Quanta Science Podcast
1) The Math of Catastrophe
Around 6,000 years ago, the Sahara was a lush grassland. Then, as if a switch flipped, it began to dry out, becoming the desert that we know today. Tipping points are moments in Earth’s history where ...Show More
2) Audio Edition: Quantum Speedup Found for Huge Class of Hard Problems
It’s been difficult to find important questions that quantum computers can answer faster than classical machines, but a new algorithm appears to do it for some critical optimization tasks. The story ...Show More
3) What Can a Cell Remember?
“Memory” means many things to many people, and in many fields. We tend to understand memory to be a phenomenon that happens primarily in the brain, but in recent years, researchers have understood mem...Show More
4) Climate Modeling Is at a Crossroads
The climate is changing. So is the way we understand the climate. On this week's episode, contributing writer Zack Savitsky joins host Samir Patel to discuss his recent reporting on the rich history a...Show More
5) Audio Edition: A New, Chemical View of Ecosystems
Rare and powerful compounds, known as keystone molecules, can build a web of invisible interactions among species. The story A New, Chemical View of Ecosystems first appeared on Quanta Magazine.
6) AI's Dark Side Is Only a Nudge Away
In order to trust machines with important jobs, we need a high level of confidence that they share our values and goals. Recent work shows that this “alignment” can be brittle, superficial, even unsta...Show More
7) How We Came To Know Earth
For most of us, the word “climate” immediately generates thoughts of melting ice, rising seas, wildfires and gathering storms. However, in the course of working to understand this pressing challenge, ...Show More
8) Audio Edition: ‘Once in a Century’ Proof Settles Math’s Kakeya Conjecture
The deceptively simple Kakeya conjecture has bedeviled mathematicians for 50 years. A new proof of the conjecture in three dimensions illuminates a whole crop of related problems. The story ‘Once in...Show More
9) How a 17-Year-Old Solved a Major Math Mystery
In the field of harmonic analysis, there’s a constellation of questions about how the energy of a wave concentrates. Earlier this year, a 17-year-old high school student named Hannah Cairo solved a 4...Show More
10) Earth’s Core Appears To Be Leaking Up and Out of Earth’s Surface
In science textbooks, Earth looks like a round layer cake. There's a hard line between the liquid metal core and the putty-like rock mantle. But maybe that boundary is a little fuzzier than we previou...Show More