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Scientific American

Host Rachel Feltman, alongside leading science and tech journalists, dives into the rich world of scientific discovery in this bite-size science variety show.

Science Talk

The White House has proposed sharp cuts to NASA’s science budget, potentially reducing it to historic lows not seen since the early Apollo era. Beyond space exploration, NASA’s work influences daily life—from accurate weather forecasting to essential climate data for agriculture. Concerned by the effects of these cuts, all living former NASA science chiefs have united in warning of dire consequences for U.S. leadership in science. In this episode, Scientific American senior editor Lee Billings speaks with host Rachel Feltman to discuss why this moment feels especially urgent and what one former NASA science chief thinks about it.

Recommended reading:

White House Budget Plan Would Devastate U.S. Space Science

U.S. Secretary of the Interior: Satellites Will Help Us Fight Climate Change

The Trump-Musk Fight Could Have Huge Consequences for U.S. Space Programs

Email us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new everyday: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check the show. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. 
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Former NASA Leaders Are Sounding the Alarm on Budget Cuts

Host Rachel Feltman talks with Andrea Thompson, Scientific American’s senior sustainability editor, to discuss the massive Russian earthquake and the reason it produced such relatively minor tsunami waves. Plus, we discuss the lowdown on the Environmental Protection Agency’s move to repeal of the “endangerment finding,” the advantages of a brisk stroll and an ancient linkup that led to a farmer’s market favorite.

Recommended reading:

Tsunami Warnings Issued after Magnitude 8.8 Earthquake Strikes off Russian Coast

Russia’s 8.8 Earthquake Is One of the Strongest Ever Recorded

Why the Russian Earthquake Didn’t Cause a Huge Tsunami

The Potato’s Mysterious Family Tree Revealed—And It Includes Tomatoes

E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Russia’s Earthquake, Wonders of Walking and Surprising Plant Genetics

Host Rachel Feltman talks with Deni Ellis Béchard, Scientific American’s senior tech reporter, about his recent exchange with Claude 4, an artificial intelligence chatbot that seemed to suggest it might be conscious. They unpack what that moment reveals about the state of AI, why it matters and how technology is shifting.

Recommended reading:

Can a Chatbot be Conscious? Inside Anthropic’s Interpretability Research on Claude 4

New Grok 4 Takes on ‘Humanity’s Last Exam’ as the AI Race Heats Up

E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is AI Conscious? Claude 4 Raises the Question

The summer of 2025 has been a doozy in the U.S., with extreme weather across the country. Flash flooding caused destruction and death in Texas. Corn sweat made a heat wave in the eastern half of the U.S. worse in the Midwest. Senior editor for sustainability Andrea Thompson takes us through these extreme weather events.

Recommended reading:

Why Did Waters Rise So Quickly in the Texas Flash Floods? https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-did-texas-flash-flood-waters-rise-so-quickly/ 

‘Corn Sweat’ Is Making This Heat Wave Even Worse https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humidity-from-corn-sweat-intensifies-extreme-heat-wave-in-midwest-u-s/ 

E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest senior editor for sustainability Andrea Thompson. Our show is edited by Alex Sugiura with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Your Guide to Summer’s Extreme Weather, from Corn Sweat to Flash Floods

If last Tuesday seemed to fly by, you can blame the rotation of Earth. Try to look up this week to see the Southern Delta Aquariids and the Alpha Capricornids meteor showers. Plus, we discuss FEMA cuts and ancient arthropods.

Recommended reading:

Texas Failed to Spend Millions in Federal Aid for Flood Protection https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/texas-failed-to-spend-federal-aid-for-flood-disaster-protection/ 

Leap Seconds May Be Abandoned by the World’s Timekeepers

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/leap-seconds-may-be-abandoned-by-the-worlds-timekeepers/

E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. Our show is fact-checked by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Summer Meteor Showers, Short Summer Days and Ancient Arthropods

Chief multimedia editor Jeffery DelViscio ventured to Greenland for a month to learn from the scientists studying the country’s ice sheet. He speaks with host Rachel Feltman about his time in the field and his takeaways from conversations with climate scientists.

This story was supported by a grant from the Pulitzer Center. This story was made possible through the assistance of the U.S. National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs. 

Read the cover story and see stunning pictures from DelViscio’s time on the ice: 

What Greenland’s Ancient Past Reveals about Its Fragile Future https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/greenlands-ice-sheet-collapse-could-be-closer-than-we-think/

E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. This show is edited by Jeff DelViscio with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Greenland’s Ice Sheet Is at Risk—And So Are We

Scientific American has been reading, reviewing and recommending books for more than 100 years. These days Brianne Kane, our resident reader, is in charge of organizing our book recommendation lists to help science-minded people find the perfect read, including novels. She joins fellow book nerd Rachel Feltman to talk about the nonfiction and fiction books she’s recommending this summer—and gives a preview of our end-of-year lists. 

Recommended reading:

See The 4 Books Scientific American Loved Reading in June https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/4-nonfiction-books-scientific-american-recommended-in-june/

Your Garbage Has a ‘Wild Afterlife’ on the International Black Market https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/waste-wars-tracks-the-wild-afterlife-of-garbage-on-an-international-black/

Get more great summer reads every week: sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American. 

E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What to Read on the Beach This Summer

Time travel to an introduction to tide pools, the start of commercial air travel and an intercontinental aviation museum dispute. Host Rachel Feltman is taking a look at a 1925 issue of Scientific American for this archival episode. If you don’t find the past to be a blast, don’t worry! We’ll be back to our regular schedule of science news, deep dives and editor picks next week. In the meantime, read some recent coverage of marine marvels and flight!

Recommended reading:

Yes, Airline Flights Are Getting Bumpier: Here’s Why https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/yes-airline-flights-are-getting-bumpier-heres-why/

See the Lush Kelp Forests Scientists Are Fighting for as Oceans Warm https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/as-oceans-warm-scientists-fight-to-save-lush-kelp-forests/ 

E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. Our show is edited by Alex Sugiura with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Time Travel to Tide Pool 101 from Our July 1925 Issue

Brennan Lee Mulligan is a professional dungeon master, playing Dungeons and Dragons (D&D), a popular tabletop role-playing game, for audiences online and in person. In January his D&D show on Dropout.tv, Dimension 20, played a live game at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The show—and the game—experienced a resurgence during the COVID pandemic. Now researchers are diving into D&D science, showing how the game and the togetherness it creates can benefit mental health. Rachel Feltman chats with Lee Mulligan about the success of Dimension 20 and the psychological and cultural need the game may serve for its players. 

Recommended reading:

LARPing Made Me a Stronger Person. It Can Do the Same for You, Too 

Find the Perfect Game to Play with This Interactive Quiz 

E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Naeem Amarsy and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. Our show is edited by Alex Sugiura with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. 
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dungeons and Dragons’ Popularity Grows—And Science Follows

Come with Science Quickly on a field trip to the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Host Rachel Feltman is joined by Matthew Evans, MIT’s MathWorks professor of physics, to talk about the last 10 years of gravitational-wave research. Gravitational waves were discovered in 2015 by the LIGO team. Since then, innovations from the LIGO Lab have changed our understanding of the universe and made major shifts across physics. Now they’re preparing for the next generation of gravitational-wave detectors. 

Recommended reading:

The 2015 Paper Announcing the Discovery of Gravitational Waves: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1602.03837 

Listen to the Astonishing ‘Chirp’ of Two Black Holes Merging https://www.scientificamerican.com/video/listen-to-the-astonishing-chirp-of-two-black-holes-merging1/

5 New Types of Gravitational-Wave Detectors Could Reshape Astrophysics https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/5-new-types-of-gravitational-wave-detectors-could-reshape-astrophysics/

E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. 

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Naeem Amarsy and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. Our show is edited by Alex Sugiura with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The LIGO Lab Is Pushing the Boundaries of Gravitational-Wave Research

Fructose and sucrose can make it all the way to the colon, where they spell a sugary death sentence for beneficial bacteria. Karen Hopkin reports.
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Simple Sugars Wipe Out Beneficial Gut Bugs

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