Science Quickly

Using a satellite-born sensor system that can penetrate through several feet of dry surface sediments, researchers found the dry remains of an ancient river system winding for hundreds of miles below the Saharan sands Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Stimulating the "taste cortex" was enough to trick mice into thinking they'd tasted sweet or bitter substances, when in fact their tongues tasted nothing at all. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fruits growing wild in urban areas were found to be healthful and to contain lower levels of lead than what's considered safe in drinking water Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Careful recordings of mouse interactions find that females vocalize, overturning the long-held view that only males sing during courtship Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Slow, steady breathing lofts minute food particles into the nasal cavity, where they contribute to your perception of flavor. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The recently discovered small galaxy Leo P contains only about a hundred-thousandth as many stars as the Milky Way, but it's bucking the small galaxy trend by continuing to make new ones Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Among howler monkey species, loud calls come at the expense of testicle size and sperm production—or to put it another way, monkeys with the largest testes don't make as much noise Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Beeswax residues found on shards of stone age pottery in the Mediterranean region indicate that humans were keeping honeybees as early as 9,000 years ago Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Engineers at Caltech discovered that for sand dunes to produce sound they need a dry layer on top that amplifies internal frequencies during sand movement. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The human brain's neurons fire in sync to music, and trained musicians are better at it than are amateurs Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learning detailed navigation information causes the hippocampus to interact with other regions of the brain involved in location Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As Arctic sea ice melts, an underwater recording project reveals that the submerged ecology is undergoing change, with humpbacks and killer whales staying north later in the year. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Researchers developed a call that effectively mimics the citrus psyllid's mating song, which could be a weapon against a devastating crop scourge. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Researchers report a spike in the number of methane plumes along the Northwest coast emanating from depths of about 500 meters, a possible indication that submerged frozen methane is becoming available Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

People exposed to incongruent situations, such as Halloween-themed plates at a Labor Day picnic, performed better on cognitive-reasoning tests and were less likely to make impulse purchases or overeat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Whales fertilize ocean surface waters with key nutrients like phosphorus, which move through the food chain, and eventually, onto land. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Researchers have found the first direct evidence that coho salmon near U.S. Northwest cities are being killed by chemical runoff from roads and parking lots that reach streams Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At the “Innovation: An American Imperative” symposium October 20 on Capitol Hill, industry leaders and members of Congress talked about shoring up federal support for basic research and development Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

College students who watched episodes of the various Law & Order episodes had a better understanding of sexual consent issues than those who watched two other crime procedural franchises Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Beet juice contains nitrates, which the body can convert to nitric oxide, a chemical that relaxes blood vessels and makes it easier to function in conditions of low oxygen. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Researchers picked apart satellite imagery from two New England forest ecosystems to get a better handle on exactly what factors influence the timing of the color changes of the autumn leaves Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The company’s moves to have iPhones be less dependent on the cloud and to be more encrypted could mean more user privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Researchers built a physical model of the tail of the late Jurassic dinosaur Apatosaurus and found that its tail tip could have moved at supersonic speed to produce a whip-crack sound Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Infants seemed to be able to differentiate between two different "D" sounds in Hindi—but only when their tongue movements weren't blocked by a teething device. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alan Stern, principal investigator of NASA’s New Horizons Mission, explains that with Pluto in the rearview mirror, the spacecraft will continue on to a smaller Kuiper Belt body Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's well known birds can use Earth's magnetic field as their compass, but they may also use magnetism as their map. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Human tourism—no matter how well-intentioned—might desensitize wild animals to poachers and predators, affecting their odds of survival. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

By studying the interactions of babies and their mothers, researchers determined that babies smile in hopes others will smile at them. Erika Beras reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry goes to Tomas Lindahl, Paul Modrich, Aziz Sancar for mechanistic studies of DNA repair Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Takaaki Kajita and Arthur B. McDonald for the discovery that one kind of neutrino can change into another, which shows that neutrinos have mass Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine goes jointly to William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura for their studies leading to novel therapies against infections caused by roundworm parasites and to Youyou Tu for her work developing a novel therapy against malaria Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Because China relies on coal for much of its power, goods produced there can have a dirtier carbon footprint than those produced elsewhere. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Harvard neuroscientist Beth Stevens wins a MacArthur Fellowship for studies of how microglia cells prune away excess neuronal synapses during brain development and how that necessary function might go awry in neurodegenerative diseases Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Environmental engineer Kartik Chandran of Columbia University won a MacArthur Fellowship for his work on extracting nutrients and energy from wastewater and sewage Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Early human species may have had sharper hearing in certain frequencies than we enjoy, to facilitate short-range communication in an open environment. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sitting for more than seven hours a day is linked to a 30 percent higher risk of death, but that association disappears among the in-place movers and shakers. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Humans shed a million particles an hour, and those microbe-laced clouds are sometimes unique enough to identify the person producing them. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The particular fungi found in house dust can tell investigators where you live, and the bacteria in the dust can give away who and what you live with Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At the recent DARPA Wait What? conference, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said lifesaving technologies are a priority for his department Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As Daniel Boorstin, former director of the Smithsonian National Museum of History, once put it, clockmakers were the "pioneer scientific instrument makers" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Word selection among Twitter users who could be identified as likely members of one or the other political party showed specific usage patterns. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With the Sierra Nevada snowpack at historic lows, should policy makers focus on capturing future rain instead of relying on the snow bank? Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Domesticated pigs had many dalliances with wild boars that added new genes to the pig population well after they had settled down on the farm Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Researchers found that snakebites were two to three times as prevalent in the hottest and coldest years of the El Niño climate cycle. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The whales appear to prefer the company of "like-minded" individuals, based on common vocal clicking behavior—an example of culture, researchers say. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Whereas most predators kill the young or infirm, humans claim a disproportionate number of mature healthy adults of reproductive age Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Signs that say "Share the Road" with bicycles may have far less influence over motor vehicle driver behavior than would signs saying "Bicycles May Use Full Lane." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A new lightweight material that heals itself when punctured could help spacecraft survive run-ins with debris. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Researchers built a "phantom road" through wilderness using tree-mounted speakers to play traffic sounds, and witnessed a decline in bird fitness and diversity. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Scientific papers with shorter titles receive more citations than those with long-winded headings Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices