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• April 2, 2024

  This Eclipse Could Make You Cry–And Make New Scientists

  Douglas Duncan, Lisa Margonelli

  Douglas Duncan is an astronomer who worked on the Hubble Space Telescope. He is also an eclipse fanatic. Since 1970, he has been to 11 total solar eclipses. When April 8, 2024,… Read More

• October 14, 2025

  Not Now, But Soon: Who Is Worth Measuring?

  Julisa Tambunan, Malka Older

  Julisa Tambunan explains why gender inequality is a disaster and how collecting better data—both statistics and stories—can help create a better future for everyone. 

• July 9, 2024

  A Road Map for a New Era in Biology and Medicine

  Lydia Contreras, Monya Baker

  Most people are familiar with DNA, but its cousin, RNA, has become widely known only recently. In 2020, of course, RNA was in the news all the time: the COVID-19 virus is… Read More

• June 4, 2024

  How Can STEMM Do A Better Job of Caring for Its Caregivers?

  Elena Fuentes-Afflick, Sara Frueh

  Caregiving is a nearly universal human experience, but it’s not often thought of as an issue with implications for our nation’s science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) enterprise. A new report… Read More

• December 17, 2024

  Reindeer!

  Jacqueline Hrabok, Bonnie Scheele, Lisa Margonelli

  In Alaska, reindeer are much more real than the fantasy animals that pull Santa’s sleigh. Introduced to Alaska from Siberia by the US government in the 1890s, reindeer were part of a… Read More

• August 26, 2025

  Not Now, But Soon

  Malka Older, Lisa Margonelli

  In our new podcast miniseries, Malka Older challenges the stories we often tell about disasters. What can disasters can teach us about our societies and values? And how can better stories about them help us build better futures?

• December 3, 2024

  A Cutting-Edge Bureaucracy

  Natalie B. Aviles, Jason Lloyd

  The word “bureaucracy” conjures up images of red tape and long lines at the DMV, not cutting-edge innovation. But some of the most significant scientific and health innovations of the past century… Read More

• April 22, 2025

  Taylor Spicer Empowers Scientists and Engineers to Engage Locally

  Taylor Spicer, Lisa Margonelli

  Taylor Spicer, executive director of Engineers and Scientists Acting Locally, shares how her organization helps scientists and engineers get involved in local policy.

• May 21, 2024

  Kei Koizumi Advises the President

  Kei Koizumi, Lisa Margonelli

  In this installment of Science Policy IRL, Kei Koizumi takes us inside the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, or OSTP. As the principal deputy director for policy at… Read More

• March 28, 2022

  Episode 11: Can Bureaucracy Build a Climate Revolution?

  Between 2009 and 2019, India brought electricity to half a billion citizens, and then turned around and presided over a grid where power from wind and solar became cheaper than electricity from… Read More

• Spring 2025

  Proposals as Partnerships

  Ryan Meyer, Evan S. Michelson

  As grantmakers and universities strive for more engaged and societally responsive research, the proposal process could be a place for innovation—and an avenue for institutional change.

• March 28, 2023

  Episode 28: Finding Collective Advantage in Shared Knowledge

  Michael M. Crow, Lisa Margonelli

  The CHIPS and Science Act aims to secure American competitiveness and innovation by investing $280 billion in domestic semiconductor manufacturing, scientific innovation, and regional development. But if past government investments in science… Read More

• Spring 2023

  Finding the “I” in Interdisciplinarity

  Annie Y. Patrick

  In 2015, the National Science Foundation launched an effort to spur what the federal agency called an “engineering education revolution.” The field had been teaching engineers the same way and drawing from… Read More

• April 8, 2025

  Music and Health: Your Brain on Music

  J. D. Talasek, Sweta Adatia, Fred Johnson

  What happens in your brain when you hear your favorite song? On this episode of Music and Health, Sweta Adatia and Fred Johnson discuss how music impacts the brain, and how music can go beyond entertainment to create stronger, healthier communities.

• October 22, 2024

  Uncovering Hidden Bias in Clinical Research

  Lisa Bero, Monya Baker

  Check the end of any recent study, and there will be a list of study funders and disclosures about competing interests. It’s important to know about potential biases in research, but this… Read More

• March 25, 2025

  The Rise of Deadly Fungal Pathogens

  Angel N. Desai, Jason Lloyd

  Angel Desai discusses what fungal pathogens are, why they are becoming more dangerous, and how the public health community can respond to this new threat.

• May 7, 2024

  To Fix Health Misinformation, Think Beyond Fact Checking

  Tina Purnat, Elisabeth Wilhelm, Monya Baker

  When tackling the problem of misinformation, people often think first of content and its accuracy. But contering misinformation by fact-checking every erroneous or misleading claim traps organizations in an endless game of… Read More

• November 25, 2025

  Making AI Chatbots Safer

  J. B. Branch, Megan Nicholson

  AI chatbots generate conversations with users and can appear, at times, quite human. J. B. Branch discusses who is using chatbots, what the companies behind these AIs are doing, and how they might be regulated.

• Fall 2024

  The Lives of Lewis Thomas

  Joseph J. Fins

  What researching a biography of the celebrated mid-century physician-humanist reveals about technological capability and human frailty.

• January 10, 2024

  Turning a Policy Idea into a Pilot Project

  Erica Fuchs, Lisa Margonelli

  By day, Erica Fuchs is a professor of engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. However, for the past year she’s also been running a pilot project—the National Network for Critical Technology Assessment—to give… Read More

• December 7, 2021

  Episode 3: Eternal Memory of the Facebook Mind

  David Beer, Jason Lloyd

  Social media and streaming platforms such as Facebook and Spotify analyze huge quantities of data from users before feeding selections back as personal “memories.” How do the algorithms select which content to… Read More

• November 22, 2021

  Episode 2: Doing Science With Everyone at the Table

  Could we create more knowledge by changing the way we do scientific research? We spoke with the NASA Psyche mission’s principal investigator and ASU Interplanetary Initiative vice president Lindy Elkins-Tanton about the limitations… Read More

• Winter 2025

  Step Into the Free and Infinite Laboratory of the Mind

  Ed Finn

  Science fiction is a powerful tool for inclusive, engaging science and tech policy conversations. How can we make better use of it?

• March 12, 2024

  Walter Valdivia Researches for the White House

  Walter D. Valdivia, Lisa Margonelli

  The Science Policy IRL series pulls back the curtain on who does what in science policy and how they shaped their career path. In previous episodes we’ve looked at the cosmology of… Read More

• April 18, 2023

  Episode 29: To Solve the AI Problem, Rely on Policy, Not Technology

  Kate Crawford, Monya Baker

  Artificial intelligence is everywhere, growing increasingly accessible and pervasive. Conversations about AI often focus on technical accomplishments rather than societal impacts, but leading scholar Kate Crawford has long drawn attention to the… Read More

• January 10, 2023

  Episode 24: Collaborations on Ice

  Cy Keener, Ignatius Rigor, JD Talasek

  How can scientific data be made more tangible, visceral, and experiential? Collaboration! Over the course of a four-year project, Arctic Ice: A Visual Archive, artist Cy Keener, landscape researcher Justine … Read More

• November 15, 2022

  Episode 21: To Solve Societal Problems, Unite the Humanities With Science

  Kaye Husbands Fealing, Josh Trapani

  How can music composition help students learn how to code? How can creative writing help medical practitioners improve care for their patients? Science and engineering have long been siloed from the humanities,… Read More

• March 7, 2023

  Episode 27: Confronting Extreme Heat With the World’s First Chief Heat Officer

  Jane Gilbert, Jason Lloyd

  Miami is so renowned for its warm weather that its professional basketball team is the Miami Heat. But extreme heat can be life-threatening, even in cities like Miami that are used to… Read More

• May 9, 2022

  Episode 14: Rethinking Hard Problems in Brain Science

  Susan M. Fitzpatrick, Jason Lloyd

  When it comes to exploring the mindboggling complexity of living systems—ranging from the origins of human consciousness to treatments for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s—Susan Fitzpatrick has long been a critic… Read More

• May 24, 2022

  Episode 15: Biotech Goes to Summer Camp

  Callie R. Chappell, Rolando Perez, Corinne Okada Takara, Lisa Margonelli

  Who gets to be a scientist? At BioJam, a free Northern California summer camp, the answer is everyone. This week we talk with Callie Chappell, Rolando Perez, and Corinne Okada … Read More