Science Quickly

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An expert on climate denial offers tips for inoculating people against coronavirus conspiracy notions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here are some “highlights” from the past 13.5 years of this podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

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

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

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

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