Science Quickly
1,942 episodes — Page 30 of 39
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
Poor Sleepers Worse at Recognizing Unfamiliar Faces
Subjects suffering insomnia got more wrong answers in a face-matching task—but they were paradoxically more confident of their responses. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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
Polar Bears Can't Just Switch to Terrestrial Food
With a shorter season of sea ice, polar bears have less access to marine mammals. But switching to a terrestrial diet deprives them of the fatty seal meals they need to thrive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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
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
Elephant Footprints Become Tiny Critter Havens
When rain fills the massive footprints left by elephants, communities of aquatic invertebrates quickly move in Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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
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
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
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
Nobel in Physiology or Medicine to Yoshinori Ohsumi for Autophagy Discoveries
Japan's Yoshinori Ohsumi wins the 2016 prize for discoveries related to autophagy, the process in cells whereby they degrade some of their internal structures and send the parts out for recycling. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Color-Changing Skin Aids Climate Control and Communication
Bearded dragons modify their colors for camouflage or to maintain body temperature, or to communicate with other dragons. Jason G. Goldman reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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
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
Humans Are Superpredators in the Landscape of Fear
Badgers were far more frightened by the sounds of humans than by their traditional predators, such as bears or wolves. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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
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
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
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
Remote Door Controls Are Car Security Flaw
Researchers found that a bad actor could cheaply and easily clone a remote keyless entry system to gain entry. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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
Humans and Birds Cooperate to Share Beehive Bounty
The Yao people of Mozambique vocally signal honeyguide birds to show them the location of hives, which the people harvest and share with the birds. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Pesticides Act as Honeybee Contraceptives
Environmental concentrations of certain insecticides slashed honeybee drones' living sperm counts. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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
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
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
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
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
Frigate Bird Flights Last Months
Great frigate birds may stay aloft for up to two months, eating and sleeping on the wing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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
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
Vaccinate Prairie Dogs to Save Ferrets
As was widely reported on social media, the U.S. is indeed going to use aerial drones to spread vaccine-laced pellets among prairie dogs to save endangered ferrets, although, contrary to some reports, no M&Ms will be involved. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Fuel-Efficient Engines Have a Sooty Flaw
A newer type of fuel injection offers better fuel economy, but paradoxically increases black carbon emissions—meaning a pollution trade-off. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices