An explanation for giant ice structures on Pluto, and dismantling the mestizo myth in Latin American genetics.
In this episode:
00:46 The frozen root of Pluto’s polygonal patterns
In 2015, NASA’s New Horizons probe sent back some intriguing images of Pluto. Huge polygonal patterns could be seen on the surface of a nitrogen-ice ice filled basin known as Sputnik Planitia. This week, a team put forward a new theory to explain these perplexing patterns.
Research article: Morison et al.
06:15 Research Highlights
How Pamplona’s bull-running defies the dynamics of crowd motion, and self-healing microbial bio-bricks.
Research Highlight: Running of the bulls tramples the laws of crowd dynamics
Research Highlight: It’s alive! Bio-bricks can signal to others of their kind
09:06 How the mixed-race ‘mestizo’ myth has fostered discrimination
The term 'mestizo' emerged during the colonial period in Latin America to describe a blend of ethnicities – especially between Indigenous peoples and the Spanish colonizers. But this label is a social construct not a well-defined scientific category. Now researchers are challenging the mestizo myth, which they say is harmful and has a troubling influence on science.
Feature: How the mixed-race mestizo myth warped science in Latin America
17:22 Briefing Chat
We discuss some highlights from the Nature Briefing. This time, how interrupted sleep could be a route to creativity, and the development of vaccines to target respiratory syncytial virus.
New Scientist: Interrupting sleep after a few minutes can boost creativity
Nature News: The race to make vaccines for a dangerous respiratory virus
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Podcast Extra: Epigenetics
19 December 2019: The three-body problem, and festive fun
Long Read Podcast: How to save coral reefs as the world warms
12 December 2019: Social priming, and acoustic science
05 December 2019: Genomic sequencing and the source of solar winds
Nature Pastcast, November 1869: The first issue of Nature
28 November 2019: Nature’s 2019 PhD survey, and older women in sci-fi novels
21 November 2019: A new antibiotic from nematode guts, grant funding ‘lotteries’, and butterfly genomes
14 November 2019: A rapid, multi-material 3D printer, and a bacterium’s role in alcoholic hepatitis
Backchat: Nature's 150th anniversary
07 November 2019: The fossil of an upright ape, science in 150 years, and immunization progress around the world
Nature Pastcast, October 1993: Carl Sagan uses Galileo to search for signs of life
31 October 2019: An AI masters the video game StarCraft II, and measuring arthropod abundance
Podcast Extra: Detecting gravitational waves
24 October 2019: Quantum supremacy and ancient mammals
17 October 2019: Mapping childhood mortality, and evolving ‘de novo’ genes
10 October 2019: Estimating earthquake risk, and difficulties for deep-learning
Podcast Extra: Q&A with Nobel Prize winner John B Goodenough
Podcast Extra: Q&A with Nobel Prize winner Didier Queloz
03 October 2019: Leapfrogging speciation, and migrating mosquitoes
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