SciComm Summer #20: Adam Cole on Making "Howtown"

Kicking off the 3rd season of Hot SciComm Summer is Adam Cole. Adam started at NPR’s Science Desk in 2011 where he started making short videos and radio pieces. In 2014, he launched the YouTube channel Skunk Bear with NPR, which was a venue for fun, quirky, visual forays into science stories big and small. After NPR, he did work for Vox, including their Netflix series, “The Mind, Explained” in 2019. Most recently, Adam’s work came on my radar again because he’s one half of the new YouTube channel, Howtown. Fans of SciCommSummer will remember my very first guest back in 2022— Joss Fong . Well, Joss is the other half of Howtown . Together, they’ve been doing really excellent work building an independent channel making long-form videos exploring big questions and the methods scientists use to answer them. It’s so good. You need to check it out if you haven’t yet. Adam shares his story as a science journalist, the makings of Howtown, the value of having a creative partner, and the pros and cons of working for yourself or a more established institution. Watch Howtown ( YouTube ) and support their Patreon . You can find the rest of this summer's science communication podcast series here . For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: Learn more about Opinion Science at and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

You can listen to SciComm Summer #20: Adam Cole on Making "Howtown" online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

SciComm Summer #20: Adam Cole on Making "Howtown" is an episode from Opinion Science by Andy Luttrell.

This episode is 55:30 long.

This episode was published on Jun 30, 2025.

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