Science Quickly

Fish trapping is an ancient practice, reaching across the globe from at least as far back as 11,000 years ago. It takes advantage of coastal tides and human-made chambers to catch and release fish. The simple but ingenious ancient fishing structures are built on two intertwining principles: the ocean can provide for us if we properly care for it.

Archaeologists are mapping the possible locations of ancient traps. And on Penghu, a group of islands off of Taiwan, people are reviving the traditional tidal weirs, hoping to promote sustainable fishing and attract ecotourism. 

Stay tuned for more from science journalist Kata Karáth in part two of our three-part Fascination series on unusual archaeology.

Recommended reading:

– Oldest Deep-Sea Shipwreck Is a ‘Time Capsule’ from the Bronze Age

– The Oldest-Wine-in-the-World Title Goes to a 2,000-Year-Old White Found in Southwestern Spain

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman and journalist Kata Karáth. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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Meditation is mostly mainstream, with many people using mindfulness to manage stress. But dedicated practitioners of advanced meditation move beyond mindfulness into a state where consciousness “entirely falls away.” That’s according to today’s guest: Matthew Sacchet, an associate professor and director of the Meditation Research Program at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. Sacchet tells host Rachel Feltman about his journey from youthful meditator to neuroscience researcher. Plus, they discuss what meditation and psychedelic experiences are unlocking for consciousness researchers.

Recommended reading:

Read a feature co-authored by Sacchet in the July issue of SciAm 

And see our June issue feature on the neuroscience of near-death experiences

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest Matthew Sacchet. Our show is edited by Madison Goldberg and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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President Biden is far from the only positive as COVID is experiencing a summer surge. Windows malfunction grounds planes and causes outages for banks, hospitals and emergency services. The Perseid meteor shower gives you plenty of shooting stars to see. Plus, we use the Twisters premiere as an excuse to talk about wild weather.

Recommended reading

COVID Rates Are Rising Again. Why Does It Spread So Well in the Summer? 

Worldwide Tech Outage Started with Defective Crowdstrike Update to Microsoft Windows

[WATCH] Tornado Science is Evolving Fast 

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

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The Seine is set to feature prominently in the Paris 2024 Olympics’ Opening Ceremony—and in its marathon swimming events. But this urban waterway has been challenging to clean and keep clean after a particularly wet summer and high bacterial counts.

What can the Parisian organizers learn from the revitalization of a U.S. river that was so polluted that it inspired the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency? Scientific American associate news editor Allison Parshall takes us to the banks of the reformed Cuyahoga River in Ohio. 

Plus, she gives us a look at the growing urban river swimming movement in Europe.

Recommended Reading

Training with 'Digital Twins' Could Boost Olympic Swimmer Speeds 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest and Scientific American associate news editor Allison Parshall. Our show is edited by Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, Madison Goldberg and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

The Seine is set to feature prominently in the Paris 2024 Olympics’ Opening Ceremony—and in its marathon swimming events. But this urban waterway has been challenging to clean and keep clean after a particularly wet summer and high bacterial counts.

What can the Parisian organizers learn from the revitalization of a U.S. river that was so polluted that it inspired the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency? Scientific American associate news editor Allison Parshall takes us to the banks of the reformed Cuyahoga River in Ohio. 

Plus, she gives us a look at the growing urban river swimming movement in Europe.

Recommended Reading

Training with 'Digital Twins' Could Boost Olympic Swimmer Speeds https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/training-with-digital-twins-could-boost-olympic-swimmer-speeds/ 

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American: https://www.scientificamerican.com/getsciam/

And sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter: https://www.scientificamerican.com/account/email-preferences/

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Science journalist and Radiolab host Latif Nasser found himself at the center of a space mystery. A space poster in his child’s room showed Zoozve, a moon circling Venus. Only Nasser had never heard of Zoozve—and neither had anyone else. Nasser brings us the story of Zoozve the quasi-moon and brings listeners the opportunity to name a quasi-moon of their own.

Recommended listening

Zoozve 

Name a Quasi-Moon with Radiolab

Quasi-Moon Contest 

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with special guest Latif Nasser, Radiolab host. Our show is edited by Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, Madison Goldberg and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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Chad Mirkin, recipient of the 2024 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience, has spent his career exploring the possibilities of creating and inventing materials at the nanoscale.

This podcast was produced for The Kavli Prize by Scientific American Custom Media, a division separate from the magazine’s board of editors.

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We commemorate the 55th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, dive into NASA’s groundbreaking Mars habitat simulation and discuss the innovative ​​“stillsuits” designed to recycle astronaut pee and how they could enhance spacewalks. Plus, we discuss the record-breaking Hurricane Beryl and its implications for climate change policies, and a surprising case of the plague in Colorado. 

Recommended reading:

– One Small Step Back in Time: Relive the Wonder of Apollo 11

– Why Hurricane Beryl Underwent Unprecedented Rapid Intensification

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. Our show is edited by Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, Madison Goldberg and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’re at the end of the Nathaniel B. Palmer’s Antarctic expedition. The researchers onboard are returning sea ice and thousands of gallons of seawater. These samples will allow them to examine biogeochemical processes, some of which are linked to climate change. As the research vessel makes its way back to port, the scientists reflect on the future of our planet and the question of whether the ice in Antarctica will always be around for sampling.

Listen to the first three episodes of this series: 

– Glacial Melting Could Change the Chemistry of Antarctic Seawater 

– Penguins and Ice Samples Make This Research Vessel Paradice

– Life for Researchers on This Icebreaker Is Cold and Fulfilling

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by journalist Sofia Moutinho. Our show is edited by Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, Madison Goldberg and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

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Przewalski’s horses are truly wild horses, even the ones held in captivity. They traditionally roamed the Central Asian steppes, so you can imagine everyone’s surprise when two separate accounts on TikTok claimed to have found a Przewalski’s horse here in the U.S. But as guest and Scientific American associate news editor Allison Parshall will tell you, the real story is the remarkable conservation efforts that led to a resurgence for this horse, which was once considered extinct in the wild.

The Last Wild Horses Are Finally Returning to Their Natural Habitat 

How a Cloned Ferret Inspired a DNA Bank for Endangered Species 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest and associate news editor Allison Parshall. Our show is edited by Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, Madison Goldberg and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

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We’re looking at our reporting—from 100 years ago. In 1924 Scientific American’s pages were bemoaning traffic, waste management and pests. They were also praising the by-products of coal tar and those substances’ use in household items. While the record is clear on the toxicity of fossil fuels to our environment and our health, demand for fossil-fuel-based “petrochemical” products such as plastic is only increasing. Host Rachel Feltman advises on how to avoid petrochemicals in our everyday products. Plus, we take a lighthearted look at a telepathy study also featured in one of our 1924 issues. 

Recommended reading:

The Gas Industry Is Gaslighting the Public about Climate Change

Renewable Power Set to Surpass Coal Globally by 2025

E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. Our show is edited by Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, Madison Goldberg and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices