Vera Rubin went from a teenager with a cardboard telescope to the “mother of dark matter.” Some of her colleagues and mentees weigh in on her fascinating life and how she was a champion for women in astronomy.
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Yesterday
The doctor fighting for pain-free IUDs
In this episode of Science Quickly, Rachel Feltman speaks with Helena Kopp Kallner, an ob-gyn and a professor, about her promising new study that shows local anesthetic can reduce pain during placements of intrauterine devices (IUDs). These devices are one of the most effective a ... Show More
18m 43s
Oct 7
Who’s accountable when AI goes wrong?
When news broke that OpenAI agents had breached the AI platform Hugging Face, many headlines framed it as a case of “rogue” artificial intelligence acting on its own. But how much of that narrative was reality, and how much was hype? In this episode, Rachel Feltman speaks with AI ... Show More
14m 55s
Oct 5
El Niño flood threats, measles risks and a risky viral trend
In this episode of Science Quickly, we explore how an El Niño–driven Kelvin wave could increase coastal flooding risks in California, why researchers say a plan to weaken vaccine requirements could leave Florida vulnerable to major measles outbreaks and what experts want people t ... Show More
14m 35s
Jul 2025
First images from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory
<p>The Vera C. Rubin Observatory has shared its first public images, revealing millions of galaxies, stars, and asteroids in stunning detail. Stephanie Deppe, astronomy content strategist at Rubin Observatory, joins us to explain what makes these images so revolutionary, how the ... Show More
59m 50s
Sep 2023
Song of the Stars, Part 2: Seeing in the Dark
A blind astronomer “sonified” the universe’s most explosive events: gamma-ray bursts. By listening to, rather than looking at, the data, she made a critical discovery and changed the field of astronomy.
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11m 40s
Apr 2018
The Woman Who Knows Everything About the Universe
In 1965, physicist Richard Feynman was busy. He was busy winning the Nobel Prize, and he was busy learning to draw. One day during that productive time in his life, he saw astrophysics student Virginia Trimble striding across Caltech's campus and thought, There's a good model. So ... Show More
14m 8s
Jun 2023
Life Lessons From Supernovae
For many scientists, science isn't something they check in and out of — it permeates their whole lives. That's true for Sarafina El-Badry Nance, an astrophysicist and science communicator. In her new memoir, Starstruck: A Memoir of Astrophysics and Finding Light in the Dark, Sara ... Show More
14m 30s