Science Quickly
1,942 episodes — Page 25 of 39
Animal Coloration Can Serve Double Duty
The cinnabar moth caterpillar's coloration pattern warns predators close up, but camouflages the critter from a distance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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
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
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
How Baby Birds Learn to Duet
Recordings of songbird duets reveal baby birds learn conversational turn-taking like we do: gradually, and from adults. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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
Needed: Info on Biodiversity Change over Time
Understanding an ecosystem means following changes in the abundances and identities of the species present as the clock ticks. The BioTIME database should help. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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
Seabird Feathers Reveal Less-Resilient Ocean
By analyzing 130 years of seabird feathers, researchers determined that food webs are losing complexity in the Pacific—meaning less-resilient ecosystems. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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
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
Boat Noise Means Fish Can't Learn Their Lessons
Damselfish had trouble learning to avoid predators, when that lesson was accompanied by a soundtrack of buzzing boat engines. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Woodpeckers Drum to Their Own Tunes
The length and spacing of woodpecker drum rolls varies enough to tell woodpeckers apart—which could be useful to conservation biologists. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Homebodies Economize on Energy Use
Today’s work-from-home, on-demand culture means more days at home—and translates into greater energy savings, too. Karen Hopkin reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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
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
Ticks on Uptick Where Big Game Declines
Areas of Kenya without large wildlife saw tick populations rise as much as 370 percent—meaning more danger to humans. Jason G. Goldman reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Wildfires Spike Wine with Smoky Notes
Chemists are working on ways for wildfire-affected winemakers to avoid creating smoky wines. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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
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
Catching Flu Also Boosts Heart Risk
Researchers found a sixfold increase in heart attacks in patients in the week following a flu. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Worldwide Effort Says Together Science Can
Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, talked about worldwide scientific collaboration today at the World Economic Forum. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Canada Geese Taking a Winter Staycation
The geese are wintering farther and farther north, in urban areas like Chicago—which may help them avoid hunters. Emily Schwing reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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
Social Media Helps ID Spew Source
Surveillance of Yelp restaurant reviews for terms like vomit led researchers to the sources of foodborne illness outbreaks. Karen Hopkin reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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
Which Came First, the Proboscis or the Flower?
A new fossil find reveals that the sucking tongue of butterflies—or proboscis—appears to have evolved before the emergence of flowers. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
You Live in a Strange Solar System
Astronomers found that other star systems tend to host similarly sized exoplanets—far different from ours. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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
Air Force Tracks Final Frontier
General Jay Raymond, Commander of Air Force Space Command, talks about keeping watch over space and cyber. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
You Traveled Far Last Year
Getting around the sun in 2017 was a memorable trip. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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
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
Mongoose Societies Are Skeptical of Strangers
It takes months for members of a mongoose breeding society to trust newcomers with important tasks like watching for predators. Jason G. Goldman reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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
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
This Fish Emits Damaging Decibels
The Gulf corvina produces a chattering chorus that’s one of the loudest underwater animal sounds on the planet. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Repetitive Sounds Are Music to the Brain
Repeating something can render that thing melodious—even the sound of a shovel being dragged across the pavement. Karen Hopkin reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Radiation Might Help Heart Regain Its Rhythm
A flash of radiation drastically reduced arrhythmia in a small group of patients, for at least a year after treatment. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dark Fiber Networks Can Sense Seismicity
Scientists are exploring the use of fiber-optic cables—like the ones that form the backbone of the internet—to monitor earthquakes. Julia Rosen reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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
Something Clicks for Dolphin Identification
Machine-learning algorithms teased seven distinct dolphin clicking patterns from a library of more than 50 million clicks, identifying one species by sound alone. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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
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
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
Ancient Women Had Awesome Arms
For thousands of years, women in agricultural societies seem to have had arms stronger than members of modern rowing teams. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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
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
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
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