Twitter: @sciam
Site: www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/60-second-science
1269 episodes
2014 to present
Average episode: 5 minutes
Open in Apple Podcasts • RSS
Categories: Story-Style
Podcaster's summary: Tune in every week for quick, fascinating new developments and dives in the world of science.
| Episodes |
| 2024-Apr-15 • 10 minutes Do Sperm Whales Have Culture? They're Hard to Study, But What Has Been Found is Fascinating |
| 2024-Apr-12 • 10 minutes Measles Is Back, and That’s Scary Today we’re going to look at how measles—a disease that was practically eliminated in the U.S.—has resurged in recent months, because people basically forgot how bad it was and got complacent about vaccines. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2024-Apr-10 • 16 minutes Did the Eclipse Give You the Amateur Astronomy Bug? Here’s How to Get Started Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is a professional astronomer—with a passion for amateur astrophotography—and she's here to offer tips and tricks for want to get into capturing the night sky. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2024-Apr-08 • 6 minutes A Veteran Eclipse Chaser Explains the Thrill of Totality The feeling of a total solar eclipse is intense, and the sights, sensations and emotions can overwhelm you even if you think you know what's coming. And we sat down with Kate Russo, a psychologist, author and Eclipse Chaser, who's seen 13 total solar eclipses over the last 25 years, to talk about what to expect. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2024-Apr-05 • 18 minutes Three Times Eclipses Eclipsed Previous Science From the discovery of new elements to the testing of novel theories of gravity, solar eclipses have helped spark scientific progress for centuries. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2024-Apr-03 • 11 minutes Humans Find Total Eclipses Startling. What About a Komodo Dragon? Eclipses can affect animals, and biologists are preparing to see what happens during totality on April 8. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2024-Apr-01 • 13 minutes Inside the Race to Protect Artists from Artificial Intelligence AI-generated art is creating new ethical issues—and competition—for digital artists. Nightshade and Glaze are two tools helping creators fight back. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2024-Mar-29 • 11 minutes The Tale of the Snail Slime Wrangler Mucus is a miracle of evolution, and some researchers are trying to re-create what nature makes naturally. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2024-Mar-27 • 12 minutes Mucus Saves Your Life Every Day The slimy substance is so powerful that doctors once made hog stomach mucus milkshakes to treat ulcers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2024-Mar-25 • 9 minutes Magical Mucus: On the Benefits of Getting Slimed by a Hagfish If you take a journey into the depths of the slime all around us, you find yourself starting to understand that mucus is a miracle. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2024-Mar-22 • 16 minutes How Artificial Intelligence Helped Write this Award-Winning Song Machine-learning algorithms allow composers to create all-new instruments. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2024-Mar-20 • 10 minutes Why Short Naps Are Good for You A quick nap can boost your memory, your mood and even your creativity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2024-Mar-18 • 9 minutes The Great Debate: Could We Ever Travel through Time? Our space and physics editors go head-to-head over a classic mind-bending question. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2024-Mar-15 • 8 minutes The Science behind Humpback Whales’ Eerie Songs Scientists have long wondered how baleen whales make their songs, and a new study has finally uncovered the anatomical workings behind their melodies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2024-Mar-14 • 12 minutes Large Study of ME/CFS Patients Reveals Measurable Physical Changes Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, long dismissed by doctors, causes immune system dysfunction and other problems. But treatments are lacking. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2024-Mar-11 • 11 minutes Hunger in Gaza Could Affect Survivors' Health for Decades Epigenetics research reveals how famines can cause health problems later in life — and how these changes might be passed down to later generations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2024-Mar-08 • 12 minutes These Invasive Ants Are Changing How Lions Hunt On the African savanna, a single invasive ant species has upset the delicate balance between predator and prey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2024-Mar-04 • 11 minutes Should You Swab Your Throat Plus Your Nose for COVID? Nose-plus-throat could increase test accuracy—but could create problems too. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2024-Mar-01 • 16 minutes Is This the Earliest Evidence of Human Cannibalism? A newly-examined munch mark on a tibia has become a real pleistocene whodunit. By Natalia Raegan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2024-Feb-28 • 14 minutes What Do You Mean, Bisexual People Are ‘Risk-Taking’? Why Genetic Studies about Sexuality Can Be Fraught A recent GWAS investigation on risk-taking and bisexuality made some assumptions that some experts don’t agree with. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2024-Feb-23 • 14 minutes Asexuality Research Has Reached New Heights. What Are We Learning? A grassroots online movement has helped shift the way scientists think about asexuality. But much is still unknown. This is part four of a four-part series on the science of pleasure. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2024-Feb-21 • 14 minutes How to Close the Orgasm Gap for Heterosexual Couples Researchers once faced death threats for asking women what gives them pleasure. Now they’re helping individuals and couples figure it out themselves. Part three of a four-part series on the science of pleasure. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2024-Feb-16 • 14 minutes Dominatrices Are Showing People How to Have Rough Sex Safely Research shows rough sex is becoming more common. Dominatrices are helping the general public catch up. Hosted by Meghan McDonough, this is part two of a four-part series on the science of pleasure. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2024-Feb-14 • 14 minutes How to Explore Your Sexuality, according to Science Part one of a four-part series on the science of pleasure, hosted by Meghan McDonough. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2024-Feb-12 • 11 minutes You Can't Fix Burnout With Self-Care Individual interventions for burnout don’t work. Researchers explain why. Hosted by Shayla Love. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2024-Feb-09 • 11 minutes How April’s Eclipse Will Solve Solar Mysteries On April 8, we’re in for a treat. A total solar eclipse will be visible across a broad swath of North America, giving us a view of the edges of the sun as the moon passes in front of its face. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2024-Feb-07 • 14 minutes When Will We Finally Have Sex In Space? We're talking about the big bang—but not in the way you might think. |
| 2024-Feb-05 • 14 minutes How Is This Ancient Cattle Breed Fighting Wildfires in Portugal? Portugal is one of the most vulnerable countries in Europe to climate change. Straddling the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic regions, it’s part of a climate change hot spot. Some of the biggest fuels are shrubs. One study found that shrubland covers 1.6 million hectares in Portugal—about 18 percent of the nation’s land area. And those shrubs are gaining ground. That’s because, for decades, people have been moving out of rural communities such as the one Tommy Ferreira lives in. Most leave to pursue bette... |
| 2024-Feb-05 • 15 minutes The Government's Former UFO Hunter Has a Lot to Say For the last decade, reports of UFO sightings have filled headlines and news broadcasts, and some of these have from a surprising place—the Pentagon. Former defense officials have made a number of claims about, and released videos of, strange sightings made by military pilots. These days, the objects are officially called “UAPs”—unidentified anomalous phenomena. But regardless of the new branding, Congress has demanded answers on them, especially after one former official this summer claimed that he believe... |
| 2024-Jan-31 • 12 minutes Quantum Computers Might Make All of Your Private Data Less Secure Experts are starting to plan for the moment when a quantum computer large enough to crack the backbone of the math that keeps things secret will be turned on. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2024-Jan-30 • 9 minutes For 60+ years, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccines have evaded scientists. But now that's changed [Sponsored] This year, healthcare providers have tools to help prevent lower respiratory tract disease caused by RSV for older adults. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2024-Jan-29 • 10 minutes New IVF Test Could Increase Chances of Pregnancy Success Today’s episode covers a topic that many parents-to-be have struggled with: fertility. In vitro fertilization offers a path to pregnancy for people fortunate enough to be able to access it. But predicting the success of an implanted embryo is hard. Now researchers are developing a test that could make it easier. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2024-Jan-27 • 12 minutes How to Save Indigenous Languages From Papua New Guinea to the Andaman Islands, Indigenous languages are under threat. An Indian linguist helped preserve one language family. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2024-Jan-23 • 11 minutes Can AI Predict When You Die? A new study used machine learning on 6 million Danish people to "autocomplete" their life trajectories –— and when they might kick the bucket. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2024-Jan-19 • 10 minutes The Best Way to Use Home COVID Tests Right Now In today’s episode, we want to talk about some of the current challenges with using home COVID tests. When you first have symptoms, a change in how your body reacts to the virus could lead to a test result showing you’re negative when you’re actually infected. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2024-Jan-17 • 11 minutes From Drunken Stupor to Sober with One (Hormone) Shot We all have our tricks for sobering up after a night of drunken revelry: maybe a pot of black coffee or an ice-cold shower. But for mice in a certain lab in Texas, all it takes is a shot. No, not more alcohol—it’s an injection of a hormone called fibroblast growth factor 21, or FGF21. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2024-Jan-12 • 10 minutes How Does the World’s Largest Seabird Know Where to Fly? Imagine for a moment that you’re a very hungry bird soaring over 30-foot ocean swells in high winds, with no land for thousands of miles. How do you know where you’re going? If you’re a wandering albatross, you listen. But listen to what, exactly? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2024-Jan-08 • 15 minutes Without the Moon, You Wouldn't Exist (Probably) The moon has guided our movements and cultures, and though we may think we know it well, it still guards some of its deepest secrets from us. A new book from Rebecca Boyle take us on a deep dive into our sister celestial orb. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2024-Jan-05 • 16 minutes The Strange and Beautiful Science Of Our Lives Nell Greenfieldboyce discusses her new book Transient and Strange, the intimacy of the essays and the science that inspired them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2024-Jan-03 • 13 minutes The Surprising Health Benefits of Dog Ownership Dogs are good for you, science says Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Dec-29 • 14 minutes Podcasts of the Year: Cleo, the Mysterious Math Menace In 2013 a new user named Cleo took an online math forum by storm with unproved answers. Today she’s an urban legend. But who was she? 2023 editor's pick. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Dec-27 • 12 minutes Podcasts of the Year: Talking to Animals using Artificial Intelligence Advanced sensors and artificial intelligence could have us at the brink of interspecies communication Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Dec-22 • 10 minutes How to Avoid Holiday Hangovers The holidays are a time for indulgence, but there are ways to drink alcohol without suffering the painful effects. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Dec-20 • 12 minutes Podcasts of the Year: What Better Gift for the Holidays Than a Monstrous Mystery? We’re looking back at 2023 for our favorite podcast shows and one about the largest bird to ever fly the skies just flew to the top of the list. | Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Dec-18 • 16 minutes Are Orca Whales Friends or Foes? The stories we tell about orcas might say more about us than about them Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Dec-15 • 10 minutes Turns Out Undersea Kelp Forests Are Crucial to Salmon The beloved fish that feed orcas and humans depend on kelp forests’ unique habitat. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Dec-13 • 9 minutes Researchers Just Created the World's First Permafrost Atlas of the Entire Arctic The Arctic Permafrost Atlas, which took years to create, is both beautiful and sobering, given the pace of climate change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Dec-11 • 9 minutes A New Type of Heart Disease is on the Rise Problems with the heart, kidneys and metabolic health are all connected Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Dec-08 • 10 minutes AI Can Now Read Your Cat's Pain Thanks to researchers, new AI tech is delving into feline feelings to see when cats could need medical help. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Dec-06 • 8 minutes These Researchers Put Sperm Through a Kind of 'Hunger Games' The research focused on figuring out what enables certain sperm to gain some competitive advantage over millions of others fighting for the same prize. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Dec-04 • 16 minutes Is Too Little Play Hurting Our Kids? A long-term decline in unsupervised activity may be contributing to mental health declines in children and adolescents. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Dec-01 • 26 minutes How Misinformation Spreads through Conflict Three experts break down how misinformation and propaganda spread through conflict and how to debunk it yourself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Nov-29 • 10 minutes Why Childhood Vaccination Rates Are Falling Fewer kids got their routine childhood vaccines since before the pandemic. Are lack of access and a loss of trust in science to blame? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Nov-27 • 13 minutes Climate Adaptation Can Backfire If We Aren't Careful The choices we make in how we adapt to climate change can sometimes come back to bite us Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Nov-24 • 16 minutes The Members of This Reservation Learned They Live with Nuclear Weapons. Can Their Reality Ever Be the Same? The Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara peoples are learning more about the missiles siloed on their lands, and that knowledge has put the preservation of their culture and heritage in even starker relief. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Nov-22 • 20 minutes What Would It Mean to 'Absorb' a Nuclear Attack? The missiles on the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota make it a potential target for a nuclear attack. And that doesn’t come close to describing what the reality would be for those on the ground. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Nov-20 • 17 minutes If You Had a Nuclear Weapon in Your Neighborhood, Would You Want to Know about It? The Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota has had nuclear missile silos on its land for decades. Now the U.S. government wants to take the old weapons out and replace them with new ones, and it’s unclear how many living there know about that. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Nov-17 • 19 minutes Just One U.S. Reservation Hosts Nuclear Weapons. This Is The Story of How That Came to Be 15 nuclear missiles deployed in underground concrete silos across the Fort Berthold reservation in North Dakota. It took displacement and flood to get them there. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Nov-14 • 20 minutes How Did Nuclear Weapons Get on My Reservation? A member of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation digs into a decades-long mystery: how 15 intercontinental ballistic missiles came to be siloed on her ancestral lands. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Nov-13 • 9 minutes Quick Naps Are Good for Your Brain Daytime naps of about 30 minutes really improve your thinking and may spark creativity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Nov-10 • 12 minutes Funding for Research on Psychedelics Is on the Rise, Along with Scientists' Hopes for Using Them As interest and support for psychedelic research grows, scientists share their hopes for the future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Nov-08 • 15 minutes Do You Need to 'Trip' for Psychedelics to Work as Medicine? Psychedelic researchers are engaged in heated debate over whether the mind-altering effects of the drugs are necessary for realizing their therapeutic potential. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Nov-06 • 11 minutes The Search for New Psychedelics As companies join the hunt, can the field of mind-altering synthetic substances stay true to its original pioneering spirit of wonder, curiosity and connection? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Nov-01 • 12 minutes What Are Ultraprocessed Foods, and Are They Bad for You? More than half of our diet consists of foods that have been industrially processed in some way, and they may be harmful to our health Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Oct-30 • 12 minutes These Creatures Are Probably the Closest Thing Nature Has to Real Werewolves Under the right conditions, the spadefoot tadpole will transform into a voracious predator of its own species. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Oct-27 • 10 minutes The World's Most Frightening Animal Sounds like This Lions, tigers, bears: this creature sends all of those beasts running for the hills. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Oct-25 • 7 minutes The Tale of the Rotifer That Came Back to Life after 25,000 Years in an Icy Tomb Can something spring back to life if it last moved around when woolly mammoths roamed the earth? The answer appears to be yes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Oct-23 • 13 minutes Generative AI Models Are Sucking Up Data from All Over the Internet, Yours Included In the rush to build and train ever larger AI models, developers have swept up much of the searchable Internet, quite possibly including some of your own public data—and potentially some of your private data as well. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Oct-20 • 8 minutes Some Parents Show Their Kids They Care with a Corpse If you’re a silphid beetle, a dead body is all your children really want, and it’s your job—no matter how difficult—to get one for them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Oct-18 • 10 minutes How to Handle This New COVID Season The dangerous virus is still here. Here’s how you can stay safe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Oct-16 • 9 minutes As Arctic Sea Ice Breaks Up, AI Is Starting to Predict Where the Ice Will Go Sea ice is changing fast. Are forecasts created by artificial intelligence the best way to keep up with the pace of a warming climate in the far north? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Oct-13 • 5 minutes Scientists Argue Conservation Is under Threat in Indonesia Researchers have been banned from working in Indonesia’s tropical rain forests after the government disagreed with their scientific conclusions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Oct-11 • 9 minutes A Soggy Mission to Sniff Out a Greenhouse Gas 'Bomb' in the High Arctic A needlelike tower, hung with sensors, “sniffs” the air above the Arctic Circle for signs of catastrophic thaw in the sodden ground below. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Oct-09 • 9 minutes This Indigenous Community Records the Climate Change That Is Causing Its Town to Erode Away In a tiny village north of the Arctic Circle in the Northwest Territories, the Inuvialuit of Tuktoyaktuk have taken climate science into their own hands. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Oct-06 • 10 minutes Journey to the Thawing Edge of Climate Change What is a permafrost thaw slump? Just imagine a massive hole with an area the size of more than nine football fields—and growing—where ice-cold ground once stood. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Oct-04 • 10 minutes A Popular Decongestant Doesn't Work. What Does? The popular decongestant phenylephrine is not effective, an FDA panel found. Here’s what to use instead. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Oct-02 • 13 minutes The State of Large Language Models We present the latest updates on ChatGPT, Bard and other competitors in the artificial intelligence arms race. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Sep-29 • 12 minutes Song of the Stars, Part 3: The Universe in all Senses An astronomy festival in Italy opted to make all of its events and workshops multisensory. The organizers wanted to see whether sound, touch and smell can, like sight, transmit the wonders of the cosmos. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Sep-27 • 12 minutes Song of the Stars, Part 2: Seeing in the Dark A blind astronomer “sonified” the universe’s most explosive events: gamma-ray bursts. By listening to, rather than looking at, the data, she made a critical discovery and changed the field of astronomy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Sep-25 • 12 minutes Song of the Stars, Part 1: Transforming Space into Symphonies Space is famously silent, but astronomers and musicians are increasingly turning astronomical data into sound as a way to make discoveries and inspire people who are blind or visually impaired. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Sep-22 • 16 minutes This Researcher Captured Air from the Amazon in Dive-Bombs--And Found Grim Clues That the Forest Is Dying One researcher has been hiring planes to strafe the sky over the Amazon rain forest to collect the air coming off the trees, and what she is finding is cause for alarm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Sep-20 • 11 minutes Should You Get a Blood Test For Alzheimer's? Consumers can now get easy tests for Alzheimer’s. But these tests may not really help patients that much—yet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Sep-18 • 16 minutes Ada Limón's Poem for Europa, Jupiter's Smallest Galilean Moon U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón discusses her involvement in NASA’s Europa Clipper mission and the inspiration behind her poem, which will travel onboard the spacecraft. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Sep-15 • 9 minutes How the Woolly Bear Caterpillar Does Something Pretty Amazing to Survive the Winter Caterpillars can’t regulate their body temperatures, so they have to come up with a totally different strategy to make it through the coldest months of the year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Sep-13 • 7 minutes Bees 'Buzz' in More Ways Than You Might Think A honeybee swarm has as much electric charge as a thundercloud, and the insects’ mass movements in the atmosphere might even have some influence on the weather. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Sep-11 • 12 minutes Scientists Are Beginning to Learn the Language of Bats and Bees Using AI The new field of digital bioacoustics is using machine learning to try decipher animal speak, including honeybee toots and quacks and whoops. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Sep-08 • 6 minutes Trying to Train Your Brain Faster? Knowing This Might Help with That Are you working really hard to learn something? Remember this counterintuitive fact, and you might improve your learning curve. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Sep-06 • 10 minutes This Tick Bite Makes You Allergic to Red Meat The bite of the lone star tick makes people allergic to a sugar found in mammalian products, and many doctors don’t know about it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Sep-04 • 15 minutes This Lesbian Monkey Love Triangle Tells Us Something Really Interesting about Darwin's 'Paradox' A “Darwinian paradox” is that homosexual activity occurs even though it does not lead to or aid in reproduction. But if you visit three capuchin monkeys in Los Angeles, they’ll show you how beneficial their liaisons are. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Sep-01 • 11 minutes What the Luddites Can Teach Us about AI The Luddites did not hate technology—but they did fight the way it was used to exploit humans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Aug-30 • 13 minutes A Pig Kidney Was Just Transplanted Into a Human Body, and It Is Still Working Xenotransplants could help to solve the organ transplant crisis—if researchers can get the science right. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Aug-28 • 15 minutes Migratory Birds Are in Peril, but Knowing Where They Are at Night Could Help Save Them Light is a very dangerous, if not so obvious, threat to birds who migrate at night. But researchers are using weather radar to track birds and provide “lights out” forecasts to help keep their paths clear of visual distraction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Aug-25 • 13 minutes Artificial Intelligence Is Helping Us 'See' Some of the Billions of Birds Migrating at Night Science is turning to machines to unlock the secrets of the vast, mysterious pulse-of-the-planet phenomenon that is nocturnal migration. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Aug-23 • 13 minutes Here's How You Go Birding in the Middle of the Night If you really want to challenging your bird identification skills, try using them at night, when bird calls are less than 100 milliseconds long. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Aug-21 • 17 minutes Using Human-Sized Microphones and Hay Bales, They Unlocked the Mysteries of Bird Migration For thousands of years, no one truly knew how birds migrated—that is, until a few unlikely pioneers sat in an empty field with hundreds of pounds of kludged together recording gear and waited to hear sounds that no one had ever captured. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Aug-18 • 10 minutes They Tap Into the Magical, Hidden Pulse of the Planet, but What is the Nighttime Bird Surveillance Network? On any given night, dense clouds of dark, ghostly figures pass over your head as you sleep. Maybe you never knew they were there, but there are people out there who are deciphering all the unseen movement that happens amid the darkness. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Aug-16 • 14 minutes Hearing Aids Stave Off Cognitive Decline Hearing aids may help maintain better brain functions in older people and better health overall. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Aug-14 • 10 minutes In This Ancient Garden, Plants Can Cure or Kill You Apothecaries founded this famous garden—one of the most ancient botanical gardens in Europe—to teach their students which plants poison and which plants cure. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Aug-09 • 14 minutes The Fungi Economy, Part 3: Can Climate Modeling from Space Save Our Forests? Here’s how scientists are planning on getting underground fungi data from space using satellites. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Aug-07 • 17 minutes The Fungi Economy, Part 2: Here's How Plants and Fungi Trade beneath Our Feet Atmospheric carbon is a currency that plants use to “buy” nutrients from fungi in the soil. To find out where this economy will go next, the devil is in the details. And the details are in the dirt. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Aug-04 • 15 minutes The Fungi Economy, Part 1: Just like Us, Trees Are Experiencing Inflation Like us, plants and fungi have complex economies. By burning fossil fuels, we’ve been devaluing their currency. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Aug-02 • 10 minutes Could Weight-Loss Drugs Curb Addiction? Your Health, Quickly, Episode 12 Drugs such as Wegovy and Ozempic might help people tackle substance abuse as well as shed pounds. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Jul-31 • 10 minutes How to Roll a Joint Perfectly, according to Science Scientists used a smoking machine—complete with a 3-D-printed mouthpiece—to figure out how to get the most cannabinoid per puff. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Jul-28 • 12 minutes Here's How AI Can Predict Hit Songs With Frightening Accuracy New AI technology predicts hit songs—by listening to someone’s body. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Jul-26 • 10 minutes Here's Why Actors Are So Worried about AI Here’s what’s behind the A.I technology that has worried so many actors—including something called “the orb.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Jul-24 • 11 minutes Are You a Lucid Dreamer? A sleep researcher who studies what dreams can tell us about the possible onset of some mental disorders believes lucid dreamers might hold a lot of answers in their head. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Jul-21 • 15 minutes Here's What 'Oppenheimer' Gets Right--And Wrong--About Nuclear History Here’s what a historian who has studied J. Robert Oppenheimer for two decades has to say about the new Christopher Nolan film on the father of the atomic bomb. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Jul-19 • 10 minutes How Stress Messes With Your Gut Inflammatory bowel disease flare-ups can be traced to mental stress Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Jul-17 • 14 minutes Should We Care About AI's Emergent Abilities? Here’s how large language models, or LLMs, actually work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Jul-14 • 14 minutes What That Jazz Beat Tells Us about Hearing and The Brain Very small delays in swing jazz point to our evolution as a supremely auditory species. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Jul-10 • 13 minutes Just like People, Orangutans Get Smoker's Voice New research has discovered that wildfire smoke hurts these primates’ voice—and health. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Jul-07 • 9 minutes Doctor AI Will See You Now ChatGPT and other AI programs can offer medical advice. But how good are they? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Jul-05 • 8 minutes El Niño is Back. What Does That Mean For You? The famous climate pattern El Niño could usher in a new hottest year on record and will have domino effects on the world’s weather. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Jun-29 • 10 minutes The Kavli Prize Presents: How Your Brain Maps the World [Sponsored] John O’Keefe shared the Kavli Prize in Neuroscience in 2014 for discovering that neurons in the hippocampus encode an animal’s location and create a cognitive map for navigation. This podcast was produced for the Kavli Prize by Scientific American Custom Media, a division separate from the magazine’s board of editors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Jun-28 • 17 minutes The Universe Is Abuzz with Giant Gravitational Waves, and Scientists Just Heard Them (Maybe) Researchers, using the galaxy as a detector, believe they have detected gravitational waves from monster black holes for the first time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Jun-26 • 11 minutes Poisons and Perils on the Salton Sea Toxic dust plagues marginalized communities on the shores of this disappearing salt lake. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Jun-23 • 5 minutes These Ants Are Probably Better at Navigating Than You Are Desert ants living in the featureless salt plains of Tunisia count their steps and erect tall entrances at their nests to find their way back home. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Jun-21 • 12 minutes How to Cool Down Fast in Summer Heat Your body has a secret cooling method, and scientists explain how to use it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Jun-19 • 12 minutes Follow a Hurricane Expert into the Heart Of the Beast Along with an expert, we take you into some of nature's most monstrous storms. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Jun-16 • 6 minutes Have Astronomers Seen the Universe's First Stars? The James Webb Space Telescope is giving us our first glimpse of stars in the early universe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Jun-14 • 13 minutes Cleo, the Mysterious Math Menace In 2013 a new user named Cleo took an online math forum by storm with unproved answers. Today she’s an urban legend. But who was she? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Jun-12 • 11 minutes MDMA Moves from Party Drug Back to Therapy Tool The party drug MDMA could soon be approved for treating people with severe PTSD. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Jun-09 • 12 minutes Five Things You Need to Know about Wildfire Smoke Right Now Where is it coming from? How long will it last? What's in the smoke? Whose health is at risk? How do you clean your own air? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Jun-07 • 9 minutes These Predators Had a Face like an Axe and Will Haunt Your Nightmares Terror birds were the grizzly bears of birds, the great white sharks of the land, Jack the Ripper but with feathers. They were also truly fascinating. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Jun-05 • 10 minutes This Thunderous Goose Relative Was Built like a Tank with the Wings of a Songbird Officially, these prehistoric birds are the dromornithids, but everyone who studies them calls them thunderbirds—and for good reason. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Jun-02 • 10 minutes This Gargantuan Bird Weighed as Much as a Sports Car The elephant bird was the heaviest bird to ever walk the earth. Also, its eggs were 150 times the size of a chicken egg and thick as a dinner plate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-May-31 • 11 minutes This Massive Scientific Discovery Sat Hidden in a Museum Drawer for Decades The fossil was a prehistoric bird called Pelagornis sandersi, and its wings stretched out twice as wide as those of the great albatross. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-May-30 • 11 minutes The Kavli Prize Presents: Understanding the Machinery of the Cell [Sponsored] James Rothman shared The Kavli Prize in Neuroscience in 2010 for discovering the molecular basis of neurotransmitter release. How did a biochemist come to win such a prestigious prize in neuroscience? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-May-24 • 11 minutes What the End of the COVID Emergency Means for You What you pay for tests, vaccines, and medicine will change Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-May-22 • 7 minutes Heat Waves Are Breaking Records. Here's What You Need to Know From North America to South Asia, summer heat waves are becoming longer, stronger and more frequent with climate change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-May-19 • 18 minutes Why We're Worried about Generative AI From the technology upsetting jobs and causing intellectual property issues to models making up fake answers to questions, here’s why we’re concerned about generative AI. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-May-18 • 9 minutes Dismantling the PFAS 'Forever Chemicals' Legacy [Sponsored] More sustainable ways of removing persistent chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from the environment are on the horizon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-May-17 • 16 minutes Understanding Dissociative Identity Disorder through the 'Community' of Ella We learn the story of “Ella,” a patient with 12 different personalities, or “parts,” and of her therapist, who helped her form a peaceful community—many selves in one body and mind. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-May-15 • 9 minutes Is Time Travel Even Possible? Two SciAm editors duke it out to see if wormholes and multiverses could in fact exist. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-May-12 • 8 minutes Parrot Babies Babble Just like Us Parrot nestlings spend time stringing together jumbled mixtures of sound—a rehearsal for more adult conversations Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-May-10 • 10 minutes A 19th-Century Obscenity Law Is Being Used Again to Limit Abortion Recent rulings on the abortion pill cite the Comstock Act, a 150-year-old law that’s still on the books Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-May-08 • 10 minutes These Mini Ecosystems Existed Underfoot of Dinosaurs, but Our Parking Lots Might Pave Them to Extinction Vernal pools are safe havens for creatures such as fairy shrimp, and they have lived through the end of the dinosaurs, the breakup of Pangaea and multiple ice ages. But humans are paving them over. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-May-05 • 10 minutes This $600-Million Room Contains the World's Largest Collection of These Tiny Endangered Animals Inside a vault at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles lies a microscopic population of immense value—the repository for vernal pool fairy shrimp. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-May-03 • 11 minutes Surviving in the Ephemeral Pools of Life Carpets of gold, burrowing toads and fairy shrimp all depend on vernal pools—habitats that, most of the time, do not exist. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-May-01 • 9 minutes This Fleeting Ecosystem Is Magical, and You Have Probably Never Heard of It or Even Noticed It Vernal pools are home to spectacular residents such as fairy shrimp, but these unusual natural wonders are under threat. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Apr-28 • 8 minutes Do We Need To Save the Whales Again? A scientist who does whale necropsies — or in layman's terms, whale autopsies — tells us why so many dead whales are washing up on beaches. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Apr-26 • 9 minutes The Bad Side of 'Good' Cholesterol Very high HDL cholesterol levels almost double your risk of heart problems. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Apr-24 • 14 minutes AI Chatbots and the Humans Who Love Them Humans are building meaningful relationships with AI chatbots. What will the consequences be? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Apr-19 • 9 minutes A Mission to Jupiter's Strange Moons Is Finally on Its Way The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) and Europa Clipper missions will search for signs of habitability on three of Jupiter’s potentially ocean-bearing moons. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Apr-18 • 9 minutes The Surprising Backstory behind Witch Hunts and Reproductive Labor Two of the foremost experts on witch hunts talk about the link between the formation of domestic labor and the rise of witch hunting. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Apr-14 • 11 minutes What You Need to Know about GPT-4 The AI GPT-4 has emergent abilities—but that’s not why it’s scary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Apr-12 • 11 minutes Good News for Coffee Lovers A careful new study reveals coffee is generally safe for your heart and may boost your daily step count. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Apr-10 • 14 minutes Meet the Magnificent Microbes of the Deep Unknown These two researchers journey toward the center of Earth—via windows to the crust—to find bacteria that can breathe iron, arsenic and other metals that would kill us pretty quickly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Apr-07 • 13 minutes How Zombifying Fungi Became Master Manipulators The real-life fungi that inspired The Last of Us hijack the bodies of ants, wasps, cicadas, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Apr-05 • 6 minutes Science Has New Ideas about 'Oumuamua's Weirdness Our first known interstellar visitor is now long gone, but new research has some ideas about why it moved the way it did while it was in our cosmic neighborhood. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Apr-03 • 13 minutes Open Offices Aren't Working, so How Do We Design an Office That Does? Insights from Deaf and autistic communities could finally make office spaces better for everyone. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Mar-31 • 12 minutes Cosmos, Quickly: Remembering the Genius of Vera Rubin Vera Rubin went from a teenager with a cardboard telescope to the “mother of dark matter.” Some of her colleagues and mentees weigh in on her fascinating life and how she was a champion for women in astronomy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Mar-29 • 12 minutes Long COVID's Roots in the Brain: Your Health, Quickly, Episode 3 Post-COVID symptoms can linger for months or years, and more and more evidence points to problems with the nervous system. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Mar-27 • 16 minutes If AI Starts Making Music on Its Own, What Happens to Musicians? Music made with artificial intelligence could upend the music industry. Here’s what that might look like. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Mar-24 • 17 minutes Music-Making Artificial Intelligence Is Getting Scary Good Google’s new AI model can generate entirely new music from text prompts. Here’s what they sound like. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Mar-22 • 15 minutes Artificial Intelligence Helped Make the Coolest Song You've Heard This Week Machine-learning algorithms are getting so good that they can translate Western instruments into Thai ones with ease. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Mar-20 • 15 minutes Space Force Humor, Laser Dazzlers, and the Havoc a War in Space Would Actually Wreak In the inaugural episode of Cosmos, Quickly, we blast off with Lt. Gen. Nina Armagno of the Space Force, who is charged with protecting our space in space, particularly from Russia and China. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Mar-17 • 11 minutes Squeak Squeak, Buzz Buzz: How Researchers Are Using AI to Talk to Animals The burgeoning field of “digital bioacoustics” is helping us understand animals like never before. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Mar-15 • 10 minutes RSV Vaccines Are Coming At Last: Your Health, Quickly, Episode 2 A vaccine pioneer tells us that shots to protect against RSV—a dangerous virus for babies and older people—are finally nearing approval. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Mar-14 • 11 minutes If the Mathematical Constant Pi Was a Song, What Would It Sound Like? Every year on Pi Day, we have a reason to celebrate one of math’s most famous symbols. But this year we speak to someone who has captured it in song. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Mar-10 • 9 minutes How To Stop a (Potentially Killer) Asteroid We slammed a $330-million spaceship the size of a dairy cow into an asteroid the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Here’s what we’re learning about how our first step in planetary defense could save us in the future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Mar-08 • 6 minutes The Scientific Secret to Soothing Fussy Babies Some animals’ babies physically relax when their parents whisk them away from danger. The same thing works for tiny, wailing humans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Mar-06 • 7 minutes How Helper Sharks Discovered the World's Largest Seagrass Ecosystem Scientists partnered with tiger sharks to map seagrass—the unsung hero of ocean conservation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Mar-03 • 7 minutes How the Woolly Bear Caterpillar Turns into a Popsicle to Survive the Winter Some caterpillars have evolved with antifreeze in their body cavity, allowing them to become cater-Popsicles to survive cold winters. But climate change could threaten that. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Mar-01 • 12 minutes The Pandemic's Mental Toll, and Does Telehealth Work? Your Health, Quickly, Episode 1 Hosts Josh Fischman and Tanya Lewis explore the pandemic’s mental health toll on teens and young adults. They also delve into the effectiveness of telehealth, which has been booming since the start of the pandemic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Feb-27 • 7 minutes Does Not Being Able to Picture Something in Your Mind Affect Your Creativity? Researchers who study aphantasia, or the inability to visualize something in your “mind’s eye,” are starting to get a sense of how to accurately measure the condition and what it may mean for those who have it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Feb-24 • 9 minutes Sorry, UFO Hunters--You Might Just Be Looking at a Spy Balloon From space aliens to foreign surveillance, we spoke to experts to find out what’s really going on with the balloon brouhaha. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Feb-23 • 7 minutes Building Resilience in the Face of Climate Change [Sponsored] Successfully mitigating the impacts of climate change will rely heavily on innovation in science and technology. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Feb-22 • 10 minutes How Do We Find Aliens? Maybe Unlearn What We Know About 'Life' First Science might be redefining what “life out there” really means. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Feb-20 • 16 minutes Love and the Brain: Do Partnerships Really Make Us Happy? Here's What the Science Says How romance affects our well-being is a lot more complicated than “they lived happily ever after.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Feb-17 • 13 minutes Love and the Brain: The Animal Matchmaker and the Panda Romeo and Juliet In fair zoo-ona, a pair of star-cross’d pandas take their life. And we learn about whether or not animals can fall in love. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Feb-15 • 13 minutes Love and the Brain: How Attached Are We to Attachment Styles? Are you “anxious,” “avoidant” or “disorganized?” So-called attachment styles have taken the Internet by storm. But it turns out there’s a lot more to unpack than people think. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Feb-13 • 14 minutes Love and the Brain, Part 1: The 36 Questions, Revisited Host Shayla Love dives into the true story behind the now infamous 36 questions that lead to love. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2023-Feb-06 • 5 minutes Coming Soon to Your Podcast Feed: Science, Quickly A new era in Scientific American audio history is about to drop starting next week. Get ready for a science variety show guaranteed to quench your curiosity in under 10 minutes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Dec-21 • 5 minutes The 60-Second Podcast Takes a Short Break--But Wait, There's More Scientific American’s short-form podcast has been going for 16 years, three months and seven days, counting today. But it’s time for us to evolve. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Dec-20 • 8 minutes Is Your Phone Actually Draining Your Brain? A new study puts the “brain drain hypothesis”—the idea that just having a phone next to you impacts your cognition—to the test to see if the science passes muster. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Dec-16 • 5 minutes Why Your Dog Might Think You're a Bonehead The verdict is in: female dogs actively evaluate human competence. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Dec-14 • 8 minutes Alaska's Protective Sea Ice Wall Is Crumbling because of the Climate Crisis A massive storm slammed into Alaska’s western coast, and there was no ice to stop it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Dec-09 • 6 minutes It's the Bass That Makes Us Boogie Concertgoers danced more when music was supplemented with low-frequency bass tones. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Dec-06 • 9 minutes How Vaccines Saved Money and Lives and China's Zero-COVID Protests: COVID, Quickly Podcast, Episode 44 Vaccines saved New York City billions of dollars, and China faces public fury over its strict virus-control policies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Dec-02 • 8 minutes 'Chatty Turtles' Flip the Script on the Evolutionary Origins of Vocalization in Animals Recordings of more than 50 species of turtles and other animals help scientists reassess the origins of acoustic communication in vertebrates. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Nov-30 • 7 minutes Tardigrades, an Unlikely Sleeping Beauty Researchers put this ancient critter through a subzero gauntlet to learn more about what happens to their internal clock while surviving the extreme. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Nov-23 • 8 minutes A Burned Redwood Forest Tells a Story of Climate Change, Past, Present and Future From the ashes of the giants of Big Basin Redwoods State Park arise a history of fire suppression and real questions about what happens to the forests in a drought-stricken West Coast going forward. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Nov-22 • 6 minutes Antivirals Could Reduce Long COVID Risk and How Well the New Boosters Work: COVID, Quickly Podcast, Episode 43 In this new episode of our coronavirus podcast, we discuss a study that looked at the effects of Paxlovid on long COVID symptoms, and we also talk new bivalent boosters and immunity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Nov-15 • 6 minutes A Honeybee Swarm Has as Much Electric Charge as a Thundercloud New research shows that bees “buzz” in more than the way you might think. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Nov-11 • 4 minutes These Punk Rock Penguins Have a Bizarre Breeding Strategy New Zealand’s erect-crested penguin lays two eggs but rejects the first one—the opposite of how most birds prioritize their offspring. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Nov-08 • 8 minutes The Viral Triple Threat and Why You Need a Booster: COVID, Quickly, Episode 42 COVID, flu and RSV are surging. Here’s what you need to know to protect yourself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Nov-04 • 7 minutes What You Need to Know about Iran's Surveillance Tech Scientific American technology editor Sophie Bushwick explains how Iran is using surveillance tech against vulnerable citizens. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Oct-28 • 7 minutes Delivering Equitable Lung Cancer Care [Sponsored] As recent advances improve the prospects of detecting and catching lung cancer early, a new challenge arises: how to ensure people worldwide, regardless of their socioeconomic circumstances, benefit from new clinical tools. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Oct-25 • 9 minutes New Halloween 'Scariant' Variants and Boosting Your Immunity: COVID, Quickly, Episode 41 In a new episode of the COVID, Quickly podcast, we talk about the variants that are likely to be around this winter and how boosters help even if you’ve already had the disease. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Oct-21 • 5 minutes These Hawks Have Figured Out How to See the Bat in the Swarm New research shows that birds of prey attempting to grab a bat from a roiling mass of the flying mammals have developed a way to cope with the confusion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Oct-14 • 7 minutes Naps Not Needed to Make New Memories Rats kept awake after exploring novel objects remembered the original items but not where they’d seen those objects, raising interesting questions about human sleep. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Oct-11 • 9 minutes How the Pandemic Shortened Life Expectancy and New Drugs on the Horizon: COVID, Quickly, Episode 40 In this episode of the COVID, Quickly podcast, we talk about why we’ve had years shaved off our average collective life since 2020. Also, we talk about “mabs” and why you might want to know what they are. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Oct-07 • 7 minutes Engineering the Treatment of Early-Stage Lung Cancer [SPONSORED] Early-stage lung cancers are not only difficult to diagnose—they’ve also proved difficult to curatively treat. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Oct-05 • 5 minutes Rediscovered Red Wolf Genes May Help Conserve the Species A surprising new gene discovery in coyotes may help conserve the critically endangered wolf. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Sep-27 • 9 minutes What the Disease Feels Like, and Presidents Can't End Pandemics: COVID, Quickly, Episode 39 On this episode of the COVID, Quickly podcast, Josh Fischman gets COVID, and President Joe Biden says the pandemic is over. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Sep-23 • 7 minutes These Spiders Use Their Webs like Huge, Silky Ears A study of orb-weaving spiders shows that the arachnids’ webs pick up a range of sounds—and that they are always “listening” for vibrations coming in over them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Sep-21 • 5 minutes Chewing Consumes a Surprising Amount of Energy Chomping on food takes so much energy that it shaped human evolution. Our ancestors spent many hours a day chewing, which may have shaped our teeth and jaws. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Sep-16 • 6 minutes These Bats Buzz like Bees to Save Their Own Lives New research has discovered the first case of acoustic mimicry between a mammal and an insect—an acquired skill that could just save certain bats’ skin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Sep-13 • 8 minutes Unvaxxed Kids and 8 Days a Week (of Isolation): COVID, Quickly, Episode 38 This is our second back-to-school special episode of COVID. Quickly. Today we talk about two big issues: the low vaccination rates among the littlest kids and how long you should quarantine after being sick (actually). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Sep-09 • 9 minutes Listen to Images from the James Webb Space Telescope It turns out that making new views of the universe accessible to those with vision impairment has required some deep thought—and carefully chosen words. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Sep-07 • 3 minutes These Tiny Pollinators Can Travel Surprisingly Huge Distances It turns out that hoverflies may fly hundreds or even thousands of miles—all to help pollinate our flowers and vegetables. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Aug-31 • 8 minutes During a Heat Wave, You Can Blast the AC, but What Does a Squirrel Do? Although recent spikes in temperature affect all of us, our urban critters have had to find their own ways to beat the heat. Sometimes they “sploot.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Aug-30 • 9 minutes Back-to-School Special: Kids, Tests and Long COVID Reassurance: COVID, Quickly, Episode 37 This is our back-to-school special episode of COVID, Quickly. We’ll talk about why COVID testing is about to become a school problem—and about whether or not kids are at risk for long COVID. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Aug-26 • 4 minutes This Artificial Intelligence Learns like a Baby Engineers at the company DeepMind built a machine-learning system based on research on how babies’ brain works, and it did better on certain tasks than its conventional counterparts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Aug-25 • 11 minutes Understanding the Inner Workings of Stars [Sponsored] Conny Aerts is an astrophysicist and a pioneer of asteroseismology. This year she shared the Kavli Prize in Astrophysics for her research and leadership that has laid the foundations of solar and stellar structure theory, and revolutionized our understanding of the interiors of stars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Aug-24 • 4 minutes Dogs Actually Tear Up When Their Owners Come Home Our puppies’ eyes well up, a reaction caused by oxytocin, which makes us want to take care of them even more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Aug-23 • 11 minutes A Lifelong Quest to Improve Mental Health among Cancer Patients [Sponsored] Recognizing those who are making a meaningful impact in the lives of cancer patients, the Cancer Community Awards, sponsored by AstraZeneca, presents an individual or organization with the President’s Award. We reconnected with Margaret Stauffer, the 2021 winner, to hear more about what’s happened since she received the award. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Aug-19 • 11 minutes How Next-Generation Sequencing Can Enable Precision Oncology [Sponsored] Celebrating those who enhance the ability to provide the right treatment for the right patient at the right time, the Cancer Community Awards, sponsored by AstraZeneca, presents an individual or organization with the Catalyst for Precision Medicine Award. We prepared for this year’s awards by reconnecting with the 2021 winner, Dr. Colin Pritchard, to hear more about what’s happened since he received the award. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Aug-19 • 9 minutes Hawking, a Paradox and a Black Hole Mystery, Solved? We do not have a theory to tell us everything about how a black hole works, but new research is shedding a least some light on one of their many mysteries. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Aug-16 • 12 minutes Monkeypox Update and Homing in on Long COVID: COVID, Quickly, Episode 36 On this episode of the COVID, Quickly podcast, we take a few minutes to talk about the other virus making headlines—and then return to long COVID. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Aug-15 • 12 minutes Fueling Patients' Drive to Treatment [Sponsored] Celebrating those who significantly improve access to cancer care for underserved populations, the Cancer Community Awards, sponsored by AstraZeneca, presents an individual or organization with a Catalyst for Change Award. We spoke with the 2021 award winner, Tomma Hargraves, to learn more about what’s happened since she received the award. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Aug-12 • 8 minutes Researchers Created a Potion That Turns Loud Lions into Placid Pussycats A single whiff of oxytocin, a chemical that some call the “love hormone,” promotes tolerance among lions at a wildlife sanctuary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Aug-10 • 9 minutes Reaching the Root of Disparities in Cancer Care [Sponsored] Celebrating those who strive to overcome disparities in cancer care to bring quality services to their patients, the Cancer Community Awards, sponsored by AstraZeneca, created the Catalyst for Equity Award. We spoke with Dr. Anne Marie Murphy, executive director of Equal Hope and winner of the award in 2021, to learn more about what’s happened since her organization received the award. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Aug-10 • 7 minutes For Some Dolphins, the Key to Mating is Rolling with a Tight, Noisy Crew A pair of studies show that male bottlenose dolphins rely on wingmen when wooing mates—and that they cultivate these friendships by being vocal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Aug-03 • 12 minutes A Source of Integrative Support for Breast and Ovarian Cancer Patients [Sponsored] Celebrating those who are making a patient’s experience as easy as possible during an extraordinarily difficult time, the Cancer Community Awards, sponsored by AstraZeneca, presents an individual or organization with a Catalyst for Care Award. We spoke with the 2021 winner, Unite for HER’s founder and CEO Sue Weldon, to hear more about what’s happened since her organization received the award. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Aug-02 • 9 minutes How Common Are Reinfections? And How Trust Can Beat the Virus: COVID, Quickly, Episode 35 On this episode of the COVID, Quickly podcast, we talk about getting reinfected with the coronavirus just a month or two after an earlier bout—and the difference that trusting others can make in a pandemic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Jul-29 • 12 minutes The Kavli Prize Presents: Understanding Molecules [Sponsored] Jacob Sagiv is a chemist who studies properties of self-assembled monolayers. This year, he shared The Kavli Prize in Nanoscience for his research. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Jul-27 • 10 minutes Transforming the Trajectory of Lung Cancer [Sponsored] Lung cancer is the number-one cause of cancer deaths in the world. But how many lives would be saved if doctors could diagnose and treat it before it progresses? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Jul-22 • 5 minutes Polar Bears That Persist A new subpopulation of Greenland polar bears offers insights into how this species might hang on as Arctic ice disappears. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Jul-12 • 8 minutes Omicron's Nasty New Variants and Better Boosters to Battle Them: COVID, Quickly, Episode 34 On this episode of the COVID, Quickly podcast, we talk about the increase in new Omicron subvariants. Should fall vaccine boosters contain standard Omicron or some of those new subvariants instead? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Jun-30 • 4 minutes A Remote-Controlled Carnivorous Plant? Researchers design an artificial neuron that can trigger closure of a Venus flytrap. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Jun-27 • 10 minutes Kids' Vaccines at Last and Challenges in Making New Drugs: COVID, Quickly, Episode 33 On this episode of the COVID, Quickly podcast, we discuss some parents breathing a collective sigh of relief and the paradox of how effective vaccines can make it harder to create new drugs to treat patients who get the coronavirus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Jun-24 • 6 minutes How AI Facial Recognition Is Helping Conserve Pumas Researchers tricked out conventional camera traps to snap headshots of Puma concolor, revealing a better way to track the elusive species. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Jun-17 • 10 minutes The Kavli Prize Presents: Understanding Neurodevelopment and Neurodegeneration [Sponsored] Huda Zoghbi is a clinician-scientist who studies the molecular mechanisms of neurodevelopment and neurodegeneration. This year she shared the Kavli Prize in Neuroscience for discovering the genetic pathways behind serious brain disorders. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Jun-16 • 6 minutes Female CEOs Change How Firms Talk about Women Appointing women to leadership positions renders organizations more likely to describe all women as being powerful, persistent and bold. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Jun-13 • 9 minutes COVID Death Rates Explained, Dismal Booster Stats and New Vaccines On this episode of the COVID, Quickly podcast, we clear up some data misconceptions, get to the bottom of the booster uptake issue and talk Novavax. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Jun-08 • 6 minutes Hedgehogs Host the Evolution of Antibiotic Resistance Bacteria resistant to methicillin emerged in hedgehogs long before the drug was prescribed to treat infections. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Jun-03 • 5 minutes Meerkats Are Getting Climate Sick For meerkats in the Kalahari Desert, rising temperatures spark deadly outbreaks of tuberculosis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-May-31 • 9 minutes 'Where Are Vaccines for Little Kids?' and the Latest on Long COVID Today we bring you a new episode in our podcast series COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between. You can listen to all past episodes here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-May-20 • 7 minutes Your Phone Could Be Used to Prosecute for Getting an Abortion: Here's How Technology editor Sophie Bushwick breaks down the precedent for using your phone to monitor personal health data. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-May-19 • 7 minutes If Sea Ice Melts in the Arctic, Do Trees Burn in California? A new study links sea ice decline with increasing wildfire weather in the Western U.S. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-May-16 • 10 minutes How to Care for COVID at Home, and Is That Sniffle Allergies or the Virus? COVID Quickly, Episode 30 Today we bring you a new episode in our podcast series COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between. You can listen to all past episodes here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-May-12 • 5 minutes How Astronomers Finally Captured a Photo of our Own Galaxy's Black Hole It took hundreds of researchers and many telescopes to capture an image of the black hole at the middle of our Milky Way. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-May-10 • 7 minutes Two-Headed Worms Tell Us Something Fascinating about Evolution Researchers looked back at more than 100 years of research and found that a fascination with annelids with mixed up appendages was strong—and that research still has relevance today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-May-06 • 7 minutes The Harmful Effects of Overturning Roe v. Wade A landmark study of women who were turned away from getting the procedure found that being forced to have a child worsened their health and economic status. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-May-02 • 7 minutes Safer Indoor Air, and People Want Masks on Planes and Trains: COVID Quickly, Episode 29 Today we bring you a new episode in our podcast series COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between. You can listen to all past episodes here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Apr-25 • 5 minutes Climate Change Is Shrinking Animals, Especially Bird-Brained Birds As the world warms, many animals are getting smaller. For birds, new research shows what they have upstairs may just make a different in how much smaller they get. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Apr-20 • 7 minutes Cosmic Simulation Shows How Dark-Matter-Deficient Galaxies Confront Goliath and Survive A research team finds seven tiny dwarf galaxies stripped of their dark matter that nonetheless persisted despite the theft. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Apr-15 • 8 minutes Venturing Back to the Office and the Benefits of Hybrid Immunity: COVID Quickly, Episode 28 Today we bring you a new episode in our podcast series COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between. You can listen to all past episodes here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Apr-13 • 5 minutes Science Finally Has a Good Idea about Why We Stutter A glitch in speech initiation gives rise to the repetition that characterizes stuttering. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Apr-12 • 6 minutes Love Computers? Love History? Listen to This Podcast In the newest season of Lost Women of Science, we enter a world of secrecy, computers and nuclear weapons—and see how Klára Dán von Neumann was a part of all of it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Apr-08 • 8 minutes Probiotics Could Help Save Overheated Corals Think of the process as a kind of marine fecal transplant—except the restorative bacteria do not come from stool; they come from other corals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Apr-05 • 4 minutes The History of the Milky Way Comes into Focus By dating nearly a quarter-million stars, astronomers were able to reconstruct the history of our galaxy—and they say it has lived an “enormously sheltered life.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Apr-01 • 10 minutes Second Boosters, Masks in the Next Wave and Smart Risk Decisions: COVID Quickly, Episode 27 Today we bring you a new episode in our podcast series COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between. You can listen to all past episodes here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Mar-30 • 6 minutes New Research Decodes the Sea Cow's Hidden Language Florida manatees are “talking” up a storm, and a team that has been recording those sounds for seven years is starting to understand the chatter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Mar-25 • 5 minutes Does This Look like a Face to You? Science—and experience—show that we most definitely see faces in inanimate objects. But new research finds that, more often than not, we perceive those illusory faces as male. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Mar-23 • 3 minutes Some Good News about Corals and Climate Change A nearly two-year-long study of Hawaiian corals suggests some species may be better equipped to handle warmer, more acidic waters than previously believed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Mar-18 • 10 minutes Florida Gets Kids and Vaccines Wrong and Ukraine's Health Crisis: COVID Quickly, Episode 26 Today we bring you a new episode in our podcast series COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between. You can listen to all past episodes here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Mar-15 • 13 minutes Are You Better Than a Machine at Spotting a Deepfake? New research shows that detecting digital fakes generated by machine learning might be a job best done with humans still in the loop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Mar-11 • 7 minutes A Treasure Trove of Dinosaur Bones in Italy Rewrites the Local Prehistoric Record New fossils are changing a decades-old story about the species that roamed the Mediterranean 80 million years ago. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Mar-08 • 4 minutes Chimps Apply Insects to Their Wounds It is not clear whether the act has medicinal benefit or is merely a cultural practice among the animals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Mar-04 • 9 minutes The Push to Move Past the Pandemic: COVID Quickly, Episode 25 Today we bring you a new episode in our podcast series COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between. You can listen to all past episodes here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Mar-03 • 11 minutes Researchers Analyzed Folk Music like It Was DNA: They Found Parallels between Life and Art Using software designed to align DNA sequences, scientists cataloged the mutations that arose as folk songs evolved Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Feb-25 • 4 minutes How Hong Kong 'Sees' Invisible Tailpipe Emissions and Pulls Polluters Off the Road The city has deployed a system of sensors to flag highly polluting vehicles. Nearly all of them have been repaired, helping to clean Hong Kong’s air. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Feb-22 • 9 minutes This Maine Farm Is Harvesting the Sun's Power while it Picks the Blueberries In Rockport, Me., an array of nearly 11,000 solar panels will soon begin a solar harvest as the sweet berries growing below them ripen on the bush. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Feb-15 • 7 minutes Tracking Outbreaks through Sewers, and Kids' Vaccines on Hold Again: COVID Quickly, Episode 24 Today we bring you a new episode in our podcast series COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between. You can listen to all past episodes here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Feb-14 • 7 minutes The Romantic Temptation of the Monogamous Prairie Vole The small rodents are one of the few known monogamists in the wild—and their faithfulness was put to the test in a lab. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Feb-11 • 7 minutes Answering an Age-Old Mystery: How Do Birds Actually Fly? Equally surprising is the fact that we still do not know how birds actually stay airborne. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Feb-04 • 8 minutes More Kids Get COVID, Long Haulers and a Vaccine Milestone: COVID Quickly, Episode 23 Today we bring you a new episode in our podcast series COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between. You can listen to all past episodes here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Feb-02 • 7 minutes What Is the Shape of This Word? What shape do you see when you hear “bouba”? What about “kiki”? It turns out that nonsense words that evoke certain shapes have something to say about the origins of language. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Jan-25 • 4 minutes Tiger Sharks, Tracked over Decades, Are Shifting Their Haunts with Ocean Warming Using a combination of fishing data and satellite tracking, scientists found that the sharks have shifted their range some 250 miles poleward over the past 40 years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Jan-20 • 8 minutes How Marine Wildlife Can Coexist with Offshore Wind [Sponsored] Harnessing the wind to blow back emissions is not without its own impacts, so researchers are developing technologies to coexist with whales and other ocean-dwelling species. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Jan-19 • 8 minutes COVID Quickly, Episode 22: Colds Build COVID Immunity and the Omicron Vaccine Delay Today we bring you a new episode in our podcast series COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between. You can listen to all past episodes here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Jan-10 • 6 minutes The Surprising Physics of Finger Snapping You might not think that you can generate more body acceleration than a big-league baseball pitcher, but new research shows you can. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2022-Jan-03 • 5 minutes Salvador Dali's Creative Secret Is Backed by Science The painter described falling into the briefest of slumbers to refresh his mind. Now scientists have shown the method is effective at inducing creativity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Dec-27 • 12 minutes A Growing Force of Fiery Zombies Threatens Cold Northern Forests Wildfires, appearing dead in winter, are actually smoldering and then bouncing back to life in spring to consume increasingly more land in the Far North. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Dec-21 • 6 minutes Listen to This New Podcast: Lost Women of Science A new podcast is on a mission to retrieve unsung female scientists from oblivion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Dec-20 • 4 minutes Canary Islands Eruption Resets Volcano Forecasts A volcanologist says the eruption on the island of La Palma is a unique window into the “personality” of basaltic volcanoes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Dec-17 • 7 minutes COVID Quickly, Episode 21: Vaccines against Omicron and Pandemic Progress Today we bring you a new episode in our podcast series COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between. You can listen to all past episodes here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Dec-14 • 10 minutes As Forests Burn, a Climate Puzzle Materializes in the Far North A 15-year study of where carbon lies in boreal forests has unearthed a surprising finding. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Dec-08 • 4 minutes Astronomers Spot Two Dust Bunnies Hiding in the Early Universe The scientists found several previously hidden galaxies that date back to 13 billion years ago—and many more might be missing from our current census of the early universe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Dec-03 • 8 minutes COVID Quickly, Episode 20: The Omicron Scare, and Anti-COVID Pills Are Coming Today we bring you a new episode in our podcast series COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between. You can listen to all past episodes here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Dec-01 • 13 minutes To Better Persuade a Human, a Robot Should Use This Trick A new study finds that, for robots, overlords are less persuasive than peers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Nov-26 • 7 minutes Redo of a Famous Experiment on the Origins of Life Reveals Critical Detail Missed for Decades The Miller-Urey experiment showed that the conditions of early Earth could be simulated in a glass flask. New research finds the flask itself played an underappreciated, though outsize, role. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Nov-19 • 10 minutes COVID Quickly, Episode 19: Mandate Roadblocks, Boosters for All and Sickness in the Zoo Today we bring you a new episode in our podcast series COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between. You can listen to all past episodes here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Nov-12 • 4 minutes Flocking Together May Have Helped Dinosaurs Dominate the Earth A fossil bed in Patagonia provides evidence of complex social structure in dinosaurs as early as 193 million years ago. And scientists say that herding behavior could have been key to the beasts’ success. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Nov-10 • 9 minutes Engineered Bacteria Use Air Bubbles as Acoustically Detonated Tumor TNT Ultrasound triggered cells home in on tumors and then self destruct to deliver damage or therapeutics from inside. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Nov-05 • 8 minutes COVID Quickly, Episode 18: Vaccines for Kids and the Limits of Natural Immunity Today we bring you a new episode in our podcast series COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between. You can listen to all past episodes here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Oct-31 • 9 minutes These Bugs Produce Smelly Defenses That Need to Be Heard to Be Believed You read that right. Researchers have taken the chemical defenses of some insects and turned them into sounds, which, it turns out, repel people just as well. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Oct-28 • 8 minutes For Some Parents, Hiding a Dead Body Shows How Much You Care Over millions of years of evolution, some beetles have learned to dampen the stench of decay to help their young thrive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Oct-25 • 4 minutes Date of the Vikings' First Atlantic Crossing Revealed by Rays from Space By dating the remnants of trees felled in Newfoundland, scientists have determined that the Norse people likely first set foot in the Americas in the year A.D. 1021. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Oct-22 • 8 minutes COVID Quickly, Episode 17: Vaccine Lies and Protecting Immunocompromised People Today we bring you a new episode in our podcast series COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between. You can listen to all past episodes here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Oct-20 • 6 minutes How Can an Elephant Squeak Like a Mouse? New research using a camera that can “see" sound” shows some elephants can produce high-pitched buzzing with their lips. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Oct-15 • 9 minutes Beethoven's Unfinished 10th Symphony Brought to Life by Artificial Intelligence Nearly 200 years after his death, the German composer’s musical scratch was pieced together by machine—with a lot of human help. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Oct-14 • 8 minutes The Kavli Prize Presents: Understanding the Universe [Sponsored] Ewine van Dishoeck received the Kavli Prize in Astrophysics in 2018 for elucidating the life cycle of interstellar clouds and the formation of stars and planets. What other mysteries of space are left to be uncovered? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Oct-13 • 9 minutes A Canary in an Ice-Rich, Slumping Rock Glacier in Alaska Here’s what we can learn about climate change and infrastructure from Denali National Park’s only road. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Oct-08 • 6 minutes COVID Quickly, Episode 16: Vaccines Protect Pregnancies and a New Antiviral Pill Today we bring you a new episode in our podcast series COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between. You can listen to all past episodes here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Oct-05 • 8 minutes The Mystery of Water Drops That Skate Across Oil at Impossible Speeds The speed of these self-propelling droplets on a hot-oil surface seemed to defy physics until researchers broke out the super-slow-motion camera. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Oct-01 • 5 minutes Night Flights Are No Sweat for Tropical Bees New research uses night vision to see how nocturnal bees navigate the dark. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Sep-28 • 4 minutes These Bacteria Steal from Iron and Could Be Secretly Helping to Curb Climate Change Photoferrotrophs have been around for billions of years on Earth, and new research suggests that they have played an outsize roll in the natural capture of carbon dioxide. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Sep-24 • 9 minutes COVID, Quickly, Episode 15: Booster Shot Approvals--plus Vaccines for Kids? Today we bring you a new episode in our podcast series COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between. You can listen to all past episodes here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Sep-21 • 6 minutes Dinosaurs Lived--and Made Little Dinos--in the Arctic New research shows that the prehistoric giants were even cooler than we thought Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Sep-17 • 6 minutes During a Rodent Quadrathlon, Researchers Learn That Ground Squirrels Have Personalities The rodents’ personalities may help them to secure territory and avoid prey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Sep-15 • 5 minutes A Car Crash Snaps the Daydreaming Mind into Focus One researcher’s poorly timed attention lapse flipped a car—and pushed science forward. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Sep-10 • 9 minutes COVID, Quickly, Episode 14: Best Masks, Explaining Mask Anger, Biden's New Plan Today we bring you a new episode in our podcast series COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between. You can listen to all past episodes here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Sep-09 • 10 minutes The Kavli Prize Presents: Understanding Atoms [Sponsored] Gerd Binnig shared The Kavli Prize in Nanoscience in 2016 for inventing the atomic force microscope. What transformative impact has this invention had on nanoscience? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Sep-08 • 4 minutes In Missouri, a Human 'Bee' Works to Better Understand Climate Change's Effects Researcher Matthew Austin has become a wildflower pollinator, sans the wings. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Sep-03 • 7 minutes These Baby Bats, like Us, Were Born to Babble The greater sac-winged bat develops its own language in much the way we do. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Aug-31 • 7 minutes Their Lives Have Been Upended by Hurricane Ida Theresa and Donald Dardar lived their whole lives in coastal Louisiana. They knew the “big one” might come someday. It did, and now everything is uncertain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Aug-27 • 8 minutes COVID, Quickly, Episode 13: Vaccine Approval, Breakthrough Infections, Boosters Today we bring you a new episode in our podcast series COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between. You can listen to all past episodes here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Aug-24 • 6 minutes Flexible Microprocessor Could Enable an 'Internet of Everything' Researchers have developed a microprocessor built on high-performance plastic rather than silicon—and they say it could enable smarter food labels and supply chain management. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Aug-20 • 7 minutes Years Before COVID-19, Zombies Helped Prepare One Hospital System for the Real Pandemic An educational experiment used escape rooms and the undead to set the stage for a terrible situation that would become all too real Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Aug-17 • 7 minutes The Incredible, Reanimated 24,000-Year-Old Rotifer The last time this tiny wheel animalcule was moving around, woolly mammoths roamed the earth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Aug-12 • 5 minutes Astronomers Find an Unexpected Bumper Crop of Black Holes In trying to explain the spectacular star trails of the star cluster Palomar 5, astronomers stumbled on a very large trove of black holes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Aug-10 • 8 minutes Inside Millions of Invisible Droplets, Potential Superbug Killers Grow New research has created microscopic antibiotic factories in droplets that measure a trillionth of liter in volume. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Aug-04 • 4 minutes The Secret behind Songbirds' Magnetic Migratory Sense A molecule found in the retinas of European robins seems to be able to sense weak magnetic fields, such as that of Earth, after it is exposed to light. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Jul-30 • 8 minutes COVID, Quickly, Episode 12: Masking Up Again and Why People Refuse Shots Today we bring you a new episode in our podcast series COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between. You can listen to all past episodes here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Jul-22 • 7 minutes The Kavli Prize Presents: Understanding Touch [Sponsored] Ardem Patapoutian shared The Kavli Prize in Neuroscience in 2020 for answering a basic question: How does touch actually work? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Jul-21 • 4 minutes Moths Have an Acoustic Invisibility Cloak to Stay under Bats' Radar New research finds they fly around on noise-cancelling wings Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Jul-16 • 7 minutes COVID, Quickly, Episode 11: Vaccine Booster Shots, and Reopening Offices Safely Today we bring you a new episode in our podcast series: COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between. You can listen to all past episodes here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Jul-07 • 5 minutes Your Brain Does Something Amazing between Bouts of Intense Learning New research shows that lightning-quick neural rehearsal can supercharge learning and memory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Jul-01 • 8 minutes COVID, Quickly, Episode 10: Long Haulers, Delta Woes and Barbershop Shots Today we bring you a new episode in our podcast series: COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Jun-23 • 6 minutes This Newly Discovered Species of Tree Hyrax Goes Bark in the Night A study makes the case for the new species based on its looks, genes and sounds Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Jun-18 • 7 minutes COVID, Quickly, Episode 9: Delta Variant, Global Vaccine Shortfalls, Beers for Shots Today we bring you a new episode in our podcast series: COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between. You can listen to all past episodes here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Jun-16 • 6 minutes Animal Kids Listen to Their Parents Even before Birth Human children: please take note of the behavior of prebirth zebra finches Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Jun-11 • 4 minutes For African Elephants, Pee Could Be a Potent Trail Marker Scientists found that elephants often sniff pathways—and seem especially attuned to urine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Jun-09 • 6 minutes A 'Universal' Coronavirus Vaccine to Prevent the Next Pandemic A pan-coronavirus vaccine could be “one vaccine to rule them all,” and so far it has shown strong results in mice, hamsters, monkeys, horses and even sharks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Jun-04 • 7 minutes COVID, Quickly, Episode 8: The Pandemic's True Death Toll and the Big Lab-Leak Debate Today we bring you a new episode in our podcast series: COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Jun-03 • 6 minutes Puppies Understand You Even at a Young Age, Most Adorable Study of the Year Confirms Researchers in the happiest lab in the world tested 375 pups and found they connected with people by eight weeks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Jun-02 • 7 minutes New 3-D-Printed Material Is Tough, Flexible--and Alive Made from microalgae and bacteria, the new substance can survive for three days without feeding. It could one day be used to build living garments, self-powered kitchen appliances or even window coverings that sequester carbon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-May-28 • 6 minutes Bats on Helium Reveal an Innate Sense of the Speed of Sound A new experiment shows that bats are born with a fixed reference for the speed of sound—and living in lighter air can throw it off. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-May-26 • 4 minutes The Dirty Secret behind Some of the World's Earliest Microscopes Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek made extraordinary observations of blood cells, sperm cells and bacteria with his microscopes. But it turns out the lens technology he used was quite ordinary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-May-21 • 8 minutes COVID, Quickly, Episode 7: The Coming Pandemic Grief Wave, and Mask Whiplash Today we bring you a new episode in our podcast series: COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-May-20 • 9 minutes Math and Sleuthing Help to Explain Epidemics of the Past One mathematician has spend decades uncovering the deadly calculations of pestilence and plague, sometimes finding data that were hiding in plain sight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-May-14 • 4 minutes Who Laps Whom on the Walking Track--Tyrannosaurus rex or You? Science Has a New Answer An analysis of the animal’s walking speed suggests that T. rex’s walking pace was close to that of a human. It’s too bad the king of the dinosaurs didn’t just walk when hungry. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-May-11 • 6 minutes Artificial Light Keeps Mosquitoes Biting Late into the Night It is like when your cell phone keeps you awake in bed—except mosquitoes do not doom scroll when they stay up, they feast on your blood. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-May-07 • 7 minutes COVID, Quickly, Episode 6: The Real Reason for India's Surge and Mask Liftoff Today we bring you a new episode in our podcast series: COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-May-04 • 6 minutes Male Lyrebirds Lie to Get Sex It seems like the males will do anything, even fake nearby danger, to get females to stick around to mate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Apr-27 • 5 minutes Lovebirds Adore Our Inefficient Air-Conditioning The rosy-faced lovebirds that live in Phoenix appear to be free riding on our urban climate control. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Apr-23 • 7 minutes COVID, Quickly, Episode 5: Vaccine Safety in Pregnancy, Blood Clots and Long-Haul Realities Today we bring you the fifth episode in our podcast series: COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Apr-20 • 4 minutes Beehives Are Held Together by Their Mutual Gut Microbes New research shows that members of a bee colony all have the same gut microbiome, which controls their smell—and thus their ability to separate family from foe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Apr-16 • 3 minutes These Endangered Birds Are Forgetting Their Songs Australia’s critically endangered regent honeyeaters are losing what amounts to their culture—and that could jeopardize their success at landing a mate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Apr-12 • 7 minutes To Fight Climate Change: Grow a Floating Forest, Then Sink It A fast-growing front in the battle against climate change is focused on developing green technologies aimed at reducing humankind’s carbon footprint, but many scientists say simply reducing emissions is no longer enough. We have to find new ways to suck carbon out of the atmosphere. A Maine start-up is looking to raise a sinkable carbon-capturing forest in the open ocean. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Apr-09 • 7 minutes COVID, Quickly, Episode 4: The Virtual Vaccine Line and Shots for Kids Today we bring you the fourth episode in a new podcast series: COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Apr-07 • 9 minutes Big Physics News: The Muon g-2 Experiment Explained Particles called muons are behaving weirdly, and that could mean a huge discovery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Apr-05 • 5 minutes Boston's Pigeons Coo, 'Wicked'; New York's Birds Coo, 'Fuhgeddaboudit' The two cities’ rock doves are genetically distinct, research shows. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Mar-31 • 7 minutes Imperiled Freshwater Turtles Are Eating Plastics--Science Is Just Revealing the Threat We know a lot about how sea turtles are threatened by our trash, but new research has just uncovered an underreported threat hiding inside lakes and rivers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Mar-26 • 7 minutes COVID, Quickly, Episode 3: Vaccine Inequality--plus Your Body the Variant Fighter Today we bring you the third episode in a new podcast series: COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Mar-24 • 4 minutes Using Dragonflies as Contamination Detectors By collecting the larvae of the fast flyers, researchers have turned the insects into “biosentinels” that can track mercury pollution across the country. Berly McCoy reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Mar-18 • 5 minutes Smartphones Can Hear the Shape of Your Door Keys Can you pick a lock with just a smartphone? New research shows that doing so is possible. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Mar-16 • 6 minutes Chimpanzees Show Altruism while Gathering around the Juice Fountain New research tries to tease out whether our closest animal relatives can be selfless Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Mar-11 • 7 minutes COVID, Quickly, Episode 2: Lessons from a Pandemic Year Today we bring you the second episode in a new podcast series: COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Mar-09 • 3 minutes That Mouse in Your House--It's Smarter, Thanks to You Scientists studied three varieties of house mice and found that those who had lived alongside humans the longest were also the craftiest at solving food puzzles. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Mar-04 • 6 minutes Kangaroos with Puppy Dog Eyes New research shows that when faced with an impossible task, the marsupials look to humans for help. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Feb-26 • 5 minutes COVID, Quickly, Episode 1: Vaccines, Variants and Diabetes Today we begin a new podcast series: COVID, Quickly. Every two weeks, Scientific American’s senior health editors Tanya Lewis and Josh Fischman catch you up on the essential developments in the pandemic: from vaccines to new variants and everything in between. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Feb-25 • 9 minutes Machine Learning Pwns Old-School Atari Games You can call it the “revenge of the computer scientist.” An algorithm that made headlines for mastering the notoriously difficult Atari 2600 game Montezuma’s Revenge can now beat more games, achieving near perfect scores, and help robots explore real-world environments. Pakinam Amer reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Feb-22 • 5 minutes E-Eggs Track Turtle Traffickers Decoy sea turtle eggs containing tracking tech are new weapons against beach poachers and traffickers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Feb-10 • 5 minutes Bromances Could Lead to More Romances for Male Hyenas Spotted hyena males do not fight for mates, so how are certain males shut out of the mating game? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Feb-05 • 6 minutes A Heroic Effort to Measure Helium After an intense game of cat and mouse with different particles, atomic physicists have measured the radius of the helium nucleus five times more precisely than before. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Feb-01 • 3 minutes Science News Briefs from around the World Here are some brief reports about science and technology from around the world, including one from Costa Rica about decoy sea turtle eggs with the potential to catch poachers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Jan-28 • 3 minutes Scientists Take a Cattle Head Count in India The research team determined that the city of Raipur in central India has at least one street cow for every 54 human residents. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Jan-21 • 4 minutes Ancient Dogs Had Complex Genetic Histories Some dog population genetics show similarities to ours, such as in the ability to digest grains. But other lineages differ. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Jan-11 • 7 minutes Bees Use 'Bullshit' Defense to Keep Giant Hornets at Bay The prospect of death by giant hornet has pushed some Asian honeybees to resort to a poop-based defense system Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Jan-07 • 3 minutes Humans May Have Befriended Wolves with Meat Unlike humans, wolves can subsist on protein alone for months—so scientists say we may have lobbed leaner leftovers their way. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Jan-06 • 6 minutes How to Avoid Becoming a Meal for a Cheetah Researchers help farmers in Namibia avoid costly cattle losses by tracking big cat hangouts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2021-Jan-01 • 3 minutes How the Coronavirus Pandemic Shaped Our Language in 2020 Linguist Ben Zimmer says the pandemic has turned us all into amateur epidemiologists utilizing terms such as “superspreader” and “asymptomatic.” Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Dec-28 • 3 minutes Science News Briefs from around the Planet Here are some brief reports about science and technology from around the world, including one from Panama about the toll lightning takes on tropical trees. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Dec-22 • 4 minutes Ravens Measure Up to Great Apes on Intelligence Juvenile ravens performed just as well as chimps and orangutans in a battery of intelligence tests—except for assays of spatial skills. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Dec-21 • 4 minutes Baby Bees Deprive Caregivers of Sleep Bee larvae and pupae appear to secrete a chemical that does the work of a late-night cup of coffee for their nurses. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Dec-17 • 6 minutes How the Wolves Change the Forest New research tracked the canines in northern Minnesota for years to see just how they reshape their ecosystems. Audio of wolves inside Voyageurs National Park, courtesy of Jacob Job. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Dec-16 • 4 minutes Brain Sides Are Both Busy in New Language Learning A study of adults learning a new language found that speaking primarily activated regions in the left side of the brain, but reading and listening comprehension were much more variable Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Dec-15 • 4 minutes A Nurse's Message about the COVID-19 Vaccine Nurse Kristen Choi says health care providers need to better educate patients about possible side effects from the COVID-19 vaccine. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Dec-12 • 5 minutes Eye Treatment Stretches Mouse Sight Beyond Visible Spectrum Nanoparticles that attach to photoreceptors allowed mice to see infrared and near-infrared light for up to two months. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Dec-11 • 5 minutes This Bat Wears a Face Mask The wrinkle-faced bat covers its face with a flap of skin, seemingly as part of its courtship rituals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Dec-02 • 4 minutes The Denisovans Expand Their Range into China Evidence of the ancient humans was limited to a cave in Siberia. But now scientists have found genetic remains of the Denisovans in China. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Nov-30 • 5 minutes Undersea Earthquakes Reveal Sound Warming Info Travel time differences for sound waves produced by undersea earthquakes in the same place at different times can provide details about ocean warming. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Nov-24 • 4 minutes Duckbill Dino Odyssey Ended in Africa A duckbill dinosaur jawbone found in Morocco means that dinosaurs crossed a large body of water to reach Africa. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Nov-18 • 4 minutes Early Mammals Had Social Lives, Too Chipmunklike animals that lived among the dinosaurs appear to have been social creatures, which suggests that sociality arose in mammals earlier than scientists thought. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Nov-17 • 3 minutes Science News Briefs from All Over Here are some brief reports about science and technology from around the world, including one, from the dormant volcano Llullaillaco in Chile, about a mouse that is the highest-dwelling mammal ever documented. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Nov-12 • 4 minutes Divide and Conquer Could Be Good COVID Strategy COVID might be fought efficiently with fewer shutdowns by restricting activities only in a particular area with a population up to 200,000 when its case rate rises above a chosen threshold. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Nov-10 • 5 minutes Zebra Coloration Messes With Fly Eyes Horseflies misjudge landings on zebra patterns, compared with solid gray or black surfaces, which provides evidence for why evolution came up with the black-and-white pattern. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Nov-06 • 11 minutes Science Sound(E)scapes: Head Banging and Howling in the Amazon Need a break from politics and the pandemic? You’re probably not in the Amazon rain forest right now, but we can take you there in audio. Today, in part three of our three-part audio sound escape, we ascend into the trees where howler monkeys and crimson-crested woodpeckers rule the airwaves. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Nov-05 • 8 minutes Science Sound(E)scapes: Amazon Frog Choruses at Night Need a break from politics and the pandemic? You’re probably not in the Amazon rain forest right now, but we can take you there in audio. Today, in part two of our three-part audio sound escape, we descend into a nighttime flood of frog music. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Nov-04 • 11 minutes Science Sound(E)scapes: Amazon Pink River Dolphins Need a break from politics and the pandemic? You’re probably not in the Amazon rain forest right now, but we can take you there in audio. Today, in part one of our three-part audio sound escape, we listen to dolphins hunting among the trees. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Nov-03 • 5 minutes Frog Vocals Lead to Small Preference The concave-eared torrent frog's unusual ear anatomy lets it hear high-frequency calls, which gives a mating advantage to the littler males that sing soprano. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Nov-02 • 3 minutes Science News Briefs from around the Globe Here are some brief reports about science and technology from all over, including one from the United Arab Emirates about the the first interplanetary mission by an Arab country. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Nov-01 • 5 minutes Election Science Stakes: Technology We wrap up our preelection series with Scientific American senior editor Jen Schwartz, who talks about the possible effects of the election results on technology development and use. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Oct-30 • 5 minutes Election Science Stakes: Energy Scientific American senior editor Mark Fischetti and associate editor Andrea Thompson talk about this election and the future of U.S. energy research and policy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Oct-29 • 4 minutes Election Science Stakes: Environment Scientific American senior editor Mark Fischetti talks about how this election will affect environmental science and policy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Oct-28 • 6 minutes Election Science Stakes: Climate Scientific American’s associate editor for sustainability Andrea Thompson talks about how climate science and policy will be affected by this election. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Oct-27 • 5 minutes Election Science Stakes: Medicine and Public Health Scientific American’s senior medicine editor Josh Fischman talks about issues in medicine and public health that will be affected by this election. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Oct-26 • 4 minutes Election 2020: The Stakes for Science Scientific American’s editor in chief sets up this week’s series of podcasts about how this election could affect science, technology and medicine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Oct-25 • 4 minutes Why Some Easter Island Statues Are Where They Are Many of the statues not along the coast are in places that featured a resource vital to the communities that lived and worked there. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Oct-23 • 5 minutes Acorn Woodpeckers Fight Long, Bloody Territorial Wars More than 40 of the birds, in coalitions of three or four, may fight for days over oak trees in which to store their acorns. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Oct-22 • 4 minutes Funky Cheese Rinds Release an Influential Stench The volatile compounds released by microbial communities on cheese rinds shape and shift a cheese’s microbiome. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Oct-21 • 5 minutes Dinosaur Asteroid Hit Worst-Case Place The mass-extinction asteroid happened to strike an area where the rock contained a lot of organic matter and sent soot into the stratosphere, where it could block sunlight for years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Oct-20 • 5 minutes River Ecosystem Restoration Can Mean Just Add Water Planners returned water to the dry bed of Arizona’s Santa Cruz River in 2019, and various species began showing up on the same day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Oct-18 • 3 minutes 3,000-Year-Old Orbs Provide a Glimpse of Ancient Sport Researchers say three ancient leather balls, dug up from the tombs of horsemen in northwestern China, are the oldest such specimens from Europe or Asia. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Oct-16 • 4 minutes Humans Make Wild Animals Less Wary From mammals to mollusks, animals living among humans lose their antipredator behaviors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Oct-13 • 5 minutes Play Helped Dogs Be Our Best Friends The ancestors of today’s dogs already exhibited some playfulness, which became a key trait during domestication. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Oct-10 • 4 minutes Neandertal DNA May Be COVID Risk A stretch of Neandertal DNA has been associated with some cases of severe COVID-19, but it’s unclear how much of a risk it poses. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Oct-08 • 5 minutes Nobelist Talks CRISPR Uses New Nobel laureate in chemistry Jennifer Doudna talks about various applications of the gene-editing tool CRISPR. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Oct-07 • 5 minutes Blue Whale Song Timing Reveals Time to Go Blue whales off California’s coast sing at night—until it’s time to start migrating, and they switch to daytime song. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Oct-05 • 4 minutes New Nobel Laureate Talks Today's Virology Charles Rice, who today shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of the hepatitis C virus, talked about how rapidly research now occurs, compared with his early work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Oct-03 • 3 minutes Greenland Is Melting Faster Than Any Time in Past 12,000 Years Researchers determined that Greenland is on track to lose more ice this century than during any of the previous 120 centuries. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Oct-02 • 5 minutes Sloths Slowly Cavort by Day Now The disappearance of their predators in a disturbed ecosystem has turned Atlantic forest sloths from night creatures to day adventurers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Sep-28 • 5 minutes Dinosaurs Got Cancer, Too Researchers seeking evidence for cancer in dinosaurs found it in a collection of bones at a paleontology museum in Alberta. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Sep-24 • 4 minutes Fluttering Feathers Could Spawn New Species Fork-tailed flycatchers make a fluttering sound with their wings—but separate subspecies have different “dialects” of fluttering. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Sep-22 • 3 minutes Science News from around the World Here are some brief reports about science and technology from all over, including one from Israel about what DNA reveals about the Dead Sea Scrolls’ parchment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Sep-17 • 5 minutes These Small Mammals Snort to a Different Tune Hyraxes, which live in Africa and the Middle East, punctuate their songs with snorts. And the snorts appear to reflect the animals’ emotional state. Jason G. Goldman reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Sep-16 • 4 minutes Ice Age Temperatures Help Predict Future Warming Scientists determined that temperatures were 11 degrees cooler during the last ice age—and that finding has implications for modern-day warming. Julia Rosen reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Sep-15 • 3 minutes High-Elevation Hummingbirds Evolved a Temperature Trick Hummingbirds in the Peruvian Andes enter a state of torpor at night to conserve energy, dipping their body temperature to as low as 38 degrees Fahrenheit. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Sep-14 • 5 minutes Why Pet Pigs Are More like Wolves Than Dogs Given an impossible task, a dog will ask a human for help, but a wolf will not seek help—and neither will a pet pig. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Sep-10 • 3 minutes Bricks Can Be Turned into Batteries Pumping cheap iron-oxide-rich red bricks with specific vapors that form polymers enables the bricks to become electrical-charge-storage devices. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Sep-09 • 3 minutes Leftovers Are a Food-Waste Problem Researchers found that leftovers are likely to end up in the trash, so they advise cooking smaller meals in the first place to avoid food waste. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Sep-08 • 5 minutes Some Dinosaurs Probably Nested in Arctic The finding of a baby dinosaur fossil in the Arctic implies that some dinos nested in the region, which was milder than today but not toasty. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Sep-03 • 4 minutes Star Systems Can Be Born Topsy-Turvy Astronomers observed an odd triple-star system that offers clues about misaligned planetary orbits. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Sep-02 • 4 minutes Death by Lightning Is Common for Tropical Trees A study estimates that 200 million trees in the tropics are mowed down by lightning annually. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Aug-31 • 3 minutes Science Briefs from around the World Here are some brief reports about science and technology from all over, including one from Antarctica about how there’s something funny about penguin poop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Aug-28 • 4 minutes Alaska's Salmon Are Shrinking Every year, Alaska’s big salmon runs feature smaller salmon. Climate change and competition with hatchery-raised salmon may be to blame. Julia Rosen reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Aug-27 • 4 minutes End of 'Green Sahara' May Have Spurred a Megadrought in Southeast Asia That drought may have brought about societal shifts in the region 5,000 years ago. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Aug-26 • 4 minutes White Rhinos Eavesdrop to Know Who's Who The finding could potentially help wildlife managers keep better tabs on their herds. Jason G. Goldman reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Aug-21 • 3 minutes Prehistoric Marine Reptile Died after a Giant Meal Researchers found extra bones within a 240-million-year-old ichthyosaur fossil—which they determined to be the ichthyosaur’s last, possibly fatal meal. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Aug-19 • 4 minutes Cows with Eye Images Keep Predators in Arrears Butterflies, fish and frogs sport rear-end eyespots that reduce predation. Painting eye markings on cows similarly seems to ward off predators. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Aug-18 • 5 minutes Warbler Species Fires Up Song Diversity Hermit warblers in California have developed 35 different song dialects, apparently as a result of wildfires temporarily driving them out of certain areas. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Aug-12 • 4 minutes Why Lava Worlds Shine Brightly (It's Not the Lava) Scientists determined that “lava world” exoplanets do not derive their brightness from molten rock but possibly get it from reflective metallic clouds. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Aug-11 • 5 minutes Aardvarks Are Ailing amid Heat and Drought Climate change is expected to bring more frequent droughts and heat waves to Africa’s Kalahari Desert. And aardvarks might not be able to cope. Jason G. Goldman reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Aug-07 • 4 minutes The World's Highest-Dwelling Mammal Lives atop a Volcano Scientists spotted a mouse at the summit of Llullaillaco, a 22,000-foot-tall volcano on the border of Chile and Argentina. Julia Rosen reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Aug-05 • 3 minutes Dampening of the Senses Is Linked to Dementia Risk A decline in smell was the sense loss most strongly associated with such risk in a recent study. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Aug-04 • 4 minutes Translucent Frog Optics Create Camo Color Rather than undergoing active chameleonlike color changes, glass frogs’ translucency allows light to bounce from their background and go through them—making their apparent color close to their setting. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Aug-03 • 4 minutes Paired Comparisons Could Mean Better Witness Identifications Compared with traditional lineup techniques, a series of two-faces-at-a-time choices led to more accurate identification by study witnesses. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Aug-02 • 4 minutes Foxes Have Dined on Our Leftovers for 30,000 Years An analysis of fox fossils found evidence that they scavenged from wolf and bear kills until Homo sapiens supplied plenty of horse and reindeer remains. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jul-31 • 5 minutes Mexico Caves Reveal Ancient Ocher Mining Now submerged caves in the Yucatán Peninsula contain remains of ocher-mining operations that date back at least 10,000 years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jul-27 • 4 minutes In Bee Shortage, Bubbles Could Help Pollinate Soap bubbles are sticky enough to carry a pollen payload and delicate enough to land on flowers without harm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jul-26 • 3 minutes Science News Briefs from around the Planet Here are some brief reports about science and technology from all over, including one about how a lizard population responded to hurricanes by developing larger and stickier toe pads on average. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jul-25 • 3 minutes Seismologists Find the World Quieted Down during Pandemic Lockdowns COVID-19-related lockdowns dampened human activity around the globe—giving seismologists a rare glimpse of the earth’s quietest rumblings. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jul-24 • 4 minutes Old Art Offers Agriculture Info Art museums are filled with centuries-old paintings with details of plants that today give us clues about evolution and breeding practices. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jul-23 • 4 minutes How COVID-19 Decreases Weather Forecast Accuracy Meteorologists take advantage of weather data collected by commercial jetliners at different altitudes and locations. Fewer flights mean less data. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jul-22 • 5 minutes Cricket Avoids Being Bat Food by Doing Nothing The sword-tailed cricket can discern bats’ echolocation signals by only responding to calls of a certain volume—at which point it plummets out of their approach. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jul-21 • 3 minutes Speaker System Blocks City Noise The system works like noise-cancelling headphones but fits over an open window. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jul-20 • 4 minutes Civil War Vaccine May Have Lessons for COVID-19 Vaccination used against smallpox during the Civil War reveals the identity of the distantly related virus used to keep troops disease-free. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jul-16 • 4 minutes Can People ID Infectious Disease by Cough and Sneeze Sounds? Individuals aren’t very good at judging whether someone coughing or sneezing has an infectious condition or is simply reacting to something benign. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jul-13 • 4 minutes Why Some Birds Are Likely To Hit Buildings Those that eat insects, migrate or usually live in the woods are most likely to fly into buildings that feature a lot of glass. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jul-11 • 4 minutes Sparrow Song Undergoes Key Change White-throated sparrows made a change to their familiar call that quickly spread across Canada. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jul-09 • 5 minutes Polynesians and Native South Americans Made 12th-Century Contact Scientists have found snippets of Native South American DNA in the genomes of present-day Polynesians, and they trace the contact to the year 1150. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jul-08 • 4 minutes Animals Appreciate Recent Traffic Lull Researchers saw a third fewer vehicle collisions with deer, elk, moose and other large mammals in the four weeks following COVID-19 shutdowns in three states they tracked. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jul-07 • 4 minutes Bat Says Hi as It Hunts Velvety free-tailed bats produce sounds that help them locate insect prey but simultaneously identify them to their companions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jul-06 • 4 minutes Forests Getting Younger and Shorter Old, big trees are dying faster than in the past, leaving younger, less biodiverse forests that store less carbon worldwide. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jul-02 • 4 minutes Young Great White Sharks Eat off the Floor The stomach contents of young great white sharks show that they spend a lot of time patrolling the seafloor for meals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jul-01 • 3 minutes Tweets Reveal Politics of COVID-19 Political scientists analyzed congressional tweets and observed how Republicans and Democrats responded differently to the virus. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jun-30 • 4 minutes Nature's Goods and Services Get Priced The gross ecosystem product, or GEP, tries to take into account the contribution of nature to the economy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jun-29 • 4 minutes Animal Migrations Track Climate Change Many species are known to have changed their migration routes in response to the changing climate. They now include mule deer and Bewick’s swans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jun-24 • 3 minutes Science Briefs from around the World Here are some brief reports about science and technology from around the planet, including one about a 70-million-year-old mollusk fossil that reveals years back then had a few more days than we have now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jun-19 • 4 minutes Stiffer Roads Could Drive Down Carbon Emissions By hardening the nation’s streets and highways, trucks would use less fuel and spare the planet carbon emissions. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jun-18 • 5 minutes Unicorns of the Sea Reveal Sound Activities Narwhals, recognizable by their large single tusk, make distinct sounds that are now being analyzed in depth by researchers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jun-16 • 4 minutes Human Speech Evolution Gets Lip-Smacking Evidence A study of our closest evolutionary relatives finds that the chimp behavior known as lip smacking occurs in the same timing range as human mouths during speech. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jun-15 • 4 minutes Printed Coral Could Provide Reef Relief Three-dimensional printed coral-like structures were able to support the algae that live in real corals, which could help restore reefs and grow algae for bioenergy production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jun-11 • 3 minutes 'Snot Palaces' Reveal Undersea Creature Secrets Scientists are studying the delicate mucus houses built by creatures called larvaceans to better understand how they live. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jun-09 • 4 minutes Helping Kids Cope with COVID-19 Worries The psychological state of children may need special attention during COVID-19 impacts and isolation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jun-08 • 4 minutes Ancient DNA Rewrites Dead Sea Scroll History By sequencing DNA from the dust of dead sea scrolls, scientists were able to glean new clues about the ancient manuscripts. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jun-07 • 4 minutes Whale Protections Need Not Cause Lobstering Losses Right whales, other whales and turtles get caught in lobster trap lines, but fewer lines can maintain the same lobster catch levels. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jun-06 • 4 minutes How to Keep COVID-19 Conspiracies Contained An expert on climate denial offers tips for inoculating people against coronavirus conspiracy notions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jun-02 • 4 minutes Bioluminescence Helps Prey Avoid Hungry Seals Prey animals flash biochemically produced light to confuse elephant seals hunting in the dark. But at least one seal turned the tables. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jun-01 • 5 minutes 3 Words Mislead Online Regional Mood Analysis Analyzing keywords on Twitter can offer a loose measure of the subjective well-being of a community, as long as you don’t count three words: good, love and LOL. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-May-31 • 4 minutes COVID Has Changed Soundscapes Worldwide The Silent Cities project is collecting sound from cities around the planet during the coronavirus pandemic to give researchers a database of natural sound in areas usually filled with human-generated noise. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-May-28 • 3 minutes Science News Briefs from All Over Here are some brief reports about science and technology from around the planet, including one about an incredibly well-preserved horned lark (Eremophila alpestris), like the one pictured, that lived 46,000 years ago. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-May-27 • 4 minutes Colorful Corals Beat Bleaching Exposed to mildly warmer waters, some corals turn neon instead of bleaching white. The dramatic colors may help coax symbiotic algae back. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-May-22 • 4 minutes Skinny Genes Tell Fat to Burn A gene whose mutated form is associated with cancer in humans turns out to have a role in burning calories over a long evolutionary history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-May-21 • 5 minutes Malaria Mosquitoes Are Biting before Bed-Net Time Mosquitoes that like to bite at night are being thwarted by bed nets, leading to the rise of populations that prefer to bite when the nets are not up yet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-May-15 • 3 minutes We're Being Tested President Trump pointed out yesterday that if we didn't do any testing for the virus we would have very few cases, which forces us to confront the issues posed by testing in general. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-May-14 • 4 minutes Barn Owl Babies Can Be Helpful Hatch Mates Food sharing is mainly found in adult animals as a part of social bonding. But in a rarely observed behavior in birds, older barn owl chicks will share food with younger ones. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-May-12 • 4 minutes Donut Sugar Could Help Stored Blood Last Dehydrated blood that could be kept at room temperature for years may be possible thanks to a sugar used to preserve donuts—and made by tardigrades and brine shrimp so they can dry out and spring back with water. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-May-11 • 4 minutes Lemur Flirting Uses Common Scents To entice female ring-tailed lemurs, males rub wrist secretions, which include compounds we use in perfumes, onto their tail and then wave it near the gals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-May-07 • 4 minutes Flamingos Can Be Picky about Company They don’t stand on one leg around just anybody but often prefer certain members of the flock. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-May-05 • 4 minutes Horses Recognize Pics of Their Keepers Horses picked out photographs of their current keepers, and even of former keepers whom they had not seen in months, at a rate much better than chance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-May-01 • 4 minutes Tapirs Help Reforestation via Defecation The large herbivores appear to prefer disturbed areas over more intact ones and spread many more seeds in those places through their droppings. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Apr-30 • 5 minutes Virus-Infected Bees Practice Social Distancing Bees infected with a virus cut back on interactions within their hive but find it easier to get past sentries at neighboring hives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Apr-29 • 5 minutes New Data on Killer House Cats Wild cats kill more animals than domestic ones do. But pet cats kill many more of them in a small area than similarly sized wild predators. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Apr-28 • 3 minutes Science News Briefs from around the World Here are a few brief reports about science and technology from around the planet, including one about what the eruption of Mount Vesuvius might have done to one ill-fated resident of Herculaneum. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Apr-22 • 4 minutes Birds on Rhinos' Back Help Them Avoid Poachers Oxpeckers riding on rhinoceroses feast on ticks, and their calls warn the nearsighted herbivores about approaching humans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Apr-21 • 4 minutes Jane Goodall: We Can Learn from This Pandemic In a teleconference promoting her participation in Earth Day events on the National Geographic Channel, Goodall talked about what gives her hope during the pandemic and what she hopes we all learn from it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Apr-20 • 4 minutes Our 3,000th Episode Here are some “highlights” from the past 13.5 years of this podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Apr-17 • 4 minutes How Herbivore Herds Might Help Permafrost Introducing herds of large herbivores in the Arctic would disturb surface snow, allowing cold air to reach the ground and keep the permafrost frosty. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Apr-15 • 5 minutes Lung Cancer Screen Could Be Easy Pee-sy In mice, a test for lung cancer involves nanoprobes that recognize tumors and send reporter molecules into the urine for simple analysis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Apr-14 • 3 minutes Obama Talks Some Science Policy As he endorsed Joe Biden today, former president Barack Obama touched on some environmental, economic and science matters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Apr-13 • 5 minutes Red-Winged Blackbirds Understand Yellow Warbler Alarms Researchers studying yellow warbler responses to the parasitic cowbird realized that red-winged blackbirds were eavesdropping on the calls and reacting to them, too. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Apr-10 • 4 minutes Waiter, What's This Worm Doing in My Sushi? Well, it’s probably there because the odds on its presence have gone way up in the past 40 years. But such parasites are still much more of a health problem for whales and dolphins than they are for us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Apr-09 • 4 minutes What's a Narwhal's Tusk For? Although the tusk can be a weapon, the variation in tusk length among animals of similar body size points to it being primarily a mating status signal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Apr-07 • 4 minutes Coronavirus Misinformation Is Its Own Deadly Condition Pulitzer-winning Laurie Garrett, author of The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance, talks about the dangers of politicians offering coronavirus misinformation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Apr-06 • 5 minutes Coronavirus Can Infect Cats Tigers and lions at the Bronx Zoo have tested positive for the virus, and studies show that house cats—but apparently not dogs—can become infected. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Apr-02 • 4 minutes Squid's Glowing Skin Patterns May Be Code Humboldt squid can rapidly change the pigmentation and luminescence patterns on their skin by contracting and relaxing their muscles, possibly to communicate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Apr-01 • 4 minutes Bird Fossil Shared Earth with T. rex Dating back 67 million years, this representative of the group of modern birds has been dubbed the Wonderchicken (which is not an April Fools’ Day joke). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Mar-31 • 4 minutes City Birds: Big-Brained with Few Offspring or Small-Brained with a Lot To make it in urban areas, birds tend to be either large-brained and able to produce few offspring or small-brained and extremely fertile. In natural habitats, most birds brains are of average size. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Mar-30 • 5 minutes Coyotes Eat Everything from Fruits to Cats The diets of coyotes vary widely, depending on whether they live in rural, suburban or urban environments—but pretty much anything is fair game. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Mar-29 • 4 minutes Tiny Wormlike Creature May Be Our Oldest Known Ancestor The bilateral organism crawled on the seafloor, taking in organic matter at one end and dumping the remains out the other some 555 million years ago. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Mar-28 • 4 minutes Science News Briefs from around the Planet Here are a few brief reports about science and technology from around the planet, including one about the discovery of an intact chicken egg dating to Roman Britain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Mar-26 • 4 minutes Help Researchers Track COVID-19 By entering your health status, even if you’re feeling fine, at the Web site COVID Near You, you can help researchers develop a nationwide look at where hotspots of coronavirus are occurring. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Mar-25 • 4 minutes Sick Vampire Bats Restrict Grooming to Close Family When vampire bats feel sick, they still engage in prosocial acts such as sharing food with nonrelatives. But they cut back on grooming anyone other than their closest kin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Mar-24 • 6 minutes Exponential Infection Increases Are Deadly Serious Listen in as I use two calculators to track the difference in numbers of infections over a short period of time, depending on how many people each infected individual infects on average. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Mar-21 • 4 minutes Swamp Wallaby Reproduction Give Tribbles a Run They’re not born pregnant like tribbles, but swamp wallabies routinely get pregnant while pregnant. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Mar-19 • 4 minutes Ocean Plastic Smells Great to Sea Turtles Ocean plastic gets covered with algae and other marine organisms, making it smell delicious to sea turtles—with potentially deadly results. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Mar-17 • 4 minutes Ancient Clam Shell Reveals Shorter Day Length The growth layers in a 70-million-year-old clam shell indicate that a year back then had more than 370 days, with each day being only about 23.5 hours. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Mar-11 • 4 minutes Snapping Shrimp Make More Noise in Warmer Oceans As oceans heat up, the ubiquitous noise of snapping shrimp should increase, posing issues for other species and human seagoing ventures. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Mar-10 • 4 minutes Stress from Undersea Noise Interferes with Crab Camouflage In an example of how sea noise can harm species, exposed shore crabs changed camouflaging color sluggishly and were slower to flee from simulated predators. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Mar-04 • 4 minutes Indigenous Amazonians Managed Valuable Plant Life Studies on very old vegetation in the Amazon basin show active management hundreds of years ago on species such as Brazil nut and cocoa trees. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Mar-03 • 4 minutes Computers Confirm Beethoven's Influence By breaking 900 classical piano compositions into musical chunks, researchers could track Ludwig van Beethoven’s influence on the composers who followed him. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Mar-02 • 4 minutes Science News Briefs from around the World Here are a few brief reports about science and technology from around the world, including one from off the California coast about the first heart rate measurement done on a blue whale. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Feb-25 • 4 minutes Jet Altitude Changes Cut Climate-Changing Contrails Increasing or decreasing the altitude of aircraft by a few thousand feet to avoid thin layers of humidity could make a major reduction to contrails’ contribution to climate change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Feb-24 • 4 minutes Thoroughbred Horses Are Increasingly Inbred Inbreeding in Thoroughbreds has increased significantly in the past 45 years, with the greatest rise occurring in the past 15 or so of them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Feb-20 • 4 minutes Pablo Escobar's Hippos Could Endanger Colombian Ecology Hippos that escaped from drug kingpin Pablo Escobar’s private zoo are reproducing in the wild. And with increasing numbers, they could threaten ecosystems. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Feb-19 • 4 minutes Wasp Nests Help Date Aboriginal Art Art created by Australian Aboriginal people used organic carbon-free pigments, but wasp nests above or below the art can be used for radiocarbon dating that supplies boundaries for the age of artworks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Feb-18 • 4 minutes Industrial Revolution Pollution Found in Himalayan Glacier Ice cores from a Tibetan glacier reveal the first deposits of industrial revolution pollution, starting in layers dated to about 1780. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Feb-15 • 4 minutes Fight-or-Flight Nerves Make Mice Go Gray A new study in mice concludes stress can cause gray hair—and credits overactive nerves with the change in hue. Karen Hopkin reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Feb-13 • 5 minutes Espresso May Be Better when Ground Coarser A very fine grind can actually hamper espresso brewing, because particles may clump more than larger particles will. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Feb-11 • 4 minutes Feral Dogs Respond to Human Hand Cues Most feral dogs that did not run away from humans were able to respond to hand cues about the location of food—even without training. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Feb-07 • 4 minutes Neandertals Tooled Around with Clams Neandertals ate clams and then modified the hard shells into tools for cutting and scraping. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Feb-06 • 4 minutes Fingering Fake Whiskeys with Isotopes Whiskeys claimed to be from the 19th century are revealed to be made with much more recently grown barley, thanks to the unique isotopic fingerprint of the nuclear-testing era. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Feb-05 • 3 minutes Having an Albatross around Your Boat By outfitting 169 albatrosses with GPS data loggers, scientists were able to track fishing boats apparently trying to hide their location. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Feb-03 • 3 minutes Science News Briefs from All Over Here are a few brief reports about international science and technology from around the world, including one from the Democratic Republic of the Congo about a toad that has evolved coloring that makes it look like a deadly snake’s head. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Feb-02 • 4 minutes Facts about Groundhogs Other Than Their Poor Meteorology Groundhogs are less accurate at weather forecasting than are coin flips, but they are nonetheless pretty interesting critters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Feb-01 • 3 minutes Did Animal Calls Start in the Dark? One hypothesis says the ability to vocalize arose in nocturnal animals—and a new evolutionary analysis suggests there may be some truth to it. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jan-30 • 4 minutes Sign Languages Display Distinct Ancestries Well more than 100 distinct sign languages exist worldwide, with each having features that made it possible for researchers to create an evolutionary tree of their lineages. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jan-26 • 3 minutes Docs Given Updated Opioid Prescribing Habit Researchers dialed down the default number of opioids in two hospitals’ prescription systems—and doctors ended up prescribing fewer pills. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jan-25 • 3 minutes Some Wolf Pups Show Innate Fetching Talent Some wolf pups will play fetch with a stranger, suggesting that an ability to playfully interact with people could have come before, and played a role in, dog domestication. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jan-24 • 4 minutes Barred Owls Invade the Sierra Nevada By listening to the sounds of the forest, biologists were able to identify an invasion of barred owls in spotted owl habitat. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jan-23 • 5 minutes Curiosity Killed the ... Mouse? The cat parasite Toxoplasma gondii boosts curiosity in mice—which makes them more likely to be caught by cats, thus continuing the parasite’s life cycle. Karen Hopkin reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jan-17 • 3 minutes This Fish Knows How to Stick Around The remora clings to other fish—and appears to use an unusual sense of touch to do so. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jan-15 • 3 minutes Antarctic Is Ripe for Invasive Species Mussels and crabs are two of the creatures most likely to invade Antarctica in the next 10 years, a panel of scientists say. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jan-14 • 4 minutes Bacteria Helped Plants Evolve to Live on Land Soil bacteria may have taken residence in early algal species, gifting the algae with the ability to withstand drier conditions on land. Annie Sneed reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jan-13 • 4 minutes Meteorite Contains Material Older Than Earth The Murchison meteorite, which screamed to Earth 50 years ago, carried with it stardust that's seven billion years old. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jan-12 • 5 minutes Loss of Large Mammals Stamps Out Invertebrates, Too Hunted areas of Gabon have fewer large mammals and a thicker forest understory—but they also have fewer termites. Jason G. Goldman reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jan-09 • 4 minutes Brittle Stars Can "See" without Eyes The starfish relatives can recognize patterns using photoreceptors on their arms—and their color-changing abilities could have something to do with it. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jan-07 • 3 minutes Atlantic Puffins Spotted Using Tools Scientists observed two Atlantic puffins using sticks to scratch themselves—the first known instance of seabirds using tools. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jan-06 • 4 minutes Traffic Cameras Show Why the Yankees Should Suffer Fewer Injuries in 2020 The 2019 New York Yankees’ record number of injuries led to a change in training staff that will almost certainly correlate with, but not necessarily cause, a lower injury rate this coming season. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jan-05 • 3 minutes Science News Briefs from around the Globe A few brief reports about international science and technology from Indonesia to Spain, including one from Brazil about the highest-voltage electric eel ever discovered. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jan-03 • 3 minutes Part of Real Paleo Diet: It's a Tuber In South Africa archaeologists found the charred remains of a roasted root vegetable. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2020-Jan-02 • 3 minutes You Traveled Far in 2019 Getting around the sun last year was some trip. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Dec-27 • 4 minutes Fido's Human Age Gets New Estimates By comparing how DNA gets altered over the lifetimes of people and dogs, researchers came up with a new way to compare canine years with human years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Dec-26 • 3 minutes Gift Wrapping Is Effective Future Trash Research suggests people value gifts more when they have to unwrap them. But how do we avoid all the wasted paper? Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Dec-24 • 4 minutes Superstrong Fibers Could Be Hairy Situation Human hair tested stronger than thicker fibers from elephants, boars and giraffes, providing clues to materials scientists hoping to make superstrong synthetic fibers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Dec-20 • 3 minutes Flaky Scalps Have a Unique Fungal Microbiome Certain species of bacteria and fungi seem to proliferate on dandruff-ridden scalps. The reason is a little more mysterious. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Dec-19 • 4 minutes Moths Flee or Face Bats, Depending on Toxicity Tiger moth species that contain bad-tasting and toxic compounds are nonchalant in the presence of bats, while edible moth species evade their predators. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Dec-18 • 3 minutes Ancient Seawall Found Submerged In shallow waters off the coast of Israel, archaeologists have found entire villages—including one with a sunken seawall. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Dec-14 • 5 minutes Citizen Scientists Deserve Journal Status Upgrade Here’s an argument that citizen scientists deserve co-authorship on scientific journal papers to which they contributed research. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Dec-13 • 4 minutes Not All Hydropower Is Climate-Considerate While some hydropower facilities release almost no greenhouse gases, others can actually be worse than burning fossil fuels. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Dec-12 • 4 minutes Certain Zip Codes Pick Losers People in certain zip codes are more likely to purchase products that flop, buy homes that are poor investments and pick political candidates who lose. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Dec-11 • 4 minutes Linguists Hear an Accent Begin Residents of an overwintering station in Antarctica provided linguists with evidence of the first small changes in speech that may signal the development of a new accent. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Dec-10 • 3 minutes Romans Would Roam for Wood Archaeologists unearthed wood from a Roman villa when digging Rome’s subway—and scientists determined the planks came all the way from France. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Dec-09 • 4 minutes When the Bellbird Calls, You Know It The white bellbird of the Amazon may be the loudest bird in the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Dec-05 • 3 minutes Fishy Trick Lures Life Back to Coral Reefs Playing the sounds of a healthy reef near damaged corals may help bring the fish community back. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Dec-04 • 4 minutes Rain Forest Dwellers and Urbanites Have Consistently Different Microbiomes A study done in South America found that with increasing population density, humans had more diversity of fungi on the skin but less microbial diversity in the gut. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Dec-03 • 3 minutes Internet Cables Could Also Measure Quakes The fiber-optic cables that connect the global Internet could potentially be used as seismic sensors. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Dec-02 • 3 minutes Science News Briefs from All Over A few brief reports about international science and technology from Mexico to Tanzania, including one about the need to quarantine bananas in Colombia that are potentially infected by a fungus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Nov-29 • 3 minutes Subtle Ancient Footprints Come to Light Ground-penetrating radar can detect tiny density differences that lead to images of ancient footprints impossible to discern by eye. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Nov-25 • 4 minutes Ancient Rock Art Got a Boost From Bacteria Indigenous artists in what’s now British Columbia created pigments by cooking aquatic bacteria. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Nov-21 • 4 minutes Bots Outperform Humans if They Impersonate Us Bots masquerading as humans in a game outperformed their human opponents—but the their superiority vanished when their machine identity was revealed. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Nov-20 • 4 minutes Implanting Memories in Birds Reveals How Learning Happens Researchers activated specific brain cells in zebra finches to teach them songs they’d ordinarily have to hear to learn. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Nov-19 • 3 minutes Dogs Like Motion That Matches Sound Pet dogs appeared more interested in videos of a bouncing ball when the motion of the ball matched a rising and falling tone. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Nov-13 • 4 minutes Famously Fickle Felines Are, in Fact, Clingy Cats are clingier to their human owners than their reputation would suggest. Karen Hopkin reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Nov-09 • 4 minutes Marine Mammal Epidemic Linked to Climate Change A measleslike virus is ricocheting through marine mammal populations in the Arctic—and melting sea ice might be to blame. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Nov-07 • 4 minutes Ant Colonies Avoid Traffic Jams Researchers tracked thousands of individual ants to determine how they move in vast numbers without stumbling into gridlock. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Nov-06 • 4 minutes Ranking Rise May Intimidate Opponents In an analysis of chess and tennis matches, players rising in the rankings did better than expected against higher-ranked opponents and better than similarly ranked players who were not rising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Nov-01 • 4 minutes Science News Briefs from around the Globe A few brief reports about international science and technology from Brazil to Hong Kong, including one about male elephants in India exhibiting unusual social behaviors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Oct-31 • 4 minutes We Owe Our Pumpkins to Pooping Megafauna The pumpkin’s ancestor was an incredibly bitter, tennis-ball-sized squash—but it was apparently a common snack for mastodons. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Oct-29 • 3 minutes Bird Egg Colors Are Influenced by Local Climate In cold, northern climates, eggs tend to be darker and browner—heat-trapping colors that allow parents to spend a bit more time away from the nest. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Oct-28 • 3 minutes Crabs Do a Maze Green crabs learned to navigate a maze without making a single wrong turn—and remembered the skill weeks later. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Oct-24 • 4 minutes Odd Bird Migrates Twice to Breed The phainopepla migrates from southern California to the desert Southwest to breed in the spring before flying to California coastal woodlands to do so again in summer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Oct-23 • 4 minutes Piranha-Proof Fish Gives Inspiration for Body Armor A gigantic fish from the Amazon has incredibly tough scales—and materials scientists are looking to them for bulletproof inspiration. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Oct-22 • 4 minutes Galloping Ant Beats Saharan Heat The Saharan silver ant feeds on other insects that have died on the hot sands, which it traverses at breakneck (for an ant) speeds. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Oct-21 • 3 minutes Some Mosquito Repellents Act like Invisibility Cloaks Synthetic repellents such as DEET seem to mask the scent of our “human perfume”—making us less obvious targets for mosquitoes. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Oct-07 • 4 minutes Nobel in Physiology or Medicine for How Cells Sense Oxygen Levels The 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine goes to William G. Kaelin, Jr., Peter J. Ratcliffe and Gregg L. Semenza “for their discoveries of how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability.” They identified molecular machinery that regulates gene activity in response to changing levels of oxygen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Oct-06 • 4 minutes Teeth Tell Black Death Genetic Tale DNA from the teeth of medieval plague victims indicates the pathogen likely first arrived in eastern Europe before spreading across the continent. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Oct-02 • 3 minutes Heat Changes Insect Call, but It Still Works Tiny insects called treehoppers produce very different mating songs at higher versus lower temperatures, but the intended recipient still finds the changed songs attractive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Oct-01 • 3 minutes Corals Can Inherit Symbiotic Adaptations to Warming Adult corals can reshuffle their symbiotic algae species to adapt to warming waters—and, it appears they can pass those adaptations on. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Sep-30 • 4 minutes Brains of Blind People Adapt in Similar Fashion The brains of those who are blind repurpose the vision regions for adaptive hearing, and they appear to do so in a consistent way. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Sep-29 • 3 minutes Science News Briefs from around the World A few brief reports about international science and technology from Hungary to Japan, including one about a wine grape in France that DNA testing shows has been cultivated for almost a millennium. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Sep-25 • 4 minutes Musical Note Perception Can Depend on Culture Western ears consider a pitch at double the frequency of a lower pitch to be the same note, an octave higher. The Tsimane’, an indigenous people in the Bolivian Amazon basin, do not. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Sep-18 • 3 minutes Early Butchers Used Small Stone Scalpels Homo erectus used hand axes to butcher elephants and other game. But a new study suggests they also used finer, more sophisticated blades. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Sep-17 • 3 minutes Microplastics in Fresh Water Are Mostly Laundry Lint Microplastic particles are everywhere, but in freshwater systems, 60 percent of particles are clothing lint from laundry. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Sep-13 • 4 minutes Lab-Grown Human Mini Brains Show Brainy Activity As the little structures grow, their constituents specialize into different types of brain cells, begin to form connections and emit brain waves. They could be useful models for development and neurological conditions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Sep-12 • 4 minutes Eavesdropping Puts Anxious Squirrels at Ease Squirrels constantly scan their surroundings for hawks, owls and other predators. But they also surveil for threats by eavesdropping on bird chatter. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Sep-11 • 4 minutes Earth's Magnetic Field Initiated a Pole Flip Many Millennia before the Switch Lava flow records and sedimentary and Antarctic ice core data show evidence of planetary magnetic field activity 20,000 years before the beginning of the last pole reversal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Sep-09 • 4 minutes Food Expiration Dates May Mislead Consumers Better food labeling could prevent people from throwing away a lot of “expired” food that’s still perfectly edible. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Sep-05 • 4 minutes Farmland Is Also Optimal for Solar Power The conditions of sunlight, temperature, humidity and wind that make cropland good for agriculture also maximize solar panel efficiency. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Sep-04 • 3 minutes Chemical Tweak Recycles Polyurethane into Glue It’s not easy to recycle polyurethane, so it’s usually tossed out or burned. But a chemical tweak can turn polyurethane into glue. Christine Herman reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Aug-30 • 4 minutes How Hurricanes Influence Spider Aggressiveness As Hurricane Dorian approaches Florida, consider that feeding style means that aggressive tangle-web spider colonies produce more offspring after severe weather, while docile colonies do better in calm conditions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Aug-28 • 4 minutes Graphene Garment Blocks Blood-Sucking Skeeters A small patch of graphene on human skin seemed to block the mosquitoes’ ability to sense certain molecules that trigger a bite. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Aug-26 • 3 minutes Martian Winds Could Spread Microbe Hitchhikers Microbes fly tens of miles over Chile’s dry, UV-blasted Atacama Desert—and scientists say the same could happen on Mars. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Aug-21 • 4 minutes Including Indigenous Voices in Genomics A program at the University of Illinois trains indigenous scientists in genomics—in hopes that future work will be aimed at benefiting those communities. Christine Herman reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Aug-19 • 4 minutes West Point Uniforms Signify Explosive Chemistry U.S. Military Academy cadets wear the colors black, gray and gold for reasons found in gunpowder’s chemistry. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Aug-12 • 3 minutes Artificial Intelligence Sniffs Out Unsafe Foods Researchers trained machine-learning algorithms to read Amazon reviews for hints that a food product would be recalled by the FDA. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Aug-08 • 3 minutes Stare Down Gulls to Avoid Lunch Loss Researchers slowed the approach of greedy gulls by an average of 21 seconds by staring at the birds versus looking elsewhere. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Aug-07 • 4 minutes Real Laughs Motivate More Guffaws Honest, involuntary laughter cued people to laugh more at some really bad jokes than they did when hearing forced laughter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Aug-03 • 3 minutes London Is Crawling with Drug-Resistant Microbes Nearly half of bacteria gathered in public settings around the city were resistant to two or more commonly used antibiotics, such as penicillin and erythromycin. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Jul-31 • 4 minutes Babies Want Fair Leaders Babies as young as a year and a half want leaders to fix situations in which they see someone else being treated unfairly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Jul-30 • 4 minutes Parrots Are Making the U.S. Home Released or escaped parrots are now living in most states and are breeding in at least 21. For some, it’s a second chance at survival. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Jul-29 • 3 minutes Science News Briefs from All Over A few brief reports about international science and technology from Guatemala to Australia, including one about the first recorded tornado in Nepal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Jul-25 • 3 minutes Tourist Photographs Help African Wildlife Census Photographs snapped by safari tourists are a surprisingly accurate way to assess populations of African carnivores. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Jul-23 • 3 minutes For Ants, the Sky's the Compass Computer modeling revealed that insects with a celestial compass can likely determine direction down to just a couple degrees of error. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Jul-20 • 4 minutes Why Two Moonships Were Better Than One Engineer John Houbolt pushed for a smaller ship to land on the lunar surface while the command module stayed in orbit around the moon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Jul-19 • 5 minutes One Small Scoop, One Giant Impact for Mankind Just before Neil Armstrong climbed back into the lunar module, he scooped up a few last-minute soil samples--which upturned our understanding of planetary formation. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Jul-16 • 4 minutes Attractive Young Females May Have Justice Edge Youths rated as attractive were less likely to have negative encounters with the criminal justice system—but only if they were women. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Jul-15 • 4 minutes Tobacco Plants Made to Produce Useful Compounds A proof-of-concept study got transgenic tobacco plants to make a useful enzyme in their chloroplasts, not nuclei, minimizing chances for transfer to other organisms. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Jul-11 • 5 minutes Rhinos and Their Gamekeepers Benefit from AI Starting in 2017, an artificial intelligence monitoring system at the Welgevonden Game Reserve in South Africa has been helping to protect rhinos and their caretakers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Jul-09 • 4 minutes Why Baseballs Are Flying in 2019 An analysis of the 2019 edition of the Major League baseball points to reasons why it's leaving ballparks at a record rate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Jul-03 • 3 minutes Some Hot Dog Histology A lab analysis found that even an all-beef frankfurter had very little skeletal muscle, or "meat." So what’s in there? Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Jun-30 • 4 minutes Scientist Encourages Other Women Scientists to Make Themselves Heard Geneticist Natalie Telis noticed few women asking questions at scientific conferences. So she publicized the problem and set about to make a change. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Jun-25 • 3 minutes Wheat Plants "Sneeze" and Spread Disease Wheat plants' leaves repel water, which creates the perfect conditions for dew droplets to catapult off the leaves—taking pathogenic spores for the ride. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Jun-23 • 4 minutes Science News Briefs from around the World A few brief reports about international science and technology from Canada to Kenya, including one about how humans thousands of years ago in what is now Argentina butchered and presumably ate giant ground sloths. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Jun-17 • 3 minutes Monkey Cousins Use Similar Calls Two monkey species who last shared a common ancestor 3 million years ago have "eerily similar" alarm calls. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Jun-16 • 4 minutes How Millipedes Avoid Interspecies Sexual Slips Millipedes, often blind, have come up with clever physical signals to ward off sexual advances from members of wrong species. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Jun-13 • 4 minutes You Contain Multitudes of Microplastics People appear to consume between 74,000 and 121,000 microplastic particles annually, and that's probably a gross underestimate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Jun-12 • 4 minutes A Biodegradable Label Doesn't Make It So At the third Scientific American “Science on the Hill” event, “Solving the Plastic Waste Problem”, one of the issues discussed by experts on Capitol Hill was biodegradability. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Jun-06 • 3 minutes High School Cheaters Nabbed by Neural Network Researchers trained a neural network to scrutinize high school essays and sniff out ghostwritten papers. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Jun-04 • 3 minutes Preserved Poop Is an Archaeological Treasure Anthropologists found parasite eggs in ancient poop samples, providing a glimpse of human health as hunter-gatherers transitioned to settlements. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Jun-03 • 3 minutes Remembering Murray Gell-Mann Murray Gell-Mann, 1969 Nobel Laureate in Physics who identified the quark, died May 24th. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-May-29 • 4 minutes Bonobo Mothers Supervise Their Sons' Monkey Business Some wild female bonobos introduce their sons to desirable females—then make sure their relations won’t be interrupted by competing males. Karen Hopkin reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-May-23 • 3 minutes Icy Room Temperatures May Chill Productivity A new study suggests women's performance on math and verbal tasks increases as room temperature rises, up to about the mid 70s F. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-May-22 • 3 minutes Bird Beak Shapes Depend on More Than Diet A study found that only a small percentage of bird beak shape variation is dependent on diet, with other factors like display and nest construction probably playing parts too. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-May-17 • 4 minutes Nobelist: Harness Evolution as a Problem-Solving Algorithm Frances Arnold, the Caltech scientist who shared the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, says evolution can show us how to solve problems of sustainability. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-May-16 • 4 minutes Unread Books at Home Still Spark Literacy Habits Growing up in a home filled with books enhances enhances intellectual capacity in later life, even if you don't read them all. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-May-14 • 3 minutes Penguin Poop Helps Biodiversity Bloom in Antarctica Ammonia from penguin poop gets carried on Antarctic winds, fertilizing mosses and lichens as far as a mile away. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-May-08 • 3 minutes U.S. Coral Reefs Do $1.8 Billion of Work Per Year By dampening the energy of waves, coral reefs protect coastal cities from flooding damage and other economic losses. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-May-06 • 3 minutes Could Air-Conditioners Help Cool the Planet? Researchers want to outfit air conditioners with carbon-capture technology. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-May-01 • 4 minutes Software Sniffs Out Rat Squeaks Algorithms learned to sift ultrasonic rat squeaks from other noise, which could help researchers who study rodents’ emotional states. Lucy Huang reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Apr-30 • 3 minutes New Model Aims to Solve Mystery of the Moon's Formation Scientists propose that the moon could have formed when a Mars-sized object slammed into an Earth covered in magma seas. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Apr-29 • 4 minutes Cats Recognize Their Names—but May Not Respond Felines move their ears, heads and tails more when they hear their names compared to when they hear similar words. Jim Daley reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Apr-27 • 4 minutes Science News Briefs from All Over A few brief reports about international science and technology from Liberia to Hawaii, including one on the discovery in Northern Ireland of soil bacteria that stop the growth of MRSA and other superbugs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Apr-26 • 4 minutes Hurricane Maria Rain Amount Chances Are Boosted by Climate Change The likelihood of an event like Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, and of its massive precipitation, is fivefold higher in the climate of today than it would have been some 60 years ago Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Apr-25 • 4 minutes Harder-Working Snakes Pack Stronger Venom Snake venom toxicity depends on snake size, energy requirements and environmental dimensionality more than on prey size. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Apr-24 • 3 minutes River Dolphins Have a Wide Vocal Repertoire Freshwater dolphins are evolutionary relics, and their calls give clues to the origins of cetacean communication in general. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Apr-23 • 3 minutes Honeybees Can Put Two and Two Together The tiny brain of a honeybee is apparently able to calculate small numbers' addition and subtraction. Annie Sneed reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Apr-20 • 5 minutes 4/20 Traffic Accidents Claim Curbed A deeper data dive calls into question a 2018 study that found a spike in fatal traffic accidents apparently related to marijuana consumption on this date. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Apr-19 • 4 minutes Hyena Society Stability Has Last Laugh Female hyenas keep their clans in line by virtue of their complex social networks. Jason G. Goldman reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Apr-18 • 3 minutes Gluten-Free Restaurant Foods Are Often Mislabeled One in three gluten-free dishes tested at restaurants contained gluten—especially GF pizzas and pastas. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Apr-17 • 5 minutes What Chickens Can Teach Hearing Researchers At an April 9th event sponsored by the Kavli Foundation and produced by Scientific American that honored Nobel and Kavli Prize winners, neuroscientists James Hudspeth and Robert Fettiplace talked about the physiology of hearing and the possibility of restoring hearing loss. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Apr-11 • 4 minutes Urban Coyote Evolution Favors the Bold Coyotes become fearless around people in just a few generations—which isn’t good for their longterm co-existence with humans in cities. Jason G. Goldman reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Apr-10 • 3 minutes Computers Turn an Ear on New York City NYU’s “Sounds of New York City” project listens to the city—and then, with the help of citizen scientists, teaches machines to decode the soundscape. Jim Daley reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Apr-09 • 3 minutes Whitening Strips Alter Proteins in Teeth Hydrogen peroxide in whitening treatments penetrates enamel and dentin, and alters tooth proteins. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Apr-08 • 4 minutes Infrared Light Offers a Cooler Way to Defrost Light tuned to a specific frequency warms ice more than water—which could come in handy for defrosting delicate biological samples. Adam Levy reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Apr-04 • 3 minutes Spider Monkeys Optimize Jungle Acoustics The monkeys lower the pitch of their "whinnies" when they're far from the rest of their group, which might help the calls travel further through jungle foliage. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Mar-26 • 3 minutes Scenic City Sights Linked to Higher Happiness Tracking the location and mood of 15,000 people, researchers found that scenic beauty was linked to happiness—including near urban sights like bridges and buildings. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Mar-22 • 4 minutes Daylight Brings Toxic Beetles Together for Safety During daylight hours, hundreds of bombardier beetles of multiple species will congregate together to more effectively ward off any predators not afraid of a lone beetle's toxic spray. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Mar-19 • 4 minutes Solar Jets Cause Standing Waves in Earth's Magnetic Field When jets of charged particles from the sun hit our magnetosphere, some of the ensuing ripples travel toward the northern and southern poles and get reflected back. The resulting interference allows standing waves to form, like on a drumhead. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Mar-18 • 4 minutes Sing Solo for Higher Fidelity By tracking duetting choir singers, researchers found that when an individual singer's pitch drifts off tune their partner’s tend to too. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Mar-14 • 3 minutes Edible Insect Breeding Led to Larger but Not Necessarily Better Larvae Researchers aiming to lower the cost of mealworms were able to double the worms' size, but the larger larvae had fewer eggs and weaker offspring. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Mar-12 • 4 minutes Busting Earth-Bound Asteroids a Bigger Job Than We Thought A new model suggests smashing killer space rocks with insufficient force could let gravity pull the pieces back together. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Mar-05 • 4 minutes Baseball Commish Talks Big Data At a sports technology conference, baseball commissioner Rob Manfred addressed issues including an automated strike zone and advanced analytics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Mar-04 • 4 minutes Background Music Might Stifle Creativity Volunteers who listened to music solved fewer word puzzles than others who worked in silence. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Feb-28 • 4 minutes Budding Yeast Produce Cannabis Compounds Biologists have taken the genes that produce cannabinoids in weed and plugged them into yeast, making rare and novel compounds more accessible. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Feb-25 • 4 minutes Grandma's Influence Is Good for Grandkids Grandmothers can enhance the survival of grandchildren. That is, unless grandma’s too old or lives too far away. Karen Hopkin reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Feb-20 • 4 minutes Warming Climate Implies More Flies—and Disease The incidence of foodborne illness could jump in a warming world, due to an increase in housefly activity. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Feb-19 • 4 minutes Light-Skin Variant Arose in Asia Independent of Europe A new genetic study of Latin Americans provides evidence that gene variants for lighter skin color came about in Asia as well as in Europe. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Feb-13 • 3 minutes Finally Over for Mars Rover The rover Opportunity has called it quits after working for more than 14 years on Mars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Feb-11 • 5 minutes Our Brains Really Remember Some Pop Music Although millennials' memory of recent pop tunes drops quickly, their ability to identify top hits from the 1960s through 1990s remains moderately high. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Feb-08 • 3 minutes Biologists Track Tweets to Monitor Birds Conservation biologists can track the whereabouts of endangered species by the sounds they make, avoiding cumbersome trackers and tags. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Feb-06 • 5 minutes Different Humpback Whale Groups Meet to Jam Humpback populations from the Atlantic and Indian oceans meet up south of Africa and trade song stylings. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Feb-05 • 4 minutes Rocking Helps Adults Sleep Too Adult humans, as well as mice, slept better when gently rocked. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Jan-31 • 4 minutes Neandertal Spears Were Surprisingly Deadly Javelin throwers chucking replicas of Neandertal spears were able to hit targets farther away, and with greater force than previously thought to be possible. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Jan-25 • 4 minutes Intimate Hermit Crab Keeps Shell On A species of hermit crab appears to have evolved a large penis to enable intercourse without leaving, and thus possibly losing, its adopted shell. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Jan-24 • 4 minutes Ecologists Eavesdrop with Bioacoustics By coupling audio recordings with satellite data and camera traps, ecologists can keep their eyes—and ears—on protected tropical forests. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Jan-23 • 3 minutes Saturn's Blingy Rings Are a Recent Upgrade Though Saturn formed about 4.5 billion years ago, its rings were added relatively recently—only 100 million to 10 million years ago. Karen Hopkin reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Jan-16 • 4 minutes Ants Stick to Cliques to Dodge Disease Ants infected with fungal pathogens steer clear of other cliques within the colony—avoiding wider infection, and allowing for a sort of immunity. Lucy Huang reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Jan-13 • 3 minutes Mistimed Migration Means Bird Death Battles Climate change is shifting population numbers and nest building by resident and migratory birds in Europe—sometimes leading to deadly conflict. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Jan-11 • 5 minutes Monogamy May Be Written in Our Genes In animal studies, a set of 24 genes involved in neural development, learning and memory, and cognition, seem to be associated with monogamy. Karen Hopkin reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Jan-08 • 3 minutes Inhaled RNA Might Help Heal Cystic Fibrosis Scientists are working to correct a genetic defect in cystic fibrosis patients by having them inhale RNA. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Jan-04 • 4 minutes Invisible Killers Hitchhike on Native Plant Seedlings More than a quarter of the seedlings sampled at native plant nurseries were infected with pathogens—which could hamper restoration work. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2019-Jan-02 • 3 minutes Facebook Users Value the Service More Than Investors Do Users of the social network said they'd require payment of more than $1,000 to quit the platform for one year. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Dec-31 • 4 minutes Science News from around the Planet A few brief reports about international science and technology from Germany to Rwanda, including one on the discovery of the world's oldest known brewery, discovered in Israel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Dec-29 • 3 minutes Turn Xmas Tree into Food and Medicine Pine needles can easily be broken down into sugars as well as the building blocks of paint, adhesives and medicines. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Dec-27 • 3 minutes Simple Sugars Wipe Out Beneficial Gut Bugs Fructose and sucrose can make it all the way to the colon, where they spell a sugary death sentence for beneficial bacteria. Karen Hopkin reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Dec-26 • 3 minutes Smarter Pricing Could Ease Parking Frustration A new algorithm raises parking rates in busy neighborhoods and lowers them elsewhere, guaranteeing free parking spots regardless of location. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Dec-25 • 3 minutes "Hunger Hormone" Ghrelin Aids Overindulgence Ghrelin, the hormone that makes you hungry, also makes food, and food smells, irresistibly appealing. Karen Hopkin reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Dec-24 • 4 minutes Colorful Peacocks Impress Females with Good Vibes Peafowls' head crests are specifically tuned to the vibrations produced by feather-rattling male peacocks, thus acting as a sort of antenna. Jason G. Goldman reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Dec-22 • 4 minutes "Relaxation Music" Works—but So Does Chopin So-called "relaxation music" is only about as effective as a soothing Chopin piece at lulling listeners into a relaxed state. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Dec-19 • 4 minutes You Gotta Scratch That Itch A particular set of brain neurons may be behind registering itch and inducing us to scratch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Dec-13 • 4 minutes Big-Boned Chickens May Be Humans' Geologic Legacy Millions of years from now, the geologic record of the "Anthropocene" will be littered with plastics, yes, but also chicken bones. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Dec-12 • 3 minutes Ancient Marine Reptiles Had Familiar Gear Ichthyosaurs had traits in common with turtles and modern marine mammals, like blubber and countershading camouflage. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Dec-11 • 4 minutes Little Aphids Ride Big Ones to Safety When trouble lurks, juvenile aphids drop off of the plants they're eating and hitch a ride on bigger aphid escapees. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Dec-08 • 3 minutes Utah's Deserts Are Bee Hotspots The Trump administration is shrinking Utah's desert monuments, stripping some federal protections for wild pollinators. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Dec-06 • 4 minutes Who's a Smart Dog?! An estimate of dog intelligence requires looking at non-dogs as well to understand what's special to canines and what is just typical of the taxonomic groups they're in. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Dec-05 • 3 minutes Data Reveals Most Influential Movies By analyzing the network connections between 47,000 films on IMDb, researchers found the most influential films ever made. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Nov-30 • 4 minutes Blue Whales Have Changed Their Tune In the last few decades blue whale calls have been getting lower in pitch—and a rebound in their numbers may be the reason. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Nov-21 • 3 minutes Do Wine over Those Brussels Sprouts Taking a swig of red wine before eating Brussels sprouts appears to moderate Brussels sprouts' polarizing flavor. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Nov-19 • 3 minutes Rains Bring a Microbial Massacre to Chilean Desert Freak heavy rainstorms in 2015 and 2017 wiped out many dry-adapted microbes in the Atacama Desert, useful info in the search for life off Earth. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Nov-18 • 3 minutes Consensual Hugs Seem to Reduce Stress People who had a conflict in a given day but also got hugged were not as affected by the negative interaction as were their unhugged counterparts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Nov-17 • 5 minutes World's Largest Organism Faces Bleak Future The single organism that is the Utah aspen grove known as Pando is on the decline due to herbivores wiping out its youngest tree outgrowths Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Nov-10 • 3 minutes Babies and Chimps Share a Laugh Adult humans laugh primarily on the exhale, but human babies laugh on the inhale and the exhale—as do chimps. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Nov-08 • 3 minutes Singing Fish Reveal Underwater Battles in the Amazon Researchers recorded piranha "honks" and catfish "screeches" in the Peruvian Amazon, which might illuminate fish activity in murky jungle waters. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Nov-07 • 4 minutes Social Construct of Race Imposes Biology Anthropologist Jennifer Raff argues that race is culturally created, but has biological consequences. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Nov-02 • 3 minutes First Benefit of Knowing Your Genome The "low hanging fruit" of genome-related health care will be knowing which drugs are likely to treat you best, says science journalist Carl Zimmer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Oct-31 • 3 minutes For Halloween, Consider the Chocolate Midge A tiny fly, related to biting no-see-ums, pollinates cacao trees and enables our chocolate cravings. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Oct-29 • 3 minutes Dolphins Dumb Down Calls to Compete with Ship Noise Bottlenose dolphins simplify and raise the pitch of their whistles to be heard above underwater shipping noise. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Oct-22 • 5 minutes Asocial Octopuses Become Cuddly on MDMA Octopuses react to MDMA much like humans do. And not surprisingly, given their anatomy, the animals are excellent huggers. Annie Sneed reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Oct-18 • 5 minutes Wild Songbirds Can Pick Up New Tunes Researchers taught two dozen wild sparrows new songs, by playing them the recordings of sparrows that live thousands of miles away. Jason G. Goldman reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Oct-15 • 4 minutes Nice People Have Emptier Wallets A study correlating personality traits with financial data found that agreeable people had lower savings, higher debt and higher bankruptcy rates. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Oct-11 • 4 minutes Confident Tone Overcomes Accent Distrust English as-a-first-language Canadian study subjects were less trusting of statements in English spoken with a foreign accent, unless the speaker sounded confident about their assertion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Oct-10 • 3 minutes Mom's Genes Make Some Giraffes Hard to Spot Baby giraffes inherit aspects of their mothers' patterning—which could give them a survival advantage if good camouflage runs in the family. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Oct-09 • 3 minutes Economics Nobel Highlights Climate Action Necessity William Nordhaus shared the 2018 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, "for integrating climate change into long-run macroeconomic analysis,” with Paul Romer, "for integrating technological innovations into long-run macroeconomic analysis." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Oct-06 • 4 minutes Highway Crossings Protect Migrating Pronghorns—and Motorists Twice a year, thousands of pronghorn antelope and mule deer migrate through Wyoming, and newly built highway crossings are sparing the lives of animals—and motorists. Jason G. Goldman reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Oct-03 • 4 minutes Nobel in Chemistry for New and Useful Chemical Entities via Evolutionary Principles Frances H. Arnold, George P. Smith and Gregory P. Winter share the 2018 chemistry Nobel for developing evolutionary-based techniques that lead to the creation of new chemical entities with useful properties. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Oct-02 • 4 minutes Nobel in Physics for Controlling Laser Light Arthur Ashkin, Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland share the 2018 physics Nobel for their work with lasers that have led to numerous practical applications, such as eye surgery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Oct-01 • 3 minutes Nobel for Helping the Immune System Fight Cancer James P. Allison and Tasuku Honjo share the Nobel Prize for their work on harnessing the cancer patient's own immune system to destroy tumors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Sep-27 • 4 minutes Scanning Ancient Civilizations from the Skies An aerial laser scan of more than 800 square miles of Guatemalan jungle revealed Maya buildings, canals, roads and bridges. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Sep-24 • 4 minutes Scale Can Measure Medicine—and Play a Scale, Too Researchers have designed a musical instrument that can detect counterfeit drugs by the pitch of its notes. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Sep-21 • 3 minutes Diverse Tree Portfolio Weathers Droughts Better Forests with numerous tree species, and therefore a mix of water-management strategies, appear more tolerant of drought. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Sep-19 • 3 minutes Pirates Needed Science, Too On International Talk Like a Pirate Day, here's an eye-patch-witness account of how science helps in all peg-leg walks of life, even piracy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Sep-18 • 4 minutes Sea Otters' Powerful Paw Prey Perception The marine mammals have extraordinarily sensitive touch—which helps them nab prey in the absence of other sensory cues. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Sep-13 • 3 minutes Genetic Tweak Gave Early Humans a Leg Up A mutation in a key gene may have endowed humans with superior endurance—allowing them to compete better with other animals on the savanna. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Sep-12 • 3 minutes Earlier Springs May Mean Mistimed Bird Migrations Springtime's arriving earlier across North America. But the degree of change isn't the same everywhere, which could spell trouble for migratory birds. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Sep-10 • 3 minutes Survey the Wildlife of the "Great Indoors" Biologists are enlisting citizen scientists to poke around under the sink and behind the curtains, for wildlife living in the "great indoors." Karen Hopkin reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Sep-07 • 4 minutes When Neutron Stars Collide Astrophysicists have gotten a better glimpse at what happens to crashing neutron stars by listening in on the electromagnetic echoes of the collision. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Sep-06 • 3 minutes Bonnethead Sharks Are Underwater Lawn Mowers The hammerhead relatives consume copious amounts of sea grass, and have the digestive machinery to process it—making them true omnivores. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Sep-04 • 4 minutes Pasta Problem Cracked! An intrepid undergrad led the way to understanding the physics of snapping strands of spaghetti. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Aug-31 • 4 minutes Science News You Might Have Missed A few very brief reports about science and technology from around the globe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Aug-24 • 4 minutes Sometimes Mosquitoes Are Just Thirsty Mosquitoes want your blood for its proteins...or simply to hydrate on a hot, dry day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Aug-23 • 4 minutes Robot Bartender Will Take Your Order Digital assistants have to respond quickly, but correctly—so researchers are studying how real humans navigate that trade-off, to design better machines. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Aug-22 • 4 minutes As Spring Arrives Earlier, Arctic Geese Speed Up Their Migration The birds are arriving in the Arctic up to 13 days earlier than they used to. But at a cost: hunger. Annie Sneed reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Aug-21 • 4 minutes Freeloading Ants Help the Workflow Fire ants tunnels got excavated efficiently by only a small percentage of the group doing most of the work, thus avoiding pileups in tight spaces. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Aug-16 • 4 minutes For Some Crows, Migration Is Optional Crows are what's known as "partial migrants"—as cold weather approaches, some crows fly south whereas others stay put. And that behavior appears to be ingrained. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Aug-14 • 4 minutes Solar Eclipse of 2017 Boosted Science Interest The Michigan Scientific Literacy Survey of 2017 found that last year's total solar eclipse got Americans more interested in celestial science. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Aug-13 • 4 minutes Crickets Carve Tools to Amplify Their Chirps The insects fashion and use "baffles"—sound controllers—made of leaves to produce sound more efficiently. Jason G. Goldman reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Aug-09 • 4 minutes Better Data Could Mean Better Dating Both men and women tended to pursue mates just 25 percent more desirable than themselves—suggesting they are "optimistic realists." Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Aug-08 • 4 minutes To Evolve Baleen, Lose Your Teeth First Whale ancestors probably never had teeth and baleen at the same time, and only developed baleen after trying toothlessness and sucking in prey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Aug-07 • 3 minutes Corn Variety Grabs Fertilizer from the Air A variety of corn from Oaxaca, Mexico, has aerial roots that harbor nitrogen-fixing bacteria, allowing the corn to suck nitrogen straight from the air. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Aug-02 • 3 minutes Birds Learn Safety from Other Kinds of Birds Birds become good at avoiding danger by eavesdropping on the alarm calls of other birds—and the learning occurs without even seeing their peers or predators. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Jul-30 • 4 minutes Some Crows Hit On Dead Companions About 5 percent of crows will attempt to copulate with other crows that have joined the choir invisible. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Jul-26 • 3 minutes Border Wall Could Disrupt Hundreds of Species More than 2,500 scientists signed a letter saying that an expanded U.S.–Mexico border wall would threaten both biodiversity and scientific research. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Jul-25 • 4 minutes Turn a Wall into a Touch Screen Cheap Researchers used a couple of hundred dollars worth of materials to turn a wall into a giant touch screen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Jul-20 • 3 minutes Sea Level Rise Could Inundate the Internet Extreme sea level rise could swamp internet cabling and hubs by 2033—and coastal cities like New York, Seattle and Miami are at greatest risk. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Jul-17 • 3 minutes Jupiter's Moon Total Hits 79 The International Astronomical Union reports that there are now 79 known Jovian moons, with a dozen found last year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Jul-16 • 4 minutes Moths Evade Bats with Slight of Wing Some moth species have evolved long wing tails that flutter and twist as the moth flies, which distract hungry bats. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Jul-10 • 4 minutes Favorite Wine Grapes May Need Genetic Help Wine book author Kevin Begos explains that just a few varieties of wine grapes dominate the industry, which leaves them vulnerable to potentially catastrophic disease outbreaks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Jul-04 • 3 minutes Sharks Make a Splash in Brooklyn Visitors can see and learn about sharks and their environment in the new "Ocean Wonders: Sharks!" facility at the Wildlife Conservation Society's New York Aquarium. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Jul-02 • 3 minutes People Ration Where They Roam An analysis of the movement of some 40,000 people suggests most of us frequent only 25 places—and as we sub in new favorites, we drop old ones. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Jun-26 • 3 minutes Piano Lessons Tune Up Language Skills Six months of piano lessons can heighten kindergartners' brain responses to different pitches, and improve their ability to tell apart two similar-sounding words. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Jun-22 • 3 minutes Bird's Song Staying Power Implies Culture Certain motifs in swamp sparrow songs can last hundreds, even thousands of years—evidence of a cultural tradition in the birds. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Jun-21 • 3 minutes Alaskan Beluga Whales Ace Hearing Exam Researchers tested the hearing of beluga whales in an Alaskan bay and found that they seem to have suffered little hearing loss due to ocean noise. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Jun-15 • 3 minutes Coral Reefs Keep Costly Waves at Bay A new analysis found the flood protection benefits of coral reefs save the global economy $4 billion dollars a year. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Jun-14 • 4 minutes Hippo Dung Fouls Up Freshwater Fisheries Hippo poop is piling up in Tanzania’s freshwater fisheries—which is bad news for biodiversity, and deleterious for the dinner plate. Jason G. Goldman reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Jun-13 • 4 minutes A Litmus Test for Bad Breath Researchers engineered a portable device that detects even the tiniest trace of hydrogen sulfide—one of the primary offenders in bad breath. Karen Hopkin reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Jun-11 • 4 minutes Prez (of AMA) Issues Call to Arms-Science At the AMA annual meeting the organization's president petitioned for an evidence-based, science-driven analysis of gun violence and solutions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Jun-08 • 3 minutes Powder Pulls Drinking Water from Desert Air A structure known as a metal organic framework traps water vapor by night, then releases it when heated the next day. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Jun-06 • 3 minutes Ancient Clan War Explains Genetic Diversity Drop Some 5,000 to 7,000 years ago, the diversity of Y chromosomes plummeted. A new analysis suggests clan warfare may have been the cause. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Jun-05 • 4 minutes Saying "This May Hurt" May Make It Worse Warning a child that something, like a vaccine shot, will hurt can actually increase their perception of the pain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Jun-01 • 3 minutes Mongooses Gift Grooming for Guard Duty Humans and other primates often reciprocate good deeds. A new study suggests a nonprimate, the dwarf mongoose, does so, too, even after a delay. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-May-31 • 4 minutes Some Trees Beat Heat with Sweat During extreme heat waves, a species of eucalyptus copes by releasing water and taking advantage of evaporative cooling. Other trees may do the same. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-May-30 • 3 minutes Computers Go Head-to-Head with Humans on Face Recognition The best facial-recognition algorithms are now as good as the best forensic examiners are. But the best results come by combining human and computer skills. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-May-29 • 4 minutes Pinnipeds Don't Appreciate Biped Disturbance Sea lions and fur seals in Uruguay have become a tourist attraction—but the animals have become less, not more, accepting of humans. Jason G. Goldman reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-May-24 • 4 minutes Computers Predict Pop Chart Success An evolutionary analysis of pop tunes revealed that over the past 30 years songs have grown sadder—but the big hits buck that trend. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-May-23 • 3 minutes Doc's YA Novel Treats Life-and-Death Issues Pediatric cardiologist Ismée Williams discusses her young adult novel, Water in May, about a teenage girl whose newborn has a life-threatening heart condition. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-May-17 • 4 minutes Google's AI Assistant Does Your Talk Tasks The new Google AI voice assistant, called Duplex, highlights the intricacies of carrying out a mundane human-style conversation, as it keeps you off the phone. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-May-16 • 4 minutes Great Ape Makes Good Doc Orangutans were observed to use plant extracts to treat their own pain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-May-14 • 3 minutes Radar Scans Detail North Korean Nukes Scientists have added radar info to seismic data, isotope measurements and optical imagery to study covert nuclear tests. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-May-10 • 4 minutes Jupiter and Venus Squeeze Earth's Orbit Sediment records have confirmed that Jupiter and Venus change Earth's orbit from virtually circular to noticeably elliptical and back every 405,000 years. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-May-07 • 5 minutes Mars Lander Will Peer Inside the Red Planet The InSight Mission will look at Mars's seismic activity and latent heat to find out more about how planets get made--and how humans might live there. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-May-06 • 4 minutes Plants Can Sense Animal Attack Coming Tomato plants detected snail slime in soil near them and mounted preemptive defenses, even though they were not directly touched. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-May-02 • 3 minutes Africa: Future Worldwide Science Hub Thierry Zomahoun, president of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, talks about the potential and needs of science on the continent. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Apr-30 • 4 minutes Healthful Eating Requires Supermarket Smarts Advice from an N.Y.U. food policy symposium: eating healthfully means you can't ever let down your guard when shopping. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Apr-28 • 4 minutes Bad Audio Can Hurt a Scientist's Credibility Listeners gave more credence to a scientist’s radio interview when the audio was good quality than they did to the same material when the audio was poor. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Apr-19 • 3 minutes Traffic Deaths Increase after 4:20 P.M. on 4/20 A look at a database of fatal traffic accidents found a 12 percent increase on the informal marijuana holiday 4/20 after 4:20 P.M. compared with nearby dates. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Apr-18 • 3 minutes NYC Mice Are Packed with Pathogens Mice trapped in New York City apartment buildings harbored disease-causing bacteria and antibiotic resistance genes. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Apr-17 • 4 minutes Mine Social Media Posts to Predict Flu Researchers used Twitter searches for nonflu words associated with behavior to predict flu outbreaks two weeks in advance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Apr-13 • 3 minutes The Internet Needs a Tune-Up Princeton University's Jennifer Rexford talks about optimizing the internet for the uses it got drafted into performing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Apr-09 • 4 minutes Right Whales Seem to Think before They Speak Rather than always making the same call in response to the same stimuli, North Atlantic right whales are capable of changing their vocalizations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Apr-07 • 4 minutes Old New England Underground May Be Spry after All The U.S. Northeast may be more geologically active than was previously thought, according to a seismic sensor network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Apr-04 • 4 minutes Neandertal Face Shape Was All Over the Air The jutting midface of Neandertals seems to have evolved to help get large volumes of air into an active body that needed lots of oxygen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Apr-02 • 3 minutes Rev Up Photosynthesis to Boost Crop Yields Photosynthesis actually is an inefficient process, but a biological chemist is trying to crank it up. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Apr-01 • 3 minutes 13,000-Year-Old Footprints under West Coast Beach Several feet below a beach in British Columbia, archaeologists discovered soil trampled by human feet—the oldest footprints found so far in North America. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Mar-29 • 3 minutes Math Cracks a Knuckle-Cracking Mystery The source of knuckle cracking sounds is much debated—but new mathematical models may reconcile two opposing views. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Mar-26 • 3 minutes Rotting Flesh Offers Insight on Fossilization To learn more about decay and fossilization, researchers conduct unorthodox experiments—like dissecting decomposing animals in the lab. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Mar-23 • 4 minutes Ravens Crow with Individual Flair Ravens produce different types of calls depending on their age and sex—which might help ravens size up other individuals. Jason G. Goldman reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Mar-21 • 4 minutes U.S. Flu Spread Counts On Southern Cold Snaps A multifactorial analysis finds that the ignition of a flu epidemic stems from a blast of colder weather striking an otherwise warm, humid, urban environment, and driving people indoors into close quarters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Mar-20 • 4 minutes Louise Slaughter Was Congress's Food Safety Champion Upstate New York Congresswoman Louise Slaughter, who worked for decades on issues such as overuse of antibiotics in agriculture and food safety in general, died March 16 at the age of 88. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Mar-15 • 3 minutes Gut Parasites Have Their Own Gut Microbiomes The whipworm lives in the human gut, mooching microbes from its host to build its own microbiome. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Mar-12 • 4 minutes Drones Could Help Biologists Tally Birds Counting by drone not only saves time and effort, but yields better data on species numbers—a definite plus in terms of conservation. Karen Hopkin reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Mar-10 • 3 minutes Saliva Protein Might Inhibit Intestinal Anarchy A protein found in spit prevents bad bugs from binding to intestinal cells in the lab, pointing to a possible way to lower the chances of dysentery. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Mar-06 • 4 minutes Human Echolocators Use Tricks Similar to Bats People who use echolocating mouth clicks to compensate for low vision increase the number and intensity of clicks when objects are harder to detect. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Mar-01 • 4 minutes Some Lichen Fungi Let Genes Go Bye A study of 22 different types of lichens revealed 10 included fungi that had lost a gene for energy production, making them completely dependent on their algal partner. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Feb-28 • 3 minutes To See Gun Injury Drop, Hold an NRA Meeting When the National Rifle Association holds its national convention, gun injuries drop 20 percent—perhaps because fewer gun owners are around their guns. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Feb-26 • 3 minutes Big Cities Have Fewer Tweeters Per Capita But those who do tweet in big cities are more prolific—tweeting more often, on average, than their small-town counterparts. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Feb-22 • 4 minutes Mosquitoes Learn the Smell of Danger The bloodsuckers lose their appetite for attractive scents when they associate those aromas with a likelihood of being swatted. Karen Hopkin reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Feb-19 • 4 minutes Undersea Recordings Reveal a Whale's Tale By eavesdropping on the calls of blue whales, researchers hope to get a more accurate picture of the massive mammals' distribution and abundance. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Feb-13 • 4 minutes Beetle Liberation Due to Regurgitation The bombardier beetle can spray its hot brew of toxic chemicals even after bring swallowed, to force a predator into vomiting it back out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Feb-12 • 3 minutes Old Trees Are Ecosystem Gold David Lindenmayer of the Australian National University College of Science in Canberra says that older trees play outsize roles in maintaining landscapes and ecosystems. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Feb-02 • 3 minutes Killer Whale Culture Revealed by Mimicking Us Orcas can imitate calls from other whales and even human speech—suggesting they can transmit cultural practices, such as unique dialects. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Feb-01 • 5 minutes Holiday Cheer Leads to Birth-Rate Spike During feel-good holiday periods like Christmas and Eid-al-Fitr, romance strikes—leading to a boom in births nine months later. Karen Hopkin reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Jan-26 • 4 minutes Lion Conservation Challenges Giraffe Protection Having lions and giraffes together in protected areas means far lower survival rates for juvenile giraffes. Jason Goldman reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Jan-25 • 3 minutes Nobelist Crafts Light-Switchable Antibiotics Drugs modified by chemistry Nobel laureate Ben Feringa can be turned on and off by light, which could help keep bacteria from developing antibiotic resistance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Jan-19 • 3 minutes Moon's Tug Doesn't Cause Big Quakes An analysis of more than 200 earthquakes over the past four centuries concludes there's no connection between moon phases and big earthquakes. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Jan-17 • 3 minutes Salmonella Could Have Caused 16th-Century Epidemic Using a new algorithm, geneticists uncovered the pathogen that could have caused a massive epidemic in the Aztec empire: Salmonella bacteria. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2018-Jan-09 • 4 minutes Glow Sticks Help Ecologists Study Amphibians Ecologists needed a way to more easily keep track of populations of amphibians, and green glow sticks lit the way. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Dec-29 • 4 minutes Finches Can Learn to Sing Differently Than Their Genetics Dictate The song training that Bengalese finches received appeared to overcome tempo tendencies baked into their genes. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Dec-28 • 4 minutes Baby Bats Can Learn Different Dialects Fruit bats raised hearing different pitches of sounds vocalized in keeping with their aural environment as they matured. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Dec-23 • 4 minutes Pain and Weather Fail to Connect A big data analysis involving more than 1.5 million patients could find no relationship between weather and complaints to doctors about joint or back pain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Dec-22 • 3 minutes Finding Further Places for Solar Panels Siting solar panels over rooftops, parking lots, reservoirs and contaminated land could generate heaps of energy—with minimal effects on agriculture or the environment. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Dec-14 • 3 minutes Supermarket Snacking Boosts Sales Noshing while shopping convinces consumers to buy the featured product more often than does simply seeing end-of-aisle displays. Karen Hopkin reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Dec-12 • 4 minutes Nutrition Guidelines Healthy for the Planet, Too Following dietary guidelines would mean eating less meat and dairy—and fewer calories overall—reducing greenhouse gases and other pollution. Julia Rosen reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Dec-11 • 3 minutes Invading Beavers Turn Tundra to Ponds New beaver ponds in the Arctic may contribute to the destruction of the permafrost that holds that landscape together. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Dec-10 • 4 minutes Sharks Rule the Reef's Underwater Food Chain When sharks prowl shallow waters, fish quit foraging and hide—sparing seaweed from being grazed in those areas. Jason G. Goldman reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Dec-08 • 4 minutes Invasive Frogs Don't Bug Hawaiian Birds Coquí frogs are invasive species in Hawaii. But they don’t seem to bug the islands’ native and nonnative birds. Jason G. Goldman reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Dec-07 • 4 minutes How Hospitals Can Dampen the Decibels Hospitals consistently score low on quietness surveys. An acoustician suggests a few ways hospitals could keep the peace and quiet. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Dec-06 • 3 minutes Smarter Management Means More Inventions Get to Market Rosemarie Truman, CEO of the Center for Advancing Innovation, says a better system of governance for federally funded inventions could lead to many more good ones becoming commercialized. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Dec-05 • 4 minutes Computers Learn to Use Sound to Find Ships Researchers trained machine-learning algorithms to pinpoint the location of a cargo ship simply by eavesdropping on the sound of its passing. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Dec-03 • 4 minutes Yeti Claims Don't Bear Up Analysis of alleged yeti samples found them to be from less fantastic beasts, such as bears, but also shed light on the evolution of those local bear populations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Dec-01 • 3 minutes Republican Voters Not in Denial about Climate An analysis of voter opinions finds that half of Republican voters think climate change is happening, and would support regulating CO2 as a pollutant. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Nov-30 • 4 minutes Tech Honcho Wants Innovation for the Bottom Billion At the World Conference of Science Journalists in October, Nathan Myhrvold, co-founder of Intellectual Ventures, charged innovation outfits with changing the lives of the world's most disadvantaged. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Nov-27 • 4 minutes Chimps Able to Apprehend Another Chimp's Mind-Set By listening to the calls of their brethren, chimps seem to be able to understand the mind-sets and perspectives of other chimps. Jason Goldman reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Nov-26 • 4 minutes Even without Hands Honeybees Show Handedness About half the honeybees in a test exhibited no sidedness, but the other half was split 50–50 between righties and lefties—perhaps to navigate obstacles more efficiently. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Nov-22 • 3 minutes A New Recipe for Counting Cranberries Estimating cranberry harvests involves tedious hand-counting. But microwave analysis could change all that. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Nov-17 • 3 minutes Ancient 1 Percenters Were Beast-Based New World societies long ago likely had less income inequality than those in the Old World, and the difference might have been an oxen gap. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Nov-16 • 4 minutes Feathers Help This Bird Sound the Alarm The crested pigeon, found in Australia, has a modified wing feather that helps produce an alarm signal sound to warn other birds when there's trouble. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Nov-15 • 4 minutes Put Space Cat on a Pedestal A campaign calls for the creation of a statue to recognize Félicette, the first cat to be sent into space. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Nov-10 • 3 minutes Insect Brain System Knows What You Want Computer scientists borrowed insights from the fruit fly brain to create a more accurate search algorithm. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Nov-07 • 4 minutes Nearby Exoplanets Invigorate the Search for E.T. SETI pioneer Jill Tarter and Berkeley researcher Dan Werthimer talk about how the discovery of nearby exoplanets is inspiring new efforts to gain info about these galactic neighbors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Nov-02 • 3 minutes Physics Phenomenon Reveals a Pyramid's Mystery Scientists used muons, a by-product of cosmic rays, to image the interior of the Great Pyramid—and found a previously unknown space inside. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Nov-01 • 4 minutes A Moth with a Potent Cocktail of Poison The wood tiger moth is the first species known in which fluids from various parts of the moth’s body each target a different type of predator. Jason Goldman reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Oct-23 • 3 minutes California Gun Injuries Spike after Nevada Gun Shows Firearm deaths and injuries went up in California communities after gun shows in neighboring Nevada—but not after more strictly regulated California gun shows. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Oct-19 • 3 minutes Keep Your Wi-Fi off KRACK Up-to-date software, apps, browsers and router software offer the best protection against a potential flaw in wi-fi security called a key reinstallation attack, or KRACK. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Oct-17 • 4 minutes Ships at Sea Stoke Lightning Strikes Exhaust fumes from oceangoing vessels lead to an almost doubling of lightning activity over shipping lanes compared to adjacent areas of the sea. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Oct-16 • 4 minutes Gamers Wanted to Attack Food Toxin By playing the online game Foldit, players might help design an enzyme that can stop aflatoxins from making millions sick. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Oct-12 • 4 minutes Squirrels Chunk Their Buried Treasure Under certain circumstances squirrels will bury all of the same kind of nut near one another, a mnemonic strategy known as chunking. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Oct-11 • 3 minutes Cougar Calls Get Big Bear Reactions Black bears and cougars share the Vancouver countryside, but not happily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Oct-06 • 3 minutes Biometric Identifies You in a Heartbeat Like fingerprints and facial recognition, the shape and beat of your heart can be used to verify your identity. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Oct-05 • 3 minutes When We Fly to Mars, Microbes Will, Too The microbes that live in and on our bodies will colonize a human-manned spacecraft to Mars—but will the spacecraft's microbiome be safe? Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Oct-04 • 3 minutes Nobel in Chemistry for Seeing Biomolecules in Action The Nobel Prize in Chemistry goes to Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank and Richard Henderson for developing cryo-electron microscopy for the high-resolution structure determination of biomolecules in solution. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Oct-03 • 4 minutes Nobel in Physics for Detecting Gravitational Waves The Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Rainer Weiss, Barry C. Barish and Kip S. Thorne "for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves". Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Oct-02 • 3 minutes Nobel in Physiology or Medicine for Our Inner Clocks The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2017 was awarded to Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young for discoveries of molecular mechanisms controlling circadian rhythms. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Oct-01 • 4 minutes Electric Eels Increase Shock by Leaving Water Submerged electric eels lose current to water, so they apparently leap into the air to minimize their contact with water and maximize their shock value. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Sep-28 • 3 minutes Tsunami Sent Species on a Transoceanic Trip The 2011 east Japan tsunami swept huge amounts of wreckage out to sea—and Japanese species hitchhiked across the Pacific on the debris. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Sep-27 • 4 minutes 1 Sneeze, 1 Vote among African Wild Dogs Individuals in packs of African wild dogs appear to sneeze to make their wishes known regarding when to get up and hunt. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Sep-24 • 3 minutes This Frog Can't Hear Its Own Calls The frogs' calls are too high-pitched for the frog to detect, which may be an artifact of evolution. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Sep-22 • 3 minutes Building a Better Mirror for Telescopes More reflective telescope mirrors allow astronomers to capture more photons—and do more science. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Sep-21 • 3 minutes Galaxies Far, Far Away Send Us Highest-Energy Cosmic Rays A new study hints that the most energetic particles ever seen come from far beyond the Milky Way. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Sep-20 • 4 minutes Springtime Now Arrives Earlier for Birds A trove of scientific notes from the early 1900s suggests a warming climate is driving birds to migrate earlier to New York’s Mohonk Preserve. Julia Rosen reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Sep-17 • 4 minutes Warming Puts Squeeze on Ancient Trees As temperatures rise, the tree line moves upslope. But ancient bristlecone pines are losing that upslope race to faster-colonizing neighbors. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Sep-16 • 4 minutes Rising CO2 Pushes Plants to Drink Sparingly As carbon dioxide levels rise, plants are sipping water more efficiently—which could come in handy in a drier future. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Sep-12 • 3 minutes Cannibalism Quells Contagion among Caterpillars Cannibalistic caterpillars prevent disease from decimating their populations by removing infected individuals. Emily Schwing reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Sep-07 • 4 minutes Windows Vex Bats' Echolocating Abilities Smooth vertical surfaces like windows reflect sound waves away from bats—meaning bats can't "see" windows and similar obstacles with echolocation. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Aug-30 • 4 minutes Grazing Cattle Trim the Menu for Birds When cattle graze the desert's natural landscape, birds face changes in food availability—and some species are unable to adapt. Jason Goldman reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Aug-29 • 3 minutes Climate Change Might Shrink Fish Warmer water boosts fishes' demand for oxygen—and their bodies may shrink in response. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Aug-23 • 3 minutes Recycle Your Eclipse Glasses Astronomers Without Borders wants to share your used eclipse glasses with kids in other parts of the world for the 2019 total solar eclipse. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Aug-19 • 4 minutes Seeing 1 Solar Eclipse May Not Be Enough David Baron, author of the new book American Eclipse, talks about how seeing his first total solar eclipse turned him into an eclipse chaser. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Aug-17 • 3 minutes Social Media Sites Can Profile Your Contacts Why you should think twice before you give an app access to your phone’s address book. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Aug-10 • 3 minutes Climate Change Fires Up Polar Bear Treadmill Sea ice is drifting faster in the Arctic—which means polar bears need to walk farther to stay in their native range. Emily Schwing reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Aug-09 • 4 minutes No Bull: Lizards Flee When They See Red Western fence lizards are more spooked by red and gray shirts than they are by blue ones—perhaps because the males have blue bellies themselves. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Aug-05 • 3 minutes Celebrities Tweet Like Bots Celebrity Twitter accounts look a lot like Twitter bots: They tweet regularly, follow relatively few people, and upload a lot of content. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Aug-03 • 5 minutes Cold Snap Shapes Lizard Survivors An epic bout of cold weather quickly altered a population of lizards—an example of natural selection in action. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Jul-31 • 4 minutes Screams Heard Round the Animal World Humans appear well equipped to recognize the alarm calls of other animals—perhaps because sounds of distress tend to have higher frequencies. Karen Hopkin reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Jul-26 • 4 minutes To Buy Happiness, Spend Money on Saving Time Volunteers who used money to save themselves time were more content than volunteers who purchased themselves physical stuff. Karen Hopkin reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Jul-25 • 3 minutes Bacteria Can Be Resistant to Brand-New Antibiotics Exposure to existing antibiotics can imbue infectious bacteria with resistance that also kicks in against new drugs related to the originals. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Jul-19 • 3 minutes Teaching Computers to Enjoy the View Researchers in the U.K. trained computers to rate photos of parks and cities for what humans consider to be their scenic beauty. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Jul-17 • 3 minutes Flying through a Corpse's Clues Forensic entomologists can chemically analyze fly eggs from a corpse, which might speed up detective work. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Jul-12 • 3 minutes This Cell Phone Needs No Battery An experimental cell phone works by absorbing and reflecting radio waves—meaning it's incredibly energy efficient and needs no battery. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Jul-07 • 3 minutes Bacteria Might Share the Blame for Eczema In patients with severe eczema, Staphylococcus aureus strains dominated the skin microbe population—suggesting that certain types of bacteria could worsen eczema flares. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Jul-04 • 3 minutes Franklin's Lightning Rod Served Political Ends Whether lightning rods should have rounded or pointy ends became a point of contention between rebellious Americans and King George III. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Jun-28 • 3 minutes Rainbow Photons Pack More Computing Power Quantum bits, aka qubits, can simultaneously encode 0 and 1. But multicolored photons could enable even more states to exist at the same time, ramping up computing power. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Jun-26 • 3 minutes Moths Inspire Better Smartphone Screens Researchers designed an antireflective coating for smartphone screens, with inspiration from the bumpy eyes of moths. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Jun-21 • 3 minutes Keep Rolling Luggage Upright with Physics A team of physicists has revealed why rolling suitcases start rocking from wheel to wheel—and how to avoid that frustrating phenomenon. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Jun-15 • 4 minutes Rising Temps Lower Polar Bear Mercury Intake As polar bears are forced onto land, they're feeding on animals with less mercury—reducing their levels of the toxic pollutant. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Jun-13 • 3 minutes Opioids Still Needed by Some Pain Patients The "other victims" of the opioid epidemic are pain patients who need the drugs but cannot now get them because of fears related to their use Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Jun-08 • 3 minutes Bacterially Boosted Mosquitoes Could Vex Viruses Mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia bacteria are unable to transmit viruses to humans—and could curb the spread of viral disease. Karen Hopkin reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Jun-03 • 3 minutes Chromosomes Combat Counterfeit Caviar Researchers found unique genetic variants that differentiate costly beluga caviar from cheaper fakes that rip off consumers. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Jun-02 • 4 minutes French Prez Invites Trumped Researchers New French president, Emmanual Macron, reacted to the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement by inviting disaffected U.S. researchers to make France "a second homeland." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-May-27 • 3 minutes Trees Beat Lawns for Water-Hungry L.A. Evaporation from overwatered lawns cost the city of Los Angeles 70 billion gallons of wasted water a year. But the city's trees were much thriftier. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-May-26 • 3 minutes Former CDC Head Warns of Threats Biological and Political Tom Frieden, head of the CDC from 2009 to 2017, told graduating medical students that we face challenges from pathogens, and from politicians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-May-24 • 3 minutes Fitness Bands Fail on Calorie Counts Activity trackers accurately reckon heart rate—but they're way off in estimates of energy expenditure. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-May-19 • 4 minutes New Concrete Recipes Could Cut Cracks Recipes for concrete that incorporate by-products from the coal and steel industries, like fly ash and slag, could reduce road salt–related cracking. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-May-15 • 4 minutes Why the Cross Put Chickens on a New Road A religiously inspired change in the European diet about a thousand years ago led to the development of the modern domesticated chicken. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-May-12 • 4 minutes Field Study: Worms Leave 'Til No-Till Earthworm numbers doubled in fields after farmers switched from conventional plowing to no-till agriculture. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-May-10 • 3 minutes Insects Donate DNA to Unrelated Bugs Bacteria swap DNA among themselves. And that process may be more common in multicellular organisms than previously believed. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-May-09 • 4 minutes Gophers versus the Volcano Pocket gophers survived the Mount Saint Helens eruption in their underground burrows and immediately went to work bringing back the ecosystem. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-May-07 • 4 minutes Wilderness Areas Suffer from Human Sound Human-produced noise doubles the background sound levels in 63 percent of protected areas, and raises it tenfold in 21 percent of such landscapes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-May-02 • 4 minutes Hot Chilies Cool Down Gut Inflammation in Mice The spicy compound in chilies kicks off a chemical cascade that reduces gut inflammation and immune activity in mice. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-May-01 • 4 minutes Bronx River's Cleanup Brings Herring Home Called an "open sewer" in the recent past, the Bronx River is now clean enough for a type of herring to once again be introduced and to make runs to the ocean. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Apr-28 • 3 minutes Ancient Human DNA Found in Cave Dirt Scientists uncovered genetic traces of Neandertals and Denisovans by screening cave dirt for DNA. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Apr-26 • 3 minutes Gut Microbes Help Keep Starved Flies Fecund Microbes living in the guts of fruit flies appear to influence the flies' food choice—and promote egg production, even under a nutrient-poor diet. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Apr-25 • 3 minutes Selective Breeding Molds Foxes into Pets Evolutionary biologist Lee Dugatkin talks about the six-decade Siberian experiment with foxes that has revealed details about domestication in general. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Apr-22 • 3 minutes Why One Researcher Marched for Science Lisa Klein, from the materials science and engineering department at Rutgers University, commented on the March for Science at an April 21 talk to the chemistry department at Lehman College in the Bronx. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Apr-20 • 4 minutes Healthy Behavior Can Spread Like Illness If people run more in New York City, that can push their socially connected counterparts in San Diego to run more as well. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Apr-19 • 4 minutes Climate 420 Million Years Ago Poised for Comeback Starting in the next century, atmospheric carbon levels could begin to approach those of hundreds of millions of years ago, and have their warming effect augmented by a brighter sun. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Apr-15 • 4 minutes Traces of Genetic Trauma Can Be Tweaked Trauma can be passed down to offspring due to epigenetic changes in DNA. But positive experiences seem able to correct that. Erika Beras reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Apr-13 • 3 minutes Species Split When Mountains Rise Plant species in China's Hengduan Mountains exploded in diversity eight million years ago—right when the mountains were built. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Apr-11 • 4 minutes World Parkinson's Day Puts Spotlight on Condition Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research CEO Todd Sherer, a neuroscientist, talks about the state of Parkinson's disease and research. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Apr-06 • 3 minutes Cave Dwellers Battled Bed Bug Bites, Too Researchers have found the earliest evidence of bugs in the Cimex genus co-habitating with humans, in Oregon's Paisley Caves. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Apr-05 • 4 minutes Extreme Storms Are Extreme Eroders The storm that swept across the Rockies in September 2013 unleashed huge amounts of sediment downstream, doing the work of a century of erosion. Julia Rosen reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Apr-03 • 4 minutes Spiders Gobble Gargantuan Numbers of Tiny Prey The low-end estimate for how much the world's spiders eat is some 400 million tons of mostly insects and springtails. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Mar-29 • 4 minutes Your Cat Thinks You're Cool A study of house cats and shelter cats found that the felines actually tended to choose human company over treats or toys. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Mar-25 • 4 minutes Exoplanets Make Life Conversation Livelier Astronomer Caleb Scharf weighs what ever more exoplanets mean in the search for extraterrestrial life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Mar-22 • 4 minutes UV Rays Strip Small Galaxies of Star Stuff Researchers measured the intensity of the universe's ultraviolet background radiation, and say it may be strong enough to strip small galaxies of star-forming gas. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Mar-21 • 4 minutes Aggressed-Upon Monkeys Take Revenge on Aggressor's Cronies Japanese macaques at the receiving end of aggression tend to then take it out on a close associate or family member of the original aggressor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Mar-18 • 4 minutes Pulling the String on Yo-Yo Weight Gain Mice that lost weight and then gained back more than they lost maintained an obesity-type microbiome that affected biochemicals involved in either burning or adding fat--suggesting interventions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Mar-16 • 3 minutes Pollinators Shape Plants to Their Preference In fewer than a dozen generations bumblebee-pollinated plants were coaxed to develop traits that made them even more pleasing to the bees. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Mar-15 • 3 minutes Low Biodiversity Brings Earlier Bloom For every two species lost in a grassland, the remaining flowers there bloomed a day earlier—on par with changes due to rising global temperatures. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Mar-10 • 4 minutes Jupiter Moon to Be Searched for Life If anything's alive on the ice-covered ocean world of Europa, a future NASA mission hopes to find it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Mar-08 • 3 minutes Teeth Hint at a Friendlier Neandertal By sequencing DNA in Neandertal dental plaque, scientists were able to find out about their diets—and their good relations with modern humans. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Mar-07 • 4 minutes Forensic Science: Trials with Errors What appears to be accepted science in the courtroom may not be accepted science among scientists. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Mar-06 • 4 minutes How to Find Loooong Gravitational Waves The gravitational waves found last year were short compared with the monster waves that could be turned up by what's called Pulsar Timing Arrays. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Mar-03 • 3 minutes Biggest Rivers Are Overhead Atmospheric rivers can carry the same amount of water vapor as 15 to 20 Mississippi Rivers—and deliver punishing winds, too. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Mar-02 • 4 minutes Last Woollies Had Mammoth Mutations The final holdout woolly mammoths had large numbers of harmful mutations—which would have given them satiny coats and a weakened sense of smell. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Feb-28 • 3 minutes Neandertals Live On in Our Genomes Researchers found that Neandertal gene variants still affect the way genes are turned off and on in modern humans. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Feb-20 • 4 minutes Guppy Groups Provide Friendly Protection against Foes Guppies exposed to predators tend to aggregate into smaller, more tightly knit groups, which may allow them to coordinate their predator avoidance strategies. Jason G. Goldman reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Feb-18 • 3 minutes Spaceflight Squishes Spacefarers' Brains Astronauts’ gray matter is compressed by time in space—except in an area that controls feeling and movement in the legs. Karen Hopkin reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Feb-13 • 3 minutes Cool Coating Chills in Sunlight A thin film coating can chill a vat of water to 15 degress Fahrenheit cooler than its surroundings, by absorbing—and then emitting—the sun's infrared rays. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Feb-09 • 3 minutes Partnered-Up Men More Attractive to Women Women rate a man they see with an attractive woman as more desirable than an unattached man. Erika Beras reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Feb-02 • 4 minutes The Arctic's Anti-Snowball Snowball Effect Arctic heat waves melt sea ice, which promotes more warming and even more ice loss. In other words, it’s a snowball effect—or in this case, an anti-snowball effect. Julia Rosen reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Jan-30 • 5 minutes Hawaiian Crows Ready for the Call of the Wild The critically endangered birds have done well in captive breeding, meaning they may be ready once more for wild living, and the repertoire of calls associated with it. Jason G. Goldman reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Jan-28 • 4 minutes A Humble Fish with a Colorful Edge The cichlid, a small fish, has one of the most incredible visual systems known—which allows it to adapt to differently colored environments. Jason G. Goldman reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Jan-26 • 3 minutes LSD's Long, Strange Trip Explained When LSD binds to serotonin receptors, it pulls a "lid" closed behind it, locking it in place for hours, and explaining its long-lasting effects. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Jan-23 • 4 minutes High-Sugar Diet Makes Flies Drop Like...Flies A study examines the effects of a high-sugar diet on the life spans of fruit flies. Another studies how the flies’ appetite-suppressing pathways may be similar to ours. Karen Hopkin reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Jan-21 • 3 minutes Pesticide Additive Could Be One Culprit in Bee Deaths A common pesticide additive, known as an "inert" ingredient, could be one of the causes of the die-offs beekeepers have observed in their hives. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Jan-18 • 4 minutes Knot Not Easy to Knot Chemists have synthesized the most complex molecular knot ever, using a strand just 192 atoms long. The advance could lead to new tougher materials. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Jan-14 • 4 minutes Bat Chatter Is More Than a Cry in the Dark Using algorithms developed for human speech recognition, researchers decoded which bats in an experimental colony were arguing with each other, and what they were arguing about. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Jan-13 • 4 minutes Bird Feeders Attract Bird Eaters, Too Some predators are attracted to the food in bird feeders, and end up targeting nestlings, too. Jason G. Goldman reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Jan-11 • 4 minutes Climate Cycles Could Have Carved Canyons on Mars Researchers think Mars may have experienced a series of climate cycles, which etched the planet’s surface with river valleys and lake basins. Julia Rosen reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Jan-06 • 4 minutes Hair Cells Could Heal Skin Sans Scars Hair follicles appear to be key in reprogramming other cells in the wound, restoring the original skin architecture, instead of simply scarring. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Jan-05 • 3 minutes Concrete Defects Could Become Strengths By optimizing the imperfections in concrete, manufacturers could make the material tougher and stronger—allowing builders to use less of it. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2017-Jan-03 • 3 minutes Zika Linked to a Variety of Birth Defects Zika virus infection during pregnancy appears to cause a range of birth defects, such as joint, eye and ear abnormalities, in addition to microcephaly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Dec-29 • 3 minutes When Dining for Trillions, Eat Wisely What you ate in the past can shape the diversity of your gut flora, and affect how well your gut microbes respond to new foods. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Dec-26 • 4 minutes Isolated Low Temps May Reassure Climate Skeptics Areas of the country that have experienced record low temperatures since 2005 happen to be home to many global warming deniers. And researchers theorize there may be a connection. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Dec-23 • 4 minutes Bats Learn to Take White-Nose Punch In areas where the white-nose syndrome fungus has been around for awhile, little brown bats seem to have found a way to limit the disease damage. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Dec-22 • 3 minutes "Necrobiome" Reveals a Corpse's Time of Death The microbial ecosystems inhabiting corpses could help forensic scientists determine a person’s time of death, even after almost two months. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Dec-16 • 3 minutes Small Fraction of Pilots Suffer Suicidal Thoughts In an anonymous online survey, about 4 percent of surveyed pilots admitted to having suicidal thoughts within the last few weeks. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Dec-14 • 3 minutes Migrating Birds Prefer Lakefront Property Night-flying migratory birds over water turn back to lakeshores at daybreak—meaning crowded shores along the water. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Dec-12 • 3 minutes Self-Driving Cars Probably Won't Boost Commuter Productivity Sixty-two percent of survey respondents said self-driving cars would not make them more productive. Another 36 percent said they’d be too concerned to do anything but watch the road. Erika Beras reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Dec-08 • 3 minutes New Insecticide Makes Mosquitoes Pop The substance prevents mosquitoes taking a blood meal from producing waste—causing them to swell up, and sometimes even explode. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Dec-02 • 4 minutes Dogs Teach Bomb-Sniffing Machines New Tricks A dog’s sniff pulls a plume of fresh scents toward them, which fluid dynamicists say is a technique that could make for better bomb detectors. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Dec-01 • 4 minutes "Power Poses" Don't Stand Up A 2010 study claimed that striking certain poses could alter hormone levels and risk-taking behavior. But subsequent studies can’t replicate that finding. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Nov-30 • 4 minutes Toll-Free Number Stems Human–Wildlife Conflicts India's Project Wild Seve allows people who have suffered crop or livestock loss from wild animals to streamline the compensation process, thus helping both farmers and wildlife. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Nov-28 • 3 minutes We Now Live in the Unnatural World David Biello's new book is The Unnatural World: The Race to Remake Civilization in Earth’s Newest Age. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Nov-23 • 3 minutes High-Fiber Diet Keeps Intestinal Walls Intact A low-fiber diet causes fiber-eating microbes to dwindle, opening up real estate for mucus munchers that make the intestine more vulnerable to infection. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Nov-22 • 3 minutes Forest Die-Offs Alter Global Climate "Like El Nino" The loss of forests worldwide appears to interact synergistically to produce unpredictable effects on the global climate. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Nov-18 • 3 minutes DNA Samples Find a Lot of Fish in the Sea The DNA in seawater can reveal the diversity and abundance of fish species living in ocean waters. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Nov-17 • 3 minutes Police Body Cameras Appear to Moderate Interactions with Civilians A study of seven jurisdictions found that when cops wear body cameras, complaints against them by civilians fall precipitously. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Nov-16 • 4 minutes NIH Director Looks at Presidential Transition National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins talks about the future of the NIH in light of the election. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Nov-14 • 3 minutes Ebola Virus Grew More Infectious in the Latest Epidemic A strain that emerged during the latest epidemic is able to enter human cells more easily—which means it’s more infectious, too. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Nov-09 • 4 minutes Orangutan Picks Cocktail by Seeing Ingredients An orangutan matched researchers' predictions about which mixed beverage he would choose based on his relative fondness for the separate ingredients. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Nov-07 • 3 minutes Small-Brained Birds More Likely to Get Shot Using taxidermy data, biologists determined that gun-killed birds have smaller brains than birds that died in other ways. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Nov-05 • 3 minutes Online Sociality Linked to Lower Death Risk Facebook users in California had slightly better health outcomes than nonusers, even after controlling for other factors. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Oct-29 • 3 minutes Bookish Mobsters Made Better Bookies Just as with honest jobs, mobsters with a more advanced education made more money than their less educated counterparts. Erika Beras reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Oct-27 • 4 minutes For River Otters, Social Life Is Shaped by the Latrine Alaskan river otters can gain valuable information about one another by sniffing around their latrines. Jason G. Goldman reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Oct-26 • 4 minutes Falcons Patrol Fruit Fields for Pesky Invasive Birds Birds of prey work where other traditional methods of bird abatement—like scarecrows, pyrotechnics and netting—fail. Emily Schwing reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Oct-24 • 3 minutes Clark Kent's Glasses Aided His Anonymity Slightly altering one’s appearance—even with glasses—can indeed hinder facial recognition by others. Erika Beras reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Oct-18 • 3 minutes Yawns Help the Brain Keep Its Cool Theory has it yawning helps cool the brain—and it turns out animals with bigger brains do indeed tend to yawn longer. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Oct-13 • 3 minutes Flowers Deceive Flies with Chemical Cocktail The parachute flower smells like alarm pheromones of a honeybee, to attract tiny flies that feed on bees under attack. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Oct-12 • 3 minutes Feed Microbes Oxygen to Help Clear Spilled Oil A technique called “biosparging” relies on pumping oxygen underground to help naturally occurring microorganisms multiply and consume oil spills. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Oct-10 • 4 minutes Future Wet Suits Otter Be Warmer Future wet suits with surface textures like the thick fur of otters that trap insulating air layers could keep tomorrow's divers warmer in icy waters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Oct-06 • 3 minutes Gender Influences Recommendations for Science Jobs Female applicants to postdoctoral positions in geosciences were nearly half as likely to receive excellent letters of recommendation, compared with their male counterparts. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Oct-05 • 4 minutes Nobel in Chemistry for Molecular Machines Jean-Pierre Sauvage, James Fraser Stoddart and Bernard L. Feringa share the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the design and synthesis of molecular machines. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Oct-04 • 4 minutes Nobel in Physics for Secrets of Exotic Matter David J. Thouless, F. Duncan Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz split the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Oct-02 • 4 minutes Great Migration Left Genetic Legacy Reseachers have started to examine the genetic traces of the movement of some six million African-Americans from the south to the north and west between 1910 and 1970. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Oct-01 • 3 minutes Arctic Pollinator Faces Uncertain Future A housefly relative appears to be key to the reproductive success of a hardy tundra shrub. But the insect is threatened by the warming climate. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Sep-28 • 4 minutes Water Bears' Super Survival Skills Give Up Secrets A protein from microscopic creatures called tardigrades keeps their DNA protected—and could someday shield humans from radiation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Sep-27 • 4 minutes Big Earthquakes May Be More Likely During New and Full Moons When the sun, moon and Earth are aligned, high tidal stress may increase the chances that an earthquake will grow bigger than it otherwise might have been. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Sep-22 • 4 minutes Clever Ants Have Backup Navigation Systems An ant walking in the desert can gauge distance by footsteps and the sun's position, but an ant being carried can estimate distance by visual information perceived as it passed by. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Sep-21 • 4 minutes Ancient Biblical Scroll Gets Read While Wrapped Researchers used high-tech visualization techniques to peer inside an ancient scroll too fragile to unwrap. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Sep-20 • 3 minutes Birch Trees Droop at Night with No Rays in Sight The branches of birch trees in Europe sagged by as much as four inches at night compared with daytime. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Sep-19 • 3 minutes Some Malaria Mosquitoes May Prefer Cows to Us A chromosomal rearrangement may cause one mosquito species to be lured to cows instead of humans for a blood meal. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Sep-15 • 3 minutes Drunk People Feel Soberer around Heavy Drinkers Drinkers surrounded by even more inebriated people feel less drunk than a breathalyzer test indicates they actually are. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Sep-14 • 4 minutes Oldest Known Indigo Dye Found in Peru Fabric dyed with indigo just found in Peru is some 1,600 years older than indigo-dyed fabrics that have been found in the Middle East. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Sep-13 • 3 minutes Road Noise Makes Birds' Lives Tougher By playing road noise where there was no road, researchers were able to gauge the effect of the noise on bird behavior without having to deal with the effect of the road itself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Sep-12 • 3 minutes World Wilderness Down 10 Percent in 20 Years South America and central Africa lost the most wilderness in a decline since the 1990s that saw the planet's wild areas down by a tenth Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Sep-08 • 3 minutes Photonic Chip Could Strengthen Smartphone Encryption The chip uses pulses of laser light to generate truly random numbers, the basis of encryption. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Sep-07 • 3 minutes Protein Test Could Complement Crime Scene DNA Analysis Researchers determined that the variation of a couple hundred proteins in a person's hair could be enough to single her out from one million individuals. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Sep-02 • 4 minutes Shark Fins Contain Toxic "One–Two Punch" Sharks can accumulate both methylmercury and a toxin called BMAA, which can have synergistic effects on human consumers. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Aug-31 • 3 minutes Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program Actually Promotes It Teenage girls who cared for infant dolls, an intervention meant to prevent pregnancy, actually had a higher risk of getting pregnant by age 20. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Aug-25 • 3 minutes Waste Amphetamines Alter Underwater Ecosystems Using an artificial stream system, researchers found that amphetamine residues altered insect and microbial life in aquatic ecosystems. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Aug-24 • 4 minutes A Green Solution to Improve Indoor Air Quality In 12 hours Dracaena plants removed nearly all the acetone from an airtight chamber, suggesting they might be put to use as air filters in nail salons. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Aug-19 • 4 minutes Voters Are Seldom Swayed by Local Campaign Stops A survey during the 2012 election found that bus tours and visits to greasy spoons didn't do much to change voter opinions. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Aug-18 • 4 minutes Ancient Mexican Metropolis Engaged in Hare-Raising Activity Upending the belief that residents of ancient Central America did not practice animal husbandry, new evidence shows that people in Teotihuacán raised and bred rabbits and hares. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Aug-17 • 4 minutes Model Black Hole Re-Creates Stephen Hawking Prediction A black hole analogue, which traps sound instead of light, generates "Hawking radiation," a key prediction by the theoretical physicist. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Aug-15 • 4 minutes Pigeon Pb Proxies Could Cut Kids' Blood Tests In neighborhoods where kids have an increased chance of exposure to toxic lead, pigeons also have higher blood lead levels—making the birds potential proxies for risk assessment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Aug-11 • 4 minutes This Shark Is the Vertebrate Methuselah Individual Greenland sharks appear to live perhaps a century longer than any other vertebrate, and might have life spans approaching 500 years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Aug-01 • 4 minutes Cut Road Deaths with Mountain Lions Reintroducing mountain lions to the eastern U.S. could save human lives and reduce injuries by lowering deer populations and preventing car–deer collisions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jul-29 • 4 minutes Silk Road Transported Goods--and Disease A 2,000-year-old latrine in China provides the first hard evidence that people carried diseases long distances along the ancient trading route. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jul-28 • 3 minutes Inbred Songbirds Croon out of Tune Inbred canaries sang songs with less pure tones, and at slightly different pitches, than their outbred cousins—and female canaries seemed to be able to tell the difference. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jul-27 • 4 minutes Great Red Spot Helps Explain Jupiter's Warm Upper Atmosphere A thermal spike linked to the solar system’s largest storm explains weather on gas-giant planets Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jul-25 • 4 minutes Beaver Dams Strengthened by Humans Help Fish Rebound Fish flourished in creeks in which human engineers helped shore up beaver dams made weak by poor timber availability. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jul-21 • 4 minutes For Lichens, 3's Not a Crowd Biologists have identified a third species—a yeast—in some lichens, shaking up what's always been known as a two-party system. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jul-20 • 3 minutes Chicken Scent Deters Malaria Mosquitoes The smell of a chicken wards off one species of malaria-spreading mosquito—meaning the scent compounds, or the birds themselves, might help deter disease. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jul-14 • 4 minutes Mucus Lets Dolphins Emit Their Clicks A model of the dolphin vocal apparatus shows that they need a coating of mucus to produce their distinctive sounds. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jul-13 • 3 minutes Bees Rank Pollen by Taste The discerning insects returned to flowers with sweetened pollen, but avoided revisiting flowers with bitter pollen. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jul-12 • 3 minutes Menu Featured Mammoth but Diners Were Mocked A genetic analysis of leftovers from an exotic dinner in 1951 reveals that the diners got less than they were promised. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jul-08 • 4 minutes Wildlife Can Bear with Hunters and Hikers A new study suggests the best predictor of wildlife abundance in public lands is not human activity, but factors like forest connectivity and nearby housing density. Jason G. Goldman reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jul-06 • 3 minutes Farmed Trout Bred to Fatten Up Fast An aquaculturist used selective breeding to create strains of farmed fish that fatten up fast on cheap, plentiful feeds such as soybeans and corn. Emily Schwing reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jun-30 • 3 minutes Highway Sounds Might Mask Life-Saving Birdcalls The call of the tufted titmouse conveys important information about the presence of potential predators. But only if other birds can hear it. Karen Hopkin reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jun-28 • 3 minutes Made Ya Look, Monkey Over their lifetimes, macaques follow the same trajectory as humans in the amount of interest they have in observing what another individual is looking at. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jun-27 • 4 minutes Drowsy Driving Kills 6,400 Americans Annually Charles Czeisler, director of the Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School, talked about the dangers of drowsy driving at a recent Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health Forum called Asleep at the Wheel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jun-24 • 4 minutes Social Spider Groups Need Bold and Shy Members Social spiders in artificially assembled groups of all bold or all shy members fared less well against predators than a group with some shy and some bold members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jun-22 • 3 minutes Viruses Hijack the Body's Response to Mosquito Bites When immune cells rush to the site of a mosquito bite, viruses hijack the cells and turn them into viral factories—in mice, at least. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jun-21 • 4 minutes Mongooses Pile on Warthogs--to Groom Them In the first known example of a mutualistic relationship between two mammal species in which neither is a primate, mongooses feast on ticks and other parasites infesting warthogs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jun-20 • 4 minutes Lizard Stripes May Mess Up Predators' Timing A lizard's stripes may make them look like they’re moving slower than they really are, confusing predators that tend to aim at the head but may wind up with the tail. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jun-19 • 3 minutes Air Pollution Gives Storm Clouds a Stronger, Longer Life More particulate matter in the air can build stronger, longer-lasting thunderstorms over the tropics, leading to more extreme storms. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jun-16 • 4 minutes Microbes May Contribute to Wine's "Character" The microbes found in crushed grapes were linked to certain chemical fingerprints in the finished wine. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jun-13 • 4 minutes Arctic Researcher Bears Up for Science Wildlife researcher Joel Berger dons a polar bear outfit to study the reactions of musk oxen to the threat of bears increasingly driven onto the land for food. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jun-11 • 4 minutes Submerged Lost City Really Bacterially Built What looked like human-made structures underwater off Greece turned out to be millions-of-years-old concretions deposited by bacteria. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jun-09 • 4 minutes Bleached Coral Busts Fish Learning Damselfish had trouble sniffing out survival clues by their fellows in damaged coral. Jason Goldman reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jun-08 • 4 minutes Bigger Glasses Rack Up More Wine Sales Serving wine in larger glasses boosted sales 10 percent in an English bar, possibly because customers think they're imbibing less per glass. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jun-03 • 3 minutes Shy Fish Prefer to Follow Other Shy Fish Shy sticklebacks were more likely to emerge from under cover when an equally wary fellow was already out there, rather than when a bold individual was present. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jun-02 • 3 minutes From Wolf to Woof Twice Dogs may have been domesticated from wolves twice, first in Europe, and again in Asia. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-May-31 • 3 minutes Extreme Life-Forms Could Complicate Carbon Sequestration Researchers say carbon storage sites should be tested for microbial life, which could potentially convert CO2 to methane—a more potent greenhouse gas. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-May-24 • 3 minutes Candidates Tend to Not Dodge Questions In an analysis of 14 presidential debate transcripts, two thirds of accusations of question-dodging had no merit. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-May-23 • 3 minutes Oldest Chinese Beer Brewery Found Remnants of a beer-making operation some 5,000 years old have been found in northern China. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-May-19 • 4 minutes Red Birds Carry On Colorful Chemistry Many red-colored birds have to convert yellow pigments in their food into the red pigments that make their feathers and beaks so brilliant. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-May-18 • 4 minutes Alliance of Bacterial Strains Disables Antibiotics Two different antibiotic-resistant E. coli strains have a protective relationship in which each disables a different antibiotic, allowing both to thrive. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-May-16 • 3 minutes Saharan Dust Brings Bacterial Blooms to the Caribbean Dust clouds from the Sahara reach the Caribbean—and fertilize waters there when they arrive. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-May-12 • 3 minutes Microbe Breaks the Powerhouse Rules A single-celled organism discovered in chinchilla droppings is the only known eukaryotic organism that lacks mitochondria-like organelles. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-May-10 • 3 minutes Farm Fields Release Carbon Mist during Rainstorms Raindrops eject carbon-based blobs of soil material from wet fields, creating a mist of organic compounds above the soil. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-May-05 • 3 minutes Feed Additive Squelches Ruminants' Methane Belches A chemical compound can cut a cow's methane emissions by 30 percent—and help the animal get more energy from its food. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-May-02 • 3 minutes Photos Tagged as Art Linked to Rising Property Prices Researchers found that neighborhoods with a higher proportion of Flickr photos tagged "art" saw a higher spike in property prices. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Apr-28 • 4 minutes Miley Cyrus and Macaroni Combo Enables Brain-Based ID An individual's unique brain response to images of a celebrity and a food could be used to create an ID procedure at high-security sites. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Apr-27 • 3 minutes Traces of Pharmaceuticals Dwell in Wastewater-Grown Veggies Volunteers who ate veggies grown in wastewater had higher (but still safe) levels of an epilepsy drug in their urine, compared with subjects who ate freshwater-grown veggies. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Apr-22 • 3 minutes Lower Your Voice Pitch to Persuade Study volunteers whose voices deepened during a group debate tended to be more influential and convincing. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Apr-20 • 3 minutes Woodpecker Head Bangs Communicate Info Woodpeckers that listen to others of their kind drum into trees alter their behavior based on what they hear. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Apr-19 • 3 minutes Gambling Gave Science Some Lucky Breaks The development of statistics, probability theory, game theory and chaos theory owes a lot to people trying to figure out various games of chance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Apr-18 • 3 minutes Microbots Get the Lead Out--of Wastewater Millions of tiny graphene robots can propel themselves through wastewater and scavenge heavy metals. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Apr-14 • 3 minutes Bearcats Naturally Pass the Popcorn Researchers have uncovered the chemistry that makes the urine of bearcats smell like freshly cooked popcorn. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Apr-13 • 3 minutes Transforming Stem Cells into Diabetes Beaters Pancreatic type beta cells produced from stem cells can sense glucose, release insulin and treat a mouse model of diabetes. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Apr-11 • 3 minutes Frogs Signal Visually in Noisy Environments The Brazilian torrent frog has the most sophisticated visual communications system yet documented for a frog species. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Apr-05 • 4 minutes Wolves Have Local Howl Accents Understanding the regional vocal patterns of various canid species sheds light on animal communication and could help ranchers broadcast "keep away" messages to protect livestock. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Apr-04 • 3 minutes Bird Combines Calls in Specific Order The Japanese great tit combines two calls in a specific order and does not respond to a recording of the calls combined in reverse order, apparently demonstrating compositional syntax. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Apr-01 • 3 minutes Cellular Circuit Computes with DNA Researchers have created what they call the first "programming language" for cells, which compiles code into a genetic circuit. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Mar-28 • 4 minutes Quasar Winds Clock In at a Fifth of Light Speed Quasars can shape the evolution of their galaxies, by blasting 135-million-mph winds. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Mar-25 • 4 minutes The Fastball Gets Its Scientific Due in a New Documentary The new movie Fastball dissects the pitch from the perspective of pitchers, hitters, umpires—and scientists, who talk about everything from the physics governing the trajectory of the ball to the neuroscience of the batter’s perception and reaction—including how the ball can appear to vanish. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Mar-23 • 3 minutes Garbage Pickings Get Storks to Stop Migrating Some white storks have stopped migrating from Europe to sub-Saharan Africa in the winter, because of the availability of food in landfills. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Mar-21 • 4 minutes Cuba–U.S. Thaw Should Ease Scientific Collaborations Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology researcher Eduardo Inigo-Elias, a veteran of efforts to work with Cuban researchers, talks about what improved relations between the U.S. and Cuba could mean for science and conservation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Mar-17 • 4 minutes Bring a Musician to Untangle Cocktail Party Din Musicians are better at separating out one meaningful audio stream from a combination, a skill that could help decipher a single conversation in a crowd. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Mar-15 • 4 minutes Our Noise Bothers Overlooked Seafloor Critters Creatures that live on the seafloor play vital roles in marine ecosystems, but human-made noise can alter their behaviors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Mar-14 • 4 minutes Eavesdrop on Echolocation to Count Bats Researchers created a model that can accurately predict a cave's bat populations using audio alone. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Mar-08 • 3 minutes Pro Baseball Player Tech Avatars Could Be a Hit Smart Bat sensor captures swing data and reenacts the motion on a smartphone app. Larry Greenemeier reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Mar-07 • 3 minutes This Dragonfly Outmigrates Monarchs The dragonfly Pantala flavescens can travel 9,000 to 11,000 miles, and may interbreed across the globe. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Mar-04 • 3 minutes Gators Guard Birds That Nest Nearby Wading birds in the Everglades prefer to nest near resident gators for protection. And the arrangement appears to be mutually beneficial. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Mar-02 • 4 minutes Milgram's Conformity Experiment Revisited in Lab and on Stage A conversation following a play about the famous Milgram experiments about conformity and authority included mention of a just-published new version of the test. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Feb-29 • 3 minutes Bats Beat Ebola with Hypervigilant Immunity The immune systems in bats are in a continuous state of activation, which may explain why they can carry viruses like Ebola without harm. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Feb-24 • 4 minutes Billion Sun–Bright Events Leave Radio Wave Clues “Fast radio bursts” detected here on Earth last only a thousandth of a second, but are the result of a faraway source briefly shining a billion or more times brighter than our sun. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Feb-23 • 3 minutes Cyber Thieves Hold Hospital's Data for Ransom Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in California paid $17,000 to regain access to their patient digital information and other data held hostage. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Feb-22 • 3 minutes Ball Really Looks Bigger to Better Hitters Jessica Witt of Colorado State University explains that how well you're performing affects your visual perception of the world around you, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Feb-19 • 4 minutes HPV Vaccine Needs to Reach Boys, Too Gypsyamber D’Souza of Johns Hopkins University discussed the rise in HPV-related oral cancer, its connection to oral sex and the risk for men at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Feb-18 • 3 minutes Mantis Shrimp Shells May Inspire Next-Generation Computer Chips Mantis shrimp shells contain ultrathin polarizing materials, which could find use in optical computer chips. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Feb-16 • 4 minutes Elephant Ivory DNA Reveals Poaching Hotspots Almost all the ivory in large stockpiles seized by law enforcement originates in just two locations in Africa, informing authorities about where to focus their resources. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Feb-12 • 3 minutes Gut Microbes Lessen Mice Malarial Malaise Mice with the right mix of microbes were spared the worst of a malaria infection, possibly via some sort of "booster effect" on the immune system. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Feb-10 • 3 minutes Lizard Picks Best Color--to Stand against Aegean wall lizards are the first wild animals to be observed explicitly choosing the best background for their particular coloration to disappear into. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Feb-09 • 3 minutes Giant Bird Driven Extinct by Egg-Eating Humans About 47,000 years ago, newcomer humans to Australia helped to wipe out an enormous flightless bird by collecting and cooking its eggs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Feb-06 • 3 minutes Super Bowl Sunday's Food Needs Work A public health advocate determined how much exercise is required to burn off various typical big game foods. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Feb-04 • 3 minutes Bear Gut Microbes Help Prep Hibernation Bears’ gut summer bacteria are more diverse and include species that tend to promote energy storage than are the bacteria that live in them during their hibernation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Feb-03 • 4 minutes Seed-Scattering Birds May Help Trees Cope with Climate Change A new review paper emphasizes the crucial role birds play in helping trees colonize new habitats—especially in the face of a changing climate. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Feb-01 • 3 minutes Antioxidant Use Still Small Mixed Bag At a Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health forum on diet and health, Walter Willett, chair of the school's nutrition department, talked about benefits and risks associated with antioxidant supplements. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jan-27 • 3 minutes Musical Pitch Perception May Have Long Evolutionary History A tiny primate, the marmoset, appears to process pitch perception the same way we do, implying that the ability evolved in a common ancestor at least 40 million years ago. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jan-25 • 4 minutes Pluto Killer Thinks He Has New Ninth Planet Caltech astronomer Mike Brown, the driving force for demoting Pluto, now claims evidence for a massive, distant replacement ninth planet in our solar system. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jan-19 • 3 minutes Healthful Diet Switch Helps Even Late in Life At a Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health forum on diet and health, Walter Willett, chair of the school's nutrition department, said that adoption of more healthful eating habits even late in life still has benefits. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jan-18 • 3 minutes Better Gut Microbiome Census through Computing Sophisticated computational techniques make it possible to analyze gene samples from all the bacteria in the gut at once to take a census of the species present. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jan-15 • 3 minutes Sociable Chimps Get Richer Gut Microbiomes When food is plentiful and chimps are more chummy, they harbor an increased number of different bacterial species in their bellies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jan-12 • 4 minutes Hippo Meat-Munching May Explain Their Anthrax Outbreaks Hippos eat meat more than had been thought, a practice that could explain their susceptibility to anthrax die-offs when they consume infected animals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jan-11 • 5 minutes Powerball Lottery Winning Made Inevitable (If Not Easy) Some set of numbers will definitely be drawn in the $1.3-billion Powerball Lottery, so all you have to do is make sure you hold every possible combination of numbers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jan-08 • 4 minutes Iceman Ötzi Died with a Bellyache Researchers were able to determine the genome of stomach bacteria that infected the famous Iceman at the time of his death, in the process giving us clues about ancient human migrations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jan-07 • 4 minutes Allergies May Have Been Bequeathed by Neandertals Many non-African humans today have genes—which apparently made it into us via Neandertals—that ramp up resistance to pathogens, but bring on allergies, too. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jan-06 • 4 minutes Needle Exchange Programs Now Get Fed Support More than a quarter century after the federal funding ban on needle exchange programs went into effect, it has quietly been almost completely lifted. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2016-Jan-05 • 4 minutes Obama Notes Blocks of Gun Violence Research In his announcement today that he was taking executive action to require more gun sellers to be licensed and to do background checks on gun buyers, Pres. Barack Obama also touched on the problems facing public health researchers who try to study gun violence and deaths. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Dec-31 • 3 minutes Asphalt Roads Could De-Ice Themselves Researchers engineered bitumen—the sticky black stuff in asphalt—to release its own salt, to battle the formation of ice. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Dec-28 • 3 minutes Polar Bears Must Work Harder on Faster Sea Ice Treadmill Thinner sea ice is getting pushed farther by Arctic winds, which makes polar bears walk more to stay in the same place, increasing their need for food. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Dec-22 • 3 minutes Text Reminders Cut Binge Drinking in At-Risk Recipients Heavy drinkers age 18 to 25 who got texts before and after each weekend about their weekend drinking plans cut their alcohol intake compared with those who got no texts or more perfunctory texts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Dec-21 • 4 minutes Drugged Gut Microbiome Cuts Heart Risk in Mice A compound found in extra virgin olive oil and red wine reduced mice’s risk of clogged arteries. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Dec-18 • 4 minutes Antievolution Legislation Shows Descent with Modification Nicholas Matzke, an American evolutionary biologist currently at the Australian National University in Canberra, performed a phylogenetic-style analysis of dozens of antievolution education bills in various state legislatures to track their relatedness Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Dec-16 • 4 minutes Marion Nestle Talks "Soda Politics" Marion Nestle, author of Soda Politics: Taking on Big Soda (and Winning), talked December 14 in New York City about Coca-Cola's attempt to fund research designed to find sugared soft drinks innocent in contributing to obesity Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Dec-14 • 4 minutes Energy Secretary Talks Climate Challenge A brief portion of the December 9 conversation during the climate talks in France between Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz and Scientific American’s David Biello Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Dec-11 • 4 minutes Cockroach Caca Contains Chemical Messages Made by Microbes Roaches get the signal to gather together from pheromones produced by their gut microbes and released in the insects’ excrement. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Dec-10 • 3 minutes 90-Nation Coalition Aims for Ambitious Climate Change Deal Among its goals, the coalition of countries, including the U.S., wants an agreement that the world must aim as soon as possible to hold global warming to 1.5-degree Celsius and work toward a long-term low-carbon future Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Dec-08 • 3 minutes Protect the Right Places for Biodiversity Scientists can provide the info to make sure that the correct areas are chosen for protection to help ensure the continued robustness of a region's biodiversity Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Dec-03 • 4 minutes Pollination Isn't Just for the Bees Flies, beetles, butterflies and moths may account for some 40 percent of the world’s pollination. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Dec-02 • 3 minutes Race Colors New Residents' Views of Local Businesses Gentrifying residents in two Brooklyn neighborhoods view their new surroundings differently, depending on the race of those who traditionally live there. Erika Beras reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Dec-01 • 3 minutes Espresso Machines Brew a Microbiome of Their Own Researchers sampled 10 espresso machines and found that most of them harbored coffee residues rich in bacteria—including some potentially pathogenic strains. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Nov-27 • 3 minutes People Pick Familiar Foods Over Favorites A study found that the stronger a subject's memory of a particular food, the more likely they were to choose it again, even over foods they professed to enjoy more Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Nov-25 • 4 minutes Women Candidates Face Implicit Bias Hurdle Volunteers taking an "implicit bias" test who were unlikely to associate images of women with leadership titles like executive or president were far less likely to vote for a woman in a race against a man of equal qualification Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Nov-24 • 3 minutes Gut Bacteria Signal Your Brain When They're Full Twenty minutes into a meal, E. coli pump out appetite-suppressing proteins, which could influence our feeling of hunger. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Nov-23 • 3 minutes Vocal Cords Bioengineered from Starter Cells Researchers took cells from donated vocal cord tissue and successfully grew them on a three-dimensional scaffold to produce new vocal cords that can produce sound Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Nov-19 • 3 minutes Your Brain Can Taste without Your Tongue Stimulating the "taste cortex" was enough to trick mice into thinking they'd tasted sweet or bitter substances, when in fact their tongues tasted nothing at all. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Nov-18 • 3 minutes Urban Food Foraging Looks Fruitful Fruits growing wild in urban areas were found to be healthful and to contain lower levels of lead than what's considered safe in drinking water Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Nov-17 • 3 minutes Female Vocalists Are in the (Mouse) House Careful recordings of mouse interactions find that females vocalize, overturning the long-held view that only males sing during courtship Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Nov-16 • 3 minutes Eat Slowly and Breathe Smoothly to Enhance Taste Slow, steady breathing lofts minute food particles into the nasal cavity, where they contribute to your perception of flavor. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Nov-15 • 3 minutes Little Galaxy Keeps Churning Out Stars The recently discovered small galaxy Leo P contains only about a hundred-thousandth as many stars as the Milky Way, but it's bucking the small galaxy trend by continuing to make new ones Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Nov-13 • 3 minutes Howler Monkeys Trade Testicles for Decibels Among howler monkey species, loud calls come at the expense of testicle size and sperm production—or to put it another way, monkeys with the largest testes don't make as much noise Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Nov-12 • 3 minutes Stone Age Pottery Reveals Signs of Beekeeping Beeswax residues found on shards of stone age pottery in the Mediterranean region indicate that humans were keeping honeybees as early as 9,000 years ago Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Nov-10 • 3 minutes Brain Rhythms Sync to Musical Beat The human brain's neurons fire in sync to music, and trained musicians are better at it than are amateurs Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Nov-06 • 3 minutes Brain Responds to Driving Routes Repeatedly Learning detailed navigation information causes the hippocampus to interact with other regions of the brain involved in location Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Nov-05 • 4 minutes Arctic Marine Mammals Swim Up to the Microphone As Arctic sea ice melts, an underwater recording project reveals that the submerged ecology is undergoing change, with humpbacks and killer whales staying north later in the year. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Nov-03 • 3 minutes Decoy Mating Call Battles Citrus Pest Researchers developed a call that effectively mimics the citrus psyllid's mating song, which could be a weapon against a devastating crop scourge. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Nov-02 • 4 minutes Methane Plumes Bubbling along U.S. Northwest Coast Researchers report a spike in the number of methane plumes along the Northwest coast emanating from depths of about 500 meters, a possible indication that submerged frozen methane is becoming available Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Oct-29 • 3 minutes Cultural Goofs Gear Up Gray Matter People exposed to incongruent situations, such as Halloween-themed plates at a Labor Day picnic, performed better on cognitive-reasoning tests and were less likely to make impulse purchases or overeat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Oct-28 • 4 minutes Whale Poop Drives Global Nutrient Cycling Whales fertilize ocean surface waters with key nutrients like phosphorus, which move through the food chain, and eventually, onto land. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Oct-24 • 3 minutes Political and Industry Leaders Make a Case for Basic Research At the “Innovation: An American Imperative” symposium October 20 on Capitol Hill, industry leaders and members of Congress talked about shoring up federal support for basic research and development Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Oct-22 • 3 minutes TV Crime Shows Influence Sex Consent Views College students who watched episodes of the various Law & Order episodes had a better understanding of sexual consent issues than those who watched two other crime procedural franchises Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Oct-20 • 3 minutes Fall Foliage Timing Comes into Clearer Focus Researchers picked apart satellite imagery from two New England forest ecosystems to get a better handle on exactly what factors influence the timing of the color changes of the autumn leaves Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Oct-15 • 3 minutes Babies Move Tongue to Learn New Tongues Infants seemed to be able to differentiate between two different "D" sounds in Hindi—but only when their tongue movements weren't blocked by a teething device. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Oct-14 • 4 minutes Pluto Mission Targets Next Kuiper Belt Object Alan Stern, principal investigator of NASA’s New Horizons Mission, explains that with Pluto in the rearview mirror, the spacecraft will continue on to a smaller Kuiper Belt body Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Oct-09 • 4 minutes Wildlife Tourism Could Be "Domesticating" Wild Animals Human tourism—no matter how well-intentioned—might desensitize wild animals to poachers and predators, affecting their odds of survival. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Oct-08 • 3 minutes Babies Just Want to Be Smiled at By studying the interactions of babies and their mothers, researchers determined that babies smile in hopes others will smile at them. Erika Beras reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Oct-06 • 4 minutes 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics The 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Takaaki Kajita and Arthur B. McDonald for the discovery that one kind of neutrino can change into another, which shows that neutrinos have mass Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Oct-05 • 4 minutes 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine The 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine goes jointly to William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura for their studies leading to novel therapies against infections caused by roundworm parasites and to Youyou Tu for her work developing a novel therapy against malaria Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Oct-01 • 4 minutes MacArthur Genius Grant Winner Probes the Pruning Brain Harvard neuroscientist Beth Stevens wins a MacArthur Fellowship for studies of how microglia cells prune away excess neuronal synapses during brain development and how that necessary function might go awry in neurodegenerative diseases Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Sep-29 • 4 minutes MacArthur Genius Grant Winner Makes Waste a Resource Environmental engineer Kartik Chandran of Columbia University won a MacArthur Fellowship for his work on extracting nutrients and energy from wastewater and sewage Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Sep-25 • 3 minutes Ancient Human Ancestors Heard Differently Early human species may have had sharper hearing in certain frequencies than we enjoy, to facilitate short-range communication in an open environment. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Sep-24 • 4 minutes Sitting Not the New Smoking for Fidgeters Sitting for more than seven hours a day is linked to a 30 percent higher risk of death, but that association disappears among the in-place movers and shakers. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Sep-23 • 3 minutes We Emit Clouds of Microbes Wherever We Go Humans shed a million particles an hour, and those microbe-laced clouds are sometimes unique enough to identify the person producing them. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Sep-18 • 3 minutes Teenage Clockmaker Upholds Long Scientific Tradition As Daniel Boorstin, former director of the Smithsonian National Museum of History, once put it, clockmakers were the "pioneer scientific instrument makers" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Sep-17 • 3 minutes Nonpolitical Tweets May Reveal Political Bias Word selection among Twitter users who could be identified as likely members of one or the other political party showed specific usage patterns. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Sep-11 • 3 minutes Snake Bites in Costa Rica Peak with El Niño Cycling Researchers found that snakebites were two to three times as prevalent in the hottest and coldest years of the El Niño climate cycle. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Sep-10 • 3 minutes Sperm Whales Congregate in Click-Based Cliques The whales appear to prefer the company of "like-minded" individuals, based on common vocal clicking behavior—an example of culture, researchers say. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Sep-09 • 3 minutes Humans' Predation Unsustainably Takes Healthy Adult Prey Whereas most predators kill the young or infirm, humans claim a disproportionate number of mature healthy adults of reproductive age Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Aug-31 • 3 minutes Terse Titles Cited Scientific papers with shorter titles receive more citations than those with long-winded headings Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Aug-25 • 3 minutes Cosmetic Ads' Science Claims Lack Foundation An analysis of some 300 cosmetics ads in magazines found the vast majority of their science claims to be either false or too vague to judge Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Aug-24 • 4 minutes Deep Voice Gives Politicians Electoral Boost Two new studies find that a deeper voice gives a politican an edge over a higher-pitched opponent Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Aug-19 • 3 minutes Methane-Eating Microbes May Mitigate Arctic Emissions A newly discovered strain of bacteria found in Arctic permafrost harvests methane from the air—meaning it could help mitigate the effects of warming. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Aug-18 • 3 minutes Chinese Cave Graffiti Agrees with Site's Drought Evidence Researchers linked dated graffiti about droughts in a cave in China to physical evidence in the cave of the water shortages, such as changes in ratios of stable isotopes in specific layers of stalagmites Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Aug-17 • 3 minutes Whistled Language Forces Brain to Modify Usual Processing Both hemispheres are involved in the brains of people interpreting a whistled variant of Turkish, compared with a left hemisphere dominance when listeners hear the spoken language Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Aug-13 • 3 minutes Nicotine-Chomping Bacteria Could Help Smokers Quit Researchers isolated a bacterial enzyme that could break down nicotine before smokers get the buzz that keeps them coming back for more. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Aug-12 • 3 minutes Women Left out in Cold by Office A-C Standards Indoor climate control systems are based on 1960s standards that envisioned the typical office worker to be a 40-year-old, 68-kilogram man Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Aug-11 • 3 minutes Bite Me: The Mutation That Made Corn Kernels Consumable A single-point mutation in corn's ancestor teosinte got rid of the hard shell that used to encase every kernel Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Aug-07 • 3 minutes Fish Slime Inspires New Eco-Sunscreen Ingredient Researchers have developed a new ecofriendly sunscreen molecule that protects against both UV-A and UV-B rays, and could also be used to create more durable paints and plastics. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Aug-06 • 3 minutes Microbes Deep under Seafloor Reflect Ancient Land Origins Microbes 2,500 meters below the seafloor in Japan are most closely related to bacterial groups that thrive in forest soils on land, suggesting that they might be descendants of ones that survived when their terrestrial habitat was flooded 20 million years ago Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Aug-03 • 3 minutes Diminutive Peoples Took Different Paths to Petite Adults of the west African Baka people and east African Efé and Sua peoples average less than five feet tall. But while the Efé and Sua are born small, the Baka have slow growth rates in infancy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Jul-27 • 3 minutes Baseball Great Thanks Tommy John Surgery, Decries Its Frequency In his induction speech at the Baseball Hall of Fame, pitcher John Smoltz hoped that the number of such procedures could be lessened in the future Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Jul-22 • 3 minutes Appetizers Can Psychologically Spoil Your Appetite Mediocre main dishes taste even worse when they follow delectable appetizers—an example of the so-called "hedonic effect." Erika Beras reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Jul-21 • 3 minutes Many Overweight and Obese Teens Underestimate Their Weight A survey of nearly 5,000 13- to 15-year-olds in the U.K. found that 40 percent of overweight and obese teens did not self-identify as “too heavy.” Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Jul-16 • 4 minutes Male Black Widows Strive for Mate's Monogamy During courtship, male black widow spiders snip and bundle up the female's web in their own silk, which discourages other suitors from stopping by. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Jul-15 • 3 minutes Active Duty Army Suicide Attempts Analyzed Researchers gathered data from various Army databases to analyze nearly 10,000 attempted suicides of active duty personnel. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Jul-09 • 3 minutes Roman Builders May Have Copied Volcanic "Concrete" The rock of the Campi Flegrei Caldera, west of Naples, Italy, has an intricate network of mineral fibers—just like the famed Roman concrete. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Jul-08 • 3 minutes Dark Matter Dominates Just-Discovered Galaxies Astronomers have discovered more than 800 so-called "ultradiffuse galaxies" that are virtually invisible because they have relatively few stars and are mostly dark matter. Clara Moskowitz reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Jul-01 • 3 minutes Marijuana Muddies Memory and Mixes with Alcohol to Make Trouble People who smoke pot and drink are twice as likely to do both at the same time than to do just one, with the combo associated with bad decision-making; and chronic pot smokers who had not indulged in a month were still more likely to have faulty memories than were nonsmokers. Erika Beras reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Jun-23 • 4 minutes Programmed Bacteria Can Detect Tumors Sangeeta Bhatia of M.I.T. talks about efforts to get bacteria to home in on tumors and let us know they're there. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Jun-19 • 4 minutes Einstein–Bohr Friendship Recounted by Bohr's Grandson On June 3, 2015, Vilhelm Bohr talked about his famous grandfather's life, including the relationship with Einstein, at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Jun-16 • 3 minutes Rare Multitasking Plus: Brain-Teasers Enhance Workout Test subjects rode stationary bikes 25 percent faster when they simultaneously tackled some relatively easy cognitive challegnes. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Jun-15 • 3 minutes Ant Smells Like Blue Cheese for a Reason The "odorous house ant" smells like blue cheese or rotten coconut because it produces chemical compounds similar to those found in its nose-sakes. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Jun-12 • 3 minutes Mars Surface Glass Could Hold Ancient Fossils Scientists have found ancient "impact glass" on the surface of Mars, which formed when asteroids struck, a billion or more years ago. If anything was alive at the time, biological materials could be trapped inside. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Jun-11 • 3 minutes Is Lying a Good Strategy? A new documentary film presents the science behind when and why people lie. Daisy Yuhas reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Jun-09 • 3 minutes Color You Remember Seeing Isn't What You Saw People tend to remember a color they saw, for example green-blue teal, as being closer to a more stereotypical variant, such as straight blue or green. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Jun-06 • 3 minutes Ancient Human Migration Route Marked by Snail Shell "Bread Crumbs" Fragments of edible marine snail shells found in Lebanon support the idea that ancient humans went from Africa to Europe through the Levant. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Jun-05 • 4 minutes "Brainprints" Could Be Future Security ID We all emit slightly different brain waves in response to stimuli, and researchers say that an individual’s specific "brainprints" could be used to validate our identities. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Jun-04 • 3 minutes Frenzy-Feeding Black Hole Makes Galaxy Most Luminous A galaxy 12.5 billion light-years away gives off the light of 300 trillion suns, because its feeding black hole produces enough heat to set the whole galaxy's dust glowing. Lee Billings reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Jun-03 • 3 minutes Vaccine Aims at Fly Host of Disease Parasite An experimental leishmaniasis vaccine relies on eliciting an immune response to a protein from the saliva of the sand fly that carries the leishmania parasite, rather than on anything from the parasite itself. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Jun-01 • 3 minutes High Heels Heighten Health Hazard Emergency room visits due to high heel shoe–related injuries doubled between 2002 and 2012. Erika Beras reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-May-31 • 3 minutes Parrotfish Build Islands with Their Poop Parrotfish munching on algae ingest coral and then eliminate the rocky substrate, creating island-building grade sediment in places like the Maldives. Julia Rosen reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-May-29 • 3 minutes Blood Pressure Vaccine Lengthens Rat Lives A DNA-based vaccine gave rats six months of protection against high blood pressure as well as healthier hearts. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-May-28 • 3 minutes CSI: Middle Pleistocene Skull fragments dating back 430,000 years appear to be those of the world's first known murder victim, based on the damage observed. Dina Maron reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-May-27 • 3 minutes Mummy Mavens Unwrap Preservation Methods In 1994 researchers made a mummy. Now scientists have reverse engineered the process to figure out how it's done, with the mummy makers still around to tell them how they did. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-May-26 • 3 minutes Smart Cane Could Help Blind ID Faces High-tech sticks could help visually impaired people spot obstacles and even identify acquaintances as they approach. Larry Greenemeier reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-May-21 • 4 minutes Dolphin Deaths Linked to 2010 Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Unusual adrenal and lung conditions seen in dead dolphins in the months after the 2010 BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill point to the oil as the cause. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-May-14 • 3 minutes In the Future Robopets Won't Be Far-Fetched An animal behaviorist ponders a future where some Spots are robots. Larry Greenemeier reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-May-13 • 3 minutes Crop Rotation Works in the Sea, Too Models show that leaving sea cucumbers unharvested in some underwater zones for two years at a time stabilizes the overall population and actually increases yield for fishers. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-May-12 • 3 minutes Food for Sale Everywhere Fuels Obesity Epidemic A study from the National Bureau of Economic Research blames 40 percent of the rise in obesity on the ubiquity of supercenters, warehouse clubs and restaurants. Gretchen Cuda Kroen reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-May-07 • 3 minutes Mars Travelers Could Suffer Radiation Brain Damage Mice exposed to radiation akin to what astronauts to Mars would receive experienced cognitive impairment. Lee Billings reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-May-06 • 3 minutes Wheat Genes Could Bring Back Chestnut Scientists have introduced genes into the American chestnut from wheat that help disarm the fungus that killed almost all three billion of the trees in the eastern U.S. David Biello reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-May-04 • 3 minutes Space Supervoid Sucks Energy from Light A vast region of space colder than expected is also largely devoid of galaxies, and the two observations are no coincidence. Clara Moskowitz reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-May-01 • 3 minutes Latex Lining Could Quiet Plane Rides Engineers devised a latex-laced honeycomb material that could make an airplane cabin sound more like a quiet living room. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Apr-29 • 3 minutes Infants Already Glued to Multiple Screens A new survey suggests that most kids by age two are using tablets and smartphones, sometimes while watching TV. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Apr-28 • 3 minutes Old Cats Can Get Seizures from Sound Feline audiogenic reflex seizures, or FARS, was discovered after a few cat owners reported the issue to an advocacy group Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Apr-22 • 4 minutes Small Screen Looks at an Electrified America Scientific American's David Biello hosts a new episode of the TV series Beyond the Light Switch, focusing on the means to and effects of a more electricity-powered country. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Apr-16 • 3 minutes Granular Materials Could Thwart Missiles The harder a projectile hits a granular substance like sand, the more that material acts like a solid, effectively repelling the intruder. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Apr-15 • 3 minutes A Few Hundred Smartphones Could Catch Earthquakes Early Thanks to their GPS systems, smartphones in an array could pick up movements indicating the onset of an earthquake and provide extra seconds of early warning. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Apr-09 • 4 minutes Nobelist Talks about Exercise and Chromosome Integrity In a Google Hangout Nobel laureate Elizabeth Blackburn and Scientific American Editor in Chief Mariette DiChristina discuss the relationship between exercise and telomere length, which is related to diseases of aging Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Apr-07 • 3 minutes App Provides Pocket Time Capsule New app called Pivot will let gadget users see old and new images of sites as they walk past. Larry Greenemeier reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Apr-06 • 3 minutes Online Breast Milk Buyers May Get Cowed An analysis of human breast milk bought online reveals that some 10 percent of the samples contained cow’s milk. Dina Fine Maron reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Apr-03 • 3 minutes B.O. Gives Up Its Stinky Secrets Staphylococcus hominis is a key perpetrator of body odor—and researchers say selectively interfering with it could make for more effective deodorants. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Apr-01 • 3 minutes Diabetics Benefit by Biggest Meal Early A small study finds that diabetics who ate a big breakfast and small dinner had better glucose control than those who ate the opposite. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Mar-30 • 3 minutes Donate Your Health Data to Medical Science You can now share your genome, health and microbiome info, and viral infection data to crowdsourced medical research projects. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Mar-26 • 3 minutes African-American Longevity Suffered after Great Migration The six million black people who left the South between 1910 and 1970 had better economic opportunity but a lower chance or reaching their 70s. Erika Beras reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Mar-25 • 3 minutes Enceladus Might Be a Methane Hotspot NASA’s Cassini spacecraft spotted a surprising amount of methane erupting from Saturn’s moon Enceladus, suggesting it harbors more methane than we thought. Clara Moskowitz reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Mar-24 • 3 minutes Malaria Parasite Attracts Mosquitoes with Perfume The Plasmodium parasite uses an altered type of plant chloroplast to manufacture pine-and-lemon-scented chemicals, which lure in the bloodsuckers. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Mar-23 • 3 minutes See Movement Better by Bicarb Bicarbonate, the chemical that transports CO2 through the blood, increases the "refresh rate" of rod cells in lab tests--which could mean better motion detection. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Mar-18 • 3 minutes La Niña Conditions Spin Up More Springtime Twisters Severe weather forecasters could incorporate El Niño and La Niña cycling to make springtime tornado and hail forecasts. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Mar-17 • 3 minutes Human Remains Double Known Rainforest Occupation Time Physical remains in Sri Lanka show that people lived in rainforests 20,000 years ago, at least 10,000 years earlier than previous evidence showed. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Mar-16 • 3 minutes Crowd-Sourced Medical Research Gets Apple Assist What’s called ResearchKit enables scientists to more easily write mobile apps that take advantage of iPhone sensors to study asthma, Parkinson’s and other diseases. Larry Greenemeier reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Mar-11 • 3 minutes Background Music Jams Memory in Older Adults People of all ages find background sound distracting, but noise appears to impede memory formation in older people. Erika Beras reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Mar-10 • 3 minutes Some European Languages Came by Steppe A new genetic analysis reveals a massive migration from the central Asian grasslands into Europe 4,500 years ago—implying that some languages followed. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Mar-09 • 4 minutes Animals Can Be Given False Memories Two studies, one with bees and one with mice, show that the brain can be manipulated into having a memory of an occurrence that did not in reality happen. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Mar-05 • 3 minutes Whale Grandmas' Longevity Linked to Knowledge Whale females, like humans, live well past menopause, a trait possibly selected for because their knowledge base can help their entire clan survive. Dina Fine Maron reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Mar-03 • 3 minutes Titan Could Host Life "Not As We Know It" Saturn's moon Titan is too cold for cell membranes to form as they do on Earth. But researchers have come up with a cell membrane that could exist on Titan. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Mar-02 • 3 minutes Climate Skeptic Senator Burned after Snowball Stunt Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe carried a snowball onto the Senate floor to insinuate that climate change was not real, after which Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse torched Inhofe's argument. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Feb-27 • 4 minutes Air Force Space Command General on Keeping Space Collision-Free Gen. John Hyten, Commander, U.S. Air Force Space Command, talks about the task of tracking all the materials in orbit and keeping them from crashing into one another. Steve Mirsky and Larry Greenemeier report Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Feb-26 • 3 minutes Britain Imported Wheat 2,000 Years before Growing It Sediments at a Britsh archaeological site include wheat remains dating back 8,000 years, meaning that Britons were bringing in European wheat two millennia before they grew it. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Feb-25 • 3 minutes Fishes' Lateral Lines Sense Pressure and Predators Flow sensors on the bodies of many fishes act like a hydrodynamic antenna, picking up signals about the flow of water around them. Gretchen Cuda Kroen reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Feb-23 • 3 minutes Beaver Teeth Have Iron Advantage Beaver enamel is rich in iron—which is even more effective than fluoride at staving off cavities. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Feb-17 • 3 minutes Hot Chili Peppers Motivate Mice to Burn Fat Rodents fed capsaicin voluntarily exercised more than their furry friends on a lower-heat diet. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Feb-16 • 4 minutes Humans off the Hook for Alaskan Mastodon Extinction A reexamination of museum mastodon specimens provides evidence that that last ones were gone from what's called the Beringia region well before any humans showed up. Emily Schwing reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Feb-12 • 3 minutes Contraception Could Prevent 15 Million Unwanted Pregnancies Annually Fifteen million unwanted pregnancies in 35 low- and middle-income countries could be avoided if women had access to and freedom to use contraception. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Feb-11 • 3 minutes Preindustrial Pollution Pestered Peru Ice cores show a sudden rise in heavy metal air pollution in South America 240 years before the industrial revolution, probably due to metallurgy and mining. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Feb-10 • 3 minutes Subway DNA Survey Finds Microbes, Mozzarella and Mystery Scientists sequenced genetic material found in all 468 New York City subway stations, and nearly half matched no known organism. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Feb-06 • 3 minutes Cities Could Win Economically by Losing Olympics According to sports economist Andrew Zimbalist, most cities that win the right to host the Olympics will spend far more to prepare for the games than they estimate in their winning bid. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Feb-03 • 4 minutes Drones Spy On Birds in Flight Quadcopters appear to be a relatively benign tool to study the behavior and numbers of wetland birds. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Feb-02 • 3 minutes Save Libyan Archaeology Plea Issued Savino di Lernia, director of the Archaeological Mission in the Sahara at the Sapienza University of Rome, says violence and unrest threaten World Heritage sites and researchers. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Jan-28 • 3 minutes Climate Influences Language Evolution The ease with which certain sounds are produced in different climes plays a role in the development of spoken languages. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Jan-27 • 3 minutes Gates CEO: Let's Shrink Maternal Mortality Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation CEO Susan Desmond-Hellmann talks about some of what needs to be done to make a reality of the foundation's aspiration to cut maternal mortality by two thirds by 2030 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Jan-26 • 3 minutes Snail's Venom Puts Fish in Insulin Coma The cone snail's venom contains not only neurotoxins, but insulin, too—which stuns the fish it preys on. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Jan-23 • 3 minutes Tech Consequences Voiced by Carnegie Mellon Prez At the World Economic Forum, Carnegie Mellon president Subra Suresh talks about dealing with the unintended consequences of ever more sophisticated intelligent devices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Jan-22 • 3 minutes Diaper Material Expands Wee Microscope Views The absorbent material in disposable diapers can expand tissue samples, making more structure visible under light microscopes. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Jan-21 • 5 minutes Obama Talks Ebola and Climate in His SOTU In his State of the Union address, the president talked about the need for frameworks to be in place to stop future pandemics and rising worldwide temperatures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Jan-20 • 3 minutes Computer Snoopers Read Electromagnetic Emissions Researchers were able to track the keystrokes of a nearby computer via fluctuations in its electromagnetic radiation output. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Jan-13 • 3 minutes Antibiotics in Blood Can Make Malaria Mosquitoes Mightier The drugs disrupt mosquitoes' gut bacteria, which appears to make the insects more effective malaria vectors. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Jan-12 • 3 minutes Health and Conservation Reminders Cut Consumer Energy Use Households that got weekly messages about the lower pollution they generated via efficiency cut energy use much more than did residents who were told how much money they were saving. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Jan-08 • 3 minutes Making Evolution Make Microbes Make Products By selecting for bacteria that can survive only if they make a particular product of interest over multiple iterations, researchers vastly improved yields and decreased production times. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Jan-06 • 3 minutes Human Eye Sometimes Sees the Unseeable Under certain conditions people can catch a glimpse of usually invisible infrared light. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Jan-05 • 3 minutes E.T. May Reveal Itself with Vibration Looking for movement could complement chemical searches for extraterrestrial life. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2015-Jan-02 • 3 minutes Large Carnivores Getting Comfy in Europe Populations of big carnivores such as brown bears, Eurasian lynx, grey wolves and wolverines are stable or increasing in a substantial part of Europe. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Dec-30 • 3 minutes Lightning May Sink Mountain Summits Magnetic anomalies in rocks indicate that lightning may be a major player in weathering mountains. Julia Rosen reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Dec-19 • 3 minutes Penicillins Reveal Additional Antibacterial Power Penicillin and its relatives have been in wide use since the 1940s, but researchers have only now discovered another way that it thwarts bacteria. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Dec-17 • 3 minutes Short-Term Fasting Made Mice Healthier Mice that ate their entire food for the day in an eight-to-12-hour window had better markers for health than did mice free to eat whenever they wanted. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Dec-15 • 3 minutes Laser Zap Determines Fruit Ripeness The way fruit reflects and absorbs laser light may be a good measure of its progression toward peak ripeness. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Dec-11 • 4 minutes Birds Roost on New Evolutionary Tree In a massive first-of-its-kind whole-genome analysis involving 48 bird species, researchers have created a new avian evolutionary tree. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Dec-11 • 3 minutes Canary out, Smartphone in for Gas Detection By using tiny carbon nanotubes tuned electronically to particular gases, researchers turned smartphones into toxin sensors. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Dec-10 • 3 minutes Quarter-Million Tons of Plastic Plague Oceans Based on trawling samples and visual observations of plastic debris, computer models calculate that some 5.25 trillion particles of plastic—about 269,000 tons—may litter the world's oceans. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Dec-09 • 3 minutes Dumpster Diving Provides Drinking Data Researchers estimated alcohol consumption at a senior center by putting out recycling bins and counting the bottle contents. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Dec-08 • 3 minutes Summer Teen Jobs Cut Violence A study following teens who had summer jobs found violent crime in that population almost cut in half, during and following the employment. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Dec-03 • 3 minutes Poorer Kids May Be Too Respectful at School Working-class kids ask for help from teachers less often and less aggressively than do their middle-class counterparts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Nov-26 • 4 minutes Scientific American's 1930 Football Study Found Little Actual Action The Wall Street Journal found in 2010 that an NFL game has just 11 minutes of actual action. Eight decades earlier, Scientific American found just about the same thing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Nov-20 • 4 minutes Worse Than the Bite A new study suggests bed bugs can transmit Chagas disease to mice—but the same thing is unlikely to happen in humans. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Nov-14 • 3 minutes Semen Protects HIV from Microbicide Attack Microbicides that kill HIV in the lab often fail in clinical trials. A study finds that semen may be the culprit. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Nov-14 • 3 minutes Select Few Can Truly Drink to Their Health Alcohol's supposed benefit to the heart may only be available to people with the right genes. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Nov-12 • 3 minutes "We Are on the Comet!" Some sounds from the Rosetta Mission team today after they succeeded in landing on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Nov-10 • 3 minutes Young Earth May Have Been All Wet Because the chemical signature of water on Earth matches the signature of water in an ancient group of asteroids called eucrites, it means that Earth might have had water much earlier than previously thought. Julia Rosen reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Nov-07 • 3 minutes Chimps Hit Sack with Breakfast Plans Chimps choose an overnight camp site based on the likelihood of finding calorically rich food nearby. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Nov-06 • 3 minutes Bats Jam Rivals’ Sonar to Steal a Meal Mexican free-tailed bats make calls that interfere with fellow bats’ echolocation, causing them to miss their insect targets. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Nov-05 • 3 minutes Half-Century Anniversary of a Mars Mishap November 5th marks the 50th anniversary of the launch of Mariner 3, America’s first mission to Mars, which was lost in space. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Nov-03 • 3 minutes Button Battery Coating Lessens Risk If Swallowed Thousands of small children swallow tiny batteries each year. A new battery coating could protect kids from internal burns and still allow the batteries to work. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Oct-31 • 3 minutes Bacteria Lowers Mosquito Transmission of Malaria, Dengue Mosquitoes that harbor a soil microbe called Chromobacterium Csp_P have a harder time catching dengue virus and the malarial parasite. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Oct-30 • 3 minutes Mammals Might Have Slept Through Dino Destroyer The ability to engage in extended hibernation might be what saved ancestral mammals from extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Oct-22 • 3 minutes Fecal Transplanters Fish Out Key Ingredient The bacterium Clostridium scindens, a member of the gut’s microbiome, appears to ward off the hospital-acquired infection C. difficile. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Oct-21 • 4 minutes Coyote Size Forces Smartness Topping out at about 20 kilograms, a coyote has to be able to hunt both smaller and bigger prey, and avoid being prey itself, a combination that selects for intelligence. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Oct-15 • 3 minutes Carnivorous Plant Inspires Anticlotting Medical Devices By copying aspects of the slick surfaces of insect-catching pitcher plants, researchers created tubes that can carry blood without promoting the formation of blood clots or bacterial attachment. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Oct-13 • 3 minutes Less Well-Off Donate Bigger Income Percentage Wealthier people on average gave a lower percentage to charity in 2012 than they did in 2006, while the less affluent increased their giving. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Oct-09 • 3 minutes To Walk, You Have to Fall in Step Motion-capture technology reveals that the body falls forward and sideways as we walk, and the feet come down to restore balance. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Oct-08 • 3 minutes 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry Eric Betzig, Stefan W. Hell and William E. Moerner share the 2014 chemistry Nobel for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy, which has enabled the study of single molecules in ongoing chemical reactions in living cells. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Oct-07 • 3 minutes 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura share the physics Nobel for the invention of efficient blue light–emitting diodes, which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Oct-06 • 4 minutes 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine John O'Keefe, May-Britt Moser and Edvard I. Moser share the prize for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Oct-03 • 3 minutes Reindeer Spit Smacks Down Plant Toxins Compounds in reindeer and moose saliva interfere with the production of toxins in plants that ordinarily stop animals from dining on the vegetation. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Oct-02 • 2 minutes Good Palm Oil Yields Could Be Bad News Increased palm oil yields could unintentionally have the effect of creating a bigger demand for land for even more palm oil planting. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Sep-30 • 3 minutes Sea Garbage Shows Ocean Boundaries Floating refuse reveals ocean currents that in turn show where the world's oceans mix and where they stay relatively discrete. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Sep-29 • 3 minutes Yeast Coaxed to Make Morphine Genetically manipulated yeast can produce morphine that could help get around the problems with poppy crops, which include climate, disease and war. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Sep-25 • 3 minutes Crustal Chemistry May Aid in Earthquake Prediction Researchers say chemical changes in groundwater may someday be used to predict quakes four to six months in advance. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Sep-19 • 3 minutes Dino Devastator Also Ravaged Veggies After the Chicxulub meteorite, more than half the plant species in temperate North America perished along with the dinosaurs, and the composition of post-impact vegetation changed markedly. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Sep-17 • 3 minutes Genius Grant Goes to Science Historian New MacArthur Fellow Pamela Long studies the scientific revolution as a result of the interactions of academics and hands-on infrastructure engineers in the 15th and 16th centuries. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Sep-16 • 3 minutes Leopards Wolf Down Fido in India Ag Area A study of leopard droppings in agricultural western India reveals that the cats primarily eat domestic animals, mostly dogs, but only a small amount of livestock. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Sep-15 • 3 minutes Bio-Spleen Sucks Pathogens and Toxins from Blood The new device rids the blood of bacteria, fungi, viruses and toxins using nanoscale-size magnetic beads. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Sep-05 • 3 minutes Synthetic Fabrics Host More Stench-Producing Bacteria Micrococcus bacteria thrive on the open-air lattice of synthetic fibers—where they sit chomping on the fatty acids in our sweat, turning them into shorter, stinkier molecules. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Sep-04 • 3 minutes Turtles Not Among the "Silent Majority" of Reptiles Biologists have identified at least 11 different sounds in the turtle repertoire—but they still have no idea what they mean. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Sep-03 • 3 minutes Chimp Chatter Now up for Eavesdropping Researchers from the Netherlands have made available online a digitized catalogue of more than 10 hours’ worth of chimpanzee calls. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Sep-02 • 3 minutes Most Tibetans Genetically Adapted to the High Life Ninety percent of Tibetans share a genetic mutation that prevents their blood from becoming dangerously clogged with red blood cells at high altitudes—a response that can be deadly for non-native mountaineers. Karen Hopkin reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Sep-01 • 3 minutes Narcissists Self-Involved Enough to Recognize Their Narcissism The simple question “To what extent do you agree with this statement: I am a narcissist” is about as good at identifying narcissists as a 40-question clinical assessment. Erika Beras reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Aug-29 • 3 minutes How Asteroid 1950 DA Keeps It Together The kilometer-size rubble pile appears to be held together by van der Waals forces. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Aug-27 • 3 minutes Stressed Women Burn Fewer Comfort Food Calories Women who reported feeling stressed or depressed burned fewer calories after a calorie-packed meal than mellow women. Erika Beras reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Aug-22 • 3 minutes Finally, an Algorithm to Sort Your Beatles Albums By analyzing the evolving structure of the Beatles’ music, the computer program was able to correctly place the Fab Four’s albums in chronological order. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Aug-20 • 3 minutes Bio-Battery Produces Power from Your Perspiration Exercising in the future could make dirty clothes and some clean energy. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Aug-19 • 3 minutes Lose Your Job? Good for the Rest of Us Recession lowers mortality in the population overall—even as the out-of-work individual’s risk of death rises. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Aug-18 • 3 minutes Nose Knows What the Mind Tells It When people with asthma think they’re smelling something noxious, their airways become inflamed—even when the odor is harmless. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Aug-15 • 3 minutes Tiny Toe Tools Ensure Gecko Traction To activate or loosen their grip on a surface, geckos extend and angle or retract tiny toe hairs that create contact points. Clara Moskowitz reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Aug-13 • 3 minutes Guys Prefer Electric Shocks to Boredom Guys would rather zap themselves with electricity than be left alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Aug-12 • 3 minutes Google Searches Linked to Stock Market Moves When Web searches related to business and politics go up, the market tends to take a dive—although that connection may already be fading. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Aug-06 • 3 minutes Andromeda Snickers at Milky Way Mass A new estimate finds that the Milky Way, once thought to be twice as massive as Andromeda, may actually only have half our neighbor galaxy's mass. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Aug-05 • 3 minutes Spider's Scat Disguise May Be Its Salvation Masquerading as a bird turd appears to protect certain arachnids from getting eaten by wasps. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Aug-04 • 3 minutes System Converts Solar Efficiently to Steam A graphite disk resting on carbon foam collects sunlight to heat water directly to steam with 85 percent efficiency. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Aug-01 • 3 minutes Environment Has Beef with Beef Raising beef uses 28 times more land, 11 times more water and six times more fertilizer than the average expenditures for other livestock. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Jul-31 • 3 minutes Pack Rats Expand Diet with New Gut Bacteria Pack rats given the right gut bacteria via a fecal transplant from other pack rats can then digest foods that they formerly could not, but the donors could. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Jul-30 • 3 minutes Colorful Birds Can Also Belt Tunes A survey of the tanagers reveals that birds do not have to choose between colorful plumage and a melodious song. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Jul-29 • 3 minutes Roach Reactions to Venom Point to Targeted Pesticides Small changes in the protein sequence of sodium channels of American compared with German cockroaches leave the latter susceptible to a venom that has little effect on the former. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Jul-23 • 3 minutes Salmonella's Favorite Food Could Be Its Achilles' Heel Salmonella's primary fuel source is the molecule fructose-asparagine. Starving it of that fuel in an infected person could kill it without harming beneficial gut bacteria. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Jul-17 • 3 minutes Give Us This Day the Bread Wheat Genome A preliminary map of the bread wheat genome includes the locations of more than 75,000 genes. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Jul-09 • 2 minutes Supercooled Organs Could Stretch Time to Transplant Liver transplant time from human donor to patient is limited to 12 hours, but rats that got livers specially stored for three days were going strong three months later. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Jul-08 • 3 minutes Space-Based Data Collection Better Predicts Floods Satellite data can help geologists predict major floods up to 11 months in advance in areas where snow melt or groundwater is a significant contributor. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Jul-02 • 3 minutes Mobile Phones Carry Owners' Microbiomes The bacteria found on someone's mobile phone is a good match for the most common kinds of bacteria that live on their hands. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Jun-27 • 2 minutes Neandertal Diners Had Side of Veggies By analyzing what came out of Neandertals, researchers have verified that at least some of them mixed vegetation into their meaty diet. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Jun-25 • 3 minutes 21-Second Rule Governs Mammal Micturition All mammals that weigh more than about six-and-a-half pounds take about the same time to urinate, thanks to the structure of the urethra. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Jun-25 • 3 minutes Dwarf Galaxies Really Cooking with Gas The smallest galaxies in the universe gave rise to an unexpectedly large proportion of stars. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Jun-23 • 3 minutes Cool Kids Get Schooled with Age Kids deemed cool in early adolescence have a poor chance to keep that status by their early 20s, because their behavior gets old. Erika Beras reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Jun-20 • 3 minutes White Bread May Actually Build Strong Bodies 1 Way The guts of white bread eaters appear to contain more lactobacillus, a type of bacteria that wards off digestive disorders. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Jun-18 • 3 minutes Plant Spores Hitch Long-Distance Feather Rides Tiny spores from mosses, algae and lichens can stick in bird feathers, travel from the Arctic to the bottom of South America and grow into whole new specimens. Erika Beras reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Jun-17 • 3 minutes Jellyfish Galaxies Get Guts Ripped Out Recently discovered galaxies shaped like jellyfish leave a long trail of hot gas and dust, victims of even hotter gas from their surrounding cluster of galaxies Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Jun-11 • 3 minutes Classroom Decorations Can Distract Young Students Five-year-olds in highly decorated classrooms were less able to hold their focus, spent more time off-task and had smaller learning gains than kids in bare rooms. Erika Beras reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Jun-09 • 3 minutes Light Colors Become Fashion Rage for Northern Europe's Insects As northern Europe warms, the light-colored butterflies and dragonflies typically found in the Mediterranean are moving north, and outcompeting their darker-colored rivals. Erika Beras reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Jun-06 • 2 minutes London Fish Chip Away at Historical Unknowns Isotope composition within fish tails found in London archaeological digs shows that the city began importing cod from northern Scandinavia some 800 years ago. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |
| 2014-Jun-04 • 3 minutes Meteor Storm Went from Sizzle to Fizzle The May Camelopardalids meteor outburst turned out to be a dud, because meteor storm prediction is not a sure thing, unlike, for example, calculating the next eclipse Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices |