Science Talk

Australia’s critically endangered regent honeyeaters are losing what amounts to their culture—and that could jeopardize their success at landing a mate.

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

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 kind—Scientific American talks to Stephen Walker, an award-winning filmmaker, director and book author, about the daring launch that changed the course of human history and charted a map to the skies and beyond.

Walker discusses his new book Beyond: The Astonishing Story of the First Human to Leave Our Planet and Journey into Space, out today, and how Gagarin’s journey—an enormous mission that was fraught with danger and planned in complete secrecy—happened on the heels of a cold war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union and sparked a relentless space race between a rising superpower and an ailing one, respectively.

Walker, whose films have won an Emmy and a BAFTA, revisits the complex politics and pioneering science of this era from a fresh perspective. He talks about his hunt for eyewitnesses, decades after the event; how he uncovered never-before-seen footage of the space mission; and, most importantly, how he still managed to put the human story at the heart of a tale at the intersection of political rivalry, cutting-edge technology, and humankind’s ambition to conquer space and explore new frontiers.

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

A fast-growing front in the battle against climate change is focused on developing green technologies aimed at reducing humankind’s carbon footprint, but many scientists say simply reducing emissions is no longer enough. We have to find new ways to suck carbon out of the atmosphere. A Maine start-up is looking to raise a sinkable carbon-capturing forest in the open ocean.

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

Today we bring you the fourth episode in a new 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.

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

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 take this acoustic journey, you will be longing to get back outside.

Strap on some headphones, find a quiet place and prepare to experience a riot of bird song inside the Tensas River National Wildlife Refuge that will stay with you long after the episode ends.

You can catch more episodes in the series here.

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

Particles called muons are behaving weirdly, and that could mean a huge discovery.

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

The two cities’ rock doves are genetically distinct, research shows.

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

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 take this acoustic journey, you will be longing to get back outside.

Strap on some headphones, find a quiet place and prepare to experience the transcendence that explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark must have felt at the end of their journey—inside a park that bears their names.

You can catch more episodes in the series here.

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

We know a lot about how sea turtles are threatened by our trash, but new research has just uncovered an underreported threat hiding inside lakes and rivers.

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

Today we bring you the third episode in a new 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.

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