Best Science News Podcasts? 136
scienceListener asks: "As an avid radio listener with an interest in science and technology communication, I'm really excited about podcasts. I've found many that I like, and many more that are just terrible. One of the areas I find very lacking is science news podcasting. Aside from some very good podcasts that are really repackaged radio shows (NPR's Science Friday and their aggregated Health and Science, Canada's Quirks and Quarks, Australia's The Science Show, and a few others), and a couple produced by science centers (the Current Science & Technology Podcast from Boston's Museum of Science and the Redshift Report from the Ontario Science Centre -- which is good but isn't really about science news), I haven't found any independently-produced science podcasts worth listening to. Is anyone doing science news without the help of a major organization and doing it well?"
Two of my favorites that you did not mention: (Score:5, Informative)
slacker astronomy http://www.slackerastronomy.org/slack-live.xml [slackerastronomy.org]
skepticality Science and Skeptic Thought http://skepticality.libsyn.com/rss/ [libsyn.com]
Incidentally, I wonder if this article will slasdot itunes podcasts section? Podcasts don't seem to get the greatest amount of bandwidth compared to the rest of the itunes Music Store.
A few choices... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/ [thenakedscientists.com]
Berkeley Groks Science
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~clgroks/ [berkeley.edu]
ScienceCast:
http://sciencecast.net/ [sciencecast.net]
Personally, I can't get into indie podcasts due to the typically poor production values. There are a lot of insightful podcasters that could be developing a real audience if they would just buy a high quality mic.
This Week in Science (Score:5, Informative)
add ScienceFriday.com to the list (Score:2, Informative)
Nature podcast (Score:5, Informative)
my favorite (Score:2, Informative)
Here's a few I like (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.slackerastronomy.org/slack-live.xml [slackerastronomy.org]
Science @ NASA
http://science.nasa.gov/podcast.xml [nasa.gov]
Universe Today
http://www.universetoday.com/audio.xml [universetoday.com]
Berkeley Groks
http://www.groks.net/groks.rss [groks.net]
Regulus
http://www.regulusastro.com/regulus/whatsup/podca
Dr Karl ROCKS!!! (Score:5, Informative)
Dr Karl has a happy hour on Triple-J every Thursday morning with Mel (who most slashdotters would die for) - and it's also released as a podcast too. http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/stn/default.htm [abc.net.au]
Once a week for a magic hour, Karl is Live on Air on triple j. It's an hour devoted to the collective exploration of some of the great mysteries of life, such as "why does the water in the shower slow down just when it gets hot?"
Best science news, but not a podcast (Score:5, Informative)
http://scienceweek.com/ [scienceweek.com]
It's not breezy, consumer friendly reporting of scientific oddities, but succinct, clear writing about serious science, complete with contextual explanations.
I don't bother with anything else.
KPFA Explorations (Score:2, Informative)
Wanhoffs Wunderbare Welt der Wissenschaft (Score:2, Informative)
New Scientist (Score:2, Informative)
The Space Show (Score:2, Informative)
Science News rocks! (Score:3, Informative)
SciNews is run by some non-profit organization, so its not the watery, awkwardly-written PopSci articles you get with most commercial publications, i.e. the "Discovery X Can Cure Cancer" or "New 2006 Automobiles Filled with Science!"
New Scientist ain't bad either, though can be a bit flakey. I'd avoid the audio broadcasts of Scientific American, which has articles that tend to be longer and murkier. That pub's seen better days.
Expanding the list ... (Score:3, Informative)
Let's Talk Stars (Astronomy)
http://www.letstalkstars.com [letstalkstars.com]
Celestial North Radio (Astronomy)
http://www.celestialnorth.org/radio/radio_program
NPR Science Friday
http://www.sciencefriday.com [sciencefriday.com]
BBC's The Sky at Night (the best weekly science program ever)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/spaceguide/sky
BBC Science Radio
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/ [bbc.co.uk]
ABC Radio National (Score:3, Informative)
Skepticality (Score:3, Informative)
And it has been the locus of an amazing story over the last two months. Host Derek Colanduno, by no means a senior citizen (I'd guess he's in his early 30s), had a major stroke or aneurysm event at the beginning of September, that put him in intensive care in an induced coma for a week. For a day or two it was dicey whether he'd pull out of it. Co-host Swoopy broadcast an announcement, and then began posting Derek Updates [skepticality.com] on the show's blog. Collectively they form a detailed look at first slow, then rapid recovery from a brain injury. As of this writing, Derek has regained most of his physical ability and a good bit of his speech--he even recorded a brief intro to their latest podcast, released today. Good people, good site [skepticality.com].
theWatt: Energy Issues (Score:4, Informative)
Tech Nation (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.technation.com/ [technation.com]
Re:podcasts... (Score:1, Informative)
Discovery science podcast (Score:2, Informative)
If you like a good, broad mix of Science - new science, hard science, pop science, historical science and very silly science, listen to Discovery.
Discovery is produced by a different subset of the team every week. We have the latest and most unusual in science news, science features and interviews.
The Discovery archives [ourmedia.org] are hosted on archive.org. We put the http://feeds.feedburner.com/Discoveryradio [feedburner.com] feed to iTunes when they opened for business last week. People seem to like our production values. If you do listen and have a comment then please email us.
Personally, I download MP3 shows to CDRW and listen to them on my multi-codec CD player.