What makes snakes so special, and how space science can serve all

On this week’s show: Factors that pushed snakes to evolve so many different habitats and lifestyles, and news from the AAAS annual meeting

First up on the show this week, news from this year’s annual meeting of AAAS (publisher of Science) in Denver. News intern Sean Cummings talks with Danielle Wood, director of the Space Enabled Research Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, about the sustainable use of orbital space or how space exploration and research can benefit everyone.

And Newsletter Editor Christie Wilcox joins host Sarah Crespi with an extravaganza of meeting stories including a chat with some of the authors of this year’s Newcomb Cleveland Prize–winning Science paper on how horses spread across North America.

Voices in this segment:

William Taylor, assistant professor and curator of archaeology at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Museum of Natural History

Ludovic Orlando, director of the Centre for Anthropobiology and Genomics of Toulouse

University of Oklahoma archaeologists Sarah Trabert and Brandi Bethke

Yvette Running Horse Collin, post-doctoral researcher Paul Sabatier University (Toulouse III)

Next on the show: What makes snakes so special? Freelance producer Ariana Remmel talks with Daniel Rabosky, professor in ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Michigan, about the drivers for all the different ways snakes have specialized—from spitting venom to sensing heat.

This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.

About the Science Podcast

Authors: Sarah Crespi; Ariana Remmel; Christie Wilcox; Sean Cummings

Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.zabhbwe