Science, Spoken
2,361 episodes — Page 21 of 48
Wait, How Much Microplastic Is Swirling in the Atlantic?
Scientists calculate that the top 200 meters of ocean alone contains up to 21 million metric tons of plastic. And that wasn't even counting microfibers. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
The Iconic Arecibo Telescope Goes Quiet After Major Damage
A cable cut a large gash into the radio telescope this week and it’s uncertain when it will be back in working order. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Why Do Solar Farms Kill Birds? Call in the AI Bird Watcher
Solar facilities kill tens of thousands of birds every year, and no one is quite sure why. An artificial-intelligence-powered birder is on the case. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Should We Conserve Parasites? Apparently, Yes
A group of ecologists and biologists say the world's ticks, leeches, and tapeworms need love and conservation, too. Now they've got a 12-point plan. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
What If the Big Bang Was Actually a Big Bounce?
New computer simulations model an alternate way of thinking about the cosmos: as a cyclic universe that has no beginning or end. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Should Governments Slap a Tax on Plastic?
More than a billion tons of it could enter the environment in the next 20 years. It's time, advocates say, to put a sin tax on single-use plastic. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Why Are Plants Green? The Answer Might Work on Any Planet
A new model of photosynthesis points to an evolutionary principle governing light-harvesting organisms that might apply throughout the universe. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Frog Eats Beetle. Beetle Crawls Through Guts to Escape
Regimbartia attenuata doesn’t take too kindly to being eaten. Once locked inside a frog’s maw, it turns around and starts heading for the exit. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Archaeologists Have Found the Source of Stonehenge's Boulders
Modern scholars have only been able to speculate about where the huge stones came from—until now. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
What Poetry Means for Doctors and Patients During a Pandemic
The poetry editor of The Journal of the American Medical Association talks about medicine, metaphor, and how literature can even improve patient outcomes. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
What the Science of Animal Networks Reveals About Protests
The movement of demonstrators echoes the fluid collective responses of the animal world, as groups respond to threats and signal across large spaces. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
NASA’s Mars Rover Will Be Powered by US-Made Plutonium
In 2015, Oak Ridge National Laboratory produced the first plutonium fuel in the US in nearly 30 years. Now it’s headed to another planet. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Mad Scientists Revive 100-Million-Year-Old Microbes
Researchers collected sediment thousands of feet deep, filtered out bacteria, and revived the cells. But fear not—the destruction of humanity by ancient microbes is not nigh. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
These 4 Covid-19 Vaccines Are Closest to Becoming Reality
There are hundreds of trials currently in the works. Here’s everything you need to know about the ones edging ahead in the global race. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
The Sly Psychology Behind Magicians' Card Tricks
Is this your card? A recent study found that participants will select the suit or number they were primed to choose. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
How Quickly Can Atoms Slip, Ghostlike, Through Barriers?
A new experiment on how rapidly atoms can tunnel through a barricade revives a physics debate about how time passes on the quantum scale. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
During Lockdowns, the Earth (Sort of) Stood Still
Seismometers pick up human activity, like driving. When Covid arrived, scientists watched that global seismic noise plummet by 50 percent. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
A Billion More Tons of Plastic Could Blanket Earth by 2040
Even with immediate action, 710 million metric tons of plastic will enter the environment in the next two decades, scientists show. Welcome to Plastic Planet. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
How NASA Built a Self-Driving Car for Its Next Mars Mission
It’s hard enough to get an autonomous vehicle to work on Earth. It’s even harder on another planet. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Everything You Need to Know About the Oxford Covid-19 Vaccine
Early results from the team in the UK show their approach is safe and provokes an immune response. But that doesn't mean it works. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
What Happens After a ‘Million-Mile Battery’ Outlasts the Car?
Electric vehicle makers hope to roll out super long-lasting batteries. That raises interesting questions about resources, performance—and a battery's second act. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Llamas—Yes, Llamas—Could Help Us Fight Covid-19
These creatures have evolved special "nanobodies" that may have an edge over human antibodies when it comes to developing a new treatment. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Your Car Is Spewing Microplastics That Blow Around the World
When you drive, tiny bits of plastic fly off your tires and brakes. Now scientists have shown how all that road muck is blowing into “pristine” environments like the Arctic. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Don't Talk About Covid-19's 'Waves'—This Isn't the Spanish Flu
It’s not useful to think about coronavirus coming in synchronized surges. This is a long, lingering epidemic that is only just getting started. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
You Don't Need Single-Use Plastic Bags. You Need a Mask
Honestly, you should just be disinfecting your reusable bags—the real issue is airborne virus, not infected shopping totes, experts say. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
How to Trick Your Brain to Remember Almost Anything
Four-time USA Memory Champion Nelson Dellis and psychological scientist Julia Shaw explain how to boost your memory skills. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
How a ‘Heat Dome’ Forms—and Why This One Is So Perilous
A massive, intense heat wave is settling over the continental US. The ravages of the Covid pandemic are going to make it all the more deadly. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Covid-19 Immunity May Rely on a Microscopic Helper: T Cells
Researchers have been looking beyond antibodies to understand how immunity to the new virus might work—and how to design a vaccine. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Covid Kills More Men Than Women. Experts Still Can’t Explain Why
A new tracker from Harvard’s GenderSci Lab is the first to consolidate sex-separated data from across the US. It may help researchers solve the mystery. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Will We Recognize Life on Mars When We See It?
If NASA's Perseverance rover finds life on the Red Planet, there's a good chance our first extraterrestrial encounter will be a little ambiguous. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Astronomers Are Uncovering the Magnetic Soul of the Universe
Researchers are discovering that magnetic fields permeate much of the cosmos. If these fields date back to the Big Bang, they could solve a cosmological mystery. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
The Epic Siberian Journey to Solve a Mass Extinction Mystery
A quarter-billion years ago, huge volcanic eruptions burned coal, leading to the worst extinction in Earth’s history. Here’s how scientists hunted down the evidence. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Hummingbirds Can See Colors We Can’t Even Imagine
When humans see purple, we’re really seeing a blend of red and blue light. Hummingbirds see purple plus ultraviolet—and lots of other nonspectral colors. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Nuclear ‘Power Balls’ May Make Meltdowns a Thing of the Past
Triso particles are an alien-looking fuel with built-in safety features that will power a new generation of high-temperature reactors. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
'Carbon Farming' Could Make US Agriculture Truly Green
Today a Senate committee will hear about a bill that would help farmers adopt practices to release less carbon from the soil, reducing planetary warming. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
NASA’s New Moon-Bound Space Suits Will Get a Boost From AI
Engineers are turning to generative design algorithms to build components for NASA’s next-generation space suit—the first major update in decades. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Stuck at Home, Scientists Discover 9 New Insect Species
Without a DNA sequencer, two Los Angeles entomologists relied on two of biology’s oldest tools: microscopes and lots of free time. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Who's to Blame for Plastic Microfiber Pollution?
Tiny bits of plastic are corrupting every corner of the planet. The major culprits: cheap synthetic clothing and washing machines. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Why Massive Saharan Dust Plumes Are Blowing Into the US
Every summer, an atmospheric event propels desert dust thousands of miles across the Atlantic. This year is particularly bad, and timed terribly with Covid-19. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Why NASA Designed a New $23 Million Space Toilet
Later this year, astronauts on the American module of the ISS will be able to test out the toilet before NASA puts it on crewed vehicles for deep-space missions. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
The Trouble With Counting Aliens
A new study estimates that there might only be 36 communicating extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy. But that number doesn’t tell the whole story. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
The Design and Science of Patio Dining During a Pandemic
Public health experts think Covid-19 risk is lower outside, and restaurateurs want to fill tables. It’s an easy solution—except for all the hard parts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Covid-19 Is Bad. But It May Not Be the ‘Big One’
Health experts want a 9/11 Commission-style report on the US pandemic response. They say we must forecast and prepare for outbreaks as we do for wars or weather. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
The FDA Revokes Its Emergency Use Authorization for Hydroxychloroquine
So far, no studies have shown that the anti-malarial drug can fight Covid-19, and agency officials say its potential benefits do not outweigh its risks. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
You Can Now Buy Spot the Robot Dog—If You’ve Got $74,500
Boston Dynamics is finally making its mechanical canine available for businesses and developers. But know that this puppy ain't for everyone. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
In Alaska, Summer's Getting Too Hot for the Salmon Run
Bristol Bay is heating up, killing fish as they try to swim upriver to spawn. It's a harbinger of climate change and hard times for fisheries. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Astronomers Track a Fast Radio Burst to Its Source—a Magnetar
The origin of these explosions of radio waves has long been an astrophysics mystery. Now one has been traced to an ultra-dense spinning magnetized stellar core. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
The Covid-19 Economic Slump Is Closing Down Coal Plants
This year, coal usage has dropped in the US, and renewables now generate more electricity. To some experts, the financial crisis is a clean energy opportunity. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
These Bacteria Ate Their Way Through a Really Tricky Maze
Microbes are well known for working together in stressful environments. Scientists wanted to see how they would fare at a labyrinthine brain teaser. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
What's Confusing About Calling Covid-19 Cases ‘Asymptomatic’
There’s a difference between people who never develop symptoms and people who just don’t have them yet. And that matters when calculating public health risk. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices