logo
episode-header-image
Sep 2020
36m 53s

Bringing Gamma Back, Again

Wnyc Studios
About this episode
Today, we return to the lab of neuroscientist Li-Huei Tsai, which brought us one of our favorite stories from four years ago - about the power of flashing lights on an Alzheimer’s-addled (mouse) brain. In this update, Li-Huei tells us about her team’s latest research, which now includes flashing sound, and ways in which light and sound together might retriev ... Show More
Up next
Mar 20
Staph Retreat
A strange brew that's hard to resist, even for a modern day microbe. In the war on devilish microbes, our weapons are starting to fail us. The antibiotics we once wielded like miraculous flaming swords seem more like lukewarm butter knives. But in this episode, originally release ... Show More
31m 34s
Mar 13
Return of the Flesh-Eaters
If a species is horrible enough, do we have the right to kill it forever? Seventy years ago, a nightmare parasite feasted on the live flesh of warm-blooded creatures in North America: the screwworm. That is, until a young scientist named Edward F. Knipling discovered a crucial sc ... Show More
42m 29s
Mar 6
Snail Sex Tape
In this episode, we consider a creature we often don’t think much about—the snail. And not just snails, but their sex lives. Which, as it turns out, is epic. There is persuasion and subterfuge, spaghetti penises and co-copulation. And this very surprising habit—erm kink—of making ... Show More
29m 53s
Recommended Episodes
Sep 2021
What Causes Alzheimer's?
<p>The human brain is mysterious and complicated. So much so, one might be tempted to argue that it only makes sense that we still don't have a cure for Alzheimer's disease, despite decades of research. But this isn't the whole story. We've partnered with Vox's <em>Unexplainable< ... Show More
29m 54s
Mar 2020
Boost Self-Control by Asking for Support, Gene-Stealing Organisms, and How Lipreading Works in the Brain
Learn about a research-backed way to achieve better self control by asking for help from others; how Ambystoma salamanders “steal” DNA from other species via kleptogenesis; and how your brain can process visual information as sound.For better self control, ask for support from ot ... Show More
10m 22s
Jun 2024
Is gene therapy the future?
Last week, a girl who was born deaf had her hearing restored following gene therapy. In the US, the first commercial gene therapy for sickle cell disease has just begun. And Great Ormond Street Hospital has found great success in their trials and a gene therapy for children lacki ... Show More
28m 9s
May 2022
Portrait of the monster black hole at our galaxy’s heart
The heaviest thing in the Galaxy has now been imaged by the biggest telescope on Earth. This is Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of our Galaxy – a gas and star-consuming object, a 4 million times the mass of the Sun. The Event Horizon Telescope is not one ... Show More
1h 4m
Feb 2021
Jack Price, "The Future of Brain Repair: A Realist's Guide to Stem Cell Therapy" (MIT Press, 2020)
A scientist assesses the potential of stem cell therapies for treating such brain disorders as stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease. Stem cell therapies are the subject of enormous hype, endowed by the media with almost magical qualities and imagined by the public ... Show More
1h 4m
Feb 2021
Jack Price, "The Future of Brain Repair: A Realist's Guide to Stem Cell Therapy" (MIT Press, 2020)
A scientist assesses the potential of stem cell therapies for treating such brain disorders as stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease. Stem cell therapies are the subject of enormous hype, endowed by the media with almost magical qualities and imagined by the public ... Show More
1h 4m
Mar 2020
First Animal That Doesn’t Breathe Oxygen, Biggest Explosion in the Universe’s History, and Improving Memory with the Brain’s Immune System
Learn about the first animal scientists have ever discovered that doesn’t breathe oxygen; how we might be able to hijack the brain’s immune system to improve memory; and the biggest explosion in the history of the universe.Scientists discover first animal that doesn't breathe oxy ... Show More
10m 36s
Feb 2024
C&EN Uncovered: The small-molecule drug renaissance
<p dir="ltr">As the science of drug discovery has grown in scale and gotten more complicated, so have the drug molecules themselves. But there's a promising class of drugs made of just a handful of atoms that punch above their weight by leveraging the natural chemistry of the cel ... Show More
19m 56s
Listen to millions of songs and podcasts on Anghami