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Cloning vigorous crops, and finding the first romantic kiss   First up this week, building resilience into crops. Staff Writer Erik Stokstad joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss all the tricks farmers use now to make resilient hybrid crops of rice or wheat and how genetically engineering hybrid crop plants to clone themselves may be the next step.   After that we ask: When did we start kissing? Troels Pank Arbøll is an assistant professor of Assyriology in the department of cross-cultural and regional studies at the University of Copenhagen. He and Sarah chat about the earliest evidence for kissing—romantic style—and why it is unlikely that such kisses had a single place or time of origin.   This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.   About the Science Podcast   Authors: Sarah Crespi; Erik Stokstad   Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adi7436     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A new approach promises to increase organ transplants but some question whether they should proceed without revisiting the definition of death, and what happens to rural lands when people head to urban centers   First up this week, innovations in organ transplantation lead to ethical debates. Host Sarah Crespi talks with Staff Writer Jennifer Couzin-Frankel and several transplant surgeons and doctors about defining death, technically. Also in this segment: Anji Wall, abdominal transplant surgeon and bioethicist at Baylor University Medical Center Marat Slessarav, consultant intensivist and donation physician at the London Health Sciences Centre and assistant professor in the department of medicine at Western University Nader Moazami, surgical head of heart transplantation at New York University Langone Health   Next up, what happens to abandoned rural lands when people leave the countryside for cities? Producer Kevin McLean talks with Gergana Daskalova, a Schmidt Science Fellow in the Biodiversity, Ecology, and Conservation group at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, about how the end of human activities in these places can lead to opportunities for biodiversity.   This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy. Additional music provided by Looperman.com   About the Science Podcast   [Image: Martin Cathrae/Flickr; Music: Jeffrey Cook]   [alt: partially collapsed old barn with podcast overlay]   Authors: Sarah Crespi; Kevin McLean; Jennifer Couzin-Frankel   Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adi6336 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Builders of the largest scientific instruments, and how cracks can add resilience to an ecosystem   First up this week, a story on a builder of the biggest machines. Producer Kevin McLean talks with Staff Writer Adrian Cho about Adrian’s dad and his other baby: an x-ray synchrotron.   Next up on this episode, a look at self-organizing landscapes. Host Sarah Crespi and Chi Xu, a professor of ecology at Nanjing University, talk about a Science Advances paper on how resilience in an ecosystem can come from the interaction of a plant and cracks in the soil.   Finally, in a sponsored segment from the Science/AAAS Custom Publishing Office, Jackie Oberst, assistant editor for custom publishing, discusses challenges early-career researchers face and how targeted funding for this group can enable their future success. She talks with Gary Michelson, founder and co-chair of Michelson Philanthropies and Aleksandar Obradovic, this year’s grand prize winner of the annual Michelson Philanthropies and Science Prize for Immunology.   This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.   About the Science Podcast   [Image: Hong’an Ding/Yellow River Estuary Association of Photographers; Music: Jeffrey Cook]   [alt: red beach from above with podcast overlay]   Authors: Sarah Crespi; Kevin McLean; Adrian Cho   Episode page: https://www.science.org/doi/science.adi5718  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices