First up on this week’s show, Staff Writer Erik Stokstad joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about why it might make sense to grow shorter corn. It turns out the towering corn typically grown today is more likely to blow over in strong winds and can’t be planted very densely. Now, seedmakers are testing out new ways to make corn short through conventional breeding and transgenic techniques in the hopes of increasing yields.
Next up on the show, the last in our series of books on sex and gender with Books Host Angela Saini. In this installment, Angela speaks with Nandita Jayaraj and Aashima Dogra about their book Lab Hopping: A Journey to Find India’s Women in Science.
This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.
About the Science Podcast
Authors: Sarah Crespi, Angela Saini, Erik Stokstad
Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adl5269
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The source of solar wind, hackers and salt halt research, and a book on how institutions decide gender
What killed off North American megafauna, and making languages less complicated
Why some trees find one another repulsive, and why we don’t know how much our hands weigh
Tracing the genetic history of African Americans using ancient DNA, and ethical questions at a famously weird medical museum
Researchers collaborate with a social media giant, ancient livestock, and sex and gender in South Africa
Adding thousands of languages to the AI lexicon, and the genes behind our bones
The AI special issue, adding empathy to robots, and scientists leaving Arecibo
Putting the man-hunter and woman-gatherer myth to the sword, and the electron's dipole moment gets closer to zero
Putting organs into the deep freeze, a scavenger hunt for robots, and a book on race and reproduction
A space-based telescope to hunt dark energy, and what we can learn from scaleless snakes
Why it’s tough to measure light pollution, and a mental health first aid course
Contraception for cats, and taking solvents out of chemistry
How we measure the world with our bodies, and hunting critical minerals
Talking tongues, detecting beer, and shifting perspectives on females
The earliest evidence for kissing, and engineering crops to clone themselves
Debating when death begins, and the fate of abandoned lands
Building big dream machines, and self-organizing landscapes
The value of new voices in science and journalism, and what makes something memorable
Mapping uncharted undersea volcanoes, and elephant seals dive deep to sleep
More precise radiocarbon dating, secrets of hibernating bear blood, and a new book series
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