Popular Science Podcasts

Popular Science podcasts unearth the universe’s strangest histories. They answer your most mind-burning questions. They tell spin yarns about scam artists and celebrity diets and video games and poodle haircuts. PopSci’s shows are simply the best science and tech podcasting: shamelessly entertaining, painfully smart, and fiercely fascinating.

Looking for a visual we mentioned on Weirdest Thing? Every single one of our episodes has a corresponding write-up published on the same day—that’s where you’ll find photos, videos, cited sources, and more. Check them out here!

The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week

The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week is where PopSci editors go to unleash the most bizarre stories they can find. You’ll be shocked, delighted, and ready to fill awkward silences for the rest of your life.

Ask Us Anything

Popular Science answers your most outlandish, mind-burning questions—from what the universe is made of to why not everyone can touch their toes. Join Popular Science staff as they work through questions big and small.

Latest Articles

A cluster of stars inside a large nebula. The clouds of gas and dust are predominantly bright red in colour and wispy, akin to flames. They are clumped in the bottom-left corner. Other clouds, deeper in the cluster behind many of the stars, appear pale pink. The stars are concentrated in the top half of the image and are mostly small, bright white and six-pointed. They cast blue light over the nebula. Other stars with very long spikes surrounding them lie in the foreground.
Space Telescope

James Webb and Hubble Space Telescopes snap images of same nebula, 10 years apart

The two images of Westerlund 2 show just how far the technology has come.

two astronauts in santa hats and reindeer antlers sit around a table with christmas cookies
NASA

9 festive ISS holiday celebrations through the years

Crews living 250 miles above the Earth still keep the holiday spirit alive.

a firefly glowing on a black background
Cancer

‘Hope in a bottle’ for a deadly cancer and the firefly gene that lit the way

The first FDA-approved treatment for an incurable brain cancer gives the gift of time.

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a butterfly with blue wings with black spots
Endangered Species

9 new butterflies discovered in old museum archives

The team even extracted DNA from a tiny 100-year-old butterfly leg.

a close up of a turtle with its head in its shell
Wildlife

Butt breathing and 5 other ways animals stay warm in winter

Blue crabs burrow, wood frogs freeze, and other cold weather survival strategies.

The book "Raising AI" by De Kai serves as an essential guide for parenting our future, exploring the profound responsibilities of nurturing artificial intelligence. The cover features a minimalist, metallic silver aesthetic that mirrors the clinical yet evolving nature of technology. In contrast to this futuristic outlook, the image of a weathered vintage tin robot—with its wide-eyed, staring expression and rusted edges—highlights the human-centric "mirage" of ethical AI, reminding us of the mechanical origins and imperfect projections we cast upon our digital creations.
AI

Chasing the Mirage of “Ethical” AI

Isaac Asimov’s “Handbook of Robotics” imagined simple rules for machine morality. But reality is a maze of contradictions, biases, and blind spots.

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