Science Quickly
1,942 episodes — Page 38 of 39
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
Semen Protects HIV from Microbicide Attack
Microbicides that kill HIV in the lab often fail in clinical trials. A study finds that semen may be the culprit. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Select Few Can Truly Drink to Their Health
Alcohol's supposed benefit to the heart may only be available to people with the right genes. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
"We Are on the Comet!"
Some sounds from the Rosetta Mission team today after they succeeded in landing on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Microbiome Studies Contaminated by Sequencing Supplies
Nonsterile lab reagents and DNA extraction kits add their own assortment of DNA to microbiome samples. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Young Earth May Have Been All Wet
Because the chemical signature of water on Earth matches the signature of water in an ancient group of asteroids called eucrites, it means that Earth might have had water much earlier than previously thought. Julia Rosen reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chimps Hit Sack with Breakfast Plans
Chimps choose an overnight camp site based on the likelihood of finding calorically rich food nearby. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Bats Jam Rivals’ Sonar to Steal a Meal
Mexican free-tailed bats make calls that interfere with fellow bats’ echolocation, causing them to miss their insect targets. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Half-Century Anniversary of a Mars Mishap
November 5th marks the 50th anniversary of the launch of Mariner 3, America’s first mission to Mars, which was lost in space. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Button Battery Coating Lessens Risk If Swallowed
Thousands of small children swallow tiny batteries each year. A new battery coating could protect kids from internal burns and still allow the batteries to work. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Bacteria Lowers Mosquito Transmission of Malaria, Dengue
Mosquitoes that harbor a soil microbe called Chromobacterium Csp_P have a harder time catching dengue virus and the malarial parasite. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Mammals Might Have Slept Through Dino Destroyer
The ability to engage in extended hibernation might be what saved ancestral mammals from extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Online Personalization Means Prices Are Tailored to You, Too
Christo Wilson, a computer scientist at Northeastern University, says prices online are "super subjective" and vary according to your past clicks and purchases or whether you are shopping on a mobile phone. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Fecal Transplanters Fish Out Key Ingredient
The bacterium Clostridium scindens, a member of the gut’s microbiome, appears to ward off the hospital-acquired infection C. difficile. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Coyote Size Forces Smartness
Topping out at about 20 kilograms, a coyote has to be able to hunt both smaller and bigger prey, and avoid being prey itself, a combination that selects for intelligence. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Plant Thorns Increase When Defense Needed
In areas with few herbivores acacia plants don't bother to churn out many of the off-putting thorns. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Lemur Latrine Trees Serve as Community Bulletin Boards
Primatologists spent almost 1,100 hours watching lemurs do their business on their designated tree and concluded that urine and glandular secretions serve as posted messages. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Carnivorous Plant Inspires Anticlotting Medical Devices
By copying aspects of the slick surfaces of insect-catching pitcher plants, researchers created tubes that can carry blood without promoting the formation of blood clots or bacterial attachment. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Less Well-Off Donate Bigger Income Percentage
Wealthier people on average gave a lower percentage to charity in 2012 than they did in 2006, while the less affluent increased their giving. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
To Walk, You Have to Fall in Step
Motion-capture technology reveals that the body falls forward and sideways as we walk, and the feet come down to restore balance. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Eric Betzig, Stefan W. Hell and William E. Moerner share the 2014 chemistry Nobel for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy, which has enabled the study of single molecules in ongoing chemical reactions in living cells. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2014 Nobel Prize in Physics
Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura share the physics Nobel for the invention of efficient blue light–emitting diodes, which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
John O'Keefe, May-Britt Moser and Edvard I. Moser share the prize for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Reindeer Spit Smacks Down Plant Toxins
Compounds in reindeer and moose saliva interfere with the production of toxins in plants that ordinarily stop animals from dining on the vegetation. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Good Palm Oil Yields Could Be Bad News
Increased palm oil yields could unintentionally have the effect of creating a bigger demand for land for even more palm oil planting. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Central Park Features Worldwide Soil Microbes
The soil in Manhattan's Central Park contains microbial life that also exists in deserts, frozen tundra, forests, rainforests and prairies. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sea Garbage Shows Ocean Boundaries
Floating refuse reveals ocean currents that in turn show where the world's oceans mix and where they stay relatively discrete. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Yeast Coaxed to Make Morphine
Genetically manipulated yeast can produce morphine that could help get around the problems with poppy crops, which include climate, disease and war. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Crustal Chemistry May Aid in Earthquake Prediction
Researchers say chemical changes in groundwater may someday be used to predict quakes four to six months in advance. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Fire Cooked Up Early Human Culture
An anthropologist studying current hunter–gatherers finds that nighttime around the fire is when conversation turns from business to bonding. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
I Got Rhythm, I Got Reading
Kids who could keep a beat had superior skills related to reading and language than did those whose rhythm strayed. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dino Devastator Also Ravaged Veggies
After the Chicxulub meteorite, more than half the plant species in temperate North America perished along with the dinosaurs, and the composition of post-impact vegetation changed markedly. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Genius Grant Goes to Science Historian
New MacArthur Fellow Pamela Long studies the scientific revolution as a result of the interactions of academics and hands-on infrastructure engineers in the 15th and 16th centuries. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Leopards Wolf Down Fido in India Ag Area
A study of leopard droppings in agricultural western India reveals that the cats primarily eat domestic animals, mostly dogs, but only a small amount of livestock. Steve Mirsky reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Bio-Spleen Sucks Pathogens and Toxins from Blood
The new device rids the blood of bacteria, fungi, viruses and toxins using nanoscale-size magnetic beads. Cynthia Graber reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Synthetic Fabrics Host More Stench-Producing Bacteria
Micrococcus bacteria thrive on the open-air lattice of synthetic fibers—where they sit chomping on the fatty acids in our sweat, turning them into shorter, stinkier molecules. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Turtles Not Among the "Silent Majority" of Reptiles
Biologists have identified at least 11 different sounds in the turtle repertoire—but they still have no idea what they mean. Christopher Intagliata reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chimp Chatter Now up for Eavesdropping
Researchers from the Netherlands have made available online a digitized catalogue of more than 10 hours’ worth of chimpanzee calls. Karen Hopkin reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Most Tibetans Genetically Adapted to the High Life
Ninety percent of Tibetans share a genetic mutation that prevents their blood from becoming dangerously clogged with red blood cells at high altitudes—a response that can be deadly for non-native mountaineers. Karen Hopkin reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices