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Scientific American

Host Rachel Feltman, alongside leading science and tech journalists, dives into the rich world of scientific discovery in this bite-size science variety show.

Science, Quickly

Inside one of the quietest rooms in the world, host Rachel Feltman meets artist-in-residence Seth Cluett at the historic anechoic chamber at Bell Labs to explore the science of silence and sound perception. From popping balloons in total silence to hearing your own nervous system, we dive into psychoacoustics, audio innovation and the emotional impact of sound design. Along the way, we uncover how Bell Labs shaped everything from stereo audio to the voice of HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Science Quickly is a Signal Awards finalist! Support us by casting your vote before October 9 at the following link: https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting?utm_campaign=signal4_finalists_finalistnotification_092325&utm_medium=email&utm_source=cio#/2025/shows/genre/science

E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Jeffery DelViscio. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check the show. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Enter One of the World’s Quietest Rooms

Several top public health experts have resigned from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, citing a troubling shift away from science-based decision-making. Former director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Demetre Daskalakis joins host Rachel Feltman to explain how political ideology is reshaping vaccine policy, threatening essential health programs and endangering trust in the nation’s leading health agency. He also shares what outside organizations must do to protect public health in the face of growing uncertainty.

Recommended Reading

Here’s What Happened at RFK, Jr.’s Overhauled Vaccine Panel Meeting

CDC’s Leadership Is in Chaos—Experts Warn of Public Health Risks

Science Quickly is a Signal Awards finalist! Support us by casting your vote before October 9 at the following link: https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting?utm_campaign=signal4_finalists_finalistnotification_092325&utm_medium=email&utm_source=cio#/2025/shows/genre/science 

E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check the show. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What’s Driving Experts Away from the CDC?

This week’s roundup breaks down the Food and Drug Administration’s decision to revise the safety label for acetaminophen (Tylenol) following the Trump administration’s misleading claims about a link between use of the drug during pregnancy and autism—which were made despite inconsistent data and no proven causation. It also highlights new findings on the safety of COVID vaccination during pregnancy, promising results from a trial of gene therapy for Huntington’s disease and rare animal behaviors, including a notable instance of shark mating and a climate-driven coupling that resulted in a jay hybrid. Plus, the world’s strongest storm of the year reshapes the Pacific typhoon season.

Recommended Reading

Does Tylenol Use during Pregnancy Cause Autism? What the Research Shows

Nobody Knows How Tylenol Really Works

Fat Bear Week 2025

Science Quickly is a Signal Awards finalist! Support us by casting your vote before October 9 at the following link: https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting?utm_campaign=signal4_finalists_finalistnotification_092325&utm_medium=email&utm_source=cio#/2025/shows/genre/science 

E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check the show. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tylenol and Autism, a Shark Threesome and a Typhoon

In a hauntingly innovative exhibit, brain cells grown from the late composer Alvin Lucier’s blood generate sound. Set in a museum in Perth, Australia, the installation blurs the line between art and neuroscience. Host Rachel Feltman and associate editor Allison Parshall explore the profound questions the exhibit raises about creativity, consciousness and the meaning of making music. 

E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check the show. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Dead Composer Whose ‘Brain’ Still Makes Music

In this episode of Science Quickly, host Rachel Feltman explores the age-old quest to replace failing human body parts with science writer Mary Roach. From ancient surgery to modern medical marvels, Roach shares insights from her new book Replaceable You, revealing why replicating our original anatomy is still one of medicine’s greatest challenges.

Recommended Reading

Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy, by Mary Roach. W. W. Norton, 2025

E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Jeff DelViscio. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check the show. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mary Roach on the Science of Swapping Human Parts

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee has been reshaped, with new recommendations on the horizon. Meanwhile studies reveal subtle brain changes in contact sports players and highlight ongoing risks of repetitive head injuries. Climate change is linked to a surge in heat-related deaths across Europe, while surprising research uncovers chimpanzees’ daily ethanol consumption and ants that produce hybrid offspring.

Recommended Reading

Here’s What Happened at RFK, Jr.’s Overhauled Vaccine Panel Meeting

How RFK, Jr.’s Dismissal of CDC Immunization Committee Panelists Will Affect America’s Vaccine Access

Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy: A Player's Perspective

Email us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new everyday: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for our daily newsletter. 
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Vaccine Shakeups, Brain Injury Warnings and Boozy Chimps

From viral slang such as “skibidi” to the rise of so-called brain rot, linguist and content creator Adam Aleksic, aka the “Etymology Nerd,” and associate editor Allison Parshall, who covers the mind and brain, unpack how social media and algorithms are reshaping the way we communicate.

Recommended Reading

The Internet Is Making Us Fluent in Algospeak

E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check the show. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

This episode was made possible by the support of Yakult and produced independently by Scientific American’s board of editors.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Algorithmic Social Media Is Driving New Slang

Scientists are tuning in to a surprising conversation happening inside us—between our gut and our brain. Host Rachel Feltman chats with Maya Kaelberer, an assistant professor at the University of Arizona’s department of physiology, to explore how intestinal cells and microbiomes might be shaping our moods, cravings and mental health in ways we’re only beginning to understand.

Recommended Reading

“A Gut Sense for a Microbial Pattern Regulates Feeding,” by Winston W. Liu et al., in Nature. Published online July 23, 2025

Website for the Gut Brain Laboratory at the University of Arizona

The gut-brain community website Gastronauts

E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check the show. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

This episode was made possible by the support of Yakult and produced independently by Scientific American’s board of editors.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Role Our Microbiome Plays In Our ‘Gut Feelings’

A paper published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention argues that Chagas disease is now endemic in the U.S. Koalas may finally be spared from a deadly epidemic. Meanwhile NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has uncovered tantalizing clues about potential ancient microbial life on the Red Planet. Hear about all that and more in this week’s news roundup.

Recommended Reading

Treating Koala STDs May also Quash Their Essential Gut Microbes

New Black Hole Measurements Show More Ways Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein Were Right

This Rock May Hold Proof of Life on Mars

E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check the show. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.

This episode was made possible by the support of Yakult and produced independently by Scientific American’s board of editors.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kissing Bugs, Koalas and Clues to Life on Mars

Human brains don’t just perceive reality—they invent it. In this episode of Science Quickly, cognitive neuroscientist Daniel Yon speaks with host Rachel Feltman about how perception is an active process of prediction in which the brain constructs theories about the world that can sometimes lead us astray. Drawing from his book A Trick of the Mind, he reveals why this “hallucination” of reality is not a flaw but a fundamental feature of how we navigate the world.

Recommended Reading

A Trick of the Mind. Daniel Yon. Grand Central Publishing, 2025 

The Neuroscience of Reality

E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check the show. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Unpacking the Brain’s Role in Inventing Your Perception

Hypochlorous acid is a promising disinfectant that is difficult to commercialize because it is not very shelf-stable. Senior features editor Jen Schwartz takes us through what the science of this nontoxic disinfectant is and explains why its popularity in the beauty aisle is only the beginning. 

Recommended reading: 
The Nontoxic Cleaner That Kills Germs Better Than Bleach—And You Can Use It on Your Skin https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hypochlorous-acid-is-trending-in-skin-care-and-cleaning-but-does-it-work/ 

E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!

Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter.

Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Naeem Amarsy and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest Jen Schwartz. Our show is edited by Alex Sugiura with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A Disinfectant That’s More Powerful Than Bleach—And Safe for Your Skin

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