In this episode:
00:49 The search for animals’ magnetic sense sufferers a potential setbackExactly how animals sense Earth’s magnetic field has long eluded researchers. To understand it, many have turned to the fly model Drosophila melanogaster, long thought to be able to detect magnetic fields. However, a recent Nature paper has raised questions about this ability, a finding that could have repercussions for scientists’ efforts to understand the mechanism behind magnetic sensing, one of the biggest questions in sensory biology.
Research article: Bassetto et al.
News & Views: Replication study casts doubt on magnetic sensing in flies
The world’s first filter feeder, and human-caused climate change in the Bronze Age.
Research Highlight: This ancient reptile wanted to be a whale
Research Highlight: Bronze Age deforestation changed Europe’s climate
This week the famed Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico shut down. The facility’s main telescope collapsed in 2020 and the site has since been battered by storms and pandemic-related shutdowns. Now, with funding exhausted and no clear plan in place, scientists are wondering what will become of the site.
Nature News: Closing down an icon: will Arecibo Observatory ever do science again?
This time, the Standard Model of physics still isn't dead according to new measurements of muons' magnetic moment, and finding the most diverse habitat on Earth under your feet.
Nature News: Dreams of new physics fade with latest muon magnetism result
The Guardian: More than half of Earth’s species live in the soil, study finds
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Coronapod: The rise of RNA vaccines
The mysterious extinction of the dire wolf
Audio long-read: Controlling COVID with science - Iceland's story
Our podcast highlights of 2020
Coronapod: The big COVID research papers of 2020
Could you prevent a pandemic? A very 2020 video game
Don’t think too deeply about the origin of life – it may have started in puddles
Norway's prime minister reveals plans to protect the world's oceans
Cellular ageing: turning back the clock restores vision in mice
Neutrinos give insights into the workings of the Sun’s core
Coronapod: What could falling COVID death rates mean for the pandemic?
The troubling rise of facial recognition technology
Audio long-read: The enigmatic organisms of the Ediacaran Period
Revealed: the impact of noise and light pollution on birds
A powerful radio burst from a magnetic star
Talking politics, talking science
Politics of the life scientific
A brief history of politics and science
Lab–grown brains and the debate over consciousness
The science behind an 'uncrushable' beetle’s exoskeleton
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