This week, how to avoid contaminating Mars with microbial hitchhikers, turning mammalian cells into biocomputers, and a look at how underground labs in China are creating synthetic opioids for street sales in the United States with Online News Editor Catherine Matacic.

Caitlin Hicks Pries joins Julia Rosen to discuss her study of the response of soil carbon to a warming world.

And for this month’s book segment, Jen Golbeck talks to Rob Dunn about his book Never Out of Season: How Having the Food We Want When We Want It Threatens Our Food Supply and Our Future.

Listen to previous podcasts.

[Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

This week, we chat about cleaning blueberries with purple plasma, how Tibetan dogs adapted to high-altitude living, and who’s checking ocelot message boards with Online News Editor David Grimm. Plus, Science’s Alexa Billow talks to Joe Paton about how we know time flies when mice are having fun.

Listen to previous podcasts.

[Image: Joseph Sites/USDA ARS; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

Satellite data helps map the last unexplored terrain on planet Earth.

New evidence reveals the complicated history of stone tool use 400,000 - 200,000 years ago.

Hindcasting weather over the ocean near the California coast for 600 years.

Frugal engineering for global health; roundup of daily news.

Bringing cellulosic ethanol to market; roundup of daily news.

Sharing microbes around the house; roundup of daily news.

Investigating web censorship practices in China; roundup of daily news.

Parenting from before conception; roundup of daily news.

A new class of gamma ray sources; roundup of daily news.

A new class of gamma ray sources; roundup of daily news.

NIH opts to back researchers rather than research; roundup of daily news with David Grimm.

Controlling populations in the wild through genetic manipulation; roundup of daily news with David Grimm.

The fate of plastic that ends up at sea; roundup of daily news with David Grimm.

Psychedelic research resurgence; roundup of daily news with David Grimm.

Moths chasing odors; roundup of daily news with David Grimm.

Learning to read minds; roundup of daily news with David Grimm.

Mapping Mexico's genetically diverse population; roundup of daily news with David Grimm.

Taming the unwieldy web of global supply chains; roundup of daily news with David Grimm.

The impact of Tiananmen Square on science in China; roundup of daily news with David Grimm.

Inequality and health; roundup of daily news with David Grimm.

Measuring minute motions; roundup of daily news with David Grimm.

Marine archaeology on the Silk Road; roundup of daily news with David Grimm.

Climate and crops; roundup of daily news with David Grimm.

Tsetse fly genetics; roundup of daily news with David Grimm.

A distinctive binary star system; roundup of daily news with David Grimm.

Fruitflies take evasive action; roundup of daily news with David Grimm.

Money battles; roundup of daily news with David Grimm.

BRCA1 turns 20; roundup of daily news with David Grimm.

Human odor discrimination; roundup of daily news with David Grimm.

What Google's Flu Trends can teach us about the pitfalls of big data; roundup of daily news with David Grimm.

Celebrating crystallography's centennial; how climate pushes malaria uphill; roundup of daily news with David Grimm.

Treatment trials for Down Syndrome; roundup of daily news with David Grimm.

Eavesdropping on ecosystems; roundup of daily news with David Grimm.

Termite-inspired builder robots; why some mammalian cells have so many copies of their chromosomes.

Tackling the role of early fetal brain development in autism; daily news stories with David Grimm.

Should we worry more about quantum decryption in the future or the past, how salt's role as a micronutrient may effect the global carbon cycle, and a daily news roundup.

The genome from a cancerous cell line that's been living for millenia, Opportinty's first 10 years on Mars, and a daily news roundup.

Hunter-gatherer gut microbes, fast moving mountains, and a daily news roundup.

Ocean-going vesicles; stories from our daily news site.

Britain's prehistoric stone monuments; stories from our daily news site.

Notable highlights from the year in science; Science's breakthrough of the year and runners up.

Fear-enhanced odor detection with John McGann; the latest from Curiosity’s hunt for traces of ancient life on Mars with Richard Kerr; and more.

Discussing the origin of transcriptional noise with Alvaro Sanchez; examining results from a drilling expedition at the Tohoku-oki fault; and looking at the potential benefits of snake venom with Kai Kupferschmidt.

Talking kids' science books with Maria Sosa; predicting happiness in marriage with James McNulty; investigating questionable scholarly publishing practices in China with Mara Hvistendahl.

The minimum requirements for a Y chromosome with Monika Ward; Eliot Marshall checks in on U.S.'s missile interception program 30 years later; Sylvia Zhu breaks down observations from the brightest gamma-ray burst.

The origin of dog domestication in Europe with Robert Wayne; Richard Lenski tracks the adaptation of bacteria over 50,000 generations; Robert Services describes the prospects of a new contender in solar technology.