The historic Maya’s sophisticated stargazing knowledge, and whether there is a cost to natural cloning

Science Magazine Podcast

Science Podcast

News, News Commentary, Science

4.3 • 842 Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2022

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On this week’s show: Exploring the historic Maya’s astronomical knowledge and how grasshoppers clone themselves without decreasing their fitness First this week, Science contributing correspondent Joshua Sokol talks with producer Meagan Cantwell about the historic Maya’s sophisticated astronomical knowledge. In recent decades, researchers have set out to understand how city structures relate to astronomical phenomena and decipher ancient texts. Now, collaboration between Western scholars and living Indigenous people hopes to further illuminate the field. Also this week, Mike Kearney, a professor at the school of biosciences at the University of Melbourne, chats with host Sarah Crespi about a species of grasshopper that can reproduce asexually. After studying the insect’s genetics, Kearney and his group didn’t find harmful mutations—or traits that made the grasshopper better adapted to its environment than the two species of grasshopper it hybridized from. Kearney and his team suggest this way of reproducing might not be rare because it’s harmful, but because most animal have safeguards in place to prevent asexual reproduction from arising. This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy. [Image: Sergio Montúfar/pinceladasnocturnas.com—Estrellas Ancestrales “Astronomy in the Maya Worldview”; Music: Jeffrey Cook] Authors: Meagan Cantwell; Joshua Sokol; Sarah Crespi Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.add3058 About the Science Podcast: https://www.science.org/content/page/about-science-podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:37.2	This podcast is supported by the Icon School of Medicine at Mount Sinai,
0:41.4	one of America's leading research medical schools.
0:44.8	Icon Mount Sinai is the academic arm of the eight hospital Mount Sinai health system in New York
0:50.0	City.
0:50.9	It's consistently among the top recipients of NIH funding. Researchers at Icon Mount Sinai have
0:57.2	made breakthrough discoveries in many fields vital to advancing the health of patients, including
1:02.4	cancer, COVID and long COVID, cardiology, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence. The Icon
1:09.8	School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, we find a way.
1:19.0	This is a science podcast for June 3rd, 2022. I'm Sarah Crespi. Each week we talk about the most
1:25.7	interesting news and research from science and the
1:28.7	sister journals. First up, what did the historic Maya know about the stars? Producer Megha Cantwell
1:35.4	and contributing correspondent Josh Sokol discussed what archaeological ruins and ancient texts reveal
1:42.1	about Maya astronomy and why it's so crucial to collaborate with living indigenous knowledge holders.
1:49.6	After that, we hear from researcher Mike Carney about a special kind of grasshopper,
1:54.2	one that reproduces asexually.
1:57.1	They're all clones, no males needed.
	...

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