A close look at a coronal hole, how salt and hackers can affect science, and the latest book in our series on science, sex, and gender
First up on this week’s show, determining the origin of solar wind—the streams of plasma that emerge from the Sun and envelope the Solar System. Host Sarah Crespi talks with Lakshmi Pradeep Chitta, a research group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, about how tiny jets in so-called coronal holes seem to be responsible. Sarah also talks with Science Editor Keith Smith about the source of the data, the Solar Orbiter mission. Read a related Perspective.
Next, two stories on unlikely reasons for slowing science. First, cyberattacks on telescopes scramble ground-based astronomy in Hawaii and Chile, with Diverse Voices Interns Tanvi Dutta Gupta and Celina Zhao. Also, we hear about an unparalleled water crisis in Uruguay that has left scientists high and dry, with science journalist María de los Ángeles Orfila.
Finally, in this month’s books segment in our series on science, sex, and gender, host Angela Saini talks with author and political scientist Paisley Currah about his book, Sex Is as Sex Does: Governing Transgender Identity, on why and how government institutions categorize people by sex and gender.
This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.
About the Science Podcast
Authors: Sarah Crespi, Angela Saini; María de los Ángeles Orfila; Celina Zhao; Tanvi Dutta Gupta
Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adk4714
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Pinpointing the origins of SARS-CoV-2, and making vortex beams of atoms
New insights into endometriosis, predicting RNA folding, and the surprising career of the spirometer
Building a martian analog on Earth, and moral outrage on social media
A risky clinical trial design, and attacks on machine learning
A freeze on prion research, and watching cement dry
Debating healthy obesity, delaying type 1 diabetes, and visiting bone rooms
Blood tests for Alzheimer’s disease, and what earthquakes on Mars reveal about the Red Planet’s core
Science after COVID-19, and a landslide that became a flood
Scientists’ role in the opioid crisis, 3D-printed candy proteins, and summer books
Preserving plastic art, and a gold standard for measuring extreme pressure
Does Botox combat depression, the fruit fly sex drive, and a series on race and science
Keeping ads out of dreams, and calculating the cost of climate displacement
Finding consciousness outside the brain, and using DNA to reunite families
Cicada citizen science, and expanding the genetic code
Cracking consciousness, and taking the temperature of urban heat islands
Ecstasy plus therapy for PTSD, and the effects of early childhood development programs on mothers
Cutting shipping air pollution may cause water pollution, and keeping air clean with lightning
Chernobyl’s ruins grow restless, and entangling macroscopic objects
Storing wind as gravity, and well-digging donkeys
Rebuilding Louisiana’s coast, and recycling plastic into fuel
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