Science Quickly

In the first episode of a three-part series, environmental reporter Barbara Moran is on Cape Cod to find out why the crystal clear water there is turning “pea-soup green”—and how communities are scrambling to clean it up. For more information, read WBUR’s coverage of the efforts to improve Cape Cod’s water pollution, including a “pee-cycling” project being considered by one innovative town. And watch WBUR and Scientific American’s documentary short exploring how pollution and algae overgrowth threaten this Massachusetts vacation hub. Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new everyday: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for our daily newsletter. This series is a co-production of WBUR and Scientific American. It’s reported and hosted by WBUR’s Barbara Moran. Science Quickly is produced by Jeff DelViscio, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Rachel Feltman. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-checked this series, and Duy Linh Tu and Sebastian Tuinder contributed reporting and sound. WBUR’s Kathleen Masterson edited this series. Additional funding was provided by the Pulitzer Center. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cannabis consumers may be familiar with the paranoia that can come from taking too many gummies or smoking too much weed. New research into cannabis reveals how a lemon-scented terpene d-limonene can ease anxiety without diminishing the high. Join Scientific American, Springer Nature and Nature Portfolio in Washington, D.C. on May 17 for Science on the Hill. Register now! Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new everyday: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for our daily newsletter. Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest Allison Parshall. Our show is edited by Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, Madison Goldberg and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

AI-generated images of Katy Perry at Monday’s Met Gala looked so realistic they even duped her mom. And it just so happens that ChatGPT developer OpenAI released a new tool to detect fake images generated by DALL-E—the very next day. Join Scientific American, Springer Nature and Nature Portfolio in Washington, D.C. on May 17 for Science on the Hill. Register now! Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new everyday: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for our daily newsletter. Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. Our show is edited by Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, Madison Goldberg and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada, with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Meet Rachel Feltman, the new host of Science Quickly! Bringing a fresh perspective and infectious enthusiasm, Rachel will take you on audio journeys to far-off places, inspire you to ponder deep questions, and introduce you to people changing the world with science. Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new everyday: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for our daily newsletter. Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Kelso Harper, Carin Leong, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. Our show is edited by Elah Feder, Alexa Lim, Madison Goldberg and Anaissa Ruiz Tejada with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Doctors are starting to prescribe vegetables or entire meals to ward off disease. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Amid Earth’s fourth global coral bleaching event, a leading expert says tackling climate change is the key to fighting back. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ahead of a project to spray carbon dioxide into jungle plots, researchers contemplate what its results might signal about the forest’s future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After years of delay, researchers are ready to inject carbon dioxide into jungle plots. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Years in the making, a project in the Amazon rain forest is finally set to determine whether a rise in carbon dioxide could save one of the world’s largest carbon sinks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cows and at least one person in the U.S. have been sickened by avian influenza. We asked experts about the risk to humans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Volcano detectives use artificial intelligence to sleuth out ancient secrets in Alaska. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

These marine mammals are very hard to observe, but in the past two decades the roughly 20 or so people in the world who study sperm whales have found some compelling evidence of culture among them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today we’re going to look at how measles—a disease that was practically eliminated in the U.S.—has resurged in recent months, because people basically forgot how bad it was and got complacent about vaccines. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is a professional astronomer—with a passion for amateur astrophotography—and she's here to offer tips and tricks for want to get into capturing the night sky. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The feeling of a total solar eclipse is intense, and the sights, sensations and emotions can overwhelm you even if you think you know what's coming. And we sat down with Kate Russo, a psychologist, author and Eclipse Chaser, who's seen 13 total solar eclipses over the last 25 years, to talk about what to expect. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From the discovery of new elements to the testing of novel theories of gravity, solar eclipses have helped spark scientific progress for centuries. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Eclipses can affect animals, and biologists are preparing to see what happens during totality on April 8. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

AI-generated art is creating new ethical issues—and competition—for digital artists. Nightshade and Glaze are two tools helping creators fight back. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mucus is a miracle of evolution, and some researchers are trying to re-create what nature makes naturally. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The slimy substance is so powerful that doctors once made hog stomach mucus milkshakes to treat ulcers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you take a journey into the depths of the slime all around us, you find yourself starting to understand that mucus is a miracle. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Machine-learning algorithms allow composers to create all-new instruments. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A quick nap can boost your memory, your mood and even your creativity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our space and physics editors go head-to-head over a classic mind-bending question. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Scientists have long wondered how baleen whales make their songs, and a new study has finally uncovered the anatomical workings behind their melodies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, long dismissed by doctors, causes immune system dysfunction and other problems. But treatments are lacking. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Epigenetics research reveals how famines can cause health problems later in life — and how these changes might be passed down to later generations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the African savanna, a single invasive ant species has upset the delicate balance between predator and prey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nose-plus-throat could increase test accuracy—but could create problems too. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A newly-examined munch mark on a tibia has become a real pleistocene whodunit. By Natalia Raegan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A recent GWAS investigation on risk-taking and bisexuality made some assumptions that some experts don’t agree with. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A grassroots online movement has helped shift the way scientists think about asexuality. But much is still unknown. This is part four of a four-part series on the science of pleasure. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Researchers once faced death threats for asking women what gives them pleasure. Now they’re helping individuals and couples figure it out themselves. Part three of a four-part series on the science of pleasure. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Research shows rough sex is becoming more common. Dominatrices are helping the general public catch up. Hosted by Meghan McDonough, this is part two of a four-part series on the science of pleasure. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Part one of a four-part series on the science of pleasure, hosted by Meghan McDonough. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Individual interventions for burnout don’t work. Researchers explain why. Hosted by Shayla Love. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On April 8, we’re in for a treat. A total solar eclipse will be visible across a broad swath of North America, giving us a view of the edges of the sun as the moon passes in front of its face. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Portugal is one of the most vulnerable countries in Europe to climate change. Straddling the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic regions, it’s part of a climate change hot spot. Some of the biggest fuels are shrubs. One study found that shrubland covers 1.6 million hectares in Portugal—about 18 percent of the nation’s land area. And those shrubs are gaining ground. That’s because, for decades, people have been moving out of rural communities such as the one Tommy Ferreira lives in. Most leave to pursue better-paying jobs in the cities or in wealthier European Union countries. Portugal has lost 30 percent of its rural population since 1960. The same trend is occurring across the Mediterranean region. Abandoning these farmlands is increasing wildfire risk, according to an Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development report released last spring. When people who work the land leave it, grazing pastures and farm fields become thick with fuels. But these ancient Maronesa cattle can help solve both of these modern-day problems. It was a solution hiding in plain sight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the last decade, reports of UFO sightings have filled headlines and news broadcasts, and some of these have from a surprising place—the Pentagon. Former defense officials have made a number of claims about, and released videos of, strange sightings made by military pilots. These days, the objects are officially called “UAPs”—unidentified anomalous phenomena. But regardless of the new branding, Congress has demanded answers on them, especially after one former official this summer claimed that he believed that the U.S. possessed “nonhuman” spacecraft and possibly their “dead pilots.” We talk to the former intelligence official and physicist, Sean Kirkpatrick, who until December headed the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, the Pentagon office that Congress told to find some answers to all this. He recently published an op-ed in Scientific American called "Here's What I Learned as the U.S. Government's UFO Hunter". Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Experts are starting to plan for the moment when a quantum computer large enough to crack the backbone of the math that keeps things secret will be turned on. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today’s episode covers a topic that many parents-to-be have struggled with: fertility. In vitro fertilization offers a path to pregnancy for people fortunate enough to be able to access it. But predicting the success of an implanted embryo is hard. Now researchers are developing a test that could make it easier. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From Papua New Guinea to the Andaman Islands, Indigenous languages are under threat. An Indian linguist helped preserve one language family. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A new study used machine learning on 6 million Danish people to "autocomplete" their life trajectories –— and when they might kick the bucket. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In today’s episode, we want to talk about some of the current challenges with using home COVID tests. When you first have symptoms, a change in how your body reacts to the virus could lead to a test result showing you’re negative when you’re actually infected. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We all have our tricks for sobering up after a night of drunken revelry: maybe a pot of black coffee or an ice-cold shower. But for mice in a certain lab in Texas, all it takes is a shot. No, not more alcohol—it’s an injection of a hormone called fibroblast growth factor 21, or FGF21. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Imagine for a moment that you’re a very hungry bird soaring over 30-foot ocean swells in high winds, with no land for thousands of miles. How do you know where you’re going? If you’re a wandering albatross, you listen. But listen to what, exactly? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The moon has guided our movements and cultures, and though we may think we know it well, it still guards some of its deepest secrets from us. A new book from Rebecca Boyle take us on a deep dive into our sister celestial orb. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nell Greenfieldboyce discusses her new book Transient and Strange, the intimacy of the essays and the science that inspired them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dogs are good for you, science says Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices