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Science Made Simple

Rehan Ahmed

Science Made Simple is a science podcast that explains big ideas in plain English — science explained simply for students, curious minds, and science lovers.

Explore astronomy and space — NASA, Artemis, the James Webb Telescope, black holes, exoplanets and the search for alien life — plus brain science and neuroscience, physics, biology, climate, and artificial intelligence, one clear topic at a time.

New episodes daily — three fresh episodes every day. Every episode takes one complex question, removes the jargon, and answers it in about a minute.

Hit follow and feed your brain, the simple way.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/science-made-simple--6610397/support.

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26 episodes
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English

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Episodes 26

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S8 · E20
Tuesday · 1 min
One in Ten Billion: CERN Finds Evidence of the Rarest Particle Decay | Science Made Simple
Discover how CERN's LHCb experiment announced on 3 November 2026 the first evidence from a single experiment for a Bd meson decaying into two muons, a process the Standard Model predicts only once in ten billion beauty particles. Learn why this...
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S8 · E19
Tuesday · 1 min
The Giant Crane That Never Went Extinct | Science Made Simple
Discover how ancient DNA solved a 150-year-old mystery: the supposed extinct giant crane Grus primigenia, named in the 19th century from large bones found in caves in southern France, was actually the common crane Grus grus. Learn how Bournemouth...
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S8 · E18
Tuesday · 1 min
Dinosaur Blood Found After 115 Million Years | Science Made Simple
Discover how scientists found mineralized red blood cells and heme molecules in a 115-million-year-old Aratasaurus dinosaur bone from Brazil, published in PNAS on 2 November 2026. Learn why the hausmannite mineral acted like a natural time capsule,...
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S8 · E17
Monday · 1 min
Hubble Needs a Boost to Stay in Orbit | Science Made Simple
Discover how NASA is asking private companies to help raise the Hubble Space Telescope into a higher orbit and extend its working life. Learn why atmospheric drag is slowly lowering Hubble's altitude, why the telescope cannot boost itself, what the 29...
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S8 · E16
Monday · 1 min
378 Days on Fake Mars: NASA's CHAPEA Crew Walks Out | Science Made Simple
Discover how four NASA volunteers spent 378 days inside the 3D-printed Mars Dune Alpha habitat in Houston, from 19 October 2025 to 31 October 2026. Learn what they did inside — growing crops, practising simulated spacewalks and living with Mars-like...
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S8 · E15
Monday · 1 min
Hera Sees Two Asteroids: One Dot Becomes Two | Science Made Simple
Discover how ESA's Hera spacecraft saw the Didymos and Dimorphos asteroids as two separate objects for the first time. Learn why the pair previously looked like a single dot, how the 18 October image from about 1,280 km revealed tiny Dimorphos, and...
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S8 · E14
Sunday · 1 min
Comets Probably Didn't Seed Life on Earth | Science Made Simple
Discover how University of Cambridge scientists tested whether comets could have delivered life's building blocks to early Earth. Learn why small comets break up in the atmosphere, why fast, steep impacts destroy most hydrogen cyanide (HCN), why...
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S8 · E13
Sunday · 1 min
Cold's Hidden Lifespan Switch: The BH2 Pathway | Science Made Simple
Discover how moderately cold temperatures switch on a hidden BH2 metabolic pathway in roundworms, extending lifespan by about 15 percent. Learn how the CAT-4 enzyme in muscle makes BH2, how it travels to the gut and nerves, converts to BH4 and helps...
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S8 · E12
Sunday · 1 min
Gut Toxin's Hidden Door Found: Claudin-4 and Colon Cancer | Science Made Simple
Discover how Johns Hopkins scientists found claudin-4, the docking protein a gut bacterium's toxin needs before it can damage the colon lining. Learn how Bacteroides fragilis toxin BFT cuts E-cadherin, how a soluble claudin-4 decoy protected mice from...
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S8 · E11
Saturday · 1 min
New Dwarf Planet Beyond Pluto: Rubin Finds 2026 ED138 | Science Made Simple
Discover how the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile found 2026 ED138, a large icy body beyond Pluto. Learn why its estimated size of 600 to 1,500 kilometres makes it a dwarf planet candidate, how it sits about 46 astronomical units from the Sun, why...
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S8 · E10
Saturday · 1 min
Lab-Grown Ancient Microbes: Our Oldest Relatives Found | Science Made Simple
Discover how JAMSTEC scientists grew two strains of Heimdallarchaeia in the lab for the first time. Learn why these archaea are the closest known relatives of eukaryotes, why their simple interiors surprised researchers, how their long branching...
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S8 · E9
Saturday · 1 min
Rooibos Seeds Go to Space: 17,346 Seeds Head to the ISS | Science Made Simple
Discover how 17,346 rooibos seeds from South Africa are heading to the International Space Station. Learn why the seeds travel first to Voyager Technologies in Texas, how a compact Nanolab will carry them aboard the Cygnus NG-25 spacecraft between...
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S8 · E8
October 30 · 1 min
A Third Kind of Magnetism: Altermagnetism Confirmed | Science Made Simple
Discover how a SLAC-led team confirmed altermagnetism, a third magnetic phase, in manganese telluride (MnTe). Learn how ferromagnets align spins in one direction, antiferromagnets cancel them out, and altermagnets combine both traits through a chiral...
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S8 · E7
October 30 · 58 sec
A Rock from Mars: Teghaza 001's 13 Possible Homes | Science Made Simple
Discover how NASA's October 29 map narrows the ancient Martian meteorite Teghaza 001 to 13 possible origin sites in Mars' southern highlands. Learn how the rock, found in Mali's Sahara Desert in 2022 and dated to more than 4.1 billion years old, was...
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S8 · E6
October 30 · 1 min
The Horns of Venus: A Crescent Beyond 180 Degrees | Science Made Simple
Discover how NASA's October 29 Astronomy Picture of the Day shows Venus as a thin glowing crescent, not the Moon. Learn why Venus, seen almost directly between Earth and the Sun, shows phases like the Moon, why its thick atmosphere bends and scatters...
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S8 · E5
October 29 · 1 min
Australia's Spider Crater: A Giant Spider Seen from Space | Science Made Simple
Discover how NASA's Landsat 9 image of Australia's Spider Crater reveals a giant spider-like shape in the Kimberley region. Learn why the 13 by 11 kilometre oval, with a 4 kilometre spider-like centre, is the eroded remains of an ancient meteorite...
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S8 · E4
October 25 · 1 min
The Hunter's Moon: October's Full Moon Rises Tonight | Science Made Simple
Discover how the Hunter's Moon lights up the October sky tonight, why it rises at nearly the same time for several nights, and what Saturn nearby adds to the view. Learn the story behind the Hunter's Moon name, how the Moon's orbit shapes its...
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S8 · E3
October 24 · 49 sec
Nobel Prize 2026: Ghost Particles from Space Caught in Antarctic Ice — IceCube Explained | Science Made Simple
Discover how Francis Halzen and the IceCube Neutrino Observatory won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics by catching high-energy neutrinos from deep space in Antarctic ice. These ghost particles travel across the universe and reveal its most powerful...
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S8 · E2
October 24 · 53 sec
Nobel Prize 2026: Controlling Brain Cells with Light — Optogenetics Explained | Science Made Simple
Discover how optogenetics won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel discovered how to switch nerve cells on and off with light, changing how scientists study the brain, memory and behaviour....
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S8 · E1
October 24 · 52 sec
3I/ATLAS: The Interstellar Comet Older Than the Sun | Science Made Simple
Discover how interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, a visitor from another star system, became the biggest space story of 2026. Scientists using the James Webb Space Telescope found unusual chemistry in this ancient comet, and new research shows the Sun...
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Showing 1–20 of 26 episodes