Podcasts

Developers are racing to find new ways to train large language models, after sucking the Internet dry of usable information.

Bennu gives researchers clues about how the chemicals that make up life arose, how a maize monoculture might have supported a mysterious civilization and why the new AI model DeepSeek R1 has sent shockwaves around the world.

Huge study highlights global discrepancy in hiring requirements — plus, how cancer cells palm-off misfiring mitochondria to help avoid destruction.

Proteins made using machine learning successfully bind snake toxins — plus, Earth’s temperature breaks a significant climate threshold for the first time.

We highlight some Nature Briefing stories from the end of 2024, including the retraction saga of a controversial COVID study, the skin’s surprise immune-system and the running ability of our ancient relatives.

A new wave of obesity drugs, a multitude of space missions and concern over climate-action policies — we run through what to look out for over the next 12 months.

The Ig Nobel prizes are famed for their spotlighting of offbeat research. Nature investigates how some winners feel about their ‘honour’.

The team select some of their favourite stories from the past 12 months.

From a Death Star moon to gene editing, construction fuses and red mud — we round up some of the highlights of this year’s News & Views section.

In a fiendish quiz our contestants battle to remember the details of the science stories that made 2024 special.

Games, seasonal science songs, and Nature’s 10.

In episode 1 of What’s in a name we look at how species are named, and whether the current system needs to evolve in the face of societal pressure.

Treatment delivered directly to the placenta restores normal blood pressure in mice, a way to make custom cellular switches, and a milestone for quantum computing.

Zoologist Arik Kershenbaum joins us to talk about his book Why Animals Talk.

Data suggest that breast cancer could be more susceptible to chemotherapy in a phase when progesterone is low — plus, why the debate around whether AI is close to human-level intelligence is hotting up.

Researchers hope protein-design competitions will help highlight promising molecules, but there are hurdles to overcome.

Hundreds of pieces of fossilized faeces and vomit show how dinosaurs became Earth’s dominant land animals — plus, the search for a commensal fungus that’s made mouse guts its home.

The ingestible device shoots out tiny jets of drugs to deliver them to the GI tract of pigs and dogs — plus how light-powered catalysts could help break down ‘forever chemicals’.

Over the lifespan, skull bone marrow takes a more prominent role producing vital blood cells — plus how a radioactive lead isotope could help age the Solar System.

Samantha Harvey joins us to talk about her novel Orbital, shortlisted for this year's Booker Prize.