The 3 Best Nature Podcast Episodes
1) How the Australian wildfires devastated the ozone layer
00:47 Wildfire smoke’s chemical composition enhances ozone depletionSmoke from the devastating Australian wildfires of 2019-2020 led to a reduction in ozone levels in the upper atmosphere, but it’s be...Show More
2) Starting up in science: Episode 1
Every year, thousands of scientists struggle to launch their own labs. For three years, a reporting team from Nature documented the lives of married couple Alison Twelvetrees and Daniel Bose as they w...Show More
3) 17 May 2018: Probing the proton, research misconduct, and making sense of mystery genes
This week, peering inside the proton, identifying the pitfalls of research misconduct, and identifying what bacterial genes of unknown function actually do. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for ...Show More
4) Briefing Chat: Can NASA return rocks from Mars? And why dogs have long ears
In this episode:00:40 The rock samples destined to remain on MarsNature: NASA won’t bring Mars samples back to Earth: this is the science that will be lost05:24 The genetics of dogs’ droopy earsN...Show More
5) AI can turbocharge scientists' careers — but limit their scope
In this episode:00:47 AI can boost research productivity — at what cost?Research article: Hao et al.10:10 Research HighlightsNature: Ancient ‘snowball’ Earth had frigidly briny seasNature:&n...Show More
6) A mysterious ancient fingerprint and a lemon-shaped planet — the stories you’ve missed
00:54 Turning an undersea cable into a seismic detectorResearchers have shown that they can piggyback a signal on a 4,400-kilometer-long telecom cable that runs from California to Hawaii, allowing it ...Show More
7) Science in 2026: what to expect this year
In this episode, reporter Miryam Naddaf joins us to talk about the big science events to look out for in 2026. We’ll hear about: small-scale AI models that could outcompete Large Language Models in re...Show More
8) Audio long read: Will blockbuster obesity drugs revolutionize addiction treatment?
Anecdotal stories suggesting that weight-loss drugs can help people shake long-standing addictions have been spreading fast in the past few years, through online forums, weight-loss clinics and news h...Show More
Audio long read: Will blockbuster obesity drugs revolutionize addiction treatment?
17:54 | Dec 29th, 2025
9) The Nature Podcast highlights of 2025
00:40 What a trove of potato genomes reveals about the humble spudResearchers have created a ‘pangenome’ containing the genomes of multiple potato types, something they believe can help make it e...Show More
10) Nature's News & Views roundup of 2025
Nature: Asteroids, antibiotics and ants: a year of remarkable scienceIn this episode:1:58 Evidence of ancient brine on an asteroidSamples taken from the asteroid Bennu by NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacec...Show More