The World, the Universe and Us

Hopes of discovering life on Venus have been dampened somewhat as the sheer scale of the task becomes clear. But don’t get in a slump just yet, because Mars has come out fighting...In the pod this week are New Scientist journalists Rowan Hooper, Cat de Lange, Leah Crane and Graham Lawton.The team explains how scientists have confirmed the existence of a huge underground lake of liquid water on Mars. Surrounded by smaller ponds, this news has reinvigorated those eager to find signs of alien life on the Red Planet. Also, the team assesses the impact of different diets on your biological age, with the news that going paleo - eating like a caveman or cavewoman - may make you older than your years. And, as we all become increasingly aware of the extinction crisis, the team reveals the identity of the world’s most endangered group of animals. They also discuss herd immunity and the latest coronavirus news, and share news of an exoplanet discovered in a galaxy far, far away.To find out more, subscribe at newscientist.com/podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’ve all wondered why we dream, or even why we sleep. We know it’s good for you, but we don’t really know what’s going on in the brain while you’re tucked up under the covers.In the pod this week are New Scientist journalists Rowan Hooper, Valerie Jamieson, Leah Crane and Jess Hamzelou.The team discusses a study that shows sleep functions differently depending on our age, particularly when babies develop into toddlers, and the purpose of sleep shifts from growing and developing their brains, to repairing them. Also on the show - favourite facts about evolution, like how coffee is able to cause epigenetic changes to your DNA. The team also discusses NASA’s plan to land a man and woman on the moon in 2024. Plus: the team explains how water can exist in two liquid forms simultaneously, and celebrates climate hope with China’s recent pledge to reach net-zero carbon emissions.To find out more, subscribe at newscientist.com/podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Move over Mars - Venus might actually be the best place to find alien life in our solar system. Phosphine, a molecule that on Earth is only created by bacteria or by industrial processes has been found in the planet’s clouds. Could it really be a new lifeform?In the pod this week are New Scientist journalists Rowan Hooper, Valerie Jamieson, Leah Crane and Adam Vaughan.The team discusses the thrilling discovery of phosphine on Venus and how the spacecraft BepiColombo will soon try to confirm this news. If it’s true, it may be an unexpected sign that life exists on the seemingly inhospitable planet. They also mark a grim milestone for the coronavirus pandemic, as global deaths reach 1 million. Sir David Attenborough makes an appearance as the team analyses the dire reality of Earth’s biodiversity crisis, and another British icon - Doctor Who - also appears as the team hears how our perception of time can be altered. Finally, we discover why a goat has had its testicles cloned.To find out more, subscribe at newscientist.com/podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you’ve longed for the day when scientists announce pizza is actually good for you, you *may* be in luck. It turns out there’s no such thing as a universally wholesome diet  - what’s healthy for one person might be harmful for the next.In the pod this week are New Scientist journalists Rowan Hooper, Valerie Jamieson and Graham Lawton.The team discusses the advent of a healthy eating revolution. “Precision nutrition” aims to measure the metabolic response of individuals to certain types of food, to figure out what foods are good and bad for people on a personal level. Maybe, for you, chocolate cake really is the best breakfast?Elsewhere on the show we hear the squeaky sounds of the naked mole rat, as we learn that not only are these legendary mammals practically blind, but they’re also almost completely deaf. The team hears about Vladimir Putin’s thoughts on the potential for gene editing in humans, discusses China’s recent launch of a reusable space plane, and checks in on the “Great Green Wall” project to plant a belt of trees across the whole width of Africa.To find out more, subscribe at newscientist.com/podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If we’re not going to make the effort to cut carbon emissions, why don’t we manipulate Earth’s climate, forcing it to cool down? Obviously that’s not ideal - but geoengineering, one the most controversial proposals to combat climate change, is back in the spotlight this week.In the pod are New Scientist journalists Rowan Hooper, Valerie Jamieson and Cat de Lange. They’re joined by best-selling author and former New Scientist editor Jo Marchant. Silicon Valley billionaires have been linked with a new method for geoengineering the planet, which would aim to reverse ocean acidity and remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But do we really want unilateral decisions being made on issues that affect the entire planet?The team also discusses the power of the moon - you might think its impact on our health is purely the stuff of folklore, but it turns out it may genuinely affect our physiology. Also on the agenda is Elon Musk’s demonstration of Neuralink, a brain-computer interface recently tested in pigs. The team also explains how to travel through a wormhole without dying, and offers the latest updates on coronavirus, as children around the world go back to school.To find out more, subscribe at newscientist.com/podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The universe is so large, so expansive, it’s hard to believe that life doesn’t exist elsewhere. Over the years we’ve found a handful of planets that look like they could host life, but now the net’s being cast wider than ever before.In the pod this week are New Scientist journalists Valerie Jamieson, Clare Wilson and Tim Revell. They explain how our definition of a ‘habitable planet’ might be too narrow - that a planet might not need to sit in the Goldilocks zone to sustain life - opening up the possibility for life on many weird and wonderful worlds we’ve never even considered before.The team also discusses the impact of unconscious bias training - why it might not work and how it could in fact make biases worse. They explain how cancer tumours have their own microbiome, and what that means for diagnoses. They also touch on an amazing new finding about Clarias batrachus, a catfish that walks on land, and ponder over whether our sun once had a twin.To find out more, subscribe at newscientist.com/podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our measurement of time isn’t up to scratch. We can’t define a second or an hour or even a day by referring to the length of time it takes the Earth to spin on its axis, because that duration isn’t constant. But even caesium atomic clocks, with an accuracy of 1 second in 100 million years, are no longer accurate enough. Time needs a new definition.In the pod this week are New Scientist journalists Rowan Hooper, Valerie Jamieson and Clare Wilson. They discuss a new, more precise way of defining a second, a method that will now be considered by the Time Lords in charge of these things, and ask what benefits we could get with a new kind of atomic clock.The team also explores the findings that mindfulness, used the world over to improve mental health, could sometimes have the opposite effect, leaving some people more anxious and depressed. They celebrate the toughest creatures in the world, the eight-legged tardigrades, and consider how we might use their powers to our own ends, and also discuss the worrying news that Greenland has passed a tipping point and is set to lose all of its ice. In the Total Perspective Vortex, the team marvel at the speed of the fastest star ever seen.To find out more, subscribe at newscientist.com/podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

By now we’re all feeling the effects of video call fatigue. Even though we’ve found new ways to connect with each other virtually during lockdown, remote conversation can’t replace the benefits of real, face-to-face social interactions.In the pod this week are New Scientist journalists Rowan Hooper, Valerie Jamieson and Graham Lawton. They discuss the serious negative effects of social isolation on health and general well-being. People need shared experiences and physical connections to stay healthy, and it turns out that men may feel the loss more than women.The team also discusses how a new type of artificial intelligence is outperforming doctors when diagnosing diseases, and what that means for the future of medicine. They dig into all the news about a potential vaccine for coronavirus, and ask the question: if we can’t make enough stock for everybody all at once, who gets to have the vaccine first? Also on the agenda is a discovery about the solar system’s largest asteroid that is exciting prospective asteroid miners, and our very existence is thrown into perspective with the startling news that the Higgs boson could spell doom for the universe. To find out more, subscribe at newscientist.com/podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How did life spring up on planet Earth? What happened to turn sterile, lifeless rock into cells that could harness energy, grow and reproduce?In the pod this week are New Scientist journalists Rowan Hooper, Valerie Jamieson, Adam Vaughan and Alice Klein. They discuss the origin of life itself, and how we need a rethink of the processes that form life. Scientists are attempting to make a proto-living cell self-assemble and operate without the biochemical machinery it would usually need. The team also discusses the threat of a second wave of coronavirus, how we’ve reached the upper limit in terms of reopening society, and explain why transmission rates in schools should be manageable. Also, Val and Alice share honest and moving accounts of their experiences with miscarriage, as they explain the science behind why it happens, providing a new level of understanding and comfort to the 60% of women who go though pregnancy loss. In the mix too is an analysis of the shocking extent of the ongoing Arctic heatwave, and news with implications for the possibility of past life on Mars.To find out more, subscribe at newscientist.com/podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With the threat of coronavirus taking centre stage in all our minds, has the issue of plastic waste taken a backseat - has the public lost interest?In the pod this week are New Scientist journalists Valerie Jamieson, Graham Lawton and Adam Vaughan. They discuss a new study exploring ways to fix our ever-increasing problem of plastic pollution, which is being especially compounded by many of the world’s new hygiene measures and the dumping of thousands of tonnes of PPE. As different parts of the world look to tackle the issue differently, like the UK’s introduction of a plastic tax for instance, can we push back the worst of our plastic problems?The team also reexamines 2019’s groundbreaking image of a black hole, as a new study reveals what the fuzzy orange glow around the hole could tell us. They also find out how dinosaurs became one of the most successful groups of animals ever to exist, work out whether fungi found at Chernobyl could protect humans from the radiation on Mars, and take a closer look than ever before at the planet nearest to our sun, Mercury!To find out more, subscribe at newscientist.com/podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices