Podcast · Tech & Science

NOVA Presents

Ever wonder what's really going on in the world of science? We've got you covered. Join us for conversations with the researchers making tomorrow's breakthroughs, deep dives into the universe's biggest mysteries, and clear explanations of the discoveries that matter most. We're talking climate break

New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 31 min
Latest: 13 Oct 2026
Language: English

Latest episode

13 Oct 2026 · 32 minNew

The Quake Equation

Big earthquakes can change the Earth’s rotation. And Harvard geophysicist John Shaw says these giant events can teach us a lot. He traces our understanding from ancient myths to modern studies and unpacks what;s really going on beneath the surface. John reveals why a magnitude 7 earthquake releases 30 times the energy of a WWII-era atomic bomb, how the largest quakes make the Earth ring like a bell for days, and why the deadliest earthquake in history wasn't even the biggest one. Learn more about NOVA and visit our YouTube channel. -------------------------- Guest Bio: John Shaw is the Harry…

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Earlier episodes 29 most recent

S6 · E36 · 8 Oct 2026 · 1 hr 30 min
Full Interview: The Fusion Future
There is a near-limitless energy source to power our world, and it may be almost here. Dennis Whyte shares with Hakeem that we're closer than ever to bottling the power of the sun. He would know. He’s now the CEO of the United Kingdom’s Atomic Energy Authority and a nuclear scientist at MIT. What happens when we finally unlock nuclear fusion, the same energy source that powers the sun? What even is fusion? How does it work, and why are scientists now so close to building commercially viable fusion systems that could put power on the grid? From fusion fundamentals, to the future of energy, to…
S6 · E35 · 6 Oct 2026 · 28 min
Fusion and the Future of Space
Dennis Whyte has designed a fusion reactor for Mars, and it turns out the red planet has plenty of fusion fuel. The MIT nuclear scientist joins Hakeem to explore fusion's wildest applications: spacecraft propulsion, space stations, and even a shield that stops radiation. While they’re at it, Dennis and Hakeem discuss the roadblocks and risks still left to solve in nuclear fusion. Learn more about NOVA and visit our YouTube channel. -------------------------- Guest Bio: Dennis Whyte is the Hitachi America Professor of Engineering at MIT and former director of the Plasma Science and Fusion…
S6 · E34 · 1 Oct 2026 · 31 min
How to Build a Star
Dennis Whyte helped spark a multi-billion-dollar industry from a spool of tape. The nuclear scientist and entrepreneur explains the nitty gritty of nuclear fusion through the multitude of businesses that are chasing nuclear fusion. Dennis walks Hakeem through the origin story of Commonwealth Fusion Systems, the company he co-founded from a class assignment, and reveals how a new superconducting material discovered in the 1980s finally made compact fusion possible. Learn more about NOVA and visit our YouTube channel. -------------------------- Guest Bio: Dennis Whyte is the Hitachi America…
S6 · E33 · 29 Sep 2026 · 36 min
Fusion Energy is Coming
Dennis Whyte studies the physics that powers every star in the universe, and he says it can power your house, too. Now the CEO of the UK’s Atomic Energy Authority and nuclear scientist at MIT, Dennis joins Hakeem to break down what fusion actually is, why it packs 10 million times the energy density of gasoline, and who is making the biggest investment in this massive energy field. Dennis unpacks the surprisingly direct link between a society's energy use and its economic prosperity, and reveals why fusion might change everything. Learn more about NOVA and visit our YouTube channel.…
S6 · E32 · 24 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 20 min
Full Interview: Cracking Animal Language
Federico Rossano convinces Hakeem that animals have a lot more to say than we've given them credit for. The cognitive scientist shares the origin story behind his record-breaking study of talking dogs, the evidence that some pets may understand more than a human toddler, and what primates reveal about the roots of communication itself. Learn more about NOVA and visit our YouTube channel. Federico Rossano is an Associate Professor of Cognitive Science at UC San Diego and director of the Comparative Cognition Lab, where he studies communication and social cognition across humans, primates,…
S6 · E31 · 22 Sep 2026 · 22 min
Secret Language of Apes
Federico Rossano says the secret to speaking with apes is trust. For primates, the world is full of high-stakes friends and foes, and of course, there are always predators to worry about. Our closest relatives see the world a little differently than we do, and that can teach us a lot about our own communication. Federico is a cognitive scientist who questions the assumptions beneath human conversations, and in this episode, he shares lessons from the animal kingdom with Hakeem. From apes besting children in “the peanut puzzle” to baboons that seemingly sense how to travel together, there’s…
S6 · E30 · 17 Sep 2026 · 30 min
What Are Dogs Saying?
Federico Rossano caught dogs doing something that looks a lot like telling jokes. The cognitive scientist shares what he learned from speaking with dogs. Dogs can smell, hear, and in some ways see better than humans. So why wouldn’t they have something interesting to say if they could speak? Federico has found a dog's mind may be closer to a human toddler's than anyone previously believed and believes we are close to learning important lessons from our canine companions. Learn more about NOVA and visit our YouTube channel. -------------------------- Guest Bio: Federico Rossano is an…
S6 · E29 · 15 Sep 2026 · 33 min
How Dogs Talk
Federico Rossano didn't care about talking dogs until science made it impossible to ignore. The cognitive scientist joins Hakeem to reveal how a viral social media trend turned into the largest citizen-science study of animal communication ever conducted, tracking over 10,000 dogs and 700 cats across 47 countries. But how can you trust a study done by volunteers from around the world? Federico shares how he secured quantity and quality data and the messages dogs want to share. Learn more about NOVA and visit our YouTube channel. -------------------------- Guest Bio: Federico Rossano is an…
S6 · E28 · 10 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 28 min
Full Interview: How to Save The “Doomsday Glacier”
Brent Minchew could have a plan to stop Thwaites Glacier, AKA the “Doomsday Glacier”, cold in its tracks. That’s good news because if this one glacier slips into the sea, it could flood coasts across the planet. The Caltech glaciologist covers what makes the “Doomsday Glacier” the single biggest wild card in sea level rise, the simple idea that could freeze it back to its bed, and his own improbable journey from 9/11 first responder to two of the world's top science institutions. It's a conversation about glaciers, courage, and what it takes to change the story. Learn more about NOVA and…
S6 · E27 · 8 Sep 2026 · 31 min
From Marine One to Mission Antarctica
Brent Minchew responded to the Pentagon on September 11th, 2001. Before he was a glaciologist at Caltech, he was a marine aboard the Marine One presidential helicopter and was one of the first on sight after the deadly attack. Brent joins Hakeem to trace his unlikely path from a working-class upbringing in Texas to a career studying the world's most extreme ice sheets. And he traces how his experience in the military informs his scientific mission planning and decision making. Learn more about NOVA and visit our YouTube channel. -------------------------- Guest Bio: Brent Minchew is a…
S6 · E26 · 3 Sep 2026 · 38 min
Glacier Rescue
Brent Minchew has a plan that could stop the “Doomsday Glacier” in its tracks, and we don’t even need new technology to do it. The Caltech glaciologist returns to unveil an intervention that could save coasts around the world: refreezing Thwaites Glacier to its own bedrock using passive principles of physics. Brent walks Hakeem through the natural process that slows glaciers down, and lays out a plan to investigate if they can truly deploy it on the world's most precarious glacier. Learn more about NOVA and visit our YouTube channel. -------------------------- Guest Bio: Brent Minchew is a…
S6 · E25 · 1 Sep 2026 · 25 min
The Glacier That Could Change the World
Brent Minchew is an expert on the glacier that could devastate the world’s coastlines. As a glaciologist at Caltech, he's spent his career tracking Thwaites Glacier, AKA the "Doomsday Glacier." It’s roughly the size of Florida and already losing 50 billion tons of ice a year. Brent joins Hakeem to break down what scientists know – and don’t know – about the glacier that could determine our future. How certain is that “doom,” and how fast could it happen? They nerd out about what happens as glaciers slip into the sea, how satellites can measure glacier movement down to the millimeter from…
S6 · E24 · 27 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 16 min
Full Interview: The Hidden Math Behind Everything
Jordan Ellenberg tells Hakeem that math isn't just about numbers. It's about everything. The mathematician and bestselling author shares how AI models are trained through trial and error, why geometry secretly governs everything from family trees to statistical correlation, and why uncertainty, not certainty, is the true language of the universe. From new dimensions to hurricanes we can't quite predict, Jordan and Hakeem trace math's fingerprints across physics, language, and daily life in a preview of his upcoming book, Don't Be Too Sure. -------------------------- Guest Bio: Learn more…
S6 · E23 · 25 Aug 2026 · 25 min
Certainty Is Overrated
Jordan Ellenberg finds mathematical certainty overrated. Calming our fear of the unknown, the mathematician joins Hakeem to explore why math, contrary to popular belief, is less about proof and more about probability. He traces uncertainty's surprisingly recent arrival in mathematical history and its deep ties to quantum physics. Jordan also unpacks the difference between what's unknown and what's fundamentally unknowable, why hurricanes and earthquakes are "certain u Learn more about NOVA and visit our YouTube channel. -------------------------- Guest Bio: Jordan Ellenberg is a professor of…
S6 · E22 · 20 Aug 2026 · 27 min
Next Dimension Geometry
Jordan Ellenberg says geometry isn’t about shapes. It’s about distance. In a tour of geometry far stranger than anything from high school, the mathematician breaks down how our ancient understanding of triangles evolved into the invisible architecture behind AI, family trees, and human relationships. Minds expand as we ask why the "closeness" between two ideas is a literal angle in a vast multi-dimensional space, and what can a 19th-century novella about a talking square teach us about worlds we'll never see? Learn more about NOVA and visit our YouTube channel. --------------------------…
S6 · E21 · 18 Aug 2026 · 29 min
AI’s Hidden Math
Jordan Ellenberg has good news: artificial intelligence is just math you can actually understand. The mathematician joins Hakeem to pull back the curtain on how large language models really work, revealing that the "miracle" of AI is closer to trial and error scaled up billions of times than anything resembling thought. Jordan breaks down why the process works so well, how every word becomes a point in a space with hundreds of dimensions, and why your chatbot's "personality" is engineered, not accidental. Learn more about NOVA and visit our YouTube channel. -------------------------- Guest…
S6 · E20 · 13 Aug 2026 · 58 min
Full Interview: Hobbits, Neanderthals, and Dragon Man
Ella Al-Shamahi explores what it means to be human. She reveals the surprising truth that our ancestors shared the planet with at least seven other human species as recently as 50,000 years ago. Ella and Hakeem dig into Neanderthal culture and the mysterious Denisovans who were identified from a single finger bone. Then Ella shares something more personal: her own journey from creationist to one of the leading voices in paleoanthropology. Learn more about NOVA and visit our YouTube channel. -------------------------- Guest Bio: Ella Al-Shamahi is a paleoanthropologist, explorer, and…
S6 · E19 · 11 Aug 2026 · 16 min
Creationist to Evolutionary Biologist
Ella Al-Shamahi set out to disprove the theory of evolution. Now she’s one of its greatest advocates. In this deeply personal conversation, Ella tells Hakeem her story. She started university as an avid creationist missionary with the intention of disproving evolution, and then her world started to fall apart. This candid conversation covers what the journey from creationist to paleoanthropologist actually looked like, and the evidence that shifted her thinking. It is a path with personal costs and the impact of changing worldviews. It's a thoughtful reflection on science, identity,…
S6 · E18 · 6 Aug 2026 · 22 min
Rethinking Neanderthals
Ella Al-Shamahi thinks Neanderthals have a reputation problem, and the science backs her up. For decades, the word "Neanderthal" has been shorthand for something primitive and brutish. But the archaeological record tells a more nuanced story. Ella joins Hakeem to explore what we actually know about our closest ancient relatives: how they looked, how they lived, what their culture reveals about their inner lives, and if we would even recognize one walking around today. They also dig into the remarkable story of the Denisovans, a species shrouded in mystery and identified first not from a…
S6 · E17 · 4 Aug 2026 · 23 min
Real Hobbits?
Ella Al-Shamahi says the iconic picture of human evolution is all wrong. She joins Hakeem to take apart the conventional image of the straight-line march of evolution from ape to modern human. The fossil and DNA record tells a far more complex story. As recently as 50,000 years ago, our ancestors shared the planet with at least seven other human species. From the small-statured Hobbits of Indonesia to the mysterious Denisovans of East Asia, the world was very different, and new research suggests that roughly 20% of our genome may trace back to an unknown “ghost lineage” of human species.…
S6 · E16 · 30 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 9 min
Full Interview: The Future of AI and Us
Daniela Rus brings robots and AI together, and as a computer scientist and roboticist at MIT, she's here to set the record straight. She's not just studying AI from the outside. She's building it, and finding ways to make everyday life better. Daniela joins Hakeem to pull back the curtain on what AI actually is, how it really works, and where it is genuinely headed. What happens when AI leaves the cloud and moves into your phone, your car, and even your body? And what does a tiny worm with 302 neurons have to do with the future of machine intelligence? From the history of AI to so-called…
S6 · E15 · 28 Jul 2026 · 19 min
AI Origins
Daniela Rus is cutting through the AI hype and headlines to give us a real understanding of its future. As Director of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, she has a front-row seat to what AI actually is, how it actually works, and what it can and cannot do. Daniela joins Hakeem to map out the full landscape of a field that is far richer than chatbots and large language models. What are the different types of AI we have today, and how does each one work? Why did methods invented 40 years ago suddenly start working? And how does Daniela envision the impact of AI on…
S6 · E14 · 23 Jul 2026 · 23 min
AI Robots
Daniela Rus has built a robot you can swallow, and that is one of the less surprising things her lab is working on. At MIT's CSAIL, she is leading research at the frontier where artificial intelligence meets the physical world, and the results are unlike anything people have imagined. Daniela joins Hakeem to explore what it will really take for machines to move, reason, and interact the way humans do. Why are today's humanoid robots mechanically impressive but intellectually limited? What is the difference between physical AI and embodied intelligence, and why does it matter? From origami…
S6 · E13 · 21 Jul 2026 · 32 min
When AI Escapes the Data Center
Daniela Rus wants to put AI in your pocket, your car, and your dishwasher. In fact, she has already started. As one of the world's leading AI and robotics researchers, she is building a future where artificial intelligence doesn't live in a distant data center but runs quietly and efficiently on the devices around you. The key is liquid networks, AI models inspired by a tiny worm that gets by on just 302 neurons and that are up to 1,000 times more energy efficient than traditional approaches. Daniela joins Hakeem to explore what that shift actually means: for self-driving vehicles, for…
S6 · E12 · 16 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 15 min
Full Interview: Anxiety Hacking
Wendy Suzuki hopes you have anxiety—good anxiety. She thinks that feeling you try to avoid could actually be your edge! Wendy joins Hakeem to explore how anxiety can be harnessed, rather than eliminated, and how it connects to two other powerful forces shaping your brain: exercise and human connection. What’s happening in that surge of stress—or in the “neurochemical bubble bath” after a hard run? Can you really train your brain to use it differently? And what do oxytocin, prairie voles, and decades of research reveal about why social bonds may be the most powerful force shaping our health,…
S6 · E11 · 14 Jul 2026 · 29 min
Your Brain Needs Friends
Wendy Suzuki says the key to a beautiful brain is friendship, and she joins Hakeem to discuss why human connection can extend your life. By studying certain animals, like prairie voles who develop intense love bonds, we can understand what’s going on in our heads when we connect with others. Hard data and personal stories show, the power of friendship is a shockingly important part of a healthy lifestyle. Learn more about NOVA and visit our YouTube channel. -------------------------- Guest Bio: Wendy Suzuki is a neuroscientist and the Dean of the College of Arts and Science at New York…
S6 · E10 · 9 Jul 2026 · 21 min
Neuroscience of Exercise
Wendy Suzuki says just 10 minutes of movement can change your brain.But how? What’s actually happening in your head during a walk—or a workout—and why does it matter so much? Wendy joins Hakeem to unpack the science of exercise and the brain, from chemical surges to lasting rewiring. Plus: how do meditation, cold showers, and your environment really change your brain? Learn more about NOVA and visit our YouTube channel. -------------------------- Guest Bio: Wendy Suzuki is a neuroscientist and the Dean of the College of Arts and Science at New York University, where her research focuses on…
S6 · E9 · 7 Jul 2026 · 21 min
Good Anxiety
Neuroscientist Wendy Suzuki thinks your anxiety could be a superpower. What if you stopped trying to shut it down—and started using it? Wendy joins Hakeem to reframe anxiety as fuel, not flaw, and shows how to turn that rush of stress into focus and action. Plus, Wendy gives some hot takes on anxiety hacks like fidget spinners and weighted blankets. Learn more about NOVA and visit our YouTube channel. -------------------------- Guest Bio: Wendy Suzuki is a neuroscientist and the Dean of the College of Arts and Science at New York University, where her research focuses on the effects of…
S6 · E8 · 2 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 25 min
Full Interview: T. rex to Birds
Steve Brusatte has the dirt on dinosaurs and joins Hakeem to trace the full 100-million-year history of the tyrannosaur dynasty, the asteroid that ended it, and the remarkable truth that dinosaurs never actually disappeared. One small lineage survived to become every bird alive today, and Steve walks through the long and contested scientific history of how we came to understand that connection. He also shares what it was like to serve as the official paleontology consultant on the Jurassic World films, and how to find the balance between science and cinema. Make sure to subscribe now so you…

About NOVA Presents

NOVA Presents is a English tech & science podcast from GBH. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.

Publisher: GBH
Language: English
Category: Tech & Science
New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 31 min
Latest episode: 13 Oct 2026
Feed: RSS — paste into any podcast app
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1526878803

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