What Is Curiosity in the Age of AI?

Katia Moskvitch is a science journalist and physicist, she has written about neutron stars, quantum computers, and the human stories behind them. But this episode isn’t about data or discovery. It’s about curiosity.

From BBC newsrooms to remote observatories in Nepal and Argentina, Katia has seen what curiosity costs and why it’s still worth paying for. She speaks about the scientists who never found dark matter but searched anyway. About the women whose names were erased from Nobel history. And about the growing pressure to turn mystery into content.

This conversation is a defense of slow understanding, of staying confused long enough for something real to emerge.

Because if we stop being confused, we stop being curious. And if we stop being curious, we stop being human.

Please enjoy the show. 

And share with a curious friend. 

Thanks, Mark & Jeremy

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Links

Katia: https://www.quantamagazine.org/authors/katiamoskvitch/

Neutron Stars: The Quest for the Zombies of The Cosmos: https://www.amazon.com/Neutron-Stars-Understand-Zombies-Cosmos/dp/0674919351

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Former Guests:

IBM, D-Wave, Kevin Kelly, Don Norman, Coinbase, Starcloud, David Bianchi, IONQ

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Chapters

(00:09) Why Curiosity Still Matters in Science Communication  

(01:52) What Makes a Great Science Journalist  

(04:56) Katia’s Journey from BBC to Nature to Wired  

(09:20) Reporting Science from the Field (and Under Solar Panels)  

(11:26) When Awards Don’t Mean Understanding  

(14:42) Quantum Computing Without the Hype  

(17:31) What Most People Misunderstand About Qubits  

(21:21) The Women Erased from Scientific Discovery  

(22:23) Neutron Stars: Why One Spoon Weighs More Than Earth  

(26:33) Jocelyn Bell Burnell and the Pulsar That Changed Everything  

(30:28) Astrophysics, Gender, and the Fight for Recognition  

(32:09) Quantum Weirdness and the Future of Technology  

(40:13) Space, AI, and What Comes After Us