Nature India Podcast

A whale skeleton beneath a desert. Wild pigs tamed by ancient Indian farmers. Rogue tigers identified by their DNA. And nanoparticles that keep human blood flowing. This is This Week in India’s Science.

From probing ancient volcanic dykes to forecast underground magma, to tracing how sunspot swirls shape solar storms, mapping climate-driven venom shifts in Russell’s vipers, and decoding monsoon-triggered marine crashes in the Bay of Bengal — this week’s top science stories as reported by Nature India.

This week, we take you from the Moon’s ancient past to India’s experiments at the International Space Station, from courtroom debates on genetically modified crops to a conservation story that’s turning heads around the world. India’s scientific landscape is shifting fast — and we’re here to unpack the stories that matter.

In this special episode, we take you inside the Public Communication of Science and Technology PCST 2025 Conference in Aberdeen, Scotland, a global gathering of science communication researchers, practitioners, and educators, all asking one urgent question: How can science communication drive meaningful change in a world full of transitions, traditions, and tensions?Against this rich international backdrop, we spotlight a group of science communicators from India who are navigating their own complex terrain — of multilingual publics, institutional inertia, environmental urgency, and the ambition of making science relevant in everyday life.We hear candid reflections on the blurred lines between science journalism, outreach, and advocacy; the challenges of working in under-resourced media ecosystems, the power (and pitfalls) of storytelling across languages and platforms and the urgent need for collective climate response in the Global South.

Episode 52: This Week in India's Science: 26 May 2025Cosmologist Jayant Narlikar’s legacy and the Global South’s push for culturally rooted AI

Episode 51: This week in India's science: 19 May 2025Self-swimming synthetic cells, surprise erosion hotspots, immune cells behind severe dengue and how ancestral diets shaped immunity.Host: Subhra Priyadarshini; Sound editing: Prince George

Ancient forests, immune diversity map, ecological twist to drug resistance and potential cancer treatment. Host: Subhra Priyadarshini; Sound editing: Prince George

Gene-edited rice, spacebound Indian astronaut, plastic-eating microbes, antibiotic access crisis and mitochondria revealing secrets of evolution

Episode 48: This week in India's science: 28 April 2025Remembering K. Kasturirangan, climate risks to mothers, India's pandemic preparedness, mosquito threats from rising seas, and a tulsi boost for goat health