Twitter: @newscientist
Site: www.newscientist.com
9 episodes
2024
Average episode: 28 minutes
Open in Apple Podcasts • RSS
Categories: Interview-Style
Podcaster's summary: A news podcast for the instatiably curious by the world's most popular weekly science magazine. Everything from the latest science and technology news to the big-picture questions about life, the universe and what it means to be human.For more visit newscientist.com/podcasts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
| Episodes |
| 2024-Apr-19 • 33 minutes Carbon storage targets ‘wildly unrealistic’; world’s biggest brain-inspired computer; do birds dream? #246Our best climate models for helping limit global warming to 1.5oC may have wildly overestimated our chances. To reach this goal, models are relying heavily on geological carbon storage, a technology that removes carbon from the atmosphere and places it underground. But it may not be nearly as effective as models have suggested, making the task of decarbonising much more difficult. Do we need to rethink our approach?Intel has announced it has constructed the world’s biggest computer modelled on the human... |
| 2024-Apr-12 • 29 minutes The multiverse just got bigger; saving the white rhino; musical mushrooms #245The multiverse may be bigger than we thought. The idea that we exist in just one of a massive collection of alternate universes has really captured the public imagination in the last decade. But now Hugh Everett’s 60-year-old “many worlds interpretation”, based on quantum mechanics, has been upgraded.The northern white rhino is on the brink of extinction but we may be able to save it. Scientists plan to use frozen genes from 12 now dead rhinos to rebuild the entire subspecies. But how do you turn skin c... |
| 2024-Apr-05 • 31 minutes Miniature livers made from lymph nodes in groundbreaking medical procedure #244Researchers have successfully turned lymph nodes into miniature livers that help filter the blood of mice, pigs and other animals – and now, trials are beginning in humans. If successful, the groundbreaking medical procedure could prove life-saving for thousands of people waiting for liver transplants around the world. So far, no complications have been seen from the procedure, but it will be several months before we know if the treatment is working as hoped in the first of 12 trial participants with en... |
| 2024-Mar-29 • 26 minutes Immune system treatment makes old mice seem young again; new black hole image; unexploded bombs are becoming more dangerous #243As we age our immune systems do too, making us less able to fight infections and more prone to chronic inflammation. But a team of scientists has been able to reverse these effects in mice, rejuvenating their immune systems by targeting their stem cells. But there’s a long road to trying the same thing in humans.Have you seen the incredible new black hole image? Just a couple of years since the Event Horizon Telescope’s first, fuzzy image of Sagittarius A* – the black hole at the centre of our galaxy – ... |
| 2024-Mar-22 • 27 minutes How declining birth rates could shake up society; Humanoid robots; Top prize in mathematics #242Human population growth is coming to an end. The global population is expected to peak between 2060 and 2080, then start falling. Many countries will have much lower birth rates than would be needed to support ageing populations. These demographic projections have major implications for the way our societies function, including immigration and transportation, and what kinds of policies and systems we need. Remember Rosie the Robot from The Jetsons? Humanoid robots capable of many different tasks ma... |
| 2024-Mar-15 • 26 minutes Gaza’s impending long-term health crisis #241More than 2 million Palestinians in Gaza face widespread hunger, disease and injury as the war quickly becomes the worst humanitarian crisis in modern memory. Even once the war ends, the devastating physical and emotional health consequences will be felt for many years to come, especially by children. And aid groups like UNICEF and the World Health Organization have no long-term plans to meet the post-war health needs of the population.Gravity on Mars may occasionally be strong enough to stir up the oce... |
| 2024-Mar-08 • 28 minutes Woolly mammoth breakthrough?; The Anthropocene rejected; Bumblebee culture #240A major step has been made toward bringing woolly mammoths back from extinction – sort of. The company Colossal has the ambitious goal of bringing its first baby mammoth into the world by 2028. And its newest advance, announced this week, is in turning adult Asian elephant cells into stem cells. But it’s still a long way from here to the company’s vision of cold-adapted elephants fighting climate change in the Arctic – or even that 2028 baby mammoth. When did humans begin to affect the Earth’s syst... |
| 2024-Mar-01 • 26 minutes Is personalised medicine overhyped?; Pythagoras was wrong about music; How your brain sees nothing #239Two decades ago, following the Human Genome Project’s release of a first draft in 2001, genetic testing was set to revolutionise healthcare. “Personalised medicine” would give us better treatments for serious conditions, clear pictures of our risks and individualised healthcare recommendations. But despite all the genetic tests available, that healthcare revolution has not exactly come to fruition. Amid news that genetic testing poster child firm 23andMe has hit financial troubles, we ask whether person... |
| 2024-Feb-16 • 24 minutes Reversing blindness; power beamed from space; animal love languages #237Glaucoma, which can cause blindness by damaging the optic nerve, may be reversible. Researchers have managed to coax new optic nerve cells to grow in mice, partly restoring sight in some. How the treatment works through an eyeball injection and why, for humans, prevention and early detection are still the best options.Black holes, just like planets and stars, spin. But they may be spinning a lot slower than we thought. When black holes gobble up matter around them, they start spinning faster and we’ve l... |