Science Quickly

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

Healthy ants wanted nothing to do with free-radical-rich foodstuff, but ants exposed to a pathogenic fungus sought it out, which upped their odds of survival. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Crown-of-thorns sea stars are an "underwater swarm of locusts" that devour coral—unless the coral is protected by a layer of seaweed. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An analysis of some 300 cosmetics ads in magazines found the vast majority of their science claims to be either false or too vague to judge Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Two new studies find that a deeper voice gives a politican an edge over a higher-pitched opponent Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Using a simulated vomiting device, scientists determined that projectile vomiting can aerosolize noroviruslike particles, allowing the infection to spread short distances through the air. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The grime on city buildings and may actively contribute to urban air pollution. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A newly discovered strain of bacteria found in Arctic permafrost harvests methane from the air—meaning it could help mitigate the effects of warming. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Researchers linked dated graffiti about droughts in a cave in China to physical evidence in the cave of the water shortages, such as changes in ratios of stable isotopes in specific layers of stalagmites Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Both hemispheres are involved in the brains of people interpreting a whistled variant of Turkish, compared with a left hemisphere dominance when listeners hear the spoken language Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some 95 percent of catalogued species in one family of Hawaiian land snails could already be extinct, and similar rates of invertebrate extinction could be happening around the world. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Researchers isolated a bacterial enzyme that could break down nicotine before smokers get the buzz that keeps them coming back for more. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Indoor climate control systems are based on 1960s standards that envisioned the typical office worker to be a 40-year-old, 68-kilogram man Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A single-point mutation in corn's ancestor teosinte got rid of the hard shell that used to encase every kernel Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Researchers have developed a new ecofriendly sunscreen molecule that protects against both UV-A and UV-B rays, and could also be used to create more durable paints and plastics. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Microbes 2,500 meters below the seafloor in Japan are most closely related to bacterial groups that thrive in forest soils on land, suggesting that they might be descendants of ones that survived when their terrestrial habitat was flooded 20 million years ago Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a study of nearly half a million volunteers in China, those who ate chilies just a couple times a week had a 10 percent lower risk of death. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Animal communication studies have shown only fixed vocalizations, such as alarm cries. But Bonobo chimps appear to have a call that has different meanings in different contexts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Adults of the west African Baka people and east African Efé and Sua peoples average less than five feet tall. But while the Efé and Sua are born small, the Baka have slow growth rates in infancy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices