Science Magazine Podcast

First up on the podcast, Online News Editor David Grimm shares a batch of fun stories with podcast host Sarah Crespi—from spider hearts racing when traffic gets loud to a disease-preventing house. Staff Writer Adrian Cho hops in to help discuss the possibility of black holes without singularities at their center.

Next on the show, epigenetics has become a hot topic in pop science but the ethical conversation is not keeping up. The idea that parents can pass down epigenetic marks from environmental toxins or trauma to their children—without changes in DNA—has been around for decades but the research in people is lacking. Jackie Leach Scully, a professor of bioethics and director of the Disability Innovation Institute at the University of New South Wales, discusses where the research actually is and the concerns that may arise if such marks do appear to impact the young.

Last up this week, we are launching our 2026 biography books series with books host Angela Saini and Science books editor Valerie Thompson. The pair discusses the difficulty of picking biographies and what can be learned about science, fame, and researchers as people from reading these types of books.  

This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.

About the Science Podcast
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First up on the podcast, freelance science and environmental journalist Quentin Septer joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about a controversial uranium mine getting fast-tracked in South Dakota. Septer chatted with locals, scientists, and regulators to learn more about the geology of the region and the promise of cleanup after the miners go home.

Next on the show, looking at cells that don’t get cancer. Giulio Ciucci, a postdoctoral researcher at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, talks about the infrequency of heart cancer and how the mechanical load that heart cells endure makes them resist turning cancerous.

*CORRECTION: In the on this site summary in this episode, the book author in the review by Kai Kupferschmidt was listed incorrectly. The correct information is: True Color by Kory Stamper, Knopf, 2026.  

This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.

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The final of a three-part limited Science Podcast series that looks at the history of normal human subjects in research

In episode two, we heard what happened to the normals program after church volunteers came to the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s Clinical Center—and were surprisingly happy despite going through sometimes-painful procedures. In the decades to follow, the program got bigger as government funding expanded and started to recruit more broadly, stepping away from specific religious groups toward recruiting from colleges, universities, and unions.

In this episode, we hear about how normal human subjects experience research today and the ways the normals project influenced oversight and safety for these sometimes vulnerable people.

All episodes in this series

Appearing in this episode:


Laura Stark, history professor at the Center for Medicine, Health, and Society at Vanderbilt University


Jill Fisher, professor of social medicine in the Center for Bioethics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill


Kaviya Manoharan, lecturer and clinical research program manager in the Centre for Clinical Pharmacology, SRM Medical College Hospital and Research Centre


Martin Enserink, deputy news editor at Science


Kevin McLean, Science multimedia managing producer

Sarah Crespi, Science Podcast senior host and producer

Additional resources:

BOOKS


The Normals: A People’s History of Modern America in Five Human Experiments by Laura Stark


Adverse Events: Race, Inequality, and the Testing of New Pharmaceuticals by Jill Fisher

NEWS STORIES


Global effort aims to protect health and safety of human ‘guinea pigs’ in drug trials by Martin Enserink


Key global bioethics guidelines get ‘dramatic’ update by Cathleen O’Grady

WEBSITES

Volrethics

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First up on the podcast, quantum computers require extremely low temperatures—less than 1°C away from absolute zero. But getting down to those temperatures has usually required dilution fridges using the extremely rare and increasingly expensive isotope helium-3. Freelance science journalist Zack Savitsky joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss up-and-coming technologies that can drive down temperatures while staying helium-3–free.

Next on the show, Nizan Packin, a professor of law at the Zicklin School of Business at Baruch College, talks about prediction markets as a public health threat. Early on, prediction markets were proposed as a way to make reliable forecasts from crowdsourced wisdom. With the appearance of commercial, for-profit prediction markets linked with cryptocurrency and sports betting, Nizan and colleagues ask what studies should be done to better understand potential harms to the public.

Finally, in a Working Life column this week, recent Ph.D. graduate Filippo Dall’Armellina wrote about how his foray into science podcasting helped him regain enjoyment of research. He talks about why having a science-adjacent hobby was life changing.

This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.

About the Science Podcast
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Last time on The Normals, we learned that in the 1950s, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) wanted to recruit many healthy volunteers for basic research. Two peace churches, the Mennonites and the Church of the Brethren, had an excess of healthy human volunteers. The “Normals” recruited from these Anabaptist churches were surprisingly happy, even as they went through sometimes painful procedures.

In this follow-up episode, we hear about how the sources of normal human subjects changed in the 1960s and why NIH researchers felt they needed to expand their search for normal people. We also learn about the first death in the program and the shifting motives on the parts of the researchers and volunteers. Final episode drops next Tuesday, April 21.

All Normals episodes

In this episode:


Laura Stark, history professor at the Center for Medicine, Health, and Society at Vanderbilt University

Ken Naas, former Normal patient

Cindy Jansen, former Normal patient

Dale Horst, former Normal patient

Sarah Crespi, Science Podcast senior host and producer

Additional resources:

The Normals: A People’s History of Modern America in Five Human Experiments by Laura Stark
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