On this week’s show: Cheaper launches could make solar power satellites a reality, machine learning helps chemists make small organic molecules, and a book on the extinction of foods
First up on the podcast, space-based solar power gets closer to launch. Staff Writer Daniel Clery talks with host Sarah Crespi about how reusable rockets bring the possibility of giant solar array satellites that beam down gigawatts of uninterrupted power from space.
After that, we hear about small organic molecule synthesis. Making large organic molecules such as proteins and DNA can be a cinch for chemists, but making new smaller organic molecules is tough—partially because optimized general reaction conditions are hard to come by. Nicholas Angello, a graduate research assistant and Department of Defense National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate fellow in the Burke group at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, talks about an approach that uses robots and machine learning to better optimize these reaction conditions.
Also in the episode: the last in our series of books on food and agriculture. This month, host Angela Saini talks with author Dan Saladino about his book Eating to Extinction: The World’s Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them.
This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.
[Image: NASA; Music: Jeffrey Cook]
[alt: drawing of satellite solar panels with podcast overlay symbol]
Authors: Sarah Crespi; Dan Clery; Angela Saini
Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adf4939
About the Science Podcast: https://www.science.org/content/page/about-science-podcast
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Counting research rodents, a possible cause for irritable bowel syndrome, and spitting cobras
An elegy for Arecibo, and how our environments may change our behavior
The uncertain future of North America’s ash trees, and organizing robot swarms
Areas to watch in 2021, and the living microbes in wildfire smoke
Breakthrough of the Year, top online news, and science book highlights
Making ecology studies replicable, and a turnaround for the Tasmanian devil
How the new COVID-19 vaccines work, and restoring vision with brain implants
Keeping coronavirus from spreading in schools, why leaves fall when they do, and a book on how nature deals with crisis
Fish farming’s future, and how microbes compete for space on our face
How the human body handles extreme heat, and improvements in cooling clothes
What we can learn from a mass of black hole mergers, and ecological insights from 30 years of Arctic animal movements
Taking the politicians out of tough policy decisions; the late, great works of Charles Turner; and the science of cooking
Early approval of a COVID-19 vaccine could cause ethical problems for other vax candidates, and ‘upcycling’ plastic bags
Making sure American Indian COVID-19 cases are counted, and feeding a hungry heart
Visiting a once-watery asteroid, and how buzzing the tongue can treat tinnitus
FDA clinical trial protection failures, and an AI that can beat curling’s top players
How Neanderthals got human Y chromosomes, and the earliest human footprints in Arabia
Performing magic for animals, and why the pandemic is pushing people out of prisons
Alien hunters get a funding boost, and checking on the link between chromosome ‘caps’ and aging
Fighting Europe’s second wave of COVID-19, and making democracy work for poor people
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
DNA Today: A Genetics Podcast
The Psychic Elephant Radio Podcast
Museum of the Missing
Sasquatch Chronicles
Hidden Brain