podcasts

The Quanta Podcast

Every Tuesday, editor in chief Samir Patel sits down with writers and editors to discuss our most thought-provoking stories in science and math. Audio editions of Quanta’s stories with Susan Valot will appear biweekly on Thursdays.

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An illustration shows a small parasite, in stages, pressing into a central red blood cell. Surrounding blood vessels show the blood cell infection in its different stages.

PODCAST

Malaria Parasite Caught in the Act of Breaking and Entering

Man in a blue shirt in front of a blackboard.

AUDIO EDITION

The Quietest Mathematician Has Always Been Worth Listening To

PODCAST

Triplet of ‘Ghostly’ Galaxies Hints at What Dark Matter Is — and Isn’t

PODCAST

Graduate Student Proves a Quantum Uncertainty Principle for Fractals

AUDIO EDITION

Sometimes Being First Means Seeing the End Before Anyone Else

PODCAST

Sea Monkeys Show Scientists How To Rewrite a Rule of Turbulence

PODCAST

How Virus-like ‘Jumping Genes’ Became Our Partners in Evolution

AUDIO EDITION

Living Fully in the Math World Means Threading the Needle

PODCAST

Black Holes or Black Hole Stars? Astronomers Spar Over Webb Telescope’s ‘Little Red Dots.’

PODCAST

The Four-Color Theorem Gets a Rare New Proof

AUDIO EDITION

‘Reverse Mathematics’ Illuminates Why Hard Problems Are Hard

PODCAST

Does Computer Science Need Computers?

An animated illustration shows a person looking at a scalloped shape with three rounded projections peeking out above a brick wall. The person's head is depicted as containing a paper label that is blank. On the label, different words appear — clown, tree, balloons, sheep — one at a time. Just a moment after the word appears, the illustration of the object, including the scalloped shape, appears on the wall.

PODCAST

A New Framework for How the Brain Compresses Our Noisy World

An illustration shows a scientist standing beneath a spectrum of life — including a rock (not alive), virus, cell and cat.

AUDIO EDITION

A Cell So Minimal That It Challenges Definitions of Life

PODCAST

‘Huge Breakthrough’ in the Math of Imbalance

PODCAST

Theory of Fluids Enters the 21st Century