Science Quickly

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

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

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

As temperatures rise, energy demands peak, with a corresponding increase in air pollutants. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Researchers have trotted out data that show a combination of whipping and stomping forces is what causes laces to unravel without warning. Karen Hopkin reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

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

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

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

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

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

Animal Planet's series The Zoo shows viewers the biological, veterinary and conservation science at a modern zoo. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

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

Researchers used ancient climate cycles to confirm the solar system’s chaotic planetary orbits. An Earth–Mars collision is one distant outcome. Julia Rosen reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

A meta-analysis found that being of low socioeconomic status was associated with almost as many years of lost life as was a sedentary lifestyle. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

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

Exposure to specific microbes when an infant is less than a year old seems to have a protective effect against the child's eventual acquisition of asthma. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Astrophysicists propose that mysterious "fast radio bursts" could, in very speculative theory, be produced by an antenna twice the size of Earth. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

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

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

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

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

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

Climate change and overfishing have made the penguins’ feeding grounds a mirage—which has led to a drop in penguin population. Jason G. Goldman reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

Doing large studies of marijuana's potential as medicine means getting it removed from an official federal list of substances with no official medical use—which requires more proof of its potential as medicine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Red blood cells retain a memory of high-altitude exposure, allowing for faster acclimation next time. But that memory fades within four months. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Properly fermented foods deliver probiotics that could help cut disease risk, said a researcher at the annual meeting of the AAAS. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In urban Asian areas myopia among teenagers is topping 90 percent—but foresight may be able to bring those numbers way down. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

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

Researchers and administrators at the CDC dare not utter the words guns or firearms for fear of budget cuts from Congress, according to health policy researcher David Hemenway. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Critters living more than six miles below the ocean surface contain high levels of harmful compounds like PCBs and flame retardants. Julia Rosen reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Researchers have developed a heat sensor that can detect temperature changes of just ten thousandths of a degree Celsius—comparable with the sensitivity of pit vipers. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A Pacific Northwest housing boom is encroaching on songbird habitat, forcing the birds to flee their homes—and their mates. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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