Briefing Chat: Penguins pick up PFAS pollution
Nature Podcast
podcast@nature.com
4.5 • 893 Ratings
🗓️ 17 April 2026
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode:
00:30 The penguins measuring environmental PFAS
Science: Penguins become marine detectives, thanks to pollutant-detecting anklets
05:14 Treating autoimmune diseases with CAR-T
Nature: One woman, three autoimmune diseases: CAR-T therapy vanquishes ultra-rare disease trio
10:34 Why an anglerfish’s lure might have two uses
Science: Why do anglerfish have glowing lures? It might be sex
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi listeners, Benjamin here. Welcome to the Nature Briefing podcast, the Friday show, |
| 0:08.9 | but we talk about a few stories we've read about in the Nature briefing, which is, of course, |
| 0:13.3 | nature's daily roundup of the latest science stories. And joining me this week is not one, |
| 0:19.4 | but two of the team. We have Charmody Bundell. |
| 0:38.5 | Hello, double trouble today. And Marin Hunsberger. Maran, how you doing? Hello, hello. I'm very happy to be here as always. Right. We've got a few stories, as I say. Shamney, why don't you go first this week? What have you got? I've got penguins. I've got penguin detectives. and that is not my wording. |
| 0:40.0 | It's not even the article I've read. |
| 0:47.7 | It was a direct quote from one of the study co-authors that describes the penguins as our elite team of marine detectives. |
| 0:56.0 | Nice. But no, this is a serious story. This is about environmental pollution in the penguins habitat. |
| 0:58.3 | And I've been reading this in science. |
| 1:02.5 | And it's based on a paper that came out in Earth Environmental Sustainability last month. |
| 1:06.3 | I need someone to make an animated film about this with the penguins and little detective hats. |
| 1:07.6 | This is just screaming for that, no? |
| 1:08.2 | I know. |
| 1:10.4 | It'll be a really good kids film. But with an important message about pollution, about these particular compounds, |
| 1:15.2 | so the villain of the story is per and polyfluoroalkyl substances. |
| 1:20.1 | PFS? |
| 1:20.9 | The ever-dreaded P-FAS? |
| 1:22.4 | Yeah. |
| 1:22.7 | And so these are sometimes known as Forever Chemicals. |
| 1:25.4 | They're toxic industrial compounds that just hang around. |
| 1:29.7 | So this particular team, they roped the penguins in to help monitor this stuff. |
| 1:34.4 | Amazing. I love this. |
... |
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