Science Talk

Ewine van Dishoeck received the Kavli Prize in Astrophysics in 2018 for elucidating the life cycle of interstellar clouds and the formation of stars and planets. What other mysteries of space are left to be uncovered?

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

Here’s what we can learn about climate change and infrastructure from Denali National Park’s only road.

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

Today we bring you a new episode in our podcast series COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between.

You can listen to all past episodes here.

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

The speed of these self-propelling droplets on a hot-oil surface seemed to defy physics until researchers broke out the super-slow-motion camera.

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

New research uses night vision to see how nocturnal bees navigate the dark.

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

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 discovered in 1989 and has been intermittently tracked by scientists ever since. Its solitary nature baffled marine researchers. And its very existence captured the attention and hearts of millions of people.

But as 52 roams the ocean’s depths, a lot about its nature is still up in the air. No one has ever seen it in the flesh.

Scientists have determined that the whale is a large male and possibly a hybrid, and they have speculated that its unique song—too low in frequency for humans and too high for whales—might be a result of a malformation.

Scientific American sat down with Josh Zeman, an award-winning filmmaker who created a documentary about 52, to talk not just about his impressive cinematic quest (and it is impressive and beautifully shot) but also the science and academic collaborations that fueled it.

The documentary—written and directed by Zeman and executive produced by actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Adrian Grenier—is inspired by the findings of the late bioacoustics scientist William Watkins. It is propelled by passion and curiosity and relies on underwater acoustics to track 52 through the sound-rich and noise-heavy environment of the ocean.

A departure for Zeman in terms of genre choice, the film still exudes an air of mystery and sleuthing reminiscent of whodunits. It unfolds like a classic true-crime story, a genre that Zeman, an investigative reporter and a true-crime documentarian, was originally famous for working in.

Then again, when Zeman started making the movie, the whale was MIA and had been silent for years. In essence, Zeman reopened a cold case to—in his own words—“set the record straight” and “bring the audience into the world of the whale.”

With the help of marine scientists, he followed streams of whale songs and other breadcrumbs in the form of auditory clues, listening in, analyzing, tracking, slowly and persistently narrowing down the circle around 52. Zeman found him, lost him and found him again until eventually the filmmaker made an unexpected revelation about him.

It may not be the closure Zeman expected to give to his audiences. But it is definitely a fresh chapter in this evolving tale.

Zeman says he is hopeful that other storytellers will take up the mantle and continue to unearth more facts about 52.

“What a more beautiful gift can you give than to say, ‘Actually, there’s another chapter.’ And then, 20 years later, somebody else comes in and adds their chapter,” he says. “That’s what storytelling is.”

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

Photoferrotrophs have been around for billions of years on Earth, and new research suggests that they have played an outsize roll in the natural capture of carbon dioxide.

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

Today we bring you a new episode in our podcast series COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between.

You can listen to all past episodes here.

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

New research shows that the prehistoric giants were even cooler than we thought

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

The rodents’ personalities may help them to secure territory and avoid prey.

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