Big Picture Science

Weekly conversations on science and technology with researchers AI summary

Big Picture Science Visit website › Science · EN · 704 episodes · latest 2026-11-09

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What it is about

The surprising connections in science and technology that give you the Big Picture. Astronomer Seth Shostak and science journalist Molly Bentley are joined each week by leading researchers, techies, and journalists to provide a smart and humorous take on science. Our regular "Skeptic Check" episodes cast a critical eye on pseudoscience.

Publisher’s own description, taken unchanged from the podcast feed.
Big Picture Science 2025

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Latest episodes

On the Wings of a Butterfly

2026-11-09 · 54 min

We can now follow where Monarch butterflies go when they leave our gardens with tiny sensors that track their impressive 3,000-mile migrations from Canada to Mexico. The significant challenges that the journey poses are…
Earth's Misunderstood Molecule

2026-11-02 · 59 min

Carbon dioxide is more than an industrial pollutant driving climate change. The gas also played a pivotal part in the dramatic story of the beginning of all life. Starting in the ocean depths, dissolved CO2 commingled…
Particle Accelerators, from In Our Time

2026-10-29 · 6 min

How did scientists learn to peer inside the atom? In this preview from the BBC's In Our Time, physicist Harry Cliff tells the story of the birth of the particle accelerator, from Ernest Rutherford's challenge to unlock…
Scoping Out the Universe

2026-10-26 · 54 min

Telescopes are like light buckets. The bigger the telescope, the more light collected for astronomers to observe. With recent advances in technology, amateur astronomers can join professionals for a chance to observe…
Our Floral Planet

2026-10-19 · 1 hr 0 min

We admire the ornamental beauty of flowers in a garden, but those blooms are more than lush color. The seemingly fragile, delicate petals are part of a resilient, adaptive innovation that arrived on the scene 250…
On a Collision Course

2026-10-12 · 54 min

Breakthroughs around the detection of cosmic neutrinos — the “ghost” particles that may reveal why matter, not antimatter, fills the universe — recently earned a physicist the Nobel Prize in Physics. But one group of…
Skeptic Check: Sunny Daze

2026-10-05 · 54 min

A growing online movement of sunscreen skeptics believes that sunblock is toxic, even suggesting that it might cause skin cancer. Medical experts, concerned by rising skin cancer rates, are rushing to push back against…
The Rights of Rivers

2026-09-28 · 54 min

Healthy rivers and riparian ecosystems are teaming with life, but should rivers themselves be considered alive? The question is central to the growing rights-of-nature movement that claims that ecosystems and entities,…
How Hot is Too Hot?

2026-09-21 · 56 min

Extreme heat is taking its toll on the natural world. We use words like “heat domes” and “freakish” to describe our everyday existence. These high temperatures aren’t only uncomfortable - they are lethal to humans,…
A Coup De Grace in Space

2026-09-14 · 57 min

A new space telescope will soon give us an expanded field of view of some of the strangest phenomena in the cosmos. The launch of NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will initiate this instrument’s contributions to…

Episode details from the publisher’s feed. Playback happens at the publisher.

Publisher details

Oldest episode in feed: 05/2006 · over 20 years
Typical length: 54 min
Format: Episodic Newest first, episodes stand alone

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