Science Quickly
1,930 episodes — Page 32 of 39
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
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
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
Lasers Could Hide Earth from Prying Aliens
We could use laser light to mask our transits across the sun and thus hide Earth from any intelligent aliens looking for planets to invade Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Twin Birth Proposed for Colliding Black Holes That Produced Gravitational Waves
A flash of light shortly after the detection of gravitational waves could mean that that historic event has an added wrinkle—the black holes that collided may have been born in the same collapsing massive star. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
City Birds Outwit Country Counterparts
Birds that live in urban environments are brasher than rural birds, solve problems better and even have more robust immune systems. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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
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
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
Smart Glass Goes from Clear to Cloudy in a Jolt
Researchers say their prototype is cheaper and easier to make than other smart glass, and since it's flexible and foldable, could be used for camouflage. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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
African Park Comeback Offers Ecological Optimism
A decade of modest financial investment has revitalized Mozambique's Gorongosa National Park, explains biologist Sean B. Carroll in his new book The Serengeti Rules: The Quest to Discovery How Life Works and Why It Matters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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
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
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
Underground Eruptions Could Cause Quakes Months Later
When the Nyiragongo volcano erupted in January 2002, it set the geologic stage for earthquakes nine months later. Julia Rosen reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Raw Stone Age Meals Got Tenderizing Treatment
Pounding and slicing meat and vegetables would have saved our ancestors millions of tough chews a year—potentially explaining the evolution of smaller jaws and teeth. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Fear of Spiders Makes Them Look Bigger
Arachnophobic study subjects estimated the size of spiders as bigger than did people who do not fear the eight-legged beasties. Jason Goldman reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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
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
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
Space "Treasure Map" Guides E.T. Search
A pair of astrophysicists advise searchers of intelligent life to look in the narrow band of galactic sky from which any alien observers would see Earth transit the sun—a method we use to detect exoplanets. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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
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
Cutting Carbon Pollution Could Save Health Care $
Some 300,000 premature deaths could be avoided by 2030 if the U.S. abides by the ambitious Paris Climate Agreement, according to a new analysis. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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
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
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
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
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
Opioid Epidemic Gets Treatment Prescription
Wilson Compton, deputy director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, addressed ways to deal with the U.S. opioid epidemic at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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
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
Greenland's Meltwater May Fertilize Fjords with Phosphorus
Greenland's glacial rivers may flush some 400,000 tons of phosphorus into ocean waters—on par with the Mississippi or the Amazon. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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
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
Climate Change Most Affects Nations That Didn't Produce It
Developed nations that drive climate change incur relatively few of the costs whereas countries that produce few greenhouse gas emissions will be hard-hit, like nonsmokers exposed to second-hand smoke. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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
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
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
Plastic Pollution Perturbs Oyster Offspring
Laboratory tests suggest that when the shellfish suck in tiny plastic particles, their reproductive success suffers. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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
Sweet Song Gives Away New Bird Species
The newly discovered Himalayan forest thrush looks a great deal like the alpine thrush, but its far silkier song stylings gave it away as a potential new species. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Suicide Differences by Region Related to Gun Availability
The presence of a gun increases the likelihood that someone in the home will die a violent death, particularly by suicide. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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
Quick Test Could Tell If a Patient Needs Antibiotics
Antibiotics work against bacterial infections but are often prescribed to people with viral infections, which don't respond to the drugs. But a new gene test could show if a patient's infection is viral or bacterial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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
Sharks Head Straight Home by Smell
Sharks that could smell headed straight back home when taken a few miles away whereas some that had their senses of smell blocked took slower, more erratic paths to their old haunts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Volcano Role in Dino Death Gets Mercury Boost
Researchers found a spike in mercury, which is produced by volcanoes, in ancient ocean sediments from southern France that span the time of the dinosaurs' mass extinction, lending support to the idea that massive eruptions played a role, in addition to the asteroid impact. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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