ups differ from the classic laboratory experiments that have been used for decades, and may help in ...
07.27.2023 Facebook ‘echo chamber’ has little impact on polarized views, according to study In this episode: How tweaking social media algorithms affects polarizationSocieties are becoming increasingly polarized, with people reportedly shunning those with differing political views. Social media is often thought to be exacerbating these divides, by creating echo chambers and filtering out ...
07.26.2023 AI-enhanced night-vision lets users see in the dark In this episode: 00:46 How to see in the dark like it’s daytimeThere are many methods for better night-vision, but often these rely on enhancing light, which may not be present, or using devices which can interfere with one another. ...
07.19.2023 Disrupting snail food-chain curbs parasitic disease in Senegal In this episode: 00:45 A sustainable solution for schistosomiasis controlSchistosomiasis is a serious parasitic disease that affects millions of people, who become infected when they come into contact with contaminated water. To prevent the spread and reinfection of this disease, ...
07.12.2023 ChatGPT can write a paper in an hour — but there are downsides In this episode: 00:23 Using ChatGPT to generate a research paper from scratchA pair of scientists have produced a research paper in less than an hour with the help of the generative artificial intelligence (AI) ChatGPT. The aim of this ...
07.05.2023 Even a 'minimal cell' can grow stronger, thanks to evolution In this episode: 00:46 The effects of evolution on a minimal genomeIn 2016, researchers created a ‘minimal cell’ bacterium with a genome that only contains genes essential for the organism's survival. Any mutation in these genes could be fatal, so ...
06.30.2023 Audio long read: ‘Almost magical’ — chemists can now move single atoms in and out of a molecule’s core In the past two years, there has been an explosion in the number of papers published relating to 'skeletal editing', a technique that allows chemists to precisely edit a molecule by deleting, adding or swapping single atoms in its core. ...
06.28.2023 Do octopuses dream? Neural activity resembles human sleep stages In this episode: 00:46 Inside the brains of sleeping octopusesResearchers have probed the brains of octopuses and confirmed previous reports suggesting that these invertebrates have a two-stage sleep cycle similar to that seen in many vertebrates. The team suggests this ...
06.21.2023 Why bladder cancer cells that shed their Y chromosome become more aggressive In this episode:00:45 Why losing the Y chromosome makes bladder cancer more aggressiveLoss of the Y chromosome in bladder cancer cells is associated with increased severity of disease, but the reasons behind this have been unclear. Now researchers show that ...
06.14.2023 What IBM's result means for quantum computing In this episode: 00:47 How to make quantum computers ready for real world applicationsQuantum computers have long held the promise of being able to perform tasks that classical computers can’t. However, despite this promise, there have been few applications that ...
06.07.2023 A brain circuit for infanticide, in mice In this episode: 00:46 The mouse brain circuit controlling infanticidal behaviourIn mammals, infanticide is a relatively common behaviour, but not a default one. For example, virgin female mice will often kill young produced by other females, but this behaviour disappears ...
05.31.2023 AI identifies gene interactions to speed up search for treatment targets In this episode:00:46 An AI that predicts gene interactionsMapping the network of genes that control cellular processes can be difficult to do when gene-expression data is sparse, such as in rare diseases or those affecting tissues that are hard to ...
05.26.2023 Audio long read: Can giant surveys of scientists fight misinformation on COVID, climate change and more? Shocked by the impact of online misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, several researchers are launching efforts to survey scientists’ thinking on issues from vaccine safety to climate change. They hope that their projects will make scientific debate, and degrees of ...
05.24.2023 ‘Tree islands’ give oil-palm plantation a biodiversity boost In this episode: 00:45 Tree islands bring biodiversity benefits for oil-palm plantationGlobal demand for palm oil has resulted in huge expansion of the palm plantations needed to produce it, causing widespread tropical deforestation and species loss. To address this, researchers ...
05.17.2023 JWST shows an ancient galaxy in stunning spectroscopic detail In this episode:00:46 What JWST has revealed about an ancient galaxyResearchers have pointed the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) at JD1, one of the universe's most distant known galaxies. The power of JWST has filled in some of the gaps ...
05.12.2023 Nature's Take: Can Registered Reports help tackle publication bias? Many researchers have been critical of the biases that the publication process can introduce into science. For example, they argue that a focus on publishing interesting or significant results can give a false impression of what broader research is finding ...
05.10.2023 ‘Pangenome’ aims to capture the breadth of human diversity In this episode: 00:45 Making a more diverse human genomeThe first draft of the human genome ushered in a new era of genetics research. Since its publication, researchers have constructed ever more accurate ‘reference genomes’ – baselines against which others ...
05.03.2023 Menopause and women’s health: why science needs to catch up In this episode: 00:47 A focus on women’s healthNature’s Kerri Smith and Heidi Ledford join us to discuss two Features published in Nature looking at topics surrounding women’s health. The first looks at efforts to understand how menopause affects brain ...
04.28.2023 Audio long read: Conquering Alzheimer’s — a look at the therapies of the future Last year, researchers announced that the Alzheimer’s drug lecanemab lowered the amount of amyloid protein plaques associated with the disease in the brains of participants in a clinical trial, and slowed their cognitive decline. Now, researchers are looking to drug ...
04.26.2023 How Rosalind Franklin’s story was rewritten In this episode: 00:57 Franklin’s real roleWhen it comes to the structure of DNA, everyone thinks they know Rosalind Franklin’s role in its discovery. The story goes that her crucial data was taken by James Watson without her knowledge, helping ...
04.19.2023 A smarter way to melt down plastics? In this episode:00:45 A new method to break down plastic polymersPlastic waste is an enormous problem, with much of it being incinerated or ending up in landfill. One way to give plastics another life is to break them down into ...
04.14.2023 How to battle misinformation with Sander van der Linden In the latest episode of Nature hits the books, psychologist Sander van der Linden joins us to discuss his new book Foolproof, which focuses on misinformation and what can be done to prevent people being duped, particularly by the falsehoods ...
04.12.2023 Octopuses hunt by 'tasting' with their suckers 00:44 The unusual receptors that let octopuses hunt by touchResearchers have shown that the suckers of octopuses are covered with specialised receptors that allow them to taste by touching things. Similar receptors are also found in squid, but there are ...
04.05.2023 Giant black-hole pair from the early Universe gives clues to how galaxies form 00:46 A pair of supermassive black holes in the distant universeSupermassive black holes are found at the centre of galaxies across the universe. But observations of galaxies with more than one – caused by the merging of two galaxies – ...
03.31.2023 Audio long read: What Turkey’s earthquake tells us about the science of seismic forecasting Last month, a magnitude-7.8 earthquake struck Turkey and Syria, killing an estimated 50,000 people. Two decades ago, researchers suggested that an earthquake in this area was likely, but exactly where and when it would strike were unknown. This shows both ...
03.29.2023 Bacterial ‘syringes’ could inject drugs directly into human cells 00:48 Tiny syringes for drug deliveryA team of researchers have repurposed tiny syringe-like structures produced by some bacteria to deliver molecules directly into human cells. They hope that this method could be used to overcome a big challenge in modern ...
03.22.2023 How to make driverless cars safer — expose them to lots of dangerous drivers 00:46 A new test to get autonomous vehicles on the roadTruly autonomous vehicles, ones that don't require a driver to be present and are driven by AI, aren't yet safe for public use. Part of the reason for this is ...
03.15.2023 How to build a virus-proof cell 00:47 An edited genetic code that prevents viral infectionResearchers have engineered bacteria with synthetic genomes to be immune to viral infection. The team streamlined the bacteria’s genetic code, and re-engineered the protein-producing machinery to insert the wrong amino acid if ...
03.08.2023 How the Australian wildfires devastated the ozone layer 00:47 Wildfire smoke’s chemical composition enhances ozone depletionSmoke from the devastating Australian wildfires of 2019-2020 led to a reduction in ozone levels in the upper atmosphere, but it’s been unclear how. Now, a team proposes that smoke’s particulate matter can ...
03.01.2023 How an increased heart rate could induce anxiety in mice 00:47 How a racing heart could trigger anxietyAnxiety can make the heart beat faster, but could the reverse be true as well? That question has been much debated, but hard to test. Now, a team has shown that artificially increasing ...
02.27.2023 Nature's Take: How Twitter's changes could affect science Twitter has become indispensable to many scientists. It is a place to share findings, raise their profile, and is even used as a source of data in many studies. In recent months though, the site has been in turmoil after ...
02.24.2023 Audio long read: How your first brush with COVID warps your immunity Imprinting is a quirk of the immune system in which someone’s initial exposure to a virus biases their immune response when they meet the same virus again. Studies are showing how imprinting shapes people’s responses to SARS-CoV-2; those infected with ...
02.22.2023 A twisting microscope that could unlock the secrets of 2D materials 00:45 A new microscope to look for ‘magic’ anglesTo better visualise how electrons are ‘moving’ in materials, a team have developed the Quantum Twisting Microscope. This instrument puts two 2D layers of atoms into close contact, allowing them to interact, ...
02.15.2023 How 'metadevices' could make electronics faster 00:47 A metadevice for faster electronicsIn the past, increasing the speeds of electronics required designing smaller components, but further reductions in size are being hampered by increasing resistance. To get around this, researchers have demonstrated a ‘metadevice’, which prevents resistance ...
02.08.2023 This mysterious space rock shouldn’t have a ring — but it does 0:46 The mysterious ring in the distant Solar SystemQuaoar is a small, rocky object that lies beyond Neptune’s orbit. In an unexpected discovery, researchers have shown that this object has its own orbiting ring, similar to those seen encircling planets ...
02.01.2023 How mummies were prepared: Ancient Egyptian pots spill secrets In this episode:00:47 Chemical analysis of ancient embalming materialsMummification was a significant part of ancient Egyptian culture but, despite decades of research, much is unknown about the substances and methods used during the process. Now a team have analysed the ...
01.30.2023 Audio long read: The ‘breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers A new generation of anti-obesity medications are displaying striking results: drastically diminishing weight, without the serious side effects of previous medications. These drugs have raised hopes the weight can be pharmacologically altered in a safe way, but some researchers are ...
01.25.2023 Amino acid slows nerve damage from diabetes, in mouse study 00:45 The role of serine in diabetic neuropathyNerve damage is a common complication of diabetes, and can even lead to limb amputation. Thus far, the only way for people to slow its onset is by managing their diet and lifestyle. ...
01.18.2023 Laser 'lightning rod' diverts strikes high in the Alps In this episode: 00:45 Laser-guided lightningScientists have shown that a specially designed laser can divert the course of lightning strikes in a real-world setting. The team fired the laser into the sky above a communications tower high in the Swiss ...

Older episodes

Nature Podcast

What's Nature Podcast about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Nature Podcast episodes:

This isn't the Nature Podcast — how deepfakes are distorting reality

Why does cancer spread to the spine? Newly discovered stem cells might be the key

A mussel-inspired glue for more sustainable sticking

Our ancestors lost nearly 99% of their population, 900,000 years ago

Physicists finally observe strange isotope Oxygen 28 – raising fundamental questions

Audio long read: Medicine is plagued by untrustworthy clinical trials. How many studies are faked or flawed?

Brain-reading implants turn thoughts into speech

Fruit flies' ability to sense magnetic fields thrown into doubt

Racism in health: the roots of the US Black maternal mortality crisis

How welcome are refugees in Europe? A giant study has some answers

How to get more women in science, with Athene Donald

Audio long read: Lab mice go wild — making experiments more natural in order to decode the brain

Facebook ‘echo chamber’ has little impact on polarized views, according to study

AI-enhanced night-vision lets users see in the dark

Disrupting snail food-chain curbs parasitic disease in Senegal

ChatGPT can write a paper in an hour — but there are downsides

Even a 'minimal cell' can grow stronger, thanks to evolution

Audio long read: ‘Almost magical’ — chemists can now move single atoms in and out of a molecule’s core

Do octopuses dream? Neural activity resembles human sleep stages

Why bladder cancer cells that shed their Y chromosome become more aggressive

What IBM's result means for quantum computing

A brain circuit for infanticide, in mice

AI identifies gene interactions to speed up search for treatment targets

Audio long read: Can giant surveys of scientists fight misinformation on COVID, climate change and more?

‘Tree islands’ give oil-palm plantation a biodiversity boost

JWST shows an ancient galaxy in stunning spectroscopic detail

Nature's Take: Can Registered Reports help tackle publication bias?

‘Pangenome’ aims to capture the breadth of human diversity

Menopause and women’s health: why science needs to catch up

Audio long read: Conquering Alzheimer’s — a look at the therapies of the future

How Rosalind Franklin’s story was rewritten

A smarter way to melt down plastics?

How to battle misinformation with Sander van der Linden

Octopuses hunt by 'tasting' with their suckers

Giant black-hole pair from the early Universe gives clues to how galaxies form

Audio long read: What Turkey’s earthquake tells us about the science of seismic forecasting

Bacterial ‘syringes’ could inject drugs directly into human cells

How to make driverless cars safer — expose them to lots of dangerous drivers

How to build a virus-proof cell

How the Australian wildfires devastated the ozone layer

How an increased heart rate could induce anxiety in mice

Nature's Take: How Twitter's changes could affect science

Audio long read: How your first brush with COVID warps your immunity

A twisting microscope that could unlock the secrets of 2D materials

How 'metadevices' could make electronics faster

This mysterious space rock shouldn’t have a ring — but it does

How mummies were prepared: Ancient Egyptian pots spill secrets

Audio long read: The ‘breakthrough’ obesity drugs that have stunned researchers

Amino acid slows nerve damage from diabetes, in mouse study

Laser 'lightning rod' diverts strikes high in the Alps

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