The Night Science Podcast

The Night Science Podcast explores the scientific creative process, with your hosts @ItaiYanai and @MartinJLercher

[The Night Science Podcast @nightsciencepod]

Please subscribe to the Night Science Podcast, where in each episode, two scientists – @ItaiYanai & @MartinJLercher – explore the creative side of their process with a leading colleague.
Apple:https://t.co/EdXjnCsFmC
Spotify:https://t.co/UrTHq9WD6d
Google:https://t.co/Wwc3bwxZih

[Itai Yanai @ItaiYanai]

If you only listen to one episode of the Night Science Podcast, this one is it! Imagine taking a course that changes the way you think. We found it at the mythical MBL at Woods Hole!
Episode 89: Woods Hole Night Science
Apple: https://t.co/EvJoyDyKCX
Spotify: https://t.co/mSY2UJL3mE

[John Spear @spearmicrobe]

Want to learn about Night Science Microbial Diversity Course style @MBLScience ? A great listen from Itai and Martin.

[Itai Yanai @ItaiYanai]

🔥 Have you heard about the MBL summer courses at Woods Hole? In our new episode of the Night Science Podcast we visit the mythical Microbial Diversity course there and talk with the students & instructors. What we found really amazed me!

[The Night Science Podcast @nightsciencepod]

Thank you to Amaranta Kahn, John Spear, Scott Dawson, Leslie Day, Dallas Mould, Jason Baer and Ioana Stanca for speaking with Itai at Woods Hole.

[The Night Science Podcast @nightsciencepod]

🔥New episode just dropped! Have you heard about the MBL summer courses at Woods Hole? In this episode we visit the mythical Microbial Diversity course there and talk with the students & instructors. Check out how they learn to ask new questions and think about approaching them!

[The Night Science Podcast @nightsciencepod]

Episode 89: Woods Hole Night Science
Check it out here:
Apple: https://t.co/s5iqvkNjsH
Spotify: https://t.co/vITDNYr2U6

[Itai Yanai @ItaiYanai]

Science at its best is organized chaos.
We teach young scientists how to be organized and robust, but not the night science creativity that’s needed for discovery. Come train with us in how to teach the tools of the creative scientific process in our EMBO train the trainer event.

[Itai Yanai @ItaiYanai]

🔥The NIH has funded our R25 grant to bring Night Science training to all 40,000 US postdoctoral fellows!
It all started with discussions at the Radcliffe Summit we organized 2 years ago at Harvard where the question was how bring creativity training into the sciences. Our R25 team includes the amazing @StearnsLab, @brangwynnelab, @OylerYanivLab, @JamesKaufman, Maura N. Polansky, Oliver Bogler and @MartinJLercher.

[Itai Yanai @ItaiYanai]

How would you let the LLM dream? [...] In a sense, to replay things, organize them, think about them so that tomorrow when we wake up, our thoughts are more organized than just input-output-input-output.
–Jure Leskovec, Stanford Professor, @jure

[The Night Science Podcast @nightsciencepod]

50×50: Science Across America – 50 creators, 50 scientists, 50 states, 50 videos over 10 weeks in 2026, from the Independent Media Initiative. It goes where science actually happens, with the people who actually do it – which is the part we're always most curious about.

[The Night Science Podcast @nightsciencepod]

🔥A new episode comes out today!
We talk with Stanford professor Jure Leskovec about how AI dreams up new science.
@jure @ItaiYanai @MartinJLercher

[The Night Science Podcast @nightsciencepod]

This episode is generously sponsored by IMI and Research Theory! @TheIndieInit @research_theory

Worth a look: https://t.co/xlKKmRyeqy

[Itai Yanai @ItaiYanai]

There is where I disagree with Bill Martin:
"If you follow the data, then you've completely lost control... you're putting the data where your mind should be. For me, the scientific process is one of questions.. But if you go into data driven science... seek and you shall find."

[Itai Yanai @ItaiYanai]

I actually don't mind being wrong.. we said this is what's happening on the Millennium Bridge.. what we proposed doesn't work. But it was interesting. We really did stick our neck out & unfortunately got our head chopped off.
–Steven Strogatz, Cornell Professor @stevenstrogatz

[Itai Yanai @ItaiYanai]

I said to my PI, I want to go do my postdoc, will you write a letter for me. And he wrote in my letter that I wasn't very creative .. I finally met with Magda and she told me she saw straight through the letter.
–Samantha Morris, Harvard Professor
@morris_lab @ZernickaGoetz

[Itai Yanai @ItaiYanai]

Creativity is ultimately rooted in the individual
–Ruth Lehmann, Director of the Whitehead Institute, MIT

[Itai Yanai @ItaiYanai]

Science would be more trustworthy in the public eye if scientists were more open about the creative process behind scientific discovery.
– Tom McLeish, on the Night Science Podcast, episode 10

[Itai Yanai @ItaiYanai]

Going from a creative idea [..you ask..] what does that predict that other ideas don't predict? And what's the fastest way we could find out that it's just completely wrong? I think that's critical and I think that doesn't come naturally to a lot of people because they become very attached to their ideas, and they want them to be correct. And that's the worst possible thing. Ideas are cheap. You have to be able to have many ideas, and most of them could be wrong.
–@BenLehner, on the Night Science Podcast, episode 9

[Itai Yanai @ItaiYanai]

Day science is trying to design tests that would disprove a hypothesis – and night science is finding something that wasn't initially thought of. So basically wandering into the forest of the data and trying to figure out what's up.
– Yana Bromberg, Night Science Podcast, Ep. 8