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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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Extra-Long Blasts Challenge Our Theories of Cosmic Cataclysms

Meet Strange Metals: Where Electricity May Flow Without Electrons

In the Gut’s ‘Second Brain,’ Key Agents of Health Emerge

During Pregnancy, a Fake ‘Infection’ Protects the Fetus

Why the Human Brain Perceives Small Numbers Better

Inside Scientists’ Life-Saving Prediction of the Iceland Eruption

Echoes of Electromagnetism Found in Number Theory

Tiny Language Models Come of Age

Rogue Worlds Throw Planetary Ideas Out of Orbit

What Makes Life Tick? Mitochondria May Keep Time for Cells

An Old Conjecture Falls, Making Spheres a Lot More Complicated

Illustration of a bacterial cell in mid-fission. Its threads of DNA and other internal molecules are divided between the cells. A constriction on the midline marks where the daughter cells are splitting.

Even Synthetic Life Forms With a Tiny Genome Can Evolve

The curling bodies of two differently colored roundworms overlap with a virus-shaped element in the background.

Selfish, Virus-Like DNA Can Carry Genes Between Species

Exoplanets Could Help Us Learn How Planets Make Magnetism

To Move Fast, Quantum Maze Solvers Must Forget the Past

Underground Cells Make ‘Dark Oxygen’ Without Light