New in Science Podcast

Bryan Perrine
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  • Natural Sciences
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New in Science Podcast A short weekly show about the science discoveries you might have missed — and why they matter. Join Alex and Jordan each week as they unpack a single discovery, from antimatter held still in a trap to a lost branch of the human family finally getting a face, and explain what it actually means. Short, clear, and curious — no background in science required. New episodes every Sunday by 8 PM Eastern on Spotify; other platforms follow within a day or two, with short Science Fact specials from Priya between episodes.

Episodes

  1. 15h ago

    Episode 3 — Salt Time Capsules on Enceladus

    Enceladus, a small icy moon of Saturn, hides a global ocean under kilometres of ice — and its south-polar tiger stripes spray that ocean into space as a plume. In this episode, Alex and Jordan unpack a lab study that shows how a salt mineral called natron can trap tiny pockets of fluid as it freezes, making natron a key target for reading that ocean without drilling through the ice. They explain why larger, fresh grains near the vents are the best samples, and the honest caveats: this is a mechanism, not a detection of life, natron has not yet been confirmed on Enceladus's surface, and the lab solution was about five times more concentrated than Cassini-based estimates. Sources: Perera et al., Fluid inclusions establish natron as a key astrobiological target on Enceladus, Communications Earth & Environment, 2026 — https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-026-04080-z Phys.org, Salt crystals could hold clues to life beneath Enceladus's ice, Oct 17, 2026 — https://phys.org/news/2026-10-salt-crystals-clues-life-beneath.html

  2. 1d ago

    Episode 2 — The Face of the Denisovans

    For years, the Denisovans were almost a ghost story in genetics — a whole branch of the human family known only from DNA, with no face to put to the name. That has changed. In this episode, Alex and Jordan unpack a new study that uses tough ancient proteins from 130,000-year-old bones at Xujiayao in northern China to finally give the Denisovans a recognizable face: low, broad skulls, thick bone, heavy brow ridges, flat cheeks, and rectangular eye sockets. They explain how protein analysis worked where DNA could not, why this is a composite family resemblance rather than a portrait of one individual, and what it means for how widely Denisovans spread across East Asia — and what we still cannot claim yet. Sources: Xing et al., The proteome of Middle Pleistocene Xujiayao and common Denisovan morphology, Nature, Oct 21, 2026 — https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-11132-z Nature News, This is what the mysterious Denisovans looked like, Oct 21, 2026 — https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-03360-0

  3. 4d ago

    Episode 1 — Antimatter, Held Still

    Pilot Episode — Physicists at Northwestern University have trapped a single positron — the antimatter twin of the electron — and held it in a controlled quantum state for months. The team, led by Gerald Gabrielse, suspended the particle with electric and magnetic fields in a Penning trap, cooled to about 300 millikelvin, and turned it into a one-positron quantum cyclotron: an artificial atom whose individual quantum jumps can be driven and watched with carefully tuned microwaves. Loading even one positron takes roughly eight to eleven hours — the particles start as fast-moving products of sodium-22 decay and are slowed through a tungsten crystal, keeping only the slowest survivors. The point of all this patience is a measurement: Gabrielse previously measured the electron's magnetic moment to about one part in ten trillion, and the Standard Model says the positron should be its near-perfect mirror image. A comparable positron measurement is the sharpest test yet of that symmetry — and of why the universe is made of matter at all. Published in Physical Review Letters, October 21, 2026. One honest caveat, stated in the episode: the comparison itself has not been reported yet. This is the trap, the cooling, and the control that make it possible. Sources: Myers et al., One-Positron Quantum Cyclotron, Physical Review Letters, Oct 21, 2026 — https://doi.org/10.1103/gbkc-6nlj Phys.org, One-positron cyclotron could test a key prediction of the Standard Model — https://phys.org/news/2026-10-positron-cyclotron-key-standard.html

  • 3 Episodes

About

New in Science Podcast A short weekly show about the science discoveries you might have missed — and why they matter. Join Alex and Jordan each week as they unpack a single discovery, from antimatter held still in a trap to a lost branch of the human family finally getting a face, and explain what it actually means. Short, clear, and curious — no background in science required. New episodes every Sunday by 8 PM Eastern on Spotify; other platforms follow within a day or two, with short Science Fact specials from Priya between episodes.

Information

  • Creator
    Bryan Perrine
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    3
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Bryan Perrine
  • Show Website
    New in Science Podcast