The hard electrodes inserted into the brain to treat Parkinson’s and paralysis damage the organ’s soft tissue. A new invention could change that.

An energy-saving coating needs no pigments, and it keeps the surface beneath it 30 degrees cooler.

This Is the Lightest Paint in the World

The Quest for Injectable Brain Implants Has Begun

The IPCC’s synopsis of the state of climate science warns that we’re running out of time to avoid ever-worsening disaster.

The Climate Report That Foretells Humanity’s Future

The US is proposing bold action to clean thousands of “forever chemicals” out of drinking water. It’s long overdue.

Your Tap Water Is Filthy, but That Could Finally Change

Researchers seek to develop advanced propulsion systems that can transform long-distance space exploration.

How a Beam of Pellets Could Blast a Probe Into Deep Space

We asked experts how to craft a more intentional, peace-filled ritual to support a better night’s sleep.

How to Create Your Optimal Bedtime Routine

Want to take control inside your dreams? Turns out it’s a skill you can practice.

How to Lucid Dream (Even if You Think You Can’t)

A new experiment pulled off the most precise measurement of an electron’s self-generated magnetic field—and the universe’s subatomic model is at stake.

The Electron Is Having a (Magnetic) Moment. It’s a Big Deal

Relativity Space’s attempt to reach orbit heralds the increasing use of 3D printing in the space sector.

The World’s First 3D-Printed Rocket Is About to Launch

It’s cellular immunity, not antibodies, that probably protects against the coronavirus’s worst effects—and scientists haven’t worked out how long it lasts.

No One Knows if You Need Another Covid Booster

Avian influenza has killed millions of birds. Shots to prevent it already exist. Why isn’t the entire poultry industry using them?

It’s Time for a Flu Vaccine—for Birds

Scientists investigated a weird feature in Parker Solar Probe data—and may have discovered what drives the plasma that pervades the solar system.

Tiny, Explosive ‘Jetlets’ Might Be Fueling the Solar Wind

New modeling estimates that food production could add a degree Celsius to global warming. But it also points to powerful ways to make diets more sustainable.

The Food System Is Awful for the Climate. It Doesn’t Have to Be

Faced with extreme drought, Kenya’s president approved a controversial new crop for farmers. Then the legal backlash began.

As Kenya’s Crops Fail, a Fight Over GMOs Rages

About a dozen such consumer tests are now on the market, but the science of reading DNA for insights about longevity is still young.

How Old Are You, Really? New Tests Want to Tell You

Startups rush to gain a foothold in a burgeoning industry as New York and California move to legalize human composting.

The Disruptors Who Want to Make Death Greener

One million species are at risk of extinction, but a handful of charismatic creatures get all the hype. A new conservation strategy has a different focus.

Cute Animals Are Overrated. Let’s Save the Weird Ones

New research shows that if done right, urban farms and gardens can support all kinds of species—for the good of people and the environment.

You Can Turn Your Backyard Into a Biodiversity Hotspot

Atomic weapons are complex, sensitive, and often pretty old. With testing banned, countries have to rely on good simulations to trust their weapons work.

No One Knows If Decades-Old Nukes Would Actually Work

In a factory on the outskirts of Glasgow, aerospace manufacturer Skyrora is building rockets for a space-bound taxi service for satellites.

On-Demand Rocket Launches Are Coming

Electrical stimulation applied to the spinal cord temporarily restored arm and hand movement in two patients.

A Stroke Paralyzed Her Arm. This Implant Let Her Use It Again

The student winners of a NASA competition designed a serpentine bot that could sidewind across lunar regolith or roll down hills.

Rovers Are So Yesterday. It’s Time to Send a Snakebot to Space

Audacious plans to resurrect the long-extinct bird could be lucrative. But the moonshot raises thorny philosophical questions.

Why Bother Bringing Back the Dodo?

The European Space Agency is exploring a unique way to dramatically cut carbon emissions by tapping sunlight closer to the source.

A Bold Plan to Beam Solar Energy Down From Space

Many are celebrating Australia’s decision to pave the way for these psychedelic therapies, but questions around accessibility remain.

MDMA and Psilocybin Are Approved as Medicines for the First Time

Scientists have uncovered the Roman recipe for self-repairing cement—which could massively reduce the carbon footprint of the material today.

The Secret to Making Concrete That Lasts 1,000 Years

Biological amino acids could have celestial or terrestrial roots. An experiment simulated their formation in deep space—but the mystery isn’t solved yet.

Did the Seeds of Life Ride to Earth Inside an Asteroid?

A simultaneous solution to California’s extreme drought and flooding is to bank more water underground. Send in the choppers (and a few ATVs).

How Sensor-Dangling Helicopters Can Help Beat the Water Crisis

When a warm band of water develops in the Pacific, drought grips the rainforest. The Amazon, devastated by deforestation and fires, is especially vulnerable.

A Looming El Niño Could Dry the Amazon

These tiny organoids with working immune systems mimic the function of the GI tract and could be used to study intestinal diseases and drugs to treat them.

Scientists Grew Mini Human Guts Inside Mice

The largest catalog ever collected by a single telescope maps Earth’s 3 billion stellar neighbors—and helps track the dust that warps how we see them.

At Last, the Milky Way Gets a Better Close Up

Half of the globe’s crop productivity comes from a key fertilizer ingredient that’s non-renewable—and literally washing away.

The World’s Farms Are Hooked on Phosphorus. It’s a Problem

In France, a plan to cover swaths of asphalt with photovoltaics will bring renewable energy even closer to urban areas where it’s needed.

Why Not Cover Ugly Parking Lots With Solar Panels?

If you agree to provide some of your car’s battery power in times of high energy demand, you’ll get paid, and help make the grid more stable.

Hey EV Owners: It’d Take a Fraction of You to Prop Up the Grid

The space agency gave money to researchers working on liquid telescope mirrors, a lunar oxygen pipeline, and Martian building blocks made of fungi.

It’s Not Sci-Fi—NASA Is Funding These Mind-Blowing Projects

Focusing wasn’t much easier in the time before electricity or on-demand TV. In fact, you probably have a lot in common with these super-distracted monks.

Medieval monks were, in many ways, the original LinkedIn power users

Fakery spans “beautified” data, photoshopped images, and “paper mills.” Experts and institutions are employing tools to spot deceptive research and mitigate its reach.

Scientific Fraud Is Slippery to Catch—but Easier to Combat

Digitized archaeology is making souterrains—subterranean passages in the Highlands—accessible in a way Indiana Jones could only dream of.

Lasers Are Mapping Scotland’s Mysterious Iron Age Passages

One year later, researchers are still marveling at the power of the Hunga Tonga explosion—and wondering how to monitor hundreds of other undersea volcanoes.

The Tonga Eruption Is Still Revealing New Volcanic Dangers

Climate change is straining the world’s two favorite coffee species. Could a resilient 19th-century alternative solve the brew’s existential crisis?

This Seriously Hipster Bean Is Coffee’s Best Hope for Survival

The state is ping-ponging between severe drought and catastrophic flooding. The solution to both? Making the landscape spongier.

The Key to California's Survival Is Hidden Underground

Need to estimate, from trillions of miles away, how likely another world is to host life? There’s a flowchart for that.

Why the Search for Life in Space Starts With Ancient Earth

Lab animals have long borne the brunt of drug safety trials. A new law allows drugmakers to use miniature tissue models or "organs on chips" instead.

The US Just Greenlit High-Tech Alternatives to Animal Testing

The hottest West Coast tech 16,000 years ago was a “projectile point” for hunting game. Though tiny, the artifact tells an outsize tale.

What This Fearsome Weapon Reveals About Early Americans

ClientEarth helps shape new laws and enforce old ones to protect the planet and its most vulnerable inhabitants.

Meet the Earth’s Lawyers

World Weather Attribution ties disasters and extreme conditions to climate change—providing crucial leverage for legal and policy battles.

Climate Enforcers Need Hard Evidence. Friederike Otto Has It

A new study shows that as temperatures drop, nasal cells release fewer of the tiny protectors that bind and neutralize invading germs.

Why Do You Get Sick in the Winter? Blame Your Nose

Flu meds and prescription drugs have been in short supply all winter—but the problem goes back over a decade.

Drug Shortages Aren’t New. The Tripledemic Just Made You Look

Data from Sweden and the US suggests cash incentives increase uptake without denting people’s trust in vaccines or future willingness to get them.

In the Next Pandemic, Let’s Pay People to Get Vaccinated

Last year was one of the warmest measured, say NASA and NOAA. It would have been even more sweltering if not for La Niña, which will soon fade away.

2022 Wasn't the Hottest on Record. That's Nothing to Celebrate

Space agencies and companies aim to send people to the Red Planet. But settling there would be hell on—well, you know what we mean.

Let’s Go to Mars. Let’s Not Live There

Some environmentalists warn the planet can’t handle so many people, but we may need to rethink our approach to rising populations.

You Don’t Need to Fear a World of 8 Billion Humans

2022 was a breakthrough year for xenotransplantation, a procedure that could be a lifeline for patients in desperate need of a donor.

Here’s What’s Next for Pig Organ Transplants

Holiday feasts tend to be salt-heavy—but early animal experiments are finding that overindulging in the condiment could take an emotional toll.

Eating Too Much Salt Could Cause Stress Levels to Rise

Instead of cutting out chunks of the genome to disable malfunctioning genes, base editing makes a smaller, more precise swap.

A More Elegant Form of Gene Editing Progresses to Human Testing

The epidemic has largely subsided, but largely because queer men seem to have learned more from AIDS and Covid-19 than the authorities did.

The Bittersweet Defeat of Mpox

Europe’s energy crisis is forcing companies to switch strategies or close down. The industry’s future hangs in the balance.

Vertical Farming Has Found Its Fatal Flaw

Vast swathes of the country have been vindictively laced with explosives, threatening the civilian population both physically and mentally.

Russia Has Turned Eastern Ukraine Into a Giant Minefield

Whale-sized shonisaurs dominated the ocean 230 million years ago. A fossil cluster offers a fascinating glimpse at how they lived—based on where they died.

The Mystery of Nevada’s Ancient Reptilian Boneyard

Growing crops to make plastic could theoretically reduce reliance on fossil fuels and even pull carbon out of the atmosphere, but at an enormous environmental cost.

Bio-Based Plastics Aim to Capture Carbon. But at What Cost?

The answer explains why electric cars are everywhere, but electric aircraft are still a novelty.

How Far Can You Fly a Battery-Powered Jumbo Jet?

Big Data, drones, diagnostics—the United Nations and other groups hope to innovate the world out of a maternal and reproductive health crisis.

How the UN’s ‘Sex Agency’ Uses Tech to Save Mothers’ Lives

During the coronavirus lockdowns, emissions of the potent greenhouse gas somehow soared. The culprit wasn't humans—but the Earth itself.

The Grim Origins of an Ominous Methane Surge

An experiment at the Large Hadron Collider suggests there’s a chance of catching this elusive evidence as it floats through our galactic neighborhood.

Antihelium Offers Hope in the Search for Dark Matter

Internet-connected thermometers can quickly show how influenza is spreading—so measures to control the disease can be targeted more effectively.

A Smart Way to Get Ahead of the Next Flu Surge

US nuclear scientists have achieved the long-sought goal of a fusion ignition—but don't expect this clean technology to power the grid yet.

The Real Fusion Energy Breakthrough Is Still Decades Away

A briefcase-sized satellite will ping lasers at the lunar South Pole to locate ice and map it for future human explorers.

How Do You Prove There’s Ice on the Moon? With a Lunar Flashlight

The craft survived a 26-day voyage and a scorching descent. Now it’s time for NASA engineers to learn what went wrong—and what went right.

The Orion Moon Capsule Is Back. What Happens Next?

Physicists study starlight to find whether the fine structure constant, whose value makes our universe possible, really is the same everywhere.

‘Solar Twins’ Reveal the Consistency of the Universe

Fentanyl-related substances have a bad reputation, but they could also save lives. In the US, a legislative battle to expedite research is heating up.

The Next Great Overdose-Reversing Drug Might Already Exist

How did a lunch last underwater for 10 months? The answer relates to how carbon moves in the deep sea, and has implications for fighting climate change.

The Extraordinary Shelf Life of the Deep Sea Sandwiches

Audiology screening can be inaccessible for kids in low-resource areas. By utilizing off-the-shelf products, these scientists are trying to change that.

This Low-Cost Test for Hearing Loss Lives on a Smartphone

Flexible e-skins could be used to measure wearers’ blood pressure, temperature, and oxygen levels in real time, assisting with diagnoses and health care.

Electronic Second Skins Are the Wearables of the Future

Medtech firm Earli is working on a way to make tumors announce themselves as they appear—and even provide directions to where they are in the body.

A Proactive Way to Detect Cancer at Its Earliest Stages

Interstellar Lab’s inflatable BioPod is designed to help plants survive inhospitable conditions on Earth and allow explorers to settle on the Red Planet.

Pop-Up Farming Pods to Help Colonizers Grow Crops on Mars

As carbon concentrations rise, conditions are becoming more like they were 3 million years ago, when the area was wetter and the rain was heavier.

Pliocene-Like Monsoons Are Returning to the American Southwest

The fuel can be produced by adding bacteria to spent drill holes—meaning there are thousands of potential hydrogen sources worldwide.

'Gold Hydrogen’ Is an Untapped Resource in Depleted Oil Wells

For years, potential therapies that attack this brain protein have failed to help patients in clinical trials. Now—surprisingly—a new drug shows promise.

For Alzheimer’s Scientists, the Amyloid Debate Has No Easy Answers

Indoor agriculture promises to massively reduce the water and land needed to support crops. But at the moment, it only works for a tiny percentage of foods.

Vertical Farming Needs to Grow More Than Salad

By firing pulses quintillionths of a second long, physicists study the fleeting motion of an electron leaving two bonded atoms.

How to Use a Laser to Kick an Electron out of a Molecule

New evidence indicates that an effort to stamp out disease-carrying insects is working. The key? Mosquitoes genetically engineered to kill off their own kind.

Turns Out Fighting Mosquitoes With Mosquitoes Actually Works

Fossil fuels are rapidly heating the planet, but their aerosols also help cool it. Just how much, though, is a major uncertainty in climate science.

Tiny Aerosols Pose a Big Predicament in a Warming World

The moniker, which honors a former agency administrator accused of enforcing anti-LGBTQ policies, has long been controversial.

NASA Will Not Change the James Webb Telescope's Name

Any smartphone in any car can pick up a span’s unique vibrations. Tracking how that changes over time reveals hidden structural problems.

Your Phone Can Determine If a Bridge Is Busted

The sprawling mass of suburbia has been a disaster for the environment. But now smaller, denser cities herald a renaissance in city living.

Europe’s Cities Are Getting More Crowded—That’s a Good Thing

Despite efforts to reduce emissions, the 2022 FIFA tournament is highly carbon-intensive. And its road to net-zero relies on questionable carbon credits.

No, Qatar’s World Cup Can’t Be Classed as Carbon-Neutral

After 30 years of talk about forcing wealthy polluters to compensate those bearing the brunt of climate damage, the COP27 conference seems poised to act.

Countries Hit Hardest by Climate Change May Finally Get Their Due

Many people haven’t been exposed to common respiratory viruses following the pandemic, meaning they might be more vulnerable to getting ill this year.

Brace Yourself for a Triple Wave of Seasonal Viruses

A small study of people with a rare disorder that prevents them from processing protein is an early attempt at creating “living” medicines.

This Gulp of Engineered Bacteria Is Meant to Treat Disease

In a small study, researchers modified patients’ immune cells to target their particular cancer—but it only worked for a third of volunteers.

This Personalized Crispr Therapy Is Designed to Attack Tumors

It doesn’t take stampeding or unruly behavior to result in massive tragedies like the one in Itaewon.

How Peaceful Crowds Turn Into a Deadly Crush

Chemists have long conceptualized tiny machines that could fabricate drugs, plastics, and other polymers that are hard to build with bigger tools.

The Sci-Fi Dream of a ‘Molecular Computer’ Is Getting More Real

Scientists have already begun to observe the ecological effects of acidifying oceans on sea life. The changes ahead may be more drastic.

A Caustic Shift Is Coming for the Arctic Ocean

The US government is funding tech to determine whether genetic alterations in a virus or pest are an evolutionary quirk—or a lab-engineered danger.

How to Detect a Man-Made Biothreat

Lubomila Jordanova explains how her carbon-reporting firm—Plan A—uses relentless data analysis to guarantee businesses aren’t greenwashing.

This Platform Makes Sure Companies Stick to Their Climate Pledges

Climate change is disrupting delicate arctic habitats, which could unearth frozen viruses and transport them elsewhere.

Thawing Permafrost Exposes Old Pathogens—and New Hosts

Telescopes around the world are capturing photons from the blast, and researchers anticipate exciting discoveries ahead.

The ‘Brightest of All Time’ Gamma-Ray Burst Sparks a Supernova Hunt

How shade is cast reveals details of the rugged lunar landscape, allowing NASA to create 3D models for astronauts and rovers.

A Clever Way to Map the Moon’s Surface—Using Shadows

A comprehensive mathematical framework treats these crinkles as elegant solutions to geometric problems.

The New Math of Wrinkling Patterns

Keeping rodents off Santa Cruz Island is an exhausting task. But now, conservationists are getting an assist from an AI-powered surveillance system.

Home

Discover

Sign up for free to listen for longer

Home

Discover

Sign up for free to listen for longer

The Quest for Injectable Brain Implants Has Begun

Mark as played

Share

About the episode

View all episodes