Cosmic Discoveries Soar as Earthly Health Decisions Stir Alarm

Science Talk

Scientific American

Science

4.2 • 639 Ratings

🗓️ 11 August 2025

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Rogue planets drifting through space might be forming their own planetary systems. NASA’s Europa Clipper mission has completed a key radar test ahead of its journey to study Jupiter’s icy moon. Plus, a major shift in U.S. health research funding occurs as Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., cancels nearly $500 million in funding for mRNA vaccine development. E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new everyday: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for our daily newsletter. Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:31.0	I'm Steve Strogatz. And I'm Janelle Levin. And this season on The Joy of Why from Quantum
0:35.8	Magazine, we're sitting down together.
0:38.0	We have our own research areas, but we don't always get the chance to speak deeply about science and math beyond our fields.
0:43.8	We'll ask researchers about moments big and small that inspire them and lead to incredible discoveries.
0:49.7	Lots of science news outlets provide coverage on applied work like health and tech, but we cover big
0:54.8	questions in the study of life, reality, numbers, and information. We hope these stories spark
1:00.0	your curiosity, too. Join us for the joy of why from Quantum Magazine. Happy Monday listeners.
1:15.5	For Scientific American Science Quickly, I'm Rachel Feldman.
1:19.0	Let's kick off the week with our usual science news roundup.
1:30.3	Let's start with some space news. Have you ever heard of rogue planets?
1:32.3	They sound pretty cool, and they are.
1:35.3	The term refers to exoplanets that roam free instead of orbiting a star.
1:40.3	Some of them may be objects that formed like stars,
1:43.3	coalescing in the wake of a giant
	...

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