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1 week ago | 
nature.com | Shamini Bundell |Nick J. Howe |Elizabeth Gibney
Download the Nature Podcast 28 May 2025In this episode:00:33 Was a boom in papers driven by AI? A spike in papers formulaically analysing a public data set has sparked worries that AI is being used to generate low-quality and potentially misleading analyses.
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1 month ago | 
nature.com | Nick J. Howe |Shamini Bundell
Download the Nature Podcast 07 May 2025In this episode:00:46 How fishing activity altered the migration pattern of HerringSelective fishing of older herring has resulted in a large shift in the migration pattern of these fish, according to new research. For years, herring have visited sites on the south coast of Norway to spawn, but in 2020 a rapid shift was seen, with the fish instead visiting areas hundreds of kilometres to the north.
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1 month ago | 
nature.com | Benjamin Thompson |Nick J. Howe
Download the Nature Podcast 16 April 2025In this episode:00:46 A potato pangenomeResearchers have created a ‘pangenome’ containing the genomes of multiple potato types, something they believe can help make it easier to breed and sequence new varieties. The potato’s complicated genetics has made it difficult to sequence the plant’s genome, but improvements in technology have allowed the team to combine sequences, allowing then to look for subtle differences in between varieties.
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2 months ago | 
nature.com | Shamini Bundell |Nick J. Howe
Download the Nature Podcast 19 March 2025In this episode:00:46 Microsatellite makes messaging secureA tiny satellite has enabled quantum-encrypted information to be sent between China and South Africa, the farthest distance yet achieved for quantum communication. Using a laser-based system, a team in the city of Hefei was able to beam a ‘secret key’ encoded in quantum states of photons, to their colleagues over 12,000 km away.
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Mar 5, 2025 | 
nature.com | Nick J. Howe |Shamini Bundell
Download the Nature Podcast 5 March 2025In this episode: 00:46 Ancient humans made bone tools 1.5 million years ago A 1.5-million-year-old cache of animal-bone tools reveals that ancient humans systematically crafted with this material much earlier than previously thought. Researchers uncovered 27 bone artefacts in Tanzania honed into sharp tools almost 40 cm long.
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Feb 26, 2025 | 
nature.com | Benjamin Thompson |Nick J. Howe
Download the Nature Podcast 26 February 2025In this episode:00:47 A ‘smart’ way to quickly detect cardiac arrestGoogle researchers have developed an AI for a smartwatch that will call for help if its wearer is having a cardiac arrest. Trained, in part, on data gained when patients had their hearts deliberately stopped during a medical procedure, the team’s machine-learning algorithm can automatically detect the telltale signs of cardiac arrest.
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Feb 19, 2025 | 
nature.com | Nick J. Howe |Shamini Bundell
Download the Nature Podcast 19 February 2025In this episode:01:14 A simple switch to reduce racist ratingsA study of almost 70,000 ratings showed that racial discrimination could be eliminated from an online platform by switching from a five-star rating system to a thumbs up or down.
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Jan 29, 2025 | 
nature.com | Nick J. Howe |Benjamin Thompson
Download the Nature Podcast 29 January 2025In this episode:00:46 Evidence of ancient brine reveals Bennu’s watery pastAnalysis of samples taken from the asteroid Bennu reveal the presence of organic compounds important for life, and that its parent asteroid likely contained salty, subsurface water.
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Jan 22, 2025 | 
nature.com | Nick J. Howe |Benjamin Thompson
Download the Nature Podcast 22 January 2025In this episode:00:56 How the paths to professorship varyA huge analysis of hiring practices has revealed that criteria to get a promotion to full professorship is hugely variable around the world. The authors suggest that this variability results in researchers from countries that value one type of metric being locked out of professor positions in others.
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Nov 27, 2024 | 
nature.com | Nick J. Howe |Emily Bates
Download the Nature Podcast 27 November 2024In this episode:00:50 Fossilised faeces give news insights into dinosaurs’ diets and riseA huge collection of fossilised digestive contents has provided clues as to how dinosaurs grew to become the dominant animals on the planet. Why these animals rose to dominance has been unclear, with one theory proposing that a chance event wiped out other species, whereas another suggests that dinosaurs had adaptations that better allowed them to thrive.
