Sidedoor: Science & Nature | Smithsonian Institution

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Illustration of a black hole with Chandra x-ray observatory circling nearby

Sidedoor Podcast

Cosmic Journey II: Voyage into the Abyss

Hitch a ride on the Chandra X-ray Observatory as it scours deep space searching for black holes.

Illustration of a man with his hand reaching out and looking at a black circle.

Sidedoor Podcast

Cosmic Journey I: "Stellar Buffoonery"

Travel back to the 1930s and learn about the mysteries behind a black hole.

Illustration of a single large cicada surrounded by smaller cicadas with a green background.

Sidedoor Podcast

Cicadapalooza

Get ready for cicada broods XIII and XIX emerging at the same time.

Illustration of a blue and purple bird sitting on the side of a white cup of coffee with jungle trees in background.

Sidedoor Podcast

The Birds and the Beans

Head to the cloud forests of Western Panama for a cup of coffee with Sidedoor.

Illustration of a tall metal climbing apparatus in a green jungle, with small outline of Panama in bottom right corner.

Sidedoor Podcast

Dude, Where’s my Carbon?

How does so much carbon end up in tropical forests, and how is it measured? Sidedoor visits Panama to find out.

Illustration featuring a monkey face looking over trees and people with podcast equipment.

Sidedoor Podcast

Monkeyin' Around on the Devil's Island

Follow along on a search for the elusive and rambunctious capuchin monkey on an island in the Pacific.

Illustration showing numbers of months and a man leaping onto the number 29.

Sidedoor Podcast

Jeepers Leapers!

Celebrate February 29th with fun facts about leap years.

Illustration of several different animals and people climbing out of a mail bag.

Sidedoor Podcast

To Sidedoor, With Love

The Sidedoor team runs all around the Smithsonian to answer from a grab bag of listeners' questions.

Illustrations of two heads of brown and white river otters.

Sidedoor Podcast

Welcome Back, Otter

We're on the hunt to learn more about North American river otters.

Illustration of a young girl holding a panda doll and looking sad while saying goodbye to a live panda.

Sidedoor Podcast

Farewell Giant Pandas

A goodbye to the adorable bears after fifty years of pandas at the National Zoo.

Illustration of an arm held out holding a cellphone that is merged with a forest under the screen.

Sidedoor Podcast

Cellphones Rock

Cellphones put the power of the world at our fingertips and it's all made possible by rocks formed millions of years ago, deep underground.

Illustration of three early humans

Sidedoor Podcast

Special: People Eating People

A Smithsonian researcher has made a discovery we couldn't wait to sink our teeth into.

A graphic made up of words depicting a woman leaning over a microscope.

Sidedoor Podcast

The Funk List

Using artificial intelligence and good old fashioned research skills to discover the lost women of science.

Sidedoor Podcast

Bill Nye the Sidedoor Guy

We sit down with Bill Nye to get schooled on science education and comedy.

Illustration of a light bulb with the Earth inside. The bulb has a cord that is held by a hand and is being plugged into a wall.

Sidedoor Podcast

Lights Out

Light pollution affects all life on earth, from humans to plants and insects. Can we have the dark, without giving up the light?

Hubble telescope with out of order sign

Sidedoor Podcast

Hubble Trouble

America's first large space telescope went from a "billion-dollar blunder" to one of history's most important scientific instruments.

giant panda illustration

Sidedoor Podcast

The Sex Lives of Giant Pandas

With a little help from science, the once-endangered giant panda is making a comeback.

woman looking at AI rendering

Sidedoor Podcast

The Robot in the Mirror

Artificial intelligence is built on human intelligence. Meet a very special robot who asks us to consider: whose image will be reflected in our AI future?

Illustration with ginseng creature on a thrown

Sidedoor Podcast

King of the Herbs

The Sidedoor team goes searching for the elusive wild American ginseng—and finds that scientists, conservationists, and criminals are also on the hunt.

leech illustration

Sidedoor Podcast

Bloodsuckers!

Discover how these toothy hangers-on wormed their way into medical practices, performance art, and EVERY human cavity.

Sidedoor Podcast

Make Way for Elephants

With little remaining habitat, learn what happens when wild elephants go urban.

cicada

Sidedoor Podcast

Ode to Cicadas

A celebration of the notorious periodical cicadas that crawl out of the earth by the billions every 17 years.

Illustration of scientist in lab

Sidedoor Podcast

Bonus: The 1957 Pandemic That Wasn’t

Go back to a time when viruses had the upper hand and learn about the vaccine that helped turn the tide in the war against infectious diseases.

herring illustration

Sidedoor Podcast

Holding Out for a Herring

Join the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center’s herring tagging team to learn how dam removal restores habitats for herring.

Illustration of a night heron

Sidedoor Podcast

Hot Bird Summer

Where do black-crowned night herons fly off to in the fall? For more than a century, nobody knew. Until now.

Illustration of gorillas.

Sidedoor Podcast

The Gorilla Epidemic

When a highly contagious mystery illness spread through the world’s mountain gorilla population, biologists feared the entire species could be lost.

monarch butterfly illustration.

Sidedoor Podcast

The People's Insect

Unlock the secret lives of monarch butterflies and learn how to support them on their journey.

River illustration with factory.

Sidedoor Podcast

The Riverkeeper

Meet Fred Tutman, the longest-serving Waterkeeper in the Chesapeake Bay region and the founding Patuxent Riverkeeper.

illustration of Apollo crew.

Sidedoor Podcast

Apollo 12's Really Close Call

Hear the often-overlooked story of Apollo 12, one full of danger, discovery, and the power of friendship.

illustrated birds.

Sidedoor Podcast

Birds, Birds, Birds!

Three billion birds have gone missing since 1970. In this episode, we go bird-spotting with Pete Marra, and learn what each of us can do to bring birds back.

collage of natural scenes.

Sidedoor Podcast

The Last Man Who Knew It All

You may not know his name, but Alexander von Humboldt inspired a key part of America’s national identity through science and art.

graphic collage of space suit related items.

Sidedoor Podcast

Outer Space & Underwear

Learn how lingerie, and the expert seamstresses who sewed it, played a critical role in the first well-supported steps on the moon.

Depiction of images related to scent.

Sidedoor Podcast

This Episode Smells

A team of artists and scientists use DNA to try to revive the scent of a flower extinct for more than a century.

Sidedoor Podcast

The Dinosaur War

Behind the fossilized teeth, bones, and claws displayed in the National Museum of Natural History’s new Fossil Hall is the story of two men and a nasty feud.

orchid illustration.

Sidedoor Podcast

The Wild Orchid Mystery

Scientists at the Smithsonian are working to protect orchids and their habitats, but first they need solve a surprisingly difficult problem: how to grow one.

moon lander and space walk illustration

Sidedoor Podcast

Space Jocks & Moon Rocks

Sidedoor joins forces with the National Air and Space Museum to explore the mysteries of lunar science.

Roxy

Sidedoor Podcast

The Feather Detective

Learn how Roxie Laybourne and her team helped keep the friendly skies friendly for both birds and people.

golden frog

Sidedoor Podcast

The Silence of the Frogs

Travel to the Panamanian jungle to learn how the Smithsonian is helping some endangered frogs avoid extinction.

whale

Sidedoor Podcast

50 Shades of Gray Whales

Explore our surprising relationship with whales through the lens of one species: the gray whale.

sasquatch footprint

Sidedoor Podcast

Seriously Seeking Sasquatch

Grover Krantz is usually remembered as a man who loved science so much that he donated his body to it, but some remember Krantz as a pioneer in the study of Sasquatch.

mosquito

Sidedoor Podcast

The World’s Deadliest Animal

The world’s deadliest animal isn’t the tiger, the snake, or even the alligator—it’s the mosquito.

skull

The Mystery Bones of Witch Hill

Grab your Scooby Snacks and join Sidedoor as we journey to the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama to hear about unusual bones found on a dig of “Witch Hill.”

scimitar-horned oryx

Sidedoor Podcast

Don’t Call Me Extinct

Erased from the wild for three decades, the scimitar-horned oryx are back in the Central African country of Chad.

sidedoor: ep. 21 | a crane with a crush

Sidedoor Podcast

A Crane with a Crush

Take a peek into an unlikely relationship between an animal keeper and a white-naped crane, with high stakes for the future of an entire species.

Sidedoor: ep. 19 | america’s first food spy

Sidedoor Podcast

America’s First Food Spy

Meet the food spies—globe-trotting scientists and explorers of the 19th-century who sought exotic crops to enhance America’s diet and help grow the economy.

episode 15

Sidedoor Podcast

If These Bones Could Talk

Explorer, scholar, and 19^th-century darling Robert Kennicott seemed destined to lead a full and adventurous life.

drawing of feeding a baby hippo

Sidedoor Podcast

The Hungry Hungry Hippo Baby

A race with time to save Fiona the baby hippo with help from the world's largest exotic-milk repository at the Smithsonian's National Zoo.

episode 4

Sidedoor Podcast

The Mean, Green, Water-Cleaning Machine

The Algal Turf Scrubber harvests algae from large bodies of water and converts it to biomass, and is one of the marine ecology field’s best-kept secrets.

dinosaur head illustrated with sharp teeth.

Sidedoor Podcast

Butting Heads

A grab bag of stories from the Smithsonian Sidedoor team.

orchid illustration

Sidedoor Podcast

Masters of Disguise

A grab bag of stories from the Smithsonian Sidedoor team.

Stylized orangutan illustration.

Sidedoor Podcast

Special Delivery

The payoff is all in the delivery: missile mail, orangutan pregnancy, and landing a joke.

Illustration of computer motherboard and outline of a head.

Sidedoor Podcast

Tech Yourself

A grab bag of stories from the Smithsonian Sidedoor team.

Sidedoor

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