Uploaded May 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
In this week’s Science Quickly news roundup, we look at promising results from a new study about preeclampsia. We also cover the latest news about the Trump administration’s push against clean energy. Plus, we remember pioneering geneticist J. Craig Venter, who died last week, and Scientific American’s chief newsletter editor Andrea Gawrylewski shares an interesting defense technology story from the magazine’s May issue. We then dig into a fascinating new study about scorpion stingers and claws. Finally, we ask a strange question: Where was your backyard 320 million years ago?
0:00 — Introduction
0:22 — Study Offers Preeclampsia Hope
2:24 — Remembering J. Craig Venter
3:36 — Offshore Wind Buyouts & Clean Energy Politics
5:36 — DARPA's SciFy: The Military's BS Detector
7:24 — Scorpions Are Literally Made of Metal
8:44 — Where Was Your Backyard 320 Million Years Ago?
10:57 — Outro
Recommended Reading:
Could blood filtering help treat one of pregnancy’s most deadly conditions? scientificamerican.com/article/blood-filtering-could-help-treat-preeclampsia-pilot-study-suggests
Human genome decoder J. Craig Venter dies at age 79
scientificamerican.com/article/geneticist-and-decoder-of-the-human-genome-j-craig-venter-dies-at-79
DARPA’s AI is built to call BS on wild weapons claims
scientificamerican.com/article/darpa-built-an-ai-to-fact-check-enemy-weapons-claims
See where your backyard was millions of years ago at Paleolaltitude.org
paleolatitude.org
E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!
Discover something new every day. Subscribe to Scientific American:
scientificamerican.com/getsciam
And sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter:
scientificamerican.com/account/email-preferences
Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Sushmita Pathak and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.
In this week’s Science Quickly news roundup, we look at promising results from a new study about preeclampsia. We also cover the latest news about the Trump administration’s push against clean energy. Plus, we remember pioneering geneticist J. Craig Venter, who died last week, and Scientific American’s chief newsletter editor Andrea Gawrylewski shares an interesting defense technology story from the magazine’s May issue. We then dig into a fascinating new study about scorpion stingers and claws. Finally, we ask a strange question: Where was your backyard 320 million years ago?
0:00 — Introduction
0:22 — Study Offers Preeclampsia Hope
2:24 — Remembering J. Craig Venter
3:36 — Offshore Wind Buyouts & Clean Energy Politics
5:36 — DARPA's SciFy: The Military's BS Detector
7:24 — Scorpions Are Literally Made of Metal
8:44 — Where Was Your Backyard 320 Million Years Ago?
10:57 — Outro
Recommended Reading:
Could blood filtering help treat one of pregnancy’s most deadly conditions? scientificamerican.com/article/blood-filtering-could-help-treat-preeclampsia-pilot-study-suggests
Human genome decoder J. Craig Venter dies at age 79
scientificamerican.com/article/geneticist-and-decoder-of-the-human-genome-j-craig-venter-dies-at-79
DARPA’s AI is built to call BS on wild weapons claims
scientificamerican.com/article/darpa-built-an-ai-to-fact-check-enemy-weapons-claims
See where your backyard was millions of years ago at Paleolaltitude.org
paleolatitude.org
E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover!
Discover something new every day. Subscribe to Scientific American:
scientificamerican.com/getsciam
And sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter:
scientificamerican.com/account/email-preferences
Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Sushmita Pathak and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.
