podcasts

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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Light microscopy image of fibroblast cells. The cell nuclei are stained purple; parts that make up the rod-like structures of the cytoskeleton are stained cyan for actin filaments and yellow for the microtubule filaments.

AUDIO EDITION

Tiny Tubes Reveal Clues to the Evolution of Complex Life

An illustration of a scientist surrounded by biological symbols

PODCAST

Are Memories Transferable — or Edible?

PODCAST

How Many Elementary Particles Are There, Really?

PODCAST

What Is the Fourier Transform?

PODCAST

How Terry Tao Became an Evangelist for AI in Math

A green stick bug blends in with a green leaf.

PODCAST

How Ecotypes Harbor the Genetic Memory of a Species’ Past

A view of lightning storms from space

PODCAST

What Causes Lightning? The Answer Keeps Getting More Interesting.

An illustration of identical black holes moving along a conveyer belt in a factory.

AUDIO EDITION

Astrophysicists Find No ‘Hair’ on Black Holes

PODCAST

The AI Revolution in Math Has Arrived

A photograph of ice cubes molded into different shapes—including a sphere, a snowflake, a diamond, and a dinosaur—scattered across a blue surface.

PODCAST

Physicists Discover the Most Complex Forms of Ice Yet

Stylized digital artwork illustrating the concept of knowledge distillation in artificial intelligence. A big futuristic machine representing a large teacher model beams streams of binary code downward into an open laptop below, symbolizing a smaller student model receiving knowledge.

PODCAST

How Distillation Makes AI Models Smaller and Cheaper

An illustration shows a knight kneeling behind a shield engraved with an image of a bacterium, with which he defends against an onslaught of viruses.

PODCAST

The Ancient Weapons Active in Your Immune System Today

PODCAST

What Can We Gain by Losing Infinity?

Steam billows off a colorful hot spring.

AUDIO EDITION

The Cells That Breathe Two Ways

A collage with Gilles Brassard (left) and Charles Bennett.

PODCAST

Quantum Cryptography Pioneers Win Turing Award

PODCAST

Are Strings Still Our Best Hope for a Theory of Everything?