Science Magazine Podcast

Resurrection plants, Project Hail Mary, and the trouble with sycophantic AI

First up on the podcast, Deputy News Editor Martin Enserink talks about so-called resurrection plants. These specialized plants can survive up to 95% water loss, whereas most plants struggle when their water levels dip below 60%. We also hear from Jill Farrant [https://science.uct.ac.za/department-mcb/jill-farrant-plant-stress-lab], a professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of Cape Town, about her work dissecting the desiccation survival pathways in resurrection plants [/doi/10.1126/science.znozssc] and how they might be repurposed to protect crop plants from drought. Next on the show, we’ve all heard of chatbots praising their users for asking the most basic of questions. This bias toward sycophancy extends beyond pleasantries into relationship advice the artificial intelligence (AI) doles out to users. Myra Cheng [https://myracheng.github.io/], a Ph.D. candidate in computer science at Stanford University, joins the show to talk about how this tendency for AIs to be agreeable can lead users to have more confidence in their opinions [/doi/10.1126/science.aec8352], to the detriment of their relationships with others. Warning, this last segment contains spoilers for the movie and book Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. If you’ve seen the movie or don’t mind a bit of extra context, you will hear an analysis of planetary science in the film with astrophysicist and associate curator at the American Museum of Natural History, Jacqueline Faherty [https://www.jackiefaherty.com/]. Read the full film review [/doi/10.1126/science.aeg6276]. This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy [https://podigy.co/]. About the [/content/page/about-science-podcast]Science [/content/page/about-science-podcast] Podcast [/content/page/about-science-podcast] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Rethinking the peopling of the Americas, and the best ways to get groundwater back

First up on the podcast, we discuss a finding that’s likely to reignite debate over how humans first spread through the Americas [https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.zlrsdxr]. In the late 1990s, a site in southern Chile called Monte Verde forced archaeologists to adjust their views of the peopling of South America because it dated to about 14,500 years before present, which challenged the prevailing idea of when human inhabitants appeared on the continent. Contributing Correspondent Lizzie Wade joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss new results published in Science that suggest Monte Verde is nowhere near that old. See the paper [/doi/10.1126/science.adw9217] and related commentary [/doi/10.1126/science.aef9954]. Next on the show, we talk about groundwater, a vital source of water for both drinking and agriculture that’s often overused and depleted. Producer Meagan Cantwell talks with Scott Jasechko [https://www.jasechko.com/bio.html], a professor of water resources with the University of California, Santa Barbara’s Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, about the many different approaches to improving groundwater supplies [/doi/10.1126/science.adu1370] and what has worked where, which he reviews in this week’s issue of Science. This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy [https://podigy.co/]. About the [/content/page/about-science-podcast]Science [/content/page/about-science-podcast] Podcast [/content/page/about-science-podcast] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

What Alaska’s eroding coastline says about Earth’s future, and how Yellowstone ravens use their smarts to find wolf kills

First up on the podcast, freelance journalist Evan Howell [https://www.evanhowellwriter.com/] traveled to Cape Blossom, Alaska, where the receding coastline has revealed an ancient trove of glacial ice [/doi/10.1126/science.zzzjl41] that may have survived for 350,000 years—making it the oldest ice in the Northern Hemisphere. Now researchers just need to figure out how to date it. Next on the show, tracking wolves and ravens in Yellowstone National Park shows the birds don’t follow the wolves in hope of a meal, but instead remember and revisit frequent wolf kill sites [/doi/10.1126/science.adz9467]. Matthias-Claudio Loretto [https://www.vetmeduni.ac.at/fiwi-forschungsinstitut-fuer-wildtierkunde-und-oekologie/ueber-uns/unser-team/wissenschaftlerinnen/loretto-matthias-claudio], assistant professor in the Research Institute of Wildlife Ecology at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, discusses how this might change the way we think about scavengers’ strategies for finding their ephemeral food sources.  Finally, Claire Bedbrook [https://lsi.princeton.edu/people/claire-bedbrook], the Helen Hay Whitney and Wu Tsai neuroscience postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University, discusses her work tracking African turquoise killifish over their life span. By capturing behaviors over the course of the fish’s entire lives [/doi/10.1126/science.aea9795], her team was able to observe behaviors that could be used to predict whether a fish would live a short or long life. This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy [https://podigy.co/].  About the [/content/page/about-science-podcast]Science [/content/page/about-science-podcast] Podcast [/content/page/about-science-podcast] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

An alleged nuclear blast may reignite weapons testing, and who owns the Moon

First up on the podcast, a peek into the roiling seas of U.S. science policy. * ScienceInsider Editor Jocelyn Kaiser talks about shifting leadership at the National Science Foundation [/content/article/musical-chairs-leadership-shakeup-planned-science-agencies] and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as a dip in funding rates by the National Institutes of Health [/content/article/nih-research-grant-success-rates-plummeted-2025]. * Staff Writer Robert F. Service covers proposed restrictions on access by international researchers [/content/article/nist-moves-restrict-foreign-scientists-its-labs] and students to the National Institute of Standards and Technology. * Contributing Correspondent Warren Cornwall talks about the Department of Energy’s rush to loosen radiation exposure standards. * Senior International Correspondent Richard Stone discusses why an accusation of nuclear weapons testing in China [/content/article/allegations-chinese-nuclear-blast-may-reignite-weapons-testing] could spark a new round of weapons testing in the United States and Russia. Next on the show, this year’s children’s book roundup [/doi/10.1126/science.aef9208] features everything from a look at space law to a clever wartime spider farmer. Senior Editor Valerie Thompson joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the books and the reviews of them, written by Science staffers (and sometimes their kids). This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy [https://podigy.co/]. About the [/content/page/about-science-podcast]Science [/content/page/about-science-podcast] Podcast [/content/page/about-science-podcast] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Tropical birds’ ‘silent spring,’ and mapping people’s brains during surgery

First up on the podcast, producer Meagan Cantwell talks to Contributing Correspondent Warren Cornwall about his visit to Brazil, where he observed firsthand what it takes for researchers to understand why bird populations in the Amazon and beyond are shrinking [/doi/10.1126/science.zeawzsr]. Next on the show, Raouf Belkhir [https://www.mdphd.pitt.edu/people/raouf-belkhir], an M.D.-Ph.D. student at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Carnegie Mellon University, joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss his Science Advances paper on a newly refined way to map awake patients’ brains [/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adw1599] during neurosurgery. This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy [https://podigy.co/]. About the [/content/page/about-science-podcast]Science [/content/page/about-science-podcast] Podcast [/content/page/about-science-podcast] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]