How do we know what's normal?

In the early 1950s, the U.S. National Institutes of Health set out to do something unprecedented.

They wanted to start studying normal humans on a grand scale.

They had pretty much everything in place.

They had the building.

They had recruited all these amazing researchers.

It was the healthy human bodies that they didn't have.

Starting April 7th, the Science Podcast,

we'll be releasing a new three-part limited series called The Normals.

We'll hear from some of the original NIH Normals,

follow the program through the decades,

and see what's happening with Normals today.

Visit science.org slash podcast to listen.

This is a science podcast for March 19th, 2026. I'm Sarah Crespi. First up, contributing correspondent

Lizzie Wade joins me to talk about new results published in science that suggests Chile's

Monte Verde archaeological site is much younger,

thousands of years younger than previously thought. This finding is likely to reignite debate

over when humans first came to the Americas and how they spread. Next on the show, we hear about

groundwater, a vital source of water for both drinking and agriculture that's often overused

and depleted. Producer Megan Cantwell talks with researcher Scott Gaseco about his comprehensive

review of the many different approaches to improving groundwater supply and what has worked where.

Way back in the ancient, ancient times of the 1970s, the Monteverdi archaeological site was uncovered

...