Science Quickly
1,930 episodes — Page 37 of 39
Britain Imported Wheat 2,000 Years before Growing It
Sediments at a Britsh archaeological site include wheat remains dating back 8,000 years, meaning that Britons were bringing in European wheat two millennia before they grew it. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Fishes' Lateral Lines Sense Pressure and Predators
Flow sensors on the bodies of many fishes act like a hydrodynamic antenna, picking up signals about the flow of water around them. Gretchen Cuda Kroen reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Science Wins at the Oscars
Science was in the spotlight at the 87th annual Academy Awards ceremony Sunday night, from actors playing scientists to winners thanking them. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Beaver Teeth Have Iron Advantage
Beaver enamel is rich in iron—which is even more effective than fluoride at staving off cavities. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nectar Helps Bees’ Medicine Go Down
In addition to fuel, nectar from various plant species contains chemical compounds that reduce the numbers of a common gut parasite in bumblebees. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Pot Munchies Explained By Re-Tasked Neurons
Marijuana boosts users' appetities by changing the signals brain cells produce from sated to still hungry. Karen Hopkin reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Hot Chili Peppers Motivate Mice to Burn Fat
Rodents fed capsaicin voluntarily exercised more than their furry friends on a lower-heat diet. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Humans off the Hook for Alaskan Mastodon Extinction
A reexamination of museum mastodon specimens provides evidence that that last ones were gone from what's called the Beringia region well before any humans showed up. Emily Schwing reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Triskaidekaphobia Plays Role in Paraskevidekatriaphobia
Some random historical facts about the number 13 may be behind some people's irrational aversion to Friday the 13th. Karen Hopkin reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Contraception Could Prevent 15 Million Unwanted Pregnancies Annually
Fifteen million unwanted pregnancies in 35 low- and middle-income countries could be avoided if women had access to and freedom to use contraception. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Preindustrial Pollution Pestered Peru
Ice cores show a sudden rise in heavy metal air pollution in South America 240 years before the industrial revolution, probably due to metallurgy and mining. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Subway DNA Survey Finds Microbes, Mozzarella and Mystery
Scientists sequenced genetic material found in all 468 New York City subway stations, and nearly half matched no known organism. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Newton Figured Out How Tree Sap Rises
Buried in one of Isaac Newton's college notebooks is a page on which he fairly accurately theorizes on the process of transpiration in plants, two centuries before the concept was elucidated. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Cities Could Win Economically by Losing Olympics
According to sports economist Andrew Zimbalist, most cities that win the right to host the Olympics will spend far more to prepare for the games than they estimate in their winning bid. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Drones Spy On Birds in Flight
Quadcopters appear to be a relatively benign tool to study the behavior and numbers of wetland birds. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Save Libyan Archaeology Plea Issued
Savino di Lernia, director of the Archaeological Mission in the Sahara at the Sapienza University of Rome, says violence and unrest threaten World Heritage sites and researchers. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Super Bowl Team Cities See More Flu Deaths
Regions that send a team to the Super Bowl saw on average an 18 percent increase in flu deaths among those over 65, probably because of increased transmission due to gatherings of people at parties during the height of the flu season. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Climate Influences Language Evolution
The ease with which certain sounds are produced in different climes plays a role in the development of spoken languages. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Gates CEO: Let's Shrink Maternal Mortality
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation CEO Susan Desmond-Hellmann talks about some of what needs to be done to make a reality of the foundation's aspiration to cut maternal mortality by two thirds by 2030 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Snail's Venom Puts Fish in Insulin Coma
The cone snail's venom contains not only neurotoxins, but insulin, too—which stuns the fish it preys on. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Tech Consequences Voiced by Carnegie Mellon Prez
At the World Economic Forum, Carnegie Mellon president Subra Suresh talks about dealing with the unintended consequences of ever more sophisticated intelligent devices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Diaper Material Expands Wee Microscope Views
The absorbent material in disposable diapers can expand tissue samples, making more structure visible under light microscopes. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Obama Talks Ebola and Climate in His SOTU
In his State of the Union address, the president talked about the need for frameworks to be in place to stop future pandemics and rising worldwide temperatures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Computer Snoopers Read Electromagnetic Emissions
Researchers were able to track the keystrokes of a nearby computer via fluctuations in its electromagnetic radiation output. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Ex-President Wins Campaign against Ghastly Guinea Worm
Jimmy Carter's efforts against the horribly painful guinea worm parasitic disease have helped lower the number of cases from 3.5 million in 1986 to just 126 last year. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Antibiotics in Blood Can Make Malaria Mosquitoes Mightier
The drugs disrupt mosquitoes' gut bacteria, which appears to make the insects more effective malaria vectors. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Health and Conservation Reminders Cut Consumer Energy Use
Households that got weekly messages about the lower pollution they generated via efficiency cut energy use much more than did residents who were told how much money they were saving. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Active Sun at Birth Cut Historical Life Spans
High UV radiation during solar maxima may have degraded expectant mothers' stores of folate, a vitamin essential to development. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Making Evolution Make Microbes Make Products
By selecting for bacteria that can survive only if they make a particular product of interest over multiple iterations, researchers vastly improved yields and decreased production times. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Human Eye Sometimes Sees the Unseeable
Under certain conditions people can catch a glimpse of usually invisible infrared light. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
E.T. May Reveal Itself with Vibration
Looking for movement could complement chemical searches for extraterrestrial life. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Large Carnivores Getting Comfy in Europe
Populations of big carnivores such as brown bears, Eurasian lynx, grey wolves and wolverines are stable or increasing in a substantial part of Europe. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Lyme Helps Spread Other Tick Infections
Mice infected with Lyme and the Babesia parasite are more likely to pass on babesiosis than mice infected with babesiosis alone. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Lightning May Sink Mountain Summits
Magnetic anomalies in rocks indicate that lightning may be a major player in weathering mountains. Julia Rosen reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Budget Bill Stealthily Affects Environment and Energy
Congress took advantage of the pressure to pass a budget bill by adding riders that change rules concerning the environment and energy. Josh Fischman reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Plankton Pee May Alter Ocean's Chemistry
The urine of a vast army of tiny fish, jellies and shrimpy things may play an important role in the ocean's nitrogen cycle. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Penicillins Reveal Additional Antibacterial Power
Penicillin and its relatives have been in wide use since the 1940s, but researchers have only now discovered another way that it thwarts bacteria. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Short-Term Fasting Made Mice Healthier
Mice that ate their entire food for the day in an eight-to-12-hour window had better markers for health than did mice free to eat whenever they wanted. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Laser Zap Determines Fruit Ripeness
The way fruit reflects and absorbs laser light may be a good measure of its progression toward peak ripeness. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Birds Roost on New Evolutionary Tree
In a massive first-of-its-kind whole-genome analysis involving 48 bird species, researchers have created a new avian evolutionary tree. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Canary out, Smartphone in for Gas Detection
By using tiny carbon nanotubes tuned electronically to particular gases, researchers turned smartphones into toxin sensors. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Quarter-Million Tons of Plastic Plague Oceans
Based on trawling samples and visual observations of plastic debris, computer models calculate that some 5.25 trillion particles of plastic—about 269,000 tons—may litter the world's oceans. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dumpster Diving Provides Drinking Data
Researchers estimated alcohol consumption at a senior center by putting out recycling bins and counting the bottle contents. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Summer Teen Jobs Cut Violence
A study following teens who had summer jobs found violent crime in that population almost cut in half, during and following the employment. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Poorer Kids May Be Too Respectful at School
Working-class kids ask for help from teachers less often and less aggressively than do their middle-class counterparts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Big Apple's Insects Eat Streets Clean
Researchers working in New York City found that hungry urban arthropods help dispose of tons of edible trash. Allie Wilkinson reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
<i>Scientific American</i>'s 1930 Football Study Found Little Actual Action
The Wall Street Journal found in 2010 that an NFL game has just 11 minutes of actual action. Eight decades earlier, Scientific American found just about the same thing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Looking Back on 40 Years of Lucy
Paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson's first glimpse of Lucy came on November 24, 1974 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Better Barley Let People Settle Tibetan Plateau
Importation of a frost-resistant barley from the Fertile Crescent to Tibet some 3,600 years ago is associated with the advent of settlements at 3,000 meters and more above sea level. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Worse Than the Bite
A new study suggests bed bugs can transmit Chagas disease to mice—but the same thing is unlikely to happen in humans. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices